Men who fought fire on night of rioting in Leeds condemn 'right-wingers'
The group were filmed using bins full of water to douse the fires
A group of men who helped to fight fires on a night of rioting in Leeds have accused "right wingers" of exploiting the disorder to vilify Muslims.
A number of fires were started, a police car was overturned and a bus was destroyed by a blaze as crowds gathered on the streets of Harehills on Thursday, 18 July.
Trouble broke out after police were called to help social workers who were dealing with a child protection issue on Luxor Street.
Footage of the disorder quickly went viral on social media, with a number of right-wing accounts sharing clips. Some claimed the disturbance illustrated problems with multiculturalism.
Among those who joined the efforts to defuse the incident on the night were Nazam Ali, Zane Rashid, Idrees Fazal, Saquib Mahmood and Kamran Wahied.
They were filmed using wheelie bins full of water to douse a fire.
But Mr Fazal, 24, said much of the material shown on social media was deliberately misrepresented.
"A few people on a Youtube, a few right wingers, were saying it's a predominantly Muslim area, it was Muslims uprising," he said.
"People take a beautiful picture but they can switch it up and make it look so disgusting and ugly.
"There's good and bad in everyone."
Mr Ali, 24, added: "I grew up in this area and was brought up with Islamic values, where they tell you always make sure you ask your neighbours how they are, look after the elderly, look after your parents. If anyone needs your help, if anything is going wrong it's your responsibility.
"We'd like this to be pushed out there to show that Harehills isn't a bad area, there are good people out there. Even on that night I'd say 90% were onlookers, just watching. It was a minority that were causing the violence."
Mr Wahied, 21, suffered a burn injury while helping the fire fight.
He said: "The community had to do something about it and we managed to deescalate the situation."
Cllr Mothin Ali, who helped to coordinate attempts to end the violence, described the men as "angels".
He said: "These guys appeared out of nowhere - this is the magic of Harehills, you get these angels that appear from nowhere that come and help when things are going against you.
"These are the real unsung heroes of the day."
Police have made 20 arrests over the unrest in Harehills. Three men have been charged.
A week on from the trouble, Mr Ali said life was returning to normal.
He said: "Life does go on. We're not the richest area in the world, but we have to get on with our daily living.
"There is a little bit of anxiety in the air but a week on everything seems to have settled, things are getting back to normal and we're starting to rebuild as a community."
Kaneez Khan, who lives in Harehills and works for the multi-faith agency Wellsprings Together, said there was a "disturbing" level of abuse aimed at Muslims over the incident.
She said: "It's really important that people know that it was our young Muslim community were the heroes of our community. We need to shine a spotlight on that.
"Going forwards we are planning a Harehills get together, we are going to celebrate everything that Harehills has to offer."
Todd Hannula, director of the Shine community interest company in Harehills, said the trouble was "disconcerting" but Harehills remained a "vibrant, dynamic neighbourhood".
He added: "Those people having opinions have opinions about everything and they're worth about nothing as far as I'm concerned.
"The people I'm concerned about are the customers that come here and the people living here.
"I knew that it would blow over and it did and it was back to business as usual the next day. But of course people then start to have a fear - is it a safe place to go - and of course 99% of the time it is, just like any place around Leeds.
"Where else in Leeds can you go and there's several different languages being spoken and so many cultures melding together and people doing all kinds of different work.
"It's a shame that something like that will happen because of the reputation but I don't think it's an indicator of a wider problem. That's the thing that's forgotten in all of this - that this is out of the ordinary."
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