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Police out in force in bid to prevent race riot15 Dec 09 @ 06:54pm
Supporters of the monument show their joy after the council later to approve the proposal. A young member of the Assyrian community shows his thanks after Fairfield Council approved the Assyrian monument. more photos More than 300 protestors were met by mounted police and riot control officers as the debate over a proposed monument in Bonnyrigg threatened to turn into a race riot. The protestors, from the local Turkish and Assyrian communities, turned up with flags and banners an hour before the council was due to meet. Police separated the two groups outside the council chambers. A spokeswoman from the Turkish community said she was there because she believed the monument would “divide the community’’. “We don’t want our children growing up hating the person next to them,’’ she said. Fairfield’s councillors were due to vote to approve the 4.5m monument to honour Assyrian victims of genocide, despite a backlash from the Turkish and wider Fairfield community. Meanwhile, a representative from a major Turkish media organisation was refused entry to the council meeting. The monument, if approved, will stand in a park in Bonnyrigg set to be renamed the Garden of Nineveh, after the ancient capital of Assyria. |
