Up to 20,000 mourners have turned out for the funerals of three men killed in Birmingham as they tried to protect shops and homes from looters last week.
Haroon Jahan, 21, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31, died in the early hours of 10 August after they were struck by a car in the Winson Green area of Birmingham.
A public prayer event was held at 2pm followed by private funerals.
A message on screens erected at Winson Green read: ‘Three precious souls gave their lives protecting all of us.’
Scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, who spoke at the ceremony, said: ‘They made an example of how a Muslim should be and what Islam is...’
‘These three people are martyrs and the best we can do for them is to pray for them and for ourselves.’
Four men, aged 30, 17, 23 and 26, have already appeared in court charged with their murder after the incident.
Earlier, British Prime Minister David Cameron defended judges and magistrates for handing out tough sentences for those involved in the riots.
But some penal reform groups and a number of MPs have said that some of the sentences have been disproportionate to the crimes committed.
Riots were a 'warning'
Britain is in ‘the last-chance saloon’ to solve the social problems behind the riots, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has claimed.
In a Spectator interview, the Work and Pensions Secretary said the unrest was ‘our warning’ of what will happen if reforms are not made.
Mr Duncan Smith told the magazine: ‘There has been a lot of focus on debt and the economic crisis. Now, we have to focus on the social crisis.
‘The Prime Minister made it clear that this, now, is his big focus. It is not possible to have watched or experienced any of these riots without realising that we're in the last-chance saloon.
‘This is our warning. That wasn't the crisis, but the crisis is coming.
‘We can't let this go on any more, and I think the Prime Minister sees that.’
He predicted that the riots would change Mr Cameron's leadership in a similar way to how 9/11 impacted on Tony Blair's premiership.
‘Well, I think he sees it like that. It's been a reminder to him. He's now determined this is what he wants to do,’ he said.
