Speaking at a full council meeting on Thursday, September 10, where she resigned as council chair, Cllr Aitken said: “The far right has long used the tactic of portraying cities as lawless and degenerate because cities stand for everything they hate: diversity, cosmopolitanism, progress.
“The BBC has profiled the people who are responsible for the worst crime in our city center in recent memory, the most shocking crime. Masked bandits, rampages, attacks on people of colour, deliberate intimidation and telling people that our city center is a lawless place.
“It’s not, it has its problems, but crime in Glasgow is no worse than crime in any other city in the UK and in fact it is significantly better than some of our peers.”
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The documentary focuses on one week in June, which coincided with anti-immigration protests in the city. It included interviews with people who took part in the protests.
Despite a request from the BBC, no one from Glasgow City Council took part in the programme.
Cllr Aitken, who spoke during Labour’s drive to tackle crime and anti-social behavior in the city centre, said: “Like any big city, Glasgow has its pockets of crime and anti-social behavior and some of them are serious. We also have an ongoing challenge to support vulnerable people.”
She added that the board had “worked closely with Chief Superintendent Emma Croft for many, many months on this matter.”
“Police operations in the Four Corners and St Enoch Square area are complex and intensive,” Commander Aitken said. “They have to respond to changing patterns of criminal behavior and also by their very nature sometimes have to maintain operational confidentiality.”