LONDON – Shortly after three young men and a woman were injured in a knife attack outside a Dublin school on Thursday, rumours began to spread online about the perpetrator’s nationality.
The Garda Síochána, Ireland’s police force, declined to comment on the back floor of the suspect, who was taken into custody after being tackled to the ground by bystanders. Police said only that it was a man in his 50s.
But unconfirmed reports that he is an Algerian immigrant soon began circulating among anti-immigration and far-right groups, according to researchers specializing in online extremist movements.
Alongside those rumours: a call for a rally in the centre of Dublin, in which anti-immigrant voices express a position against crime and in defence of Irish children.
What were online conversations ended in the worst riots to hit Ireland in decades, when rioters clashed with police, set cars on fire and looted shops. Some demonstrators carried placards reading “Irish Lives Matter”. Others vandalized hotels and homes that were meant for space migrants.
Several police officers were injured, one seriously, and 34 other people were arrested, Police Commissioner Drew Harris told reporters Friday.
“We’ve never noticed a public disorder scenario like this before,” he said. An organization of other people had taken “a thimble of facts” and added “a bath of hypotheses, odious hypotheses,” he said.
In a speech on Friday morning, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar condemned the unrest and said police would fight “crime waves. “
“The other people involved have embarrassed Dublin, Ireland, their families and themselves,” Varadkar said. “It’s not who we are. It’s not what we need to be, and that’s not what we’ll ever be. “
Researchers specialising in the spread of online extremism said the riots were an example of how far-right teams were capitalising on the discontent and disenfranchisement of some Irish people, at a time when many were struggling to cope with the burden of life and housing. .
Like many parts of Europe, Ireland has gained an influx of newcomers in recent years as conflict, economic tensions and climate change have led to migration. In the year to last April, the number of migrants to Ireland reached a 16-year high. 141,600, according to official data, totaling more than 40,000 Ukrainians.
Some of the far-right influencers who called on others to take to the streets on Thursday cited a high-profile attack that rocked Ireland last year: the killing of a 23-year-old teacher, Ashling Murphy, who was stabbed while jogging. a street. Jozef Puska, a Slovak citizen who emigrated to Ireland 10 years ago, was convicted of his murder and sentenced last week.
Jane Suiter, a professor at Dublin City University who studies disinformation, said news of Thursday’s attack temporarily spread across social media, anti-immigration and far-right.
Gript, a right-wing news platform in Ireland, was one of the first to publicly recommend that the attacker was Algerian. That claim on X, the social networking site formerly known as Twitter, was shared through right-wing leaders, adding Tommy Robinson, Sequeler said. and further amplified on Telegram channels and social media groups.
“It snowballed,” he said, adding that the protest in central Dublin was modest at first. “But then young people started coming from all over and converging. “
The cause of Thursday’s insurrection was a stabbing outside a school at 1:30 p. m. , during which 3 schoolchildren were injured, as well as an educator who was defending them. One of the children, a 5-year-old, remained in critical condition Friday, while the woman was in serious condition.
But the problems underlying the violent riots go back much further, said Matthew Donoghue, associate professor of social policy at University College Dublin.
“People don’t feel safe, they feel worried, they feel excluded, not because of migration yet, but because of the social and economic situations they have to live in,” he said, pointing to rising inequality, especially in housing. excluded some long-time Dublin residents. ” Some teams have become very adept at capitalizing on that. “
Far-right ideology has grown on Ireland’s social media and messaging platforms, said Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online hate and disinformation.
Reading thirteen million posts on 12 online platforms, the researchers found that the teams that first shared opposing perspectives on COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns had evolved to target refugees, asylum seekers, and other minority groups.
Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, is popular with extremists. The posts started there, O’Connor said, and then reached other people with the most followers. “Social media platforms are being weaponized by far-right teams. “and Americans who exploit sensitive public and social issues,” he said.
When the government on Friday suggested to the public to be vigilant about the spread of false data online, Telegram channels used by far-right teams were filled with anti-immigration sentiments. In X, #IrelandisFull is trending.
Telegram did not respond to a request for comment. Busy now, check back later,” X said in an automated reaction to an emailed comment.
Government officials praised the role of Caio Benicio, a Brazilian Deliveroo driver who intervened in the knife attack by hitting the suspect with his motorcycle helmet.
“It all happened by instinct,” Benicio told national broadcaster RTE. “I was shocked. I didn’t even have time to get scared.
Benicio moved to Ireland a year ago. When asked about anti-immigrant sentiment from the riots, he replied, “I’m an immigrant and I was there, just to protect the Irish, you know. “
Videos from downtown Friday showed a heavy police presence and the city removing burnt debris from roads and towing a broken-down tram. Some schools and businesses in Dublin were closed on Friday afternoon, RTE reported.
Varadkar said the country will “modernize” its hate speech legislation to cover social media platforms and will pass a law in the coming weeks that will allow police to make greater use of the CCTV footage they collected on Thursday. Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee told RTE that those accused of assaulting a Garda officer could face up to 12 years in prison.
Police said the motive for the stabbing was unclear and they were keeping an “open mind” in the investigation. Harris said the force would review its tactics for combating civil unrest, but rejected claims that police had not involved the unrest, saying perhaps they simply did not expect its intensity.
The researchers said the country wants to tackle far-right extremism more seriously and tackle the underlying problems of inequality and social exclusion.
“This is going to have to be a wake-up call,” said Rory Hearne, associate professor of social policy at Maynooth University in County Kildare.
This article felt like it was in the New York Times.