Underlying grievances behind London rioting : British journalist

London, Aug 10, IRNA – Although the police killing of Mark Duggan may have sparked the original rioting in London, there were also other underlying grievances for the spread across the capital and to other cities, according to British journalist and broadcaster Yvonne Ridley.

“The trigger for the unrest was the shooting of Tottenham father-of-four Mark Duggan and the subsequent police handling of the case,” Ridley said in an interview with IRNA.

“The family marched on the local police station demanding answers and were kept waiting for four hours while their key demand of talking to a senior police officer was treated with contempt,” she said.

The journalist blamed the “arrogant and insensitive handling” of the incident as a flashpoint of the disturbances when the crowd of 50 at Tottenham Police Station in north London in Saturday night multiplied to 300 at a tune when “female relatives walked away disheartened the violence began.”

“News also emerged that a police-leaked story that Mark Duggan had fired at police turned out to be a lie. He was shot dead by police and did not attempt to fire back at them,” she added.

Ridley said the Tottenham unrest developed into a riot as it became clear that it had “ripped open wide social grievances which lay just below the surface in the district.”

“This unrest, caused by cuts into social services, housing etc. then spread and was soon hijacked by the criminal fraternity and other criminal opportunists,” she said.

In Tottenham alone the local council axed 8 of the 13 youth clubs last month in order to make cuts ordered by the government, and Ridley said that this was “just one of the grievances.”

Three days of rioting has led Prime Minister David Cameron to order an extra 10,000 police on London's streets to 16,000 officers on Tuesday night in a move “to confront and defeat” a fourth night of the riots, already described as the worst in living memory.

On Monday, the rioting spread elsewhere in the capital, including Hackney in east London, after what Ridley said some police continued with their “arrogant and heavy-handed style of policing.”

“The Hackney riots were triggered when policeman stopped an ethnic minority youth for a so-called 'stop and search'. It is a very controversial trademark of the Metropolitan Police because they predominantly use 'SUSS' on black and ethnic minority youths,” she told IRNA.

“That the Prime Minister, his Chancellor, Home Secretary and the London Mayor continued to holiday was unbelievable and fuelled the anger,” she said, even though they now have all returned.

On Monday night, the riots spread to other British cities, including Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham as well as other areas in London and Ridley said there needed to be a full public inquiry.

“At the heart of this - criminal activity aside - is unhappiness about cuts which are costing people their jobs, homes, youth clubs, education and initiatives which go to the heart of their communities.”

“While all this social angst is continuing the bankers seem to be continuing to loot and pillage the economy with immunity while the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” she said./end