UK riots spread to Suderland city centre city as police brace for weekend turmoil
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00:00In the UK, Sunderland in north-east England fell victim to rioting on Friday.
00:05Local police said they faced serious and sustained levels of violence from anti-immigrant protesters.
00:11Similar scenes in the north-west city of Southport followed the killing of three young girls at a dance class there on Monday.
00:19False information spread on social media that the suspect, Axel Rudikibana, was a radical Islamist migrant.
00:27After violence in Hartlepool and London as well, police are bracing for more protests planned this weekend.
00:34Benedicte Paviot can give us the context.
00:39We got to this point partly because of misinformation widely spread across social media.
00:47Yes, social media again.
00:49We know that some members of the crowd last night could be heard shouting Islamophobic slurs.
00:54This has been true in other riots since that deadly incident where these three little girls were murdered earlier in the week.
01:02So, some members of the crowd could be heard shouting Islamophobic slurs, chanting support of far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,
01:10who is usually known by his alias Tommy Robinson.
01:14Mr. Yaxley-Lennon's ex-account has promoted false claims that the alleged Southport attacker had been an asylum seeker who recently arrived in the U.K. by boat.
01:26So, in other words, from French shores.
01:29Now, the clamping down of the authorities is very clear.
01:33The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said that criminals attacking the police would, quote, pay the price for their violence and thuggery.
01:41The Northeast mayor, Kim McGuinness, said she was appalled by the scenes in Sunderland.
01:46And we know that the director of public prosecution, Stephen Parkinson,
01:50has in fact said that extra prosecutors have been called into work this weekend to deal with the disorder.
01:58Why? Because towns and cities, including London, Hartlepool, Manchester and Aldershot, have already seen protests into violence following the Southport knife attack.
02:07We know that over 100 protesters that fired also projectiles and injured some police in Whitehall near Parliament
02:15and outside the official residence of the prime minister, Downing Street, were arrested earlier in the week.
02:20And British media are reporting that at least 30 demonstrations are being planned by far-right activists in towns and cities across the U.K. over this weekend,
02:33including a new protest where that fatal incident happened earlier in the week in Southport.
02:39So, clearly, concern from the authorities and an appeal to really calm down and many communities saying that these people are being bused into their communities.
02:50They do not represent many of those communities as saying actually what is going on in those communities.
02:56And certainly in Southport, Southport is asking anybody who is thinking of doing that to allow them to grieve.
03:03It's only a few days after this tragic, fatal incident earlier in the week.