Thousands rally against anti-immigrant violence in Northern Ireland

Thousands of people in Northern Ireland have rallied against anti-immigrant violence provoked by a stabbing in the capital Belfast.

Protesters on Saturday gathered outside Belfast City Hall with placards sporting slogans such as “Hate is the only threat to our streets” and “Belfast stands against racism”. An anti-racism rally was also held at Londonderry – widely known as Derry – city hall, reported the Belfast Telegraph.

Belfast saw two nights of public disorder and racist violence after video of Monday night’s knife attack – which showed a man straddling another lying in the street, slashing him with a knife – went viral across social media platforms.

Sudanese national Hadi Alodid appeared in court on Wednesday charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, who remains in hospital.

On Saturday, protester Hilary Hunter, 63, told the AFP news agency she was there because she was “just disgusted at what’s going on, our beautiful country”.

“Everybody’s here just to show that those people [anti-immigrant rioters] … causing all the problems aren’t speaking for us,” she said at the rally organised by the Unite Against Racism group.

Protesters held the “biggest” anti-racism rally ever seen in Belfast to impart a very simple and clear message, Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland director of Amnesty International UK, told Al Jazeera.

The message is that “despite the horrible scenes of racist violence we have seen in some parts of Belfast this week, the vast majority of people in Belfast are anti-racist, they are very welcoming to migrants and minorities who have come from other parts of the world [and] we want them to stay”, said Corrigan.

The authorities were not sufficiently prepared to deal with the past several days of violence, he said.

“This is the third consecutive summer of racist violence we have seen. We have been warning the Northern Ireland authorities that more was to come and they were not ready.”

To prevent future incidents, “we need clear political leadership from the top down … from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer down to Northern Ireland’s own political leaders,” said Corrigan, adding: “All that we’ve seen from Starmer this week are words of condemnation – that’s wholly inadequate to the task”.

Targeted because of the ‘colour of their skin’

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said on Thursday that the rioting had created a sense of fear with some being “intimidated” and “burned out of their houses by masked thugs on the basis of the colour of their skin”.

He said there had been reports of people being stopped in their cars to be asked their nationality on their way to work, describing it as “completely unacceptable”.

Local councillor Seamas de Faoite of the SDLP nationalist party, said people had turned out to show that they were “appalled” at the “racist violence”.

He said organisations across the city had been working tirelessly to rehouse people who were now “too frightened” to return to their homes.

Immigration is a hot-button issue in both the UK and Ireland, and has helped fuel the rise of the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage.

Both countries have seen frequent anti-immigration protests in recent years, some turning violent.