Police say 10-year-old girls are ‘requesting armed police officers’ to guard Hanukkah parties
Police have received requests from ten-year-old girls for armed police to protect their Hanukkah parties following recent anti-Semitic violence, according to Manchester’s chief constable.
Sir Stephen Watson, of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), said his force had received calls from groups of children who felt they needed police protection because of their “fear” following Sunday’s deadly terror attack on Bondi Beach.
He also said his forces had received reports that people in the UK were “celebrating” the attack, describing it as “intolerable” and “sickeningly unpleasant”.
The speech comes just two months after a deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester left two people dead. Knifemaker Jihad al-Shamie stabbed several people at the Heaton Park shul during the Yom Kippur ceremony in October.
Last weekend, two gunmen opened fire on Bondi Beach in Sydney during Hanukkah celebrations, killing 15 Jews. Among those killed was 10-year-old Matilda, who was called “sunshine” and loved animals and dancing.
Sir Stephen told an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank: “‘Fear, particularly among our Jewish communities, has gotten worse. And the justifications underpinning the fear have become more realistic.
“You cannot understand for some reason why we have been receiving daily phone calls to Greater Manchester Police in recent days, a group of ten-year-old girls wanting to go to a Hanukkah party where they clearly had to take care of balloons and bikes, requesting armed police officers.
“You can’t say it’s a ridiculous request, you understand where he’s coming from.”
He also described reports of people “celebrating” the attack on Bondi Beach: “I know I have received reports of people in Manchester celebrating the Bondi attack in sickeningly unpleasant ways.
“It seems to me that we need to get to the bottom of this, we need to get behind this, because there are things that are legal but they are unacceptable and things that are intolerable can become illegal over time; that’s where the politicians come in.”
He added that the unbearable has become normalized and almost everything is accepted as it is.
On Wednesday, Sir Stephen and his London counterpart Sir Mark Rowley announced that protesters chanting “globalise the intifada” would be arrested because “the context has changed” following the Bondi Beach terror attack.
The heads of GMP and the Metropolitan Police said both forces would “act decisively and make arrests”, adding that the measures were designed to “deter intimidation”.
They said: “We have been repeatedly informed by the CPS that much of the expression that causes fear in Jewish communities does not meet the prosecution thresholds.
“Now, in the context of increased threat, we will recalibrate to be more assertive.”
Following the attack, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the attack was “motivated by ISIS ideology”. He later announced a crackdown on hate speech and a gun buyback plan.
The proposed buyback would be the largest since reforms were introduced after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996, which led Australia to adopt some of the world’s strictest gun controls.
The surviving suspect, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, is accused of 15 counts of murder and terrorist attacks following Sunday’s incident.
He, along with his father Sajid, 50, are accused of opening fire on a crowd of more than 1,000 people. Sajid Akram was killed on the spot in an exchange of fire with the police.
