U.K. police appeal for help in hate crime attack on youth

LONDON — U.K. detectives appealed Saturday for information and witnesses who might have seen a group of youths attack a teenage asylum-seeker in the London borough of Croydon.

The attack left the 17-year-old Iranian Kurd in serious but stable condition in a London hospital. Authorities are treating the matter as a suspected hate crime.

Detective Sergeant Kris Blamires said the teenager was at a bus stop with two friends when approached by about eight youths.

“The suspects asked the victim where he was from and, when they established that he was an asylum seeker, they chased him and launched a brutal attack,” Blamires said in a statement. “He has sustained serious head and facial injuries as a result of this attack, which included repeated blows to the head by a large group of attackers.”

British police say hate crimes remain under-reported in Britain. The country has seen a surge in xenophobia expressed in threats, taunts and physical attacks after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union last year.

Much of the Brexit debate focused on an influx of migrants into Britain from other EU countries — and whether their presence was making it harder for Britons to find work, housing and medical care.

Police recorded 1,546 racially or religiously aggravated offences in England and Wales in the two weeks before the June 23 referendum, and 2,241 in the two weeks after it, the Home Office said. The total for July was up 41 per cent from the same month a year earlier.

Meanwhile, demonstrators from far-right groups clashed with anti-fascist protesters in central London on Saturday, as police imposed restrictions to try to keep the opposing groups apart.

Authorities arrested 14 people for various offences. Protesters gathered at Trafalgar Square and spilled on to nearby roads.

London’s Metropolitan Police imposed conditions on the march Saturday by Britain First and the English Defence League. Organizers described the event as a response to the deadly March 22 attack near Parliament.

The Unite Against Fascism group held a counter rally.

The protests came just 10 days after attacker Khalid Masood launched an 82-second rampage near Parliament that left four dead, mowing down three pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and fatally stabbing a police officer in a Parliament courtyard. Masood was shot dead by police.