From csmonitor.com
When a crowd of far-right rioters descended on a budget hotel in the British town of Rotherham Sunday, it had one target in mind: the tens of asylum-seekers living inside. First, the rioters blocked the emergency exits. Then, they tried to set fire to the building.
The Rotherham attack was not an isolated incident. On the same day in the town of Middlesbrough, 90 miles north, rioters blocked the roads, only allowing drivers who were “white and English” to pass. Farther south, in the town of Tamworth, a second mob targeted a hotel housing migrants, hurling petrol bombs and wounding a police officer.
As the United Kingdom grapples with the wave of racist, anti-migrant, and Islamophobic violence – which began after far-right groups falsely claimed that a Muslim migrant had been responsible for the fatal stabbing of three children in the town of Southport on July 29 – many are in shock. Mosques and businesses have been repeatedly attacked, and a library in Liverpool torched. Police are preparing for more riots Wednesday night in as many as 30 locales, according to reports.
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