Latest news with #Ballymena
Irish Times
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on the riots in Ballymena: unequivocal political response essential
The recent rioting in Ballymena and surrounding areas is troubling on a number of levels, not least that it is unlikely to be an isolated event. What started out as a peaceful protest following an alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl in Ballymena on June 7th quickly descended into race riots when it then emerged that the alleged perpetrators, two 14-year old boys, needed the services of a Romanian interpreter during their court appearance. Studies of what happened show that Ballymena became the locus of far-right social media activity. At the most acute phase of the rioting, Ballymena was mentioned nearly 80,000 times across different platforms. Crucially, most of these accounts were from outside Northern Ireland. An analysis of these posts shows that many of them fall within the legal definition of incitement to hatred. It also became clear that many of the rioters were not from Ballymena and were intent on exploiting local tensions. Sporadic violence spread elsewhere in Northern Ireland as well. READ MORE This is similar to what happened in Southport in southern England last year. Far-right activists are opportunistically co-ordinating through social media to stoke tensions and foment race riots. There are some lessons to be learned. One is the need for ongoing improvement in social media controls. Elon Musk, the owner of X, has dismantled most of the guardrails on his platform on the basis that they undermine free speech. The reality is that X has become an unmediated platform for hateful content that has very real consequences for the more vulnerable in society, such as the migrant community in Ballymena. Against this backdrop, the EU has no choice but to resist any pressure from the Trump administration to lessen controls on social media as a quid pro quo for a US-EU trade deal. A key goal of the EU rules is to place responsibility on social media companies to ensure online content is safe, fair and secure. However, local factors were also at play in Ballymena. The town has become an unemployment blackspot in recent decades. Meanwhile, the 2021 census shows the arrival of non-English speaking migrants into the town and surrounding areas in recent years. While some tensions have been reported, the recent riots are a dramatic and worrying escalation. In responding to this, political leadership is important. Wrapping criticism of thuggish, racist violence with suggestions that shortcomings in managing immigration in some way provide a rationale – as at least some politicians seem to have done – is not acceptable. Condemnation of what happened must be unequivocal.
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- Telegraph
‘We feel extreme fear': How Northern Ireland's riots are haunting migrants
On the second night of the riots in Ballymena last week, Michael Asuro's Ford Focus hatchback was rolled out into the middle of his street and set alight. Crouching inside his bedroom in the small Northern Irish town just north of Belfast, Asuro kept the lights off to deter the attackers, having heard the sound of the rioters breaking down his neighbours' front door. Then he watched from the window as they smashed the glass of his car and set it on fire. Asuro, a Filipino migrant, arrived in Northern Ireland on a skilled worker visa in September 2023 at the age of 23. He now lives in Ballymena with his partner and works as a mechanic, working on coaches – one of the 4,000 or so Filipinos in Northern Ireland's 1.9 million population. 'I don't feel safe living in Northern Ireland now,' he tells The Telegraph after the experience last week, adding: 'We feel extreme fear. We are not here to destroy the community. We are here legally. We are here to raise our family. We are far away from the Philippines.' The violence began last Monday at a vigil in support of a schoolgirl who had allegedly been sexually assaulted by two Romanian-speaking teenagers. The boys, both aged 14, were charged in court with attempted rape and required a Romanian interpreter. The alleged assault ignited years of simmering unrest between the migrant community and the locals of the town. Rioters sought out houses believed to belong to migrants and set them alight with fireworks and petrol bombs thrown through doors. Footage showed flames engulfing a glass-fronted leisure centre, where migrants displaced by the riots had been sheltering. 'It's pure racism – there is no other way to dress it up,' said Michelle O'Neill, the first minister of Northern Ireland, of the violence. Non-Roma immigrants resorted to putting up signs displaying their nationality, such as 'Filipino lives here', or displaying the King's coronation memorabilia and crockery featuring Elizabeth II, in a bid to deter thugs. A week later, the streets of Ballymena are quiet again; days of rain helped disperse the mobs. 'I've never thanked the Lord for the rain in all my life, but now I have been so grateful for the rain,' says one Filipino migrant who has lived in Belfast since 2002. But a sense of fear persists for those in the migrant community, who now feel they are walking targets. The migrant says that her daughter is so scared to walk through the street that she now wants to dye her hair blonde 'so she won't be targeted'. 