LONDON: Protesters attacked police and started fires in Sunderland on Friday as violence following Monday\u2019s killing of three children in northwest England spread to another northern city.
\nAnti-immigrant demonstrators threw stones at police in riot gear near a mosque in the city before overturning vehicles, setting a car alight and starting a fire next to a police office, the BBC said.
\nNorthumbria Police said its officers had been \u201csubjected to serious violence\u201d and they were continuing to deal with ongoing disorder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scenes that we are seeing are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,\u201d the force in a statement on X.
\nThe demonstration in Sunderland was one of more than a dozen planned by anti-immigration protesters across the UK this weekend, including in the vicinity of at least two mosques in Liverpool, the closest city to where the children were killed.
\nSeveral anti-racism counter-protests were also planned.
\nBritish police were out in force on Friday across the country and mosques were tightening security, officials said.
\nA 17-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of the girls in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in the seaside town of Southport, a crime that has shocked the nation.
\nViolent incidents erupted in the following days in Southport, the northeastern town of Hartlepool, and London in reaction to false information on social media claiming the suspect in the stabbings was a radical Islamist migrant.
\nIn an attempt to quash the misinformation, police have emphasized that the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born in Britain.<\/p>\n
Swift justice<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a second visit to Southport since the murders. Mosques across the country are also on a heightened state of alert, the Muslim Council of Britain said. LONDON: Protesters attacked police and started fires in Sunderland on Friday as violence following Monday\u2019s killing of three children in northwest England spread to another northern city. Anti-immigrant demonstrators threw stones at police in riot gear near a mosque in the city before overturning vehicles, setting a car alight and starting a fire next to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":68302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68310,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68283\/revisions\/68310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cAs a nation, we stand with those who tragically have lost loved ones in the heinous attack in Southport, which ripped through the very fabric of this community and left us all in shock,\u201d he said in a statement.
\nBritish police chiefs have agreed to deploy officers in large numbers over the weekend to deter violence.
\n\u201cWe will have surge capacity in our intelligence, in our briefing, and in the resources that are out in local communities,\u201d Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council, told BBC Radio.
\n\u201cThere will be additional prosecutors available to make swift decisions, so we see swift justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nZara Mohammed, the council\u2019s security general, said representatives from hundreds of mosques agreed to strengthen security measures at a briefing on Thursday. Many at the meeting also reported concerns for the safety of their worshippers after receiving threatening and abusive phone calls.
\n\u201cI think there\u2019s a sense within the community that we\u2019re also not going to be afraid, but we will be careful and cautious,\u201d Mohammed said in an interview.
\nPolice in Southport, where protesters attacked police, set vehicles alight and hurled bricks at a mosque on Tuesday evening, said they were aware of planned protests and had \u201cextensive plans and considerable police resources\u201d on hand to deal with any disorder.
\nPolice in Northern Ireland also said they were planning a \u201cproportionate policing response\u201d after learning of plans by various groups to block roads, stage protests and march to an Islamic Center in Belfast over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"