Mayor blames Leicester unrest on social media disinformation
Disorder that broke out in
Leicester over the weekend between Hindu and Muslim communities escalated as a result of social media disinformation and a distortion of facts, the city’s mayor has said.
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“I’ve seen quite a selection of the social media stuff which is very, very, very distorting now and some of it just completely lying about what had been happening between different communities,” Peter Soulsby told BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme.
“There’s no obvious local cause for this at all,” Soulsby said, pointing to a distortion of facts on social media and a concerted effort to bring people from as far away as Birmingham to raise tensions in “an otherwise very peaceful city”.
Celebrations that took place following the cricket match in August later became disorderly, a police spokesperson said. “An incident was shared on social media stating that a Muslim was being attacked by Hindus. This was wrong – the victim was in fact Sikh and supported the same team as the people who assaulted him,” the spokesperson said.