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LONDON: Three men were arrested after two police officers suffered minor injuries during a protest outside a UK hotel used to house asylum seekers, police said Saturday.
The new protests, the latest episode in a bitter national debate over immigration policy, came after an appeals court on Friday overturned a lower-court decision temporarily blocking the use of the protest-hit hotel at Epping, northeast of London, to house asylum-seekers.
“The overwhelming majority of people in Epping tonight clearly wanted their voices to be heard and they did that safely and without the need for a police response,” said Assistant Chief Constable Glen Pavelin of Essex police.
“However, the right to protest does not include a right to commit crime and tonight a small number of people were arrested. Two officers sustained injuries which are thankfully not serious,” he added.
The case came after a resident at the Bell Hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a local girl, sparking weeks of protests that have at times turned violent.
The protests in Epping have spread to other parts of Britain, amid growing frustration at the continued arrival of small boats packed with migrants across the English Channel from France.
More than 50,000 migrants have made the dangerous crossing since the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer became prime minister in July 2024.
The three arrested men remained in custody, Essex police said.

COPENHAGEN: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Saturday she was “not optimistic” the bloc would take action against Israel over the war in Gaza due to splits between member states.
Foreign ministers meeting in Denmark will discuss a proposal to suspend EU funding to Israeli start-ups as initial punishment for the situation in Gaza.
But the bloc has so far failed to garner the majority needed to take that step — let alone move ahead with more forceful measures against Israel.
“I’m not very optimistic, and today we are definitely not going to adopt decisions,” Kallas told journalists at the start of the Denmark meeting.
“It sends a signal that we are divided.”
Splits within the European Union between countries backing Israel and those favoring the Palestinians have seen the 27-nation bloc often left hamstrung in the face of the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
A string of EU countries are pushing for more far-reaching punishment for Israel, but have been frustrated.
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, insisted the bloc “must change words into action.”
He said Copenhagen backed suspending trade cooperation with Israel, sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers, and banning imports from illegal settlements.
Israel is facing pressure at home and abroad to end its offensive in Gaza, where the vast majority of the population has been displaced at least once and the United Nations has declared a famine.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,025 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza that the UN considers reliable.