The sister of murdered MP Jo Cox has urged people not to “create chaos” as she branded racist and violent scenes in Northern Ireland which saw homes set alight as “devastating”.
Kim Leadbeater, whose sibling was shot and stabbed by a neo-Nazi almost 10 years ago, said she understands anger at Monday’s knife attack in Belfast but appealed for people not to “riot and cause more trouble and more problems”.
A Sudanese man was remanded in custody on Wednesday over the knife attack in which victim Stephen Ogilvie lost an eye.
The stabbing triggered a wave of disorder in which mobs set homes, a bus and cars on fire, with people targeted based on their race.
A second night of disorder followed on Wednesday night, when protesters in Co Antrim were met with water cannons as they threw bricks and petrol bombs towards police lines.
Labour MP Ms Leadbeater said it was not right to “vilify an entire community or an entire group of people who might not look like you do”.
She told the Press Association: “I don’t have the right to tell anybody else what to do, but what I do understand is the pain and trauma of having someone you care about murdered.
“And, you know, it would be really easy for me to be filled with anger and rage, and to want to hate every individual who looked like the individual who took my sister’s life.
“I chose not to do that because that act was his and his alone. And that isn’t what most people in the area where I grew up, and I’m proud to call home, are like. And I will not allow our community to be defined by that.
“And that is the same for any individual who commits such a horrific crime. You don’t then vilify an entire community or an entire group of people who might not look like you do.”
She described Belfast as “an amazing city”, which she said is “full of the kindest, nicest people you could hope to meet”.
Of the scenes this week, she told PA: “To see people on the streets, masked people on the street, setting fire to people’s houses, setting fire to buses, attacking the police, and the fire services. It’s just devastating. It’s absolutely devastating.”
Monday’s knife attack was “heinous” and “absolutely horrific” and must be ccondemned, she said.
But she added: “The way to respond to that is not to take to the streets and riot and cause more trouble and more problems.
“I understand anger. Believe me, I really do understand anger.
“But you’ve all got a choice as to what you do with that anger. And surely we have to show a different way.
“We have to call out horrific acts of violence like that, wherever it happens, and whoever perpetrates it.
“But what we cannot do is create chaos in our country. And in our brilliant cities like Belfast, where most people, again, are just full of kindness and compassion.
“So I would just urge anybody, whatever horrible things happen in the world, please, please, please, don’t respond with things which are just so counterproductive to creating and building the kind of country that I think we all want to see.”
She urged people to channel their anger instead into “doing something positive for your community”.