UK detains 3,000 people in unrest

UK police arresting a protester (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/193953.html

Latest reports indicate that the British security forces have detained nearly 3,000 people since an unprecedented wave of unrest hit the United Kingdom.

The British courts are said to have worked around the clock over the weekend to process a third of the detainees.

Some reports put the number of those arrested during the ongoing unrest at 4,000.

A teenager and a young man have been charged with the murder of three Muslim men who were protecting their neighborhood in Birmingham.

Meanwhile, senior British officers are furious over British Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to appoint an American police chief to advise them on crushing the wave of unrest and street gangs across the country.

President of the Association of Chief Police Officers Sir Hugh Orde has openly criticized Cameron's appointment of former New York police commissioner Bill Bratton.

The unrest in Britain began on August 6 in the north London suburb of Tottenham, after a few hundred people gathered outside a police station to protest against the fatal shooting and killing of a black man, Mark Duggan, by the police.

Thereafter, violent protests erupted in major cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bristol, contributing to Britain's worst unrest since the 1980s.

London's Metropolitan Police has announced that 16,000 police officers will be deployed on London streets. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh also confirmed the prospects of police using baton rounds and plastic bullets.