Bloody Collision between Whites and Asians in England

As countries in Europe suffer from terrorism against foreigners and the problem of illegal immigration, there was an outbreak of bloody fighting between the Asian youths and whites for the second straight days in England. Manchester Police said that a collision in which five hundreds Asian youths and whites were involved took place in Oldham, a northern town outside Manchester. Ten citizens and fifteen policemen were injured, and seventeen violent people, including those who hurled firebombs, were arrested at the scene.

According to BBC, the riot was ignited when the whites threw stones to the shop of a pregnant Asian woman in the night on 26th. In response, a hundred angry youths of Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi origin congregated in front of a bar where whites had gathered and hurled bricks and firebombs. Whites fought back throwing stones and it developed into a riot.

Riot police initially quelled the riot by launching tear-gas, but whites chanting a slogan of `Colored races go home!` and five hundred Asian youths who later joined the riot, continued the fierce demonstration throwing stones until the morning of 27th. Asians grocery stores and about ten parked cars were severely burned.

Police sealed off the main roads by allotting more than one thousand policemen to prevent the riot from expanding to other regions and established many check points for the by passers.

Oldham has twelve percent of Asian population out of its 219.000 residents. There has been a serious tension between whites and Asians for a longtime. Whites for the expulsion of foreigners had organized a gang and had committed violence toward Asians resulting 75 arrests from both sides during the past year.

After the reported violence committed by whites have been repeatedly ignored by the police, Asian residents forbade whites to enter to their residential areas. Last year, supporters of National Front Party, an extreme-rightists’ party, protested after hearing that a 76 year old white man was severely beaten by the Asian when he had entered the Asians’ residential area.

Paik Kyung-Hak stern100@donga.com