'I love Ballymena, we have integrated into the community, we pay our taxes, we have created friends. We are not bad people, we are just living quietly,' she reflects. Simona Lazar, speaking on behalf of the charity Union Romani Voice, told The Telegraph that more than 300 Romanians have now left Ballymena for their own safety. 'We are in contact with Romanian families on the ground: mothers, fathers and young people who say they feel petrified and unsafe where they live now,' she says. 'There are families simply asking to live without fear, they are asking for their children to go to school without being targeted, to walk through their neighbourhoods without intimidation. 'The community feels discriminated against and unsafe. They fear that they will be killed,' she adds. 'Our culture is rich, our history is deep and our contribution to British society is real. We are not asking for special treatment, we are asking for safety, for justice, for equality and for a society where no child grows up afraid.' Northern Ireland has seen significant demographic change this century, experiencing a fourfold increase in minority ethnic residents in two decades – from just 0.8 per cent in 2001 to 3.4 per cent in 2021. Between January 2010 and December 2020, according to medical card registrations, Romanians constituted the third highest inflow to the province. Inward migration from Europe has fallen sharply since Brexit, however, with India, Ireland and Nigeria now the top three countries of origin. Ballymena, where unemployment is above average, was 94 per cent white at the time of the latest census, with just 6 per cent of the population from another ethnic background. There, the Roma community has long been accused, by some, of failing to integrate. 'These problems have been around for a very long time and very systematically in Northern Ireland,' says Nina Briggs, a 30-year-old who lives in Belfast as a migrant from Boston in the United States. She moved in September 2021 when she received an offer from Queen's University Belfast to study for a PhD. Ethnically Asian, she says that abuse comes as soon as locals realise that she is non-white. 'When I speak to folks on the phone or in writing, it isn't obvious. But I am ethnically South-East Asian so I look very different,' she says. 'I have faced racist comments and abuse in the streets, there are shops I don't go to. 'In a university setting, you get comments that we are stealing local places. Sometimes I've just been jumped on randomly – people start throwing things or hitting me. Once, an old gentleman hit me with a tray at the airport. 'I feel unsafe and disregarded.' She explains that many migrant groups now have a 'lockdown protocol' in case violence 'kicks off'. In periods of extreme violence or intimidation, those who appear white will go shopping on behalf of those migrants who don't, and take their children to school. 'We shut down and rely on our 'white-presenting' allies to get our kids to school,' she explains. Back in Ballymena, the scars of the riots are visible as the community recovers from a week of tumult and trauma. Police say that 31 arrests have so far been made relating to racially-motivated disorder, with 23 charged. Schools have been declaring themselves safe spaces for children to seek refuge. Education Minister Paul Givan told the Assembly that over the past week, children who have arrived at school 'showing all the signs of trauma as a result of what has happened on our streets'. Asuro, meanwhile, is trying to move on from the terrifying experience of seeing his car set alight.
Belfast Telegraph
18 hours ago
- Sport
- Belfast Telegraph
Ulster star set for extended period on sidelines after undergoing ACL surgery
The rampaging number eight, who broke through last season with some barnstorming performances in Ulster's back row, looks likely to miss the majority of the 2025/26 season after suffering the problem. It is cruel timing for McNabney, who had just been called up to the Ireland squad for their summer Tests against Georgia and Portugal as a training member and was expected to kick on in his sophomore season at Ravenhill. Now it is all but certain that the exciting young talent will not be seen on the pitch again until at least the new year, with ACL injuries generally keeping players sidelined for around nine months. Fortunately for Ulster, replacing the impressive McNabney shouldn't be too difficult as they are preparing for the impending arrival of South African number eight Juarno Augustus, although he himself has had a recent injury setback as a back problem led to his release from the Springboks' wider training squad ahead of their Test schedule. Twenty-two-year-old McNabney made his Ulster debut under Dan McFarland when he started against the Glasgow Warriors in November 2023 and would proceed to hold onto the number eight jersey for the next two games, making his European debut in a defeat away to Bath the following month. However, it was under Richie Murphy this season that the Ballymena man thrived, starting the opening game of the season against the Warriors and going on to make 17 appearances in all competitions, including starting in three of their four European pool games and their last-16 clash with eventual champions Bordeaux. That led to a first call-up to the Ireland squad, albeit as a training panellist, for this summer's tour, however that has now been cruelly taken away from the Academy graduate. In his absence, uncapped Munster back row Brian Gleeson has been called up – also as a training panellist rather than a full squad member – while an injury to winger Calvin Nash has led to Munster team-mate Diarmuid Kilgallen being drafted in, as has Munster's Evan O'Connell.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The racial violence in Ballymena repeats a pattern that's blighted Britain for years. We must wake up to that
