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Jeddah - Yasmine El Tohamy - LONDON: Thousands of anti-racism demonstrators rallied across the UK on Saturday to protest recent rioting blamed on the far-right in the wake of the Southport knife attack that killed three children.
Crowds massed in London, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester and numerous other English towns and cities, as fears of violent confrontations with anti-immigration agitators failed to materialize.
It followed a similar situation unfolding on Wednesday night, when anticipated far-right rallies up and down the country were instead replaced by gatherings organized by the Stand Up To Racism advocacy group.
More than a dozen places across England as well as Belfast had been hit by unrest prior to that, following the July 29 stabbing spree, which was wrongly linked on social media to a Muslim immigrant.
Rioters targeted mosques and hotels linked to immigration, as well as police, vehicles and other sites.
However, recent nights have been largely peaceful in English towns and cities, prompting hope among authorities that the more than 700 arrests and numerous people already being jailed has deterred further violence.
However, in Northern Ireland, which has seen sustained disorder since last weekend, police said they were investigating a suspected racially motivated hate crime overnight.
A petrol bomb was thrown at a mosque in Newtownards, east of Belfast, in the early hours of Saturday, with graffiti sprayed on the front door and walls of the building, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
It said the petrol bomb thrown at the property did not ignite.
“This is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime, and I want to send a strong message to those who carried this out, that this type of activity will not be tolerated and any reports of hate crime are taken very seriously,” PSNI Chief Inspector Keith Hutchinson said.
There was also overnight reports of damage to property and vehicles in Belfast, as nightly unrest there rumbled on.
The disturbances in Northern Ireland were sparked by events in England but have also been fueled by pro-UK loyalist paramilitaries with their own agenda, according to the PSNI.
Around 5,000 anti-racism demonstrators rallied in Belfast on Saturday without incident.
In London, hundreds massed outside the office of Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party before marching to parliament, as a large police presence looked on.
Farage and other far-right figures have been blamed for helping to fuel the riots through anti-immigrant rhetoric and conspiracy theories.
“It’s really important for people of color in this country, for immigrants in this country, to see us out here as white British people saying ‘no, we don’t stand for this’,” attendee Phoebe Sewell, 32, from London, told AFP.
Fellow Londoner Jeremy Snelling, 64, said he had turned out because “I don’t like the right-wing claiming the streets in my name.”
He did not hold Farage “personally responsible” for the violence but argued that the Reform party founder had “contributed” to the volatile environment.
“I think he is damaging and I think he’s dangerous,” Snelling added.