2022 Leicester unrest
[1][2] Community leaders and analysts point to the Indian celebrations following the India–Pakistan 2022 Asia Cup match on 28 August as a catalyst, which saw a reaction from Pakistani fans.
[7] Muslims, predominantly working class,[citation needed] live in eastern Leicester (LE5 postcode), with particular concentration in the Spinney Hills and North Evington neighbourhoods.
[10] The 'spatial polarization' developed since the 1970s, with the Belgrave area (a former working class neighbourhood) becoming home to affluent Indian-origin East African Hindus.
[13] The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that came to power in India, along with prime minister Narendra Modi, is expected to have had high levels of support among the Hindus in UK.
[21] Rutgers University's Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which has investigated the online trends between 2019 and 2022, noted a wide dispersion of anti-Hindu and anti-India slurs and tropes during this period.
[22] Anti-Hindu memes accompanied by pejoratives such as "pajeet" (slur for Indian or Hindu), "poojeet", "streetshitter", "scamming" (dishonest), "mong" (unintelligent) etc.
[24][25][note 2] The celebration of Hindu festivals and public consumption of alcohol by the new arrivals were considered disruptive by Muslims living in the area.
[28] At least one major incident of communitarian violence has been reported from May, where it was alleged that a Muslim man was surrounded by around 25–30 masked men, and beaten with bats and poles to such an extent that he was hospitalised.
[29][30][note 3] According to Majid Freeman, a self described "former aid worker and a key social media influencer", who has been previously known to make false allegations of Quran burning[32] and for supporting the terrorist group ISIL[33] on online forums, "Muslims had made their presence known in the streets" by August and the "troublemakers had disappeared".
This was the beginning of "malicious narratives", as the NCRI researchers described it, interpreting an ordinary cricket match brawl as a "Nazi-like Hindutva" ideology.
[41][42] The video clip uploaded by "tragicBud" was widely shared on social media networks, amplified by Majid Freeman, Ian Miles Cheong, Sunny Hundal, Pat McGinnes and several British conservative participants.
[41] Sunny Hundal's forwarding comment, "extreme Hindutva groups go on the rampage in Leicester", gave journalistic respectability to the anti-Hindutva narrative.
British comedian and actor Guz Khan, with 100,000 followers on twitter, called on "mandem" (UK slang for "gang") to sort out the "Modi weirdos".
A Muslim author Riaz Khan, with 25,000 followers, linked the incident from May to the cricket match brawl and described the participants of the latter as the same "thugs".
[53] A British Pakistani influencer called "Dutch Raja" (Norman Khan from Birmingham),[3] who had 150,000 followers, posted the picture along with a poll asking, "Shall we go Saturday [to] teach these guys a lesson?
[55][56] The weekend 17–19 September, which was reserved for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, witnessed a large number of incidents which were described by the British press as "violent disorder".
[67][68] Social media influencers as well as the mainstream press referenced only the Hindu protesters and emphasised Jai Shri Ram as possible evidence of Hindutva extremism.
[74][57] The most significant event of that night was the pulling down of a saffron flag from the wall of Shivalaya (Shiva temple) on Belgrave Road and an attempt to burn it.
[83] Another said that the Hindu temple in Ealing Road (London) arranged a bus from Angel Tours to transport Hindutva RSS members to Leicester to mobilise violence against Muslims.
Video footage showed nearly 200 Muslim men surrounding the Durga Bhawan Temple in Smethwick, a neighbourhood where almost one-in-four residents are Asian, chanting 'Allahu Akbar'.
On Tuesday 20 September, President of the ISKCON Leicester Hindu Temple, Pradip Gajjar, said he was "saddened and heartbroken to see the eruption of tension and violence.
"[89] Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth critiqued the events as "shocking scenes of unacceptable incidents of violence," and that all "are united in calling for calm, peace and harmony."
[90] Rob Nixon, Acting Chief Police Constable for Leicestershire, has noted the investigation into the unrest will run for "several months" and that "the traditional community leaders, partners […] having a really detailed dialogue about some of these tensions, how we've got to where we are, and how we resolve them and take the issues forward."
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) associated with the Rutgers University analysed the social media traffic during the clashes and reported that malicious narratives played an essential role in instigating the attacks.
[94] Delhi-based Centre for Democracy, Pluralism and Human Rights (CDPHR) produced a fact-finding report and zeroed in on the issue of "ethnic enclaves" in Leicester.
[95] On 22 September, the mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby, announced an independent review into the events of the unrest, which he said would be completed "within weeks".
[98] In May 2023, the UK government announced the formation of a panel for independent review headed by former Labour Party MP, Lord Ian Austin.
[99] The other panel members are Samir Shah, a former commissioner for the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, Hilary Pilkington of the University of Manchester, a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and Shaaz Mahboob of NHS England, a trustee of British Muslims for Secular Democracy.
[31][106] As of September 2023[update], 32 people were convicted of offences including affray, threats to kill, racial or religious public order crimes and possession of weapons; 19 cases were still pending.
[105] Majid Freeman, who was repeatedly found to be spreading misinformation that instigated the violence, was convicted in June 2024 under section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986.
