Why have anti -immigration riots exploded in Northern Ireland? | Protest news

Anti -immigration protests have escalated in clashes with police in several cities in Northern Ireland this week, marking a new wave of unrest to hit the United Kingdom.

The disorder in the cities in the region continued for the fourth night on Thursday. In Portadown, Arma County, a crowd uses bricks and masonry from an abandoned building to throw police.

About 40 officers were injured and 15 arrests were made.

Protests began in Balimen, a city of about 31,000 people, located 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Belfast, on Monday, when two Romanian 14-year-old boys were arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a teenager.

The most intensive violence took place on Tuesday in Balimen, when hundreds of masked riots attacked police and set fire to buildings and cars. A smaller crowd was throwing rocks, fireworks and gasoline bombs on Wednesday while police reacted with a water cannon.

The masked riots also set fire to the Larne Free Time Center, about 30 km (19 miles) from Balimen, on the shore, where some immigrant families were given shelter after the excitement in Balimen.

Violence also spilled into the cities of Belfast, Kolerein, Newtaunabi, Karikfergus, Antrim and Lisburn.

What happened in Balimen?

The riots in Balimen erupted after Romanian teenagers appeared in Kolerein's magistrates court on Monday on charges of sexual assault they denied. A Facebook post advertises “a peaceful protest to show our anger what it cannot and will not be tolerated in this city.”

The planned gathering began in Balimen at 7:30 pm (18:30 GMT). The crowd gathered on the clonavon terrace in the city where the alleged attack took place, and the police chaired to a large extent a peaceful demonstration.

Police said, later, several masked persons were detached from the group and began to erect barricades and attack private properties that house immigrants. They also attacked police officers with smoke bombs, fireworks, bottles and bricks, which has led to clashes that have been going on for several days since.

Some residents placed British flags or signs in their windows, reading a “British household” and “locals live here” in an attempt not to be directed.

Sky News reported that the residents of ethnic minorities in the city “pack their suitcases and leave their homes”.

One mother of two, Mika Kolev, told the BBC that her home was damaged by riots on Tuesday night. She said she intends to leave her home with her family and was considering moving back to Bulgaria.

“This is my house, I pay a rent,” she said. “I feel like this is my country, this is my city. My daughter was born here. It's very scary.”

Who are the rebels?

The identity of the hundreds of people – very masked and with hoods – who attacked households and businesses immigrants was not clear immediately.

In the past, this type of violence usually happened in cities such as Ballymena, which are a fortress of the United Kingdom Union. However, there were media reports that this time Catholics also joined the protests.

Northern Ireland withstood the decades of conflict between unite – to a large extent Protestants who want it to stay in the United Kingdom – and nationalists – mainly Catholics who wanted to reunite with the rest of Ireland.

The paramilitary groups played a significant role in the sectarian conflict known as The Trouble, which lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998, when the Agreement on Friday, established a power sharing agreement.

However, the agreement is confronted with the opposition of some united groups and some complaints remain unresolved.

“Some working class areas feel as if they lost during the peace process,” said sociologist John Nagal, who lectures at Queen University in Belfast, to Al Jazeera. “I think the type of complaints about the peace process apply to the wider concerns about immigration.”

The Northern Ireland Police Service (PSNI) said that at this stage there was no evidence of a paramilitary participation of Unionist in the recent violence in the city. However, a report published last month by the Committee on Independent Group on Human Rights (CAJ), the link said.

The study, entitled to the mapping of far -right online activity in Northern Ireland, analyzes seven incidents of anti -immigrant protests held in Northern Ireland in 2023.

Daniel Holder, director of the organization, said the last unrest followed a “rather familiar model”.

“What we have noticed … is that they are all calling and conducting themselves in areas where there is significant loyalistic activity” and present themselves as a “degree of paramilitary controls,” he told Al Jazeera.

Holder also said that such riots were held in the summer, coinciding with the loyalistic season of marching, a tradition among the Protestant and loyalistic communities, which are held from Easter from Monday to September.

