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Chapter 1: What triggered the unrest in Belfast last night?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
We begin with police and political leaders in Northern Ireland appealing for calm this morning after disorder erupted in a number of areas last night. Unrest in the city was in response to that stabbing attack on Monday. Some people had to be taken from their homes. Protesters also set fire to a bus in Belfast. I'm joined by SDLP leader and MLA Clare Hanna. Good morning to you. Good morning.
Chapter 2: How did the political leaders respond to the violence?
You described what happened last night as a race-based pogrom. I'm watching the pictures on Sky News this morning of houses burnt out, shells of cars on the street. What happened?
Yeah, absolutely awful scenes in Belfast and outside. As you say, yes, the trigger point was the appalling video that we saw from North Belfast that emerged yesterday morning of a very violent killing. But unfortunately, we've seen this movie before in terms of it being whipped up, including by...
You know, the full house of online agitators are Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, who probably couldn't find Belfast on a map and have no idea what communities here went through, hyping it up, protests. called throughout the city that almost inevitably turn violence because there is a culture of expressing your point with violence.
And yes, I don't see any other phrase other than race-based pogrom. Men were going house to house, kicking in doors, burning them in some cases and certainly intimidating out residents on the basis of violence. exclusively of the colour of their skin.
So they were finding people who had in recent years moved to Northern Ireland and kicking them out of their houses, essentially.
They were indeed. My colleagues, Matthew Toole, MLA and Donal Lyons were well into the wee small hours last night moving families who were burnt out of their homes in South Belfast and finding them accommodation. So who does any of this help? I suppose we all, of course, want justice for that attack in North Belfast.
The perpetrator is in custody and that's what justice looks like, custody in courts and prison. It doesn't look like mobs, as we saw, and just so many families lost
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Chapter 3: What does Clare Hanna mean by a 'race-based pogrom'?
are counting the costs that I don't have a bed to sleep in tonight and the impacts on community cohesion and just the confidence of people of different ethnicities to be able to live their lives in Belfast is really threatened today.
You also have this fear now, you know, I mean, I can only imagine how terrified you would be of what's going to happen tonight and the next night if this isn't fixed and settled in some way.
Well, I think so. And it is it is a time for political leadership. And you talked about I mean, there was a joint statement from all of the political main political parties yesterday. We do sometimes and you'll hear all day from politicians, you know, who who talk about it and then say, but and and condition it, we will need to see very serious changes.
political leadership and the policing response to match as well it does seem that it was a deliberate attempt to I suppose fan out protests to keep the police service under pressure but everybody should be held accountable for their words today and what they do or don't do to put a lid back on this.
But Clare, those calls were made yesterday. Those appeals were made yesterday, you know, right the way through from the police to community leaders to political leaders. They weren't heeded. So it's hard to know how to stop this now.
Some of it has to be swift justice. We saw, I mean, obviously you're familiar and Dublin residents will be familiar with exactly these dynamics from the riots just a couple of years ago in November, also triggered by an awful violent act. Of course, you know, we've had plenty of violent acts, including in the last year that don't get riots because the the perpetrators weren't minorities.
Some swift justice. I mean, again, I don't want to see any young person going through the justice system unnecessarily, but that's how they've done it in other places that those young men are in court today. Consequences follow that action because when it feels like there's no consequences, when it feels like, you know, local politicians and online influencers are egging you on, you know,
I'm sure it might feel exhilarating, but when people see the consequences it has for their lives, I think that does change behaviour. That's changed behaviours in violent situations here before.
Well, there will be consequences for those people who carried out those acts last night and who can be identified, prosecuted and charged. But what about the ones, and you've mentioned them, who have stoked this up? And I was looking on X last night. I mean, it's just fascinating to see.
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Chapter 4: What actions were taken against families affected by the violence?
I mean, ironically, the person who was stabbed, who is injured and who is in a serious condition in hospital, being treated by the people who were coming out of that 12-hour shift and some of them not able to go home to their own houses for fear of being attacked. And that's the reality. I mean, the collective punishment of...
of every single person of every nationality that looks slightly different. That was what was happening last night for an action that was contained really quickly by the PSNI, who kept telling us yesterday that the only suspect in that case was arrested, that they would be before the courts.
They were also very quick in coming out and giving us details about that person's immigration status, how they came to be in Northern Ireland. They were trying to fill those gaps so that you didn't have those bad faith actors coming and putting... the disinformation in, but still they did and still they persisted. And that went on for most of yesterday.
And I mean, even myself and other journalists, social media feeds is full of, you know, bot American accounts based in the US with Irish flags pretending to be locals and putting out misinformation and threats and calling people out onto the streets and congratulating those who set fire to their neighbours' homes last night.
Would you expect, Alison, that there'll be a repeat tonight of this?
I've just been sent a message showing that those same social media sites that were calling people out last night are calling people onto streets at one o'clock today. I would hope that given the cold light of day and the fact that people have witnessed what happened last night, that the majority of sensible people will stay off the streets. You know, we know protesting
and demonstrating should be a democratic right enshrined in any democracy. But if you're going to call people out onto the streets, you better be able to make sure that you can control and keep people safe.
And last night, when you're calling people out in the numbers that were very young people in an inflamed situation, when their heads were filled of disinformation and lies about what actually happened and in the situation with that,
horrific video had been shared online so many times you must everyone would have known that was impossible to contain you could not contain that it was always going to end the way it ended um and the distressing scenes last night do nothing they don't help help one iota if you have concerns that people are exploiting the open border and and moving from dublin to belfast as a stepping stone to the uk well you take that up with the people who are responsible
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