The Turkish community living in the UK has called for unity and unbending provocations in the face of the wave of violent racist riots encouraged by far-right groups in the UK, following the murder of three girls in the town of Southport, north-west England.
In a statement issued on 5 August and reported in Turkish media such as the daily Hürriyet, the president of the British Turkish Association (BTA), Murat Şükrü Acar, stressed the importance of maintaining social peace and harmony in the community, which he called on not to succumb to provocations. “These are difficult times, and any emphasis on unity and solidarity will not be enough,” Acar said, expressing his deep concern over a spate of incidents in the UK that – he stressed – have sown a sense of insecurity among the Turkish community living in the country.
While acknowledging the efforts of the police to prevent further incidents, the BTA president stressed that the Turkish community in the UK also has a responsibility: “Every member of our community must show caution in the face of such provocations, and we must stand together… Let us remember that, as long as we stand together, it will be easier to deal with threats“. “To protect our social peace and harmony, we must act together without falling for provocations,” Acar insisted once again.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced yesterday that there would be swift and severe sanctions against those who participate in or encourage in any way – including on social media – the far-right anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim protests that have broken out in several UK cities, leading to the arrest of some 400 people and involving looting and all kinds of violence, including the storming of two hotels housing asylum-seeking migrants.
Protests sparked by fake news from far-right groups
The riots began last week following a tragic event in which a mentally disturbed individual broke into a children’s dance class in the town of Southport and stabbed 8 children. 3 girls died, and immediately several accounts linked to far-right organisations such as the English Defence League (EDL) attributed the murders to a radical Islamist who had entered the country by boat as an illegal immigrant only a year earlier, which quickly sparked attacks on mosques and the Muslim community in Southport that soon spread to other towns.
To address these fake news, police later provided further information explaining that the stabber was a UK-born individual from a family that had escaped genocide in Rwanda, an African country where the majority of the population is Christian and Muslims make up less than 5% of the population. The judge assigned to the case later confirmed the identity of the suspect, a 17-year-old juvenile named Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales. Even so, racist riots have continued in the UK encouraged by anti-immigrant and Islamophobic groups, forcing the British government to provide police protection to the Muslim communities and mosques.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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