In early June, the violence began. Rumours of a foreigner assaulting a local woman resulted in groups roaming through a small British town, breaking windows of homes belonging to 'outsiders'. A few days later, the police attempted to stop mobs from reaching another nearby multiracial area. Eventually they broke through, ransacking shops and burning down a house, while local media reported that the violence had developed into 'something like a fever'. Sound familiar? This isn't Ballymena, the County Antrim town in Northern Ireland that has seen several nights of unrest in which immigrant homes were attacked after reports of an alleged sexual assault on a local girl by two teenagers, who had a Romanian interpreter read them the charges. These incidents actually took place more than a century ago, during the summer of 1919, as racial violence spread throughout south Wales, eventually reaching Cardiff and the diverse district of Tiger Bay. Back then, a number of things were blamed for the violence, among them a lack of jobs and housing for returning white servicemen, many of whom were disgusted by the relationships between local women and black men who had served in the merchant navy and made Wales their home during the first world war. The media also played their part. The South Wales Daily News claimed that it had never seen 'so black a blot on an otherwise fair and thriving town', before suggesting a fire like the Great Fire of London 'would be a godsend' that could cleanse Tiger Bay (now known as Butetown). In Ballymena, the spark was the alleged attempted rape, coupled with the recent influx of immigrants who rioters said have 'invaded', 'infested' and 'ruined' their community. In the 2001 census, just 14,300 people, or 0.8% of the overall population of Northern Ireland, belonged to a minority ethnic group. By 2021, it was 65,600 people, or 3.4%. Still small numbers compared with England (18%), or Scotland (11%), but each of those countries saw a similar outburst of racial violence when immigration was at a comparable level. England also witnessed riots in 1919. There was violence in North Shields and Liverpool, where a sailor called Charles Wooten drowned after being chased by a mob. Liverpool again saw Ballymena-esque scenes in 1948 when a seamen's hostel was assaulted and in 1972 when a racially mixed housing estate was attacked by skinheads. (Housing is still a flashpoint; last year, at least eight African families – half of them including nurses – were forced to flee an estate in Antrim town.) In between those incidents in Liverpool there were the race riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill in London in 1958, followed by the racist murder of Kelso Cochrane in the capital by teddy boys a year later. Throughout the 1970s, the rise of the far-right National Front, which had 12,000 members at its peak, created a dangerous environment in England: the historian Peter Fryer estimated that between 1976 and 1981, 31 people had been murdered by racists in Southall, Brick Lane (both in London), Swindon, Manchester and Leeds. Politicians also inflamed the issue: in 1978, in an attempt to outflank the NF, Margaret Thatcher claimed in an interview that 'People are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture.' There's a much more recent history of violence in England too: last summer, mobs attacked mosques, hotels housing migrants and the homes of 'foreigners' in Hull, Hartlepool, Manchester and Liverpool after the murder of three children in Southport. Scotland also had its, albeit delayed, racial reckoning. Although Glasgow saw race riots in 1919, it wasn't until 1989 and the murder of Somali student Axmed Sheekh that a group of activists and Black Scots forced a conversation about racism north of the border, which until then had been presented as an 'English disease'. Anti-racist activists were told that there wasn't a problem because there simply weren't any black or brown people in Scotland. In 1991, ethnic minorities accounted for 1% of the population, but a Runnymede Trust report showed that there had been a huge spike in racist assaults north of the border as these tiny communities became more visible. There's an established pattern that Ballymena is a part of: an influx of immigrants, hostility to their presence, a denial that there is a problem with xenophobia, then a spark followed by indiscriminate violence. But many people in Britain can't see this pattern – or choose not to. The years 1981, 2001 and 2011 linger in the memory and are what many people think of when they hear the phrase 'race riot' in a British context. Each one of those years saw unrest in black and brown communities triggered by policing (1981), far-right activity (2001) and the killing of Mark Duggan (2011), followed by hand-wringing and commentators wondering where Britain went wrong on race. The events of 1919, 1948 and 1972 dissolve quickly into the forgotten past, footnotes at best; they are certainly not woven into the national story of racial violence. These incidents – of white violence – are presented in isolation. In Ballymena, it's impossible to understand what's happening without engaging with the recent history of Northern Ireland. The fact that most of the people attacking immigrants and the police were Protestants whose own families emigrated to Ireland generations before places the violence not just in the context