The riots do not mean that Olympic visitors will not be safe in London, but some might need convincing
Two hundred Olympics delegates are in town this morning to watch a beach volleyball test event on Horse Guards' Parade. They will have been assured that London's three nights of rioting won't dilute this picturesque spectacle in any way, but the IOC will surely be asking concerned questions about the safety of the capital as it reels from the impact of its worst destructive violence for thirty years, not least because the global coverage of the riots are hardly an advertisement for the world to come and stay.
That coverage is already looking beyond the riots to next year's Games. A CBS News piece begins:
Less than a year before London hosts the 2012 Games, scenes of rioting and looting a few miles from the main Olympic site have raised concerns about security and policing for the event.
Noting that some of the worst disturbances took place in the Olympic borough of Hackney, the Times of India reports:
[A] number of incidents of looting and arson have taken place in East London, within a few miles of the Olympic facilities. The latest violence happened when the police were conducting a "stop and search" operation. In fact, reports poured in later in the evening that there were running street battles between young people and policemen. The windows of London state transport buses were smashed.
The website Hotels for the Olympics writes:
Hackney, one of five designated Olympic boroughs that border the main cluster of Games venues, has seen some of the most serious disturbances. Shops in the Stratford Centre, which sits just a few yards from the main entrance of the Olympic Park, closed early after warnings from police that protesters were planning riots in the area.
The IOC and British Olympic Association have already been obliged to make a calming statements and Boris Johnson, expected back from his holidays later today, can expect to be required to elaborate on his hope, expressed in a telephone interview with the BBC, that, "People will have a fantastic Olympics," despite the riots.
How fretful should people be? The CBS piece quotes Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:
You can imagine how stretched the police would be if this were to occur during the Olympics, so I think this will create a worry within City Hall and the Home Office. It's not so much that this might happen again - unlikely - as that it reminds the people in charge that while the Olympic Games are going on, any other major event is going to be complicated.
Sound thoughts. It's worth adding that the disorder, though widespread, was mostly localised in parts of the city that seem unlikely to be priority destinations for Olympic visitors, and that the objects of the rioters' ire were police officers and property rather than passing foreign visitors.
As a long time Hackney resident I should add that although crime remains an issue locally, I do not cower in fear of it and very much like living here. It would be wildly alarmist to conclude from the riots that Olympic London will be a place of constant, inescapable criminality. Nonetheless, it seems that such worries are going to have to be addressed.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2011/aug/09/london-riots-2012-olympic-safety-fears
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