The owner of a kebab shop in Bradford was reportedly left needing stitches after a fight erupted between restaurant staff and pro-Palestinian protesters claiming that the outlet sold Coca-Cola.
Footage shows staff and protesters holding Palestinian flags trying to beat each other with long sticks.
Mirban, a close friend of the owner, told the Mail the protesters had gathered outside the shop to demand it stops selling Coca-Cola – which BDS campaigners claim supports the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by operating a fizzy drinks plant in the West Bank.
Police said four men were arrested on suspicion of “offences including criminal damage, assault, affray and possession of an offensive weapon”.
Mirban told halal food blog Feed the Lion that Salah's stopped selling Coca-Cola products two months ago, adding that that protesters — who he believed to be “predominantly a Muslim crowd — shouted into a loudspeaker that the restaurant “’sell[s] coca-cola from underneath the counter and we’ve warned them multiple times.’”
Mirban said that kebab shop owner Salahudin Yusuf and the rest of the staff at Salah’s were “for the Palestinian cause” and said that the individuals targeting the kebab shop in the belief that they support Israel are “brain-dead”.
“We are for the Palestinian cause. Any attacks on innocent people we condemn. But we’re purely a business. For these individuals and groups to start attacking these businesses is out of order and it’s not from Islam” he said.
Coca-Cola currently operates a distribution centre in Atarot, an industrial settlement in the West Bank.
Mirban called the protesters “cowards,” and noted that members of the group included “some women who shouted abuse” before the “men came forward and carried out an attack” like “the cowards that they were”.
He said: “[Yusuf] was defending his business. They've approached on to his business and carried out the assault outside the shop,” in the process of which “the owner was hurt and suffered stitches to his lip”.
According to Mirban, Salah’s has been the target of politically motivated abuse before Friday’s incident. The restaurant’s second site on Great Horton Street was allegedly vandalised about a month ago when “a Jewish flag [was] spray painted on the business [premises].”
Mirban told Feed the Lion that it was “completely wrong from the opposition side saying that we support Israel and its cause. We are for the Palestinians – our brothers and sisters – we support them open heartedly. But we don’t need to show the world what we do and what we give.”
West Yorkshire police were called to a disturbance at Salah’s takeaway on Leeds Road in Bradford around 7pm on Friday with reports of “damage being caused to a window and people assaulted”.
The West Yorkshire police statement said that four men – aged 30, 34, 46 and 50 – were arrested in relation to the incident “on suspicion of offences including criminal damage, assault, affray and possession of an offensive weapon.”
The statement added that “there were no serious injuries caused.”
According to an update from the police as of Monday, the men arrested “have been bailed pending further enquiries,” while investigations into the incident remain ongoing by Bradford CID.
The JC has contacted Salah’s for comments.
