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GENEVA/LONDON: The UN rights chief on Wednesday said that anti-immigrant violence rocking Belfast and recent clashes with police in Southampton were “shocking”, criticising “incitement” on social media and elsewhere.
Authorities in Northern Ireland have accused far-right activists — including US tech billionaire Elon Musk — of stoking anti-immigrant violence and divisions as rioters in Belfast torched vehicles and buildings on Tuesday, forcing families to flee their homes.
The disorder, sparked by a brutal knife attack allegedly committed by a Sudanese national, comes with tensions already high in the United Kingdom following skirmishes in southern England last week over the police handling of the murder of a white student by a British Sikh man.
“Dehumanisation of whole groups within a society is totally unacceptable and is frankly despicable,” Volker Turk told reporters in Geneva. “The violence that comes out as a result in… both Northern Ireland and in Southampton were really shocking,” he said.
