Police arrest 3 suspects over acts of violence in Belfast

ANKARA (AA) – Three suspects have been arrested in Belfast following acts of racist and Islamophobic violence that took over Northern Ireland’s capital city, the police said.

“A car was hijacked by a group of masked men” on Tuesday evening, according to a statement, and was “deliberately driven at the front of a business … causing minimal damage to the building …” it added.

“Three men, aged 26, 28 and 41 years, were arrested on suspicion of offenses including criminal damage, and remain in custody at this time,” the police noted.

Rioters threw petrol bombs, bottles, and bricks at police officers in Belfast, according to media reports.

A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Islamic Center in Belfast.

Riot police and drones were in the field, the Belfast Telegraph said, and police also used Attenuating Energy Projectile against rioters.

The violence was mainly caused by British loyalists who oppose Irish nationalists aiming for the unity of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

– Far-right violence –

The UK has been gripped by far-right riots for days, with violent mobs spewing racist and Islamophobic vitriol and targeting Muslims, minority groups, and migrants.

The riots were fueled by online misinformation that a suspect arrested after a fatal stabbing in Southport, England, last week was a Muslim asylum seeker, a claim which was proven to be false.

Three young girls were killed and five more children critically injured during a knife attack as they attended a dance class last Monday.

“There will be a reckoning for criminals & thugs who took part in violence on streets, burning buildings, attacks on mosques, looting shops & the whipping up of racist violence online,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote on X.