July 31, 2024 - 10:30am

Following the horrific killing of three young girls who were knifed to death at a dance class in Southport on Monday, mass public disorder broke out last night in the Northern seaside town. A total of 39 police officers were injured, along with three police dogs, after protesters threw bricks at them. A police van was also set on fire.

In the aftermath of the Southport mass stabbing, the relevant authorities revealed little about the suspect — other than that he is 17 years old and was born in Cardiff. It later emerged that he is of Rwandan origin.

In an era of public institutions “managing” such events through the lens of “community relations control”, a lack of trust in the police, and the sorry decline in effective independent local reporters, a dangerous vacuum has been left for online conspiracists and outrage-generating agitators to exploit. Baseless theories and extremist disinformation surfaced on social media platforms such as X and spread rapidly — one being that the suspect was a Muslim illegal migrant who had arrived in the UK on a small boat from France last year. The name “Ali al-Shakati” (Shakati sounds like the Arabic term for “apartment”) proliferated in the online space.

It is no surprise that a local mosque was one of the main targets during last night’s disorder in Southport. For hours, unfounded anti-Muslim theories over the suspect’s background and identity were allowed to spread unchallenged and uncorrected. Merseyside Police’s social media activities were left wanting on this front, failing spectacularly to combat such rumours which clearly had the potential to inflame social tensions and fuel large-scale disorder.

While progressive activism is a common feature of social media activity of police forces, there needs to be a much stronger focus on coordinating anti-disinformation activities. What’s more, police should be as transparent as possible over the background of the suspect after they are arrested and placed under police custody, while observing legal restrictions about naming accused individuals under the age of 18.

It has been confirmed by the authorities that the suspect — who was born in Britain and originates from a country where only 2% of the population is Muslim — has no known links to Islam. But the genie has been let out of the bottle, and the threat that extremist online disinformation can have on real-life communities has been laid bare.

Based on what is known of the suspect, there are several avenues to be explored by the authorities. The fact that he is a second-generation migrant with Rwandan heritage means that there is a possibility that his parents were granted asylum. In any case, they hail from an African country which suffers from mass intergenerational trauma due to its recent history of extreme violence, including Rwanda’s four-year civil war in the Nineties. The offspring of those with such troubling life experiences are themselves at higher risk of psychiatric disorders, which is often mixed with drug abuse.

While we should wait for more facts to emerge, reports that police are focusing on the suspect’s mental health record are a reminder of the potentially destructive nature of being complacent over treating and diagnosing psychiatric disorders. But for the violent protestors who turned out in Southport, and the online troublemakers whose unsubstantiated theories exacerbated the disorder, such an explanation would be less convenient.


Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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