Three nights of racist riots in Northern Ireland

Petrol bombs, bricks and bottles have hailed against the large bump of police officers who have been commissioned to monitor and try to curb the extensive unrest that have been going on since three days, especially Ballymena, Northern Ireland. So far, at least 32 police officers have been injured.

In the night of Thursday was attacked Also a leisure center in Larne. The property was set on fire. The center had served as an emergency residence for families after earlier week’s clashes.

« What happens is disgusting and must cease immediately, » Michelle O’Neill told the BBC.

She believes that the responsible « does not add anything but hatred, fear and divide ».

The background to the violence is a serious sexual abuse that happened last Saturday. Two 14-year-old boys with Romanian background could then be arrested, suspected of raping a teenage girl. According to Jim Allists, MP for the Party Traditional Unionist Voice for the North Enth Enthtrim election district, the underlying tensions between the population and immigrants in the local community have been around for a long time and that the root cause is that « for many immigrants » placed « there.

The arrest of the two teenage boys led to what is described as a peaceful demonstration on Monday night when hundreds of people in Ballymena marched in the city center as a kind of support for the exposed victim. The demonstration degenerated and since then the riots have continued.

To the rebellion Seems to have racist motives agree, but Claire Hanna, leader of SDLP, the Social Democratic Party believes that « some politicians choose to explain the violence events.

– As a politician you have a mandate and a platform – then every day you can choose to stand up and try to solve the problems, or you can choose to use them. One can choose to try to calm down the mood or to try to excite it, she has said to BBC.

According to police, rapidly expanded the unrest in racist attacks on foreigners, which caused families to hide in their homes while bullies crushed windows and tried to light a fire on curtains.

On Tuesday, police forced rubber bullets and use water cannons to try to disperse the crowds on Tuesday.

Jon Boutcher, police chief of the Northern Ireland Police Authority, tells the BBC that the situation is deeply disturbing and unacceptable:

– These criminal acts not only jeopardize life, but also risk undermining the ongoing criminal investigation. Ironically and frustratingly, this violence threatens to destroy precisely the quest for justice that it claims to challenge.

Michelle O’Neill, leader of Sinn Féin emphasized that « no one, neither now nor ever, should have to put a decal on his door to indicate his ethnic affiliation just to avoid being exposed. »