Turks living in northern London’s Hackney and Haringey districts said the riots that shook the city over the last four days were mainly the result of deductions in public expenditure in these poor areas heavily populated by migrants.
Turkish journalist Mustafa Köker said they were expecting a social explosion since the new year, mainly because of the serious deductions that were implemented in November. “The public deductions mainly hit the poor and working class in the U.K., many youth centers in the poor neighborhoods were closed, many young people were left unemployed and unoccupied, so these events were inevitable,” said Köker.
Köker said Turkish and Kurdish immigrants who have shops in these districts kept guard on the streets of Haringey with sticks in their hands to protect their shops from being mobbed. “The police were completely unhelpful, yesterday they told the Turkish shopkeepers to close their shops and go homes for their own safety. So the shopkeepers had to protect their shops themselves, I saw about 10 people keeping guard on every corner with sticks and arms. They really did not let the mobs approach their shops,” said Köker.
A Turkish political immigrant who has been living in Hackney district for more than 20 years and who wanted to be identified by his initials only, D.K. said the mobs who were involved in the looting and arsons were mainly the children of poor immigrants and there were also some Turkish youngsters among them.
“Even though the riots started with the shooting of a black suspect by the police, the riots have not been organized only by black people, there are youngsters from different kinds of immigrant backgrounds, and there are also poor white families’ children among them. Besides being left unoccupied, these people are also treated in a really bad way by the police,” D.K. said.
D.K. said on the other hand it was not only Turkish immigrants who protected their shops by themselves, but there were also other immigrant groups such as Asians who kept guard in their own neighborhoods on Monday night