of the Troubles, but also British colonialism. But they're also part of a continuum, one that links different eras and parts of the United Kingdom. This history of violence is part of an established pattern that isn't inevitable but instead manufactured by a combination of political failings, distorted media coverage and opportunism by the far right. It is this context that made Keir Starmer's 'island of strangers' speech so offensive. That language isn't benign; it helps set the stage for another inevitable spate of attacks. Less than a month after the speech, Ballymena exploded. Now the rhetoric doesn't just seem opportunistic but dangerous, a shameful decision that now sits alongside Thatcher's 'swamped' comments as a political intervention that further causes divisions for short-term gains. The NF collapsed in the 80s, but today Reform – led by a man whose political hero is Enoch Powell – is pulling Labour to the right. What happens next in Northern Ireland is crucial. History shows that in the UK it's often the victims of racial violence who are blamed. After 1919 in Wales, there was a voluntary repatriation scheme, while authorities installed a new piece of draconian immigration legislation, which forced all seamen to carry an identity card, known as a 'certificate of nationality and identity issued to a British Colonial Seaman'. It was a measure that treated them like criminals. Immigrants have already started to leave Ballymena but, as in Cardiff, many will stay. Their lives will be shaped by whether or not political leadership learns the lessons of Britain's history of racial violence. Lanre Bakare is an arts and culture correspondent for the Guardian. He will be discussing his new book, We Were There, at the Southbank Centre in London on 11 July
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
PSNI officers diverted from domestic abuse and sexual crimes investigations to police Northern Ireland unrest
A total of 24 police officers were taken away from the unit which investigates domestic abuse and sexual crimes in Northern Ireland to combat last week's public disorder, a senior Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer has said. More than 30 people have been arrested by police investigating the unrest, which began in Ballymena, Co Antrim, on June 9th. A peaceful protest over the alleged sexual assault of a girl in the town was followed by attacks on the homes of people from ethnic minority backgrounds and police officers – described as 'racist thuggery' by the PSNI - and subsequently spread to other towns. Appearing before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of MPs at Westminster on Wednesday, Detective Chief Superintendent Zoe McKee said she 'cannot begin to describe the challenges within [the] public protection arena in policing currently'. READ MORE The head of public protection at the PSNI, Ms McKee said: 'this week alone, I have had 24 officers extracted for public disorder, which actually stemmed from a violence against women and girls offence, and that narrative has been lost in a lot of what has happened in recent weeks.' [ Ballymena: Week of violent attacks on Northern Ireland's small immigrant community 'akin to 1930s Germany' Opens in new window ] The DUP leader, Gavin Robinson, responded this 'should be a cool reminder to people out there that some of the outworkings over the last week are having material impact on your ability to do your job to help protect victims'. 'To build on that,' Ms McKee said, 'what you're seeing is the displacement of minority communities, women and children being forced from their homes and crimes committed against them, probably disproportionately, women and children, as a result of the disorder that has happened'. She said the reallocation of police officers had been the case for the last week, and while it was 'slightly going back to normal, we are ready and alive to the fact that that could be ongoing at any minute, as you know it's a fairly febrile situation'. Ms McKee also outlined the 'significant underfunding challenges' facing police, saying there was a '£21 million (€24.5 million) gap and we have officers at the very lowest level we have ever had in the PSNI, at 6,200 and we should be sitting at 7,500″. 'They are very real challenges which affect how we deliver services and support victims and prosecute offenders for all of the violence against women and girls offence types,' she said. Ms McKee was one of several people who gave evidence to the scrutiny committee's session on ending violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland. The Northern Executive adopted a strategic framework on ending violence against women and girls in 2024, the last jurisdiction in the UK and Ireland to do so. Dr Siobhán McAlister, senior lecturer in Criminology at Queen's University Belfast, said survey data showed 'very high prevalence rates' in the North, 'with 98 per cent of women aged 18 plus having experienced at least one form of gender-based violence in their lives'. Such violence was 'highly underreported,' Ms McAlister said, and Ms McKee described underreporting as 'real and significant … it's a real stubborn challenge' for the PSNI. Research showed the 'main reason they don't report … is they don't recognise behaviours as violence' because they were so 'commonplace', Ms McAlister said. Sonya McMullan, regional services manager at Women's Aid NI, said 'we keep coming down to no resourcing and no money, you know, you've got a strategy, but you have no money attached to it, and it's as simple as that'.
