Sunny at Pickled Politics has been covering a call to boycott all asian businesses which has been organised by Ligali following an allegation that eighteen asian men had raped a 14 year old in a shop owned by one of them. The youth has not apparently reported the assault, apparently because she fears that she will be deported to Jamaica. It goes without saying that all allegations of sexual assault should be fully and properly investigated. The immigration status of victims of crime should not act as a bar to the prosecution of criminal offences: yet of course, it does.
The remainder of this post focusses on Ligali: an organisation which expends most of its energy in issuing ex cathedra pronouncements upon the appropriate terminology to use when talking about people who originate “directly from Africa or indirectly via African diasporic communities”.
Here is Ligali’s call for a demonstration:
“We must state that this story has not been confirmed as the family has yet to make a formal complaint. Nonetheless the national media seems to have deemed this story insignificant with coverage by the BBC and other major media institutions being almost non existent making it almost impossible to verify ‘officially’.
Regardless of this we are calling for everyone in the African British community to boycott Asian businesses in support of our Birmingham cousins until the Asian community breaks the ‘wall of silence’ it has erected hiding the truth or protecting the paedophiles involved in this alleged heinous crime.”
The article has spiralled off into a thread of unparalleled unpleasantness, which includes one of the most absurd statements I think I have ever heard any organisation make:
“The Ligali Organisation: Ligali is an organ of the African British community, for the people by the people. Our comments reflect the collective will of our community …”
There’s more mudslinging, including some extremely nasty and racist allegations, some of them made by Ligali itself.
And now, this:
UPDATE: 22 October 22:00
The BBC is reporting a death during the course of a riot which “broke out after residents attended a public meeting addressing concerns about an alleged sexual attack on a 14-year-old girl”.
