International Bar Association calls attention to UK legal profession being targeted amid unrest

The UK has experienced its most severe unrest in over a decade, fuelled by online misinformation and anti-immigration sentiment, the International Bar Association (IBA) lamented in a recent article.

In late July, a knife attack during a dance class left three girls dead. Police arrested a suspect but refrained from naming him immediately due to reporting restrictions. False rumors about his identity and background spread online. A crowd then attacked a mosque in Southport in northern England.

According to a statement from the Liverpool Region Mosque Network, “a minority of people are attempting to portray that this inhumane act is somehow related to the Muslim community.” The statement stressed that this was a wrong assumption.

Misinformation continued to circulate online following the incident at the mosque, the article said. Disorder such as arson and looting escalated across England and Northern Ireland. Targets included mosques, hotels housing asylum seekers, and legal professionals.

In particular, a post listing the locations of immigration law firms and advice centres spread on social media, supposedly to provide more potential targets for arson and violent attacks. David McNeill, director of public affairs and campaigns at the Law Society of England and Wales, commended authorities for their response to the threat, including sending out riot officers to protect targets.

“These solicitors and advice centres were targeted because they provide immigration law advice and representation to asylum seekers – no other reason than that,” McNeill said. He

McNeill urged other jurisdictions to be vigilant and emphasized how seemingly minor attacks on lawyers could quickly escalate.

Keir Starmer, U.K.’s prime minister, dubbed the unrest as “an assault on the rule of law and the execution of justice.”

By mid-August, over 1,000 individuals had been arrested and 575 charged in connection with the violence, reported the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Courts, despite backlogs, swiftly imposed sentences to deter further disorder.

However, concerns have arisen that the government’s focus on rapid sentencing could lead to miscarriages of justice, the article noted.

While the Online Safety Act 2023 is expected to be fully implemented by early 2025, some have pointed out that the legislation might have diffused the recent unrest more quickly if it had already come fully into force, the article said. Until then, there may be gaps in efforts to regulate harmful online behaviour.

Ofcom, the UK's online safety regulator, urged tech companies to take immediate action to make their platforms safer rather than awaiting the law’s full implementation. In an open letter, Ofcom encouraged platforms to enforce their existing terms of service, which often include prohibitions against harmful misinformation, hate speech, and inciting violence.

“The difficulty is persuading the tech platforms to remove the material which is inciteful,” said Mark Stephens, who co-chairs the IBA’s Human Rights Institute and who works as a partner at Howard Kennedy LLP in London, in the article.