LONDON — Scottish police announced Sunday that a 36-year-old man has been charged in connection with a series of violent attacks that took place in Edinburgh on Friday, which British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described as appearing to have an anti-Muslim motive.
Five men were hurt during the attacks, and three of them required hospital care for injuries that were serious but not life-threatening, according to authorities.
Footage circulated on social media showed a shirtless, tattooed white man who appeared to be armed with a large weapon chasing an Asian man and then trying to force his way into a restaurant. The man was later seen being taken into custody by officers on the ground.
According to the BBC, the attacks appeared to have started near a mosque in the western part of the Scottish capital before spreading to other areas of the city.
In a brief statement released Sunday morning, Police Scotland confirmed that the 36-year-old had been charged and that a report had been forwarded to prosecutors. The man is expected to appear in court at a future date.
Taking to social media on Saturday, Prime Minister Starmer wrote that the attacker “appears to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred.”
The Muslim Council of Britain echoed that assessment, describing the incident as “a direct consequence of political rhetoric that demonises entire communities.”
The Scottish Association of Mosques also placed blame on “language that portrays migrants, refugees and Muslims as threats to be feared rather than people to be understood.”
The attacks come shortly after Northern Ireland experienced two days of anti-immigrant rioting earlier this month, which the British government labeled “racist thuggery.” Those disturbances followed a knife attack for which a Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder.
Nigel Farage, who leads the populist Reform UK party — currently topping British opinion polls — has repeatedly criticized the government over its handling of small boat crossings, which brought 41,000 immigrants across the English Channel last year.
Rupert Lowe, who split from Reform UK to establish the smaller Restore Britain party, has made organized child sexual abuse a central issue, claiming it is largely carried out by Muslim men of Pakistani heritage.
Last year, the government directed police to track the ethnicity of gangs involved in such abuse cases, following a report that highlighted government failures to confront the problem and a reluctance to acknowledge an “over-representation” of Asian men among those involved.
