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A Romanian child looks out the window the day after an attack on their east Belfast home in 2009. Picture by Jonathan Porter, Press Eye
Racist attacks in Northern Ireland have increased dramatically since the end of the Troubles.
In 1996, the year that police began to compile statistics, there were 41 race hate incidents - but over the past 28 years that figure has soared.
Between then and April 2025 there were 24,006 race hate incidents right across Northern Ireland, with last year's figure the highest single year on record - 1,807.
Among the most shocking attacks was one of the first - the murder in Coleraine, Co Derry in 1996 of father-of-two Simon Tang, described by his family as “an unassuming, hardworking and peaceful family man.”
No-one was ever convicted of the crime but police later said it was a racially-motivated attack with alleged UVF involvement.
And concerns began to grow that as sectarian violence decreased ethnic minorities would become targets.
A 1997 University of Ulster report on Northern Ireland’s ethnic minorities reported rising levels of racist attacks. Half of those interviewed were worried that the ceasefires would “make things worse for their community.”
Charlotte Vij, a campaigner born in Derry to parents from India, put it plainly in a interview at the time: “if the Troubles cease, racism will increase. People have to find a victim for their hatred.”
The level of recent violence in Ballymena and other towns is unprecedented but the way it was fomented is not new.
The catalogue of attacks and incitement over the years makes grim reading.
In 2004, a leaflet was circulated in south Belfast targeting the Chinese community. “The influx of yellow people into Donegall Pass has done more damage than 35 years of the IRA’s recent campaign,” it read. The PSNI said the pamphlet was the work of loyalist paramilitaries.
Future Alliance MLA Anna Lo, then working for the Chinese Welfare Association, said that two thirds of immigrant families in the locality had been intimidated out of the area.
Roma families who were subject of racist attacks in Belfast arrive at temporary housing in 2009. Picture by Brian Thompson, Press Eye
In 2009, Northern Ireland made international headlines when more than 100 members of the Roma community were forced from their homes following repeated racist attacks. One of the victims, Sorin Ciurar, told journalists at the time: “I am frightened. I don't know what we are going to do now.” Almost all of the families left Northern Ireland completely. This violence also had wider impacts: A plan to resettle refugees from the Congo to Northern Ireland was scrapped as a result.
In 2014 there was a wave of attacks and intimidation, mainly targeted at people from Africa and eastern Europe. This included when pipe bombs were sent to homes belonging to two Romanian families in the Waterside, County Derry; the erection of a sign in Moygashel, County Tyrone, which read “Attention Landlords, leasing property to foreign nationals will not be tolerated”; and a series of attacks on the homes and cars of families from Poland and other countries.
In more recent years there have been annual arson attacks on shops owned by Muslims in a small area of south Belfast, stretching from Donegall Pass to Sandy Row.
The Belfast Multi-Cultural Association was destroyed in an arson attack in 2021. It was rebuilt, but just before its reopening it was destroyed in another attack in 2022. Fearing for their safety, they sold the building and left the area.
In 2023, a computer shop on Sandy Row and a grocery store on Donegall Pass were destroyed in separate arson attacks. The Syrian-owner of the grocery store left the area.
In 2024, the same computer store and a separate grocery store were destroyed in arson attacks, in a string of attacks on migrant owned businesses.
In many of these incidents, the attackers were successful in their aims. The shops closed down, the people left the area. As with the vast majority of race hate crimes people are rarely ever held accountable.
Men help clear the burnt-out Sham Supermarket in Sandy Row in August 2024. Photo by Press Eye
Paramilitaries
A recent report by the Committee of Administration of Justice stated that it was “well documented that there is a particular problem of the involvement of elements of loyalist paramilitarism in racist violence and intimidation.”
The PSNI have at times warned of loyalist paramilitaries orchestrating racist violence.
Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr said there was no doubt about the involvement of the UVF in attacks on the homes of Polish and Romanian citizens in 2014, which he likened to “ethnic cleansing.”
In 2018, PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton said “loyalist groups are the ones behind burning out and intimidating people from places like Lithuania and Romania in areas they perceive as their own.”
Separately, a 2017 Policing Board report warned that race hate crime will continue unless the police and other agencies are “willing to acknowledge and discuss …the reported threat from paramilitary groups.”
While the PSNI has said that paramilitaries did not orchestrate the violence last week, PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher said he saw paramilitaries “standing there amongst the people who cause this violence.”
The Detail has asked the PSNI over the years how many race hate crimes featured paramilitary involvement, but have been refused on grounds of it being too complicated or costly to collect the data, or that publishing it could be “to the advantage of terrorists or criminal organisations.”
Ballymena residents displayed flags on doors to avoid being targeted during the recent riots. Photo by Jonathan Porter, Press Eye
“Genuine concerns”
One of the noticeable changes in more recent years is in how some politicians have responded to such incidents.
North Antrim MP Jim Allister condemned the “very distressing” recent violence in Ballymena.
He also said the “context” for the initial protest was that there had been “significant demographic change in the area” because of “unfettered immigration.”
Separately, DUP leader Gavin Robinson MP said in a statement there was “no excuse, no justification” for violence.
He also said his party “has long called for honest action to address illegal immigration and the pressures it places on communities and public services.”
Following the riots in August 2024, the Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly condemned racism and violence.
She also said that people had “very genuinely held” concerns about issues including “public services and access to housing.”
During a Belfast City Council debate on the August riots, the DUP’s Sarah Bunting condemned the violence and criminal damage.
She also said that there were many others who protested peacefully over “genuine concerns” over immigration, which she said “needs to be controlled, as our public services are at breaking point.”
In 2023, DUP MLA Edwin Poots said anti-immigrant signs threatening landlords in Belfast were “wrong” and described the language as “inappropriate.”
He also said “The context to it is how the Housing Executive have treated this community, and the wider unionist community in south Belfast, over a protracted period.”
“It should be understood that being against uncontrolled immigration does not make a person racist,” he added.
Similar comments were rarely made in relation to racist attacks before 2023.