Policy Watch
An eye on policy changes in Ireland, the UK and beyond
Racism in Belfast: A Timeline and Media Resource
This timeline accompanies PPR’s blog series on ‘Racism in Belfast’.
In 2023/24, the PSNI reported logging 1,353 ‘race incidents’ across the north – the highest yearly total since it began collecting this data in 2004/05. Of these, it considered 839 to be race crimes.
In 2022/23, it recorded 1,221 ‘race incidents’ involving 880 ‘race crimes’. It reported that only 17% of these crimes were sanctioned (this covers not just convictions – the total also includes including charge or summons, caution, community resolution or other outcomes).
Like many other forms of crime, the past trauma and current vulnerability experienced by victims – many of whom were forced to flee their own countries due to repression and violence – coupled with issues such as language and cultural barriers, means that race incidents are significantly under-reported here. As a result, PSNI figures are very likely to be significantly lower than the actual number of racially motivated hate incidents.
Amongst the race hate incidents reported to the PSNI, an even smaller proportion appear in media reports. Despite the nearly negligeable size of the sample in the timeline below, it does give an indication of the nature of the threats, intimidation and attacks that our neighbours have faced over the last five years, even before the events beginning 3 August 2024.
While much of this week’s violence has been targeted against foreign-owned businesses, PPR’s incident log over the last five years has focused on intimidation, threat and attacks in housing. In 2019 and 2020, some of the racial hate we logged was focused against the 438 Syrian families brought here between 2015 and 2020 under the Home Office’s resettlement scheme for particularly vulnerable people fleeing the conflict there.
In 2021 we began to see an uptick in hate against asylum seekers lodged by the Home Office in hotel accommodation due to the shortage of available housing elsewhere around the north.
Since 2022 – in an extension of longstanding use of sectarian hate and intimidation to influence housing – this has been followed by an increase in incidents apparently aimed at claiming or marking out territory – including existing or new housing developments – as ‘whites only’ or ‘locals only’. In some but not all incidents these messages are accompanied by paramilitary flags or symbols.
Reports of recent race hate incidents are very predominately – but not exclusively – situated in mainly loyalist areas.
In the few cases where it is available, the log notes information on any arrests or convictions.
Belfast
6 June 2019
A Muslim woman from Belfast speaking out about racist abuse she and her family suffered in east Belfast.
26 May 2020
An immigrant woman’s description of her and her family’s experiences of long-term racist intimidation, threat and aggression in south Belfast.
18 August 2020
Two immigrant women’s descriptions of their experience of intimidation and threat – and the police response – in south Belfast.
29 November 2020
Young people describe their experiences of racial abuse in Belfast and of reporting it to the police.
14 January 2021
An arson attack on the premises of the Belfast Multicultural Association in Donegall Pass, south Belfast, destroyed the building, which had been serving as a food bank to local people in need. The attack was condemned but one year later, there had been no arrests.
2 June 2021
Two men were eventually (in March 2024) sentenced to prison for a break-in and racially-motivated attack on residents in a block of flats in Lawrence Street, south Belfast.
13 July 2021
A Dundela Avenue, east Belfast mural of US poet Maya Angelou, who was Black, was defaced by racist graffiti.
6 November 2021
Two men were arrested after a number of reportedly racially motivated assaults in the city centre of Belfast.
8 April 2022
A second arson attack on the Belfast Multicultural Association in Donegall Pass was launched just days after completion of extensive works to repair the damage from an earlier such attack. The organisation called for those responsible to be brought to justice so that people from ethnic minority backgrounds could feel safe.
early October 2022
An unoccupied property on Vernon Street, off Donegall Pass in south Belfast, had windows smashed and ‘locals only’ graffiti painted on it in a series of incidents just days before an Asian family were reportedly due to move in. PSNI referred to it as a hate crime.
14 Feb 2023
Following arson attacks in January 2021 and April 2022, the Donegall Pass, south Belfast premises of the Belfast Multicultural Association were put up for sale.
10-11 April 2023
PSNI investigated multiple attacks against Syrian-owned supermarkets on the Donegall Road and Sandy Row, south Belfast as hate crimes. A man was arrested in relation to these attacks in November but released two days later.
18 June 2023
A Nigeria-born man spoke publicly about the impact of a series of attacks on his home and car in Belvoir, south Belfast – five of which were under investigation by the PSNI.
18 August 2023
An overnight arson attack (by two perpetrators filmed on CCTV) gutted a shop on the Sandy Row, south Belfast, owned by a Sudanese refugee, in what the PSNI considered a racially motivated hate crime. The shop had been targeted in a series of incidents since moving to south Belfast from the city centre in April.
22 August 2023
Three flags with Nazi symbols on them were hung overnight on the street outside the Iqraa Mosque in Dunmurry, south Belfast; they were reported by parents bringing their children to a summer scheme at the mosque.
17 September 2023
Arson attack against a Syrian-owned shop on Donegall Road, south Belfast, with racist graffiti left on the premises. Residents of the two flats above it had to be evacuated. According to the PSNI, this was the 4th race-motivated hate incident at the site in the space of two weeks
17 October 2023
The PSNI state that they are satisfied there is ‘a degree of co-ordination in relation to these attacks and that in itself would align to organised criminality.’
1 November 2023
Racist signs are erected close to the Belvoir estate in south Belfast. The PSNI record the incident as racially motivated.
4 November 2023
The caretaker’s office in one of the Belvoir flats is attacked and glass is broken.
8 November 2023
Racist signs appear in Rathcoole
10 November 2023
‘Locals only’ graffiti threatened ‘NIHE this will be wrecked if not for locals’ on a house in Carnanmore Park in the Suffolk estate in west Belfast.
