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Online messages call for more protests on Wednesday

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600 prison places secured amid overcrowding crisis

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About 400 people have been arrested so far

(Adds quotes 8-9, background 15-19, poll 23)

By Sachin Ravikumar and Kate Holton

LIVERPOOL, England, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The British

government has increased its prison capacity to help tackle

violent, week-long anti-Muslim riots that have prompted a

growing number of countries to warn their citizens about the

dangers of travelling in Britain.

Riots across a number of towns and cities have erupted

following the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed

event in Southport, a seaside town in northern England, after

false messaging on social media wrongly identified the suspected

killer as an Islamist migrant.

Unrest has spread, with rioters targeting mosques and

smashing windows of hotels housing asylum-seekers from Africa

and the Middle East, chanting "get them out", in the first

widespread outbreak of violence in Britain for 13 years.

They have also pelted mosques with rocks, unverified videos

online have shown some ethnic minorities being beaten up and one

man photographed at a protest in Sunderland on Friday had a

swastika tattooed on his back.

"My message to anyone who chooses to take part in this

violence and thuggery is simple: the police, courts and prisons

stand ready and you will face the consequences of your appalling

acts," Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.

The justice department, which is due to release some

prisoners early as it battles a jail overcrowding crisis, said

nearly 600 prison places had been secured to accommodate those

engaged in violence. About 400 people have been arrested so far.

The unrest has prompted India, Australia, Nigeria and other

countries to warn their citizens to stay vigilant.

Saminata Bangura, a 52-year-old support worker in a care

home in Liverpool, northern England, said she had felt so

welcome in Britain after she moved from Sierra Leone. But she

was now scared and largely staying at home.

"I'm so scared, even when I'm walking now, because

everywhere, we're scared, especially, we Blacks," she said,

describing how a library was vandalised near where she lives.

RACIAL HATRED

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed a reckoning to those

who have engaged in rioting, hurling bricks at the police and

counter protesters, and looting shops and burning cars.

Police on Tuesday charged a 28-year-old man with stirring up

racial hatred over Facebook posts linked to the disorder. A

14-year-old pleaded guilty to violent disorder.

On Monday night trouble flared in Plymouth, southern

England, and again in Belfast in Northern Ireland, where

hundreds of rioters threw petrol bombs and heavy masonry at

officers and set a police Land Rover on fire.

Messages online say immigration centres and law firms aiding

migrants would be targeted on Wednesday, prompting anti-fascist

groups to say they will counter any demonstration.

Police have blamed online disinformation, amplified by

high-profile figures, for driving the violence.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson

and previously the leader of the defunct anti-Islam English

Defence League, has long attacked Britain's policy of housing

asylum seekers who arrive in the country.

At the end of December 2023, there were 111,132 individuals

in receipt of asylum support in Britain, with 45,768 people in

hotels. During that year, the government's statistics office

estimates that net migration to the country was 685,000.

Experts on extremism and social cohesion say far right

agitators have used the Southport killings to spark violence.

Sunder Katwala, director of the think-tank British Future,

which focuses on migration and identity, said the killings had

been used "to mobilize against, particularly asylum seekers and

Muslims, and that has continued, after the evidence which is

that the person is neither an asylum seeker, nor a Muslim."

The police have said the attack was not terrorism-related

and that the suspect was born in Britain. Media reports have

said the suspect's parents moved to Britain from Rwanda.

In Birmingham, Britain's second largest city, videos on

Monday showed Asian men gathering with Palestinian flags after

reports that anti-Muslim protesters may target the area.

Reporters on the scene said they were met with hostility and

videos appeared to show one white man being attacked in a pub.

The prospect of clashes between white and ethnic minority

groups revived memories of race riots that broke out in Oldham

and other northern English towns in 2001 - which an official

report later attributed to a lack of social cohesion, with two

communities living parallel lives.

A poll by YouGov on Tuesday said three quarters of

respondents said the rioters did not represent the views of

Britain as a whole, with 7% saying they supported the violence.

(Writing by Kate Holton in London; Editing by Conor Humphries

and Jon Boyle)