Associative managers denounce a climate of distrust maintained according to them by the very restrictive immigration policy applied by the conservative government.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Flated police van and projectile jets: fifteen people were arrested on Saturday February 11 after a violent demonstration in front of a hotel hosting asylum seekers near Liverpool, illustrating the tense climate that reigns the United Kingdom on the issue of the reception of migrants. Several hundred people hostile to the reception of refugees had gathered in front of the Hotel Suites of Knowsley (north-west of England), according to images of the rally.
After a “initially peaceful” mobilization, “projectiles were launched to police officers and one of our police vehicles was damaged” by people “who only wanted to cause violence and intimidation,” said local police in a statement. Fifteen people, aged 13 to 54, were arrested, according to the police who reported an injured in his ranks. The rallies were prohibited in the sector for forty-eight hours. On shared videos on social networks, there is a fire fourth in fire and officers equipped with anti -fertility shields.
“Rhetoric of hatred and division”
According to the local deputy, Labor George Howarth, the demonstration had been triggered following an “supposed incident published on social networks”, currently under investigation by the police. On Saturday, opposition deputies and refugee assistance associations deplored the actions of “far -right thugs”. Interior Minister Suella Braverman sentenced a “appalling disorder” late Saturday afternoon. “The alleged behavior of certain asylum seekers is never an excuse for violence and intimidation,” she wrote on Twitter.
The Conservative government, which has been fighting illegal immigration its priority for years, has continued to tighten its speech to the influx of migrants. M me Braverman had spoken in November 2022 of an “invasion”, arousing an uproar in a country where the population remains mainly favorable to the reception of refugees, according to the polls.
In a press release sent to the France-Presse agency, Clare Moseley, president of the Care4Calais migrant aid association, estimated that “the rhetoric of hatred and division of our policies is destroying our British society and values ”. To send Solomon, president of the Council refugee, this policy “of hostile environment, demonization of men, women and children who come to our country to flee war and terror [and] the use of the word” invasion “create division and hatred “.
More than 45,000 people crossed the Channel aboard small makeshift boats in 2022 to request asylum in the United Kingdom, a record. The asylum system is unable to manage this influx, with the consequence of overcrowded reception centers and huge deadlines for studying requests. Asylum seekers who do not have the right to work, the government spends millions of books to house them, in particular by having massively recourse to hotels.
Last month, a hundred associations wrote to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to request an independent investigation concerning the fate of two hundred minor migrants who are unaccompanied after having been accommodated in hotels.