29 November 2023
Similar signs appear in Tildarg Avenue. The PSNI state they are treating this as a hate crime.
6 March 2024
Racist signs appear in Finaghy.
29 May 2024
A black family living in Finaghy are relocated by the Housing Executive after direct racist intimidation.
11 July 2024
A woman walking home from work is attacked by a group of young people in London Road. She and her family are relocated.
22 July 2024
A newly built but unoccupied 13 unit social housing development off the Shore Road in north Belfast – where ‘locals only’ graffiti was earlier reported – saw loyalist paramilitary flags erected in advance of new tenants moving in.
23 July 2024
After a car deliberately rammed the premises of the Welcome Organisation, a homeless centre in west Belfast, the PSNI said they were investigating it as an arson attack. They also opened an investigation into later graffiti threats to workmen repairing the damage.
3 August 2024
Despite a large PSNI presence, seven foreign-owned businesses in Sandy Row, Donegall Road and Botanic were sacked in targeted attacks by rioters following a far-right anti-immigrant march in central and south Belfast.
5 August 2024
The PSNI opened an investigation in a racially motivated hate crime after a man was reportedly set upon by a group of assailants who stamped on his head, and a burnt-out Syrian-owned business was again set alight, in a second night of rioting on Sandy Row in south Belfast. Rioters also gathered outside the Islamic Centre nearby.
6 August 2024
In West Belfast, a young boy was injured in what PSNI were investigating as a racially motivated attack at a foreign-owned shop on the Falls Road. …
ANTRIM AND NEWTOWNABBEY
8 March 2024
A new social housing development in Rathcoole, Newtownabbey was vandalised with ‘no Taigs’ and ‘no refugees’ graffiti overnight. The PSNI said they were treating the incident as a hate crime.
24 May 2024
King’s Park Primary School in Newtownabbey was targeted with anti-immigrant and anti-asylum graffiti overnight; the writing was discovered just before children were due to arrive at the school.
3 July 2024
Eight immigrant families – including those of four nurses employed in the Northern Trust – were forced out of Ballycraigy estate, Antrim town following sustained racist attacks. (These attacks overlapped with the 30 June paint-bombing and threats against two further homes in Antrim, including the specially-designed home newly allocated to a white nine-year-old disabled boy and his family.)
7 July 2024
The PSNI reported it was investigating racially motivated hate crimes after racist graffiti was put up at five additional sites in Antrim including Parkhall Road; a planned ‘shared housing’ development under construction at Fountain Hill (Stiles Way); Craigmore Park; the Market Street area; and the Castle Mall.
CAUSEWAY COAST AND GLENS
1 June 2023
Racist and anti-immigrant graffiti in several locations in Portrush and in Coleraine was treated as a hate crime.
28 October, 1 Nov 2023
‘Ulster says no to asylum seekers’ flags were placed on lampposts in Crocknamack Road in Portrush. Police investigated as a hate crime.
31 July 2024
PSNI report that they are treating racist graffiti at three family homes in Walworth, Ballykelly, Derry as hate crimes.
MID AND EAST ANTRIM
23 July 2021
Online messages calling for action against asylum seekers being housed in a hotel in Carrickfergus, and posting photographs of several of them, were investigated by police as potential hate crimes.
26 June 2023
Four houses in the Larne Street, Ballymena area – reportedly home to families originally from Bulgaria and Portugal – had their windows smashed in what the PSNI termed racially-motivated hate crimes.
21 July 2024
Police said they were investigating a petrol bomb attack on a family home in Larne, one of a series of attacks on local homes the same night, as racially-motivated.
TYRONE
5 November 2023
The posting of notices declaring ‘Moygashel continues to reject housing of foreign nationals’ was investigated as a hate crime.
Media Coverage of racist attacks
18 August 2023
Belfast Live: Dad left with nothing after tech business burned down in ‘hate crime’ attack
UTV: Belfast Sandy Row fire treated as ‘racist’ arson by police
23 August 2023
BBC: Belfast mosque leader’s worries after Nazi flags flown nearby
24 August 2023
UTV: ‘I give up’: Sudanese dad-of-four ‘weak’ after racist arson guts Sandy Row tech business
1 September 2023
UTV: South Belfast businesses in emergency meeting over multiple racist attacks
4 September 2023
Belfast Telegraph: Arson attack on Belfast supermarket being treated as racially motivated hate crime
18 September 2023
Irish News: Arson attach in south Belfast follows campaign of racist intimidation
Belfast Live: Belfast business owner to relocate shop after alleged racially motivated arson attack
UTV: Police treating fire at business premises in south Belfast as ‘race-motivated hate crime’
Belfast Media: Donegall Road shop set ablaze in latest racist attack
BBC: Belfast: Racist attacks to force Syrian businessman to move shop
19 September 2023
Irish News: Syrian businessman has ‘lost everything’ after arson attack on Belfast shop
26 September 2023
BBC: Anti-racism rally after south Belfast attacks
28 September 2023
The Detail: Race hate crimes in one area of Belfast have doubled since 2017
Belfast Telegraph: Botanic: Race hate crimes in Belfast district area have doubled since 2017
4 October 2023
Belfast Telegraph: Threats and coercion: How paramilitaries try to control social housing
17 October 2023
BBC: Why has there been a spike in racist attacks in south Belfast?
23 October 2023
The Detail: Race hate victims ‘failed’ by justice system
26 October 2023
Hyphen : ‘The attack was a message: you are not safe here’
The Detail: Race hate victims ‘enduring months of attacks’
5 December 2023
BBC Spotlight : The Rise of Race Hate
