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A COMMUNITY music festival is to be staged today at the site of a racist stabbing in north London amid concerns over reprisals.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) organised the cultural event at Markfield Park in Tottenham, where a mass brawl was sparked last Saturday when Polish skinheads attacked another free musical event.
But the community is coming together to reclaim the park from the gang, which has used it as a recruiting ground in recent months.
Speaking ahead of the festival, factory worker Jacek Szymanski said the Polish community felt “angry and ashamed” by last week’s violence.
“Ashamed because they are Poles and brought disgrace on the whole Polish community in London,” he told the Star.
“And angry because we are afraid that this case will be used as a pretext for further attacks on the Polish community and the wider eastern European community.”
The attack had seen one man was rushed to hospital with stab wounds and two Jewish men also targeted, with one having his kipah cap swept from his head.
Rocks, bottles and a flare were thrown in violent scenes as partygoers repelled the attack by the Zjednoczeni Emigranci (Immigrants Together) group of exiled Polish football thugs.
The group has since plastered the community in far-right stickers that show a crossed out hammer and sickle symbol.
UAF national secretary Weymann Bennett said the police were investigating but added that “the most important thing is that the community deals with it on the ground.”
Mr Szymanski said the fascist group represented a tiny minority and hoped “solidarity will emerge between the different local communities” after today.
He said: “It’s not about division between Poles and British people or Poles and Muslims. The man who was stabbed by the fascists in Markfield Park was a Pole himself.
“So the real division is about fascists and anti-fascists and we need to be united in the common good.”
The festival is being put on after more than 200 local people joined a display of unity organised by UAF at Tottenham Town Hall on Monday.
