Witnesses to the alleged knife attacks on Muslims and others in Edinburgh on Friday have described seeing a taxi and an Uber bike courier being targeted in Leith.<\/p>\n
The attacks, suspected of being directed against Muslims and people of colour, began near a mosque in the west of Edinburgh, followed by incidents on Leith Walk in the east of the city.<\/p>\n
Late on Saturday night, police confirmed a 38-year-old white Scottish man had been charged in connection with a number of incidents, and that five men aged between 22 and 39 had been injured, four of whom were taken to hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n
Police Scotland said its counter-terrorism unit was involved in the investigation, which also included alleged threats, robbery and vandalism, but it had not yet declared it a terrorist incident.<\/p>\n
On Sunday afternoon, about 100 local people, including several MSPs, councillors, and activists from the Living Rent tenants\u2019 union and Scottish Green party, gathered on Leith Walk close to the location for a hastily arranged rally.<\/p>\n
Nat Gorodnitski, a climate campaigner who co-organised the demonstration, said it was intended to prove the attack was an aberration. \u201cMy hope is whoever is living in the area, who\u2019s afraid to leave their homes or feels unsafe, this will say \u2018you\u2019re safe, you belong here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasan Eren, the owner of Best Kebab House on Leith Walk, said he and his colleagues were in the Victoria bar close to the site of the alleged attacks on the street at about 9.30pm on Friday evening. Many local people were gathering to watch Scotland\u2019s World Cup fixture against Morocco.<\/p>\n
Footage on social media appeared to show a bare-chested white man brandishing a bladed instrument kicking and hitting the door of Origano pizza takeaway as pedestrians scattered, leading to staff bringing its remotely operated shutters down.<\/p>\n
Eren recalled seeing the assailant allegedly attacking a minicab, kicking at it before apparently throwing a metal object and smashing one of the cab\u2019s windows, terrifying a passenger, after appearing to chase pedestrians with a weapon.<\/p>\n
The attacker then allegedly assaulted an Uber cycle courier with some form of bladed weapon, hitting him several times. Eren said he and other witnesses were shouting at the alleged assailant, urging him to stop and leave the cyclist alone.<\/p>\n
Eren, originally from north London, said he had run Best Kebab House for 20 years and had never witnessed this level of violence in the area. \u201cI love Leith, man,\u201d he said. \u201cI have come across lots of fights, but nothing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The alleged assailant was detained by police carrying Tasers; Eren said that as the police arrived the suspect allegedly threw the blade away, dropped to the ground and put his hands behind his head before laying down on the road, and did not resist arrest.<\/p>\n
Footage on social media appeared to record him shouting he was \u201cprotecting the country\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another local man, Kenny, 53, who declined to give his full name, said he saw the police restraining the suspect on the road. \u201cEveryone is a bit befuddled by it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very nicely integrated community. There\u2019s the problem with drugs \u2013 going back to the 80s \u2013 but they\u2019re mostly harmless \u2026 it\u2019s very multinational. People from all sorts of countries and backgrounds around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ava, 22, who works in Origano\u2019s sister restaurant nearby and is originally from Leeds, said: \u201cAs a woman of colour, it\u2019s scary seeing the way hatred has been whipped up. Everything that has been happening in Belfast and Southport, the level of comfortability that these people have expressing rightwing and horrendous racist views.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police Scotland said it received initial reports of two men being injured in the Sighthill area near Broomhouse mosque, both of whom were taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Three men were then injured in Telford Road at Crewe Toll, also in the west of the city, and then on Leith Walk.<\/p>\n
Footage from west Edinburgh also showed another minicab allegedly attacked during the incident. A further incident was reported at Craigleith in northern Edinburgh, where a driver allegedly hit a food courier on their bike, before chasing them with a large blade.<\/p>\n
Ben Macpherson, the Scottish National party MSP for Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith, said: \u201cWhat happened on Friday was really shocking and our thoughts are with the people who were hurt [but] Leith is a place of pluralism and different nationalities, ethnicities, religions, we\u2019re not going to let this situation disrupt that or distract from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate Nevens, a Scottish Greens MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East, said: \u201cI love this neighbourhood, it has so much love and generosity of spirit. Obviously this is a horrible thing to have happened anywhere, but it does really feel like it\u2019s hitting at the heart of Edinburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Witnesses to the alleged knife attacks on Muslims and others in Edinburgh on Friday have described seeing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-650954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}