Beating of Asylum Seeker in London Is Said to Be Hate Crime<br />For some, the attack in the South London area of Croydon recalled another racially charged attack at a bus stop in the capital: the<br />murder of Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old black man who was stabbed in 1993 in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths.<br />Diane Abbott said that It’s an appalling crime, and I hope the people responsible are caught quickly and receive the full force of British justice.<br />On Monday, the frenzied assault on the 17-year-old, described by the police as "brutal," was reverberating across Britain amid growing concerns<br />that the country’s decision to leave the European Union, or "Brexit," had spawned an anti-immigrant backlash.<br />As many as 20 people may have participated in the Friday night attack, which the police are treating as a suspected hate crime.<br />Scotland Yard said on Monday that 10 people had been arrested after the beating of the<br />Kurdish-Iranian teenager, with five people, ages 20 to 24, charged in the attack.<br />According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the number of reported hate crimes in England, Wales<br />and Northern Ireland jumped 46 percent, to 1,831, in the week after the June 23 referendum on European Union membership, compared with the same week a year earlier.