He reflected a note of caution about the accounts that suggest the participation of Catholic nationalists in Balimen's trade unionist and said that the concept of a broader “gathering” of the two historical rivals is unlikely.

What are the main problems that move the excitement?

Immigration seems to be the main concern for protesters. Since 2015, more than 1,800 Syrian refugees have been settled in Northern Ireland through the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Scheme, which was renamed the Vulnerable Persons Scheme (NIRRS) in 2020.

General immigration is also increasing.

The member of the Assembly of the Democratic Trade Union (DUP) Paul Fu told the BBC that the tension is increasing for some time in Balimen and people are “frightened by illegal immigration.”

The anger for strict savings policies – and the attraction of well -being programs – since the 2008 global financial crisis has sparked concerns about immigration.

The complaints of poor housing and shortage of housing, in particular, were used for redemptive migrants and for favorable to a story about “a mass uncontrolled migration that is simply not true,” Holder said.

The CAJ report, he said, did not find a clear correlation between the areas where violence has increased in Northern Ireland since 2023 and the rate of poverty or high immigration rates.

“When you look at the model of where attacks are being carried out, they are not in the most lied areas,” Holder said. “This indicates that attacks include specific end -right elements, including some elements of loyalty paramilitary organizations, not to be bound either with the levels of migration or with deprivation.”

Does Northern Ireland have high immigration rates?

Official data from the Assembly of Northern Ireland show that this is the least diverse part of the UK, with 3.4 percent of the population being identified as part of the ethnic group of minorities, compared to 18.3 percent in England and Wales and 12.9 percent in Scotland.

According to the latest data on the 2021 census, immigration in Northern Ireland is relatively low, but is increasing. The percentage of population born outside the UK increased from 6.5 percent in 2011 to 8.6 percent in 2021.

How did northern Irish leaders respond to violence?

Some ministers have been accused of igniting the flames of the riots.

Several ministers have condemned the violence strongly. First Minister Michelle O'Neal said that “racist and sectarian attacks against families” were “disgusting and to stop right away.”

Finance Minister John O'Dowed described the attackers as “racist thugs”, while Justice Minister Naomi Long said the violence was “completely unjustified and unjustified.” Chief police officer John Butcher, who heads the Northern Ireland police office, said: “The acts and the mafia rule do nothing but to be torn apart in the fabric of our society.”

On Thursday, the Minister of Community Gordon Lions rejected his calls to resign on a social media publication, in which he revealed the location of the Larne Free Time Center, which was later attacked.

Tyler Hoi, an adviser to the Democratic Union Party and a local representative, has condemned the violence, but also accused the United Kingdom government of taking “buses” of unsolved migrants in the area.

Sociologist John Nagal, who lectures at Queen University in Belfast, told Al Jazeera that several Unionist politicians condemned the riots as they repeated the unjustified claim that Balimen had become “migrants' disposal.

“Although the government quickly came out to deny the protests, to some extent, which have been taken by some politicians who are trying to use this as a way to emphasize their opposition to migration and refugees,” Nagal said.

Most people in Northern Ireland are concerned about growing immigration?

Sociologist Ruth Macrevi, who lectures at Newcastle University, said general studies show that Northern Ireland has become more welcoming than migrants over time and is less likely to seek reduced levels of immigration.

The Northern Ireland Survey Life and Times found that 94 percent of those surveyed in 2024 said they would be ready to accept a minority ethnic group in their area, compared to only 53 percent, who said they would feel comfortable in 2005.

However, McareaVEY said that rapid demographic changes have occurred within a “social conservative place” as it navigates the global economic cataclysms, including the decline in its predominantly industrial economy, especially in the shipbuilding and textile sector.

“There is a level of dissatisfaction that people get out of the street,” Makarea said, adding that this is complicated by the measures of strict savings that have repented the state of well -being.

“The lack of these resources does not help to involve different social groups in society and support social cohesion,” she said. “People think they do not control and things are happening, unlike the more natural, organic change.”