{"id":1024430,"date":"2026-06-13T17:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T17:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1024430\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T17:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T17:04:24","slug":"thousands-attend-anti-racism-rallies-following-unrest-in-belfast-protests-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1024430\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands attend anti-racism rallies following unrest in Belfast | Protests News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rallies in Northern Ireland come after two nights of anti-immigrant violence sparked by a stabbing incident.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Published On 13 Jun 202613 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

Thousands of people in Northern Ireland have rallied against anti-immigrant violence<\/a> provoked by a stabbing in the capital Belfast.<\/p>\n

Protesters on Saturday gathered outside Belfast City Hall with placards sporting slogans such as \u201cHate is the only threat to our streets\u201d and \u201cBelfast stands against racism\u201d. An anti-racism rally was also held at Londonderry \u2013 widely known as Derry \u2013 city hall, reported the Belfast Telegraph.<\/p>\n

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Belfast saw two nights of public disorder and racist violence<\/a> after video of Monday night\u2019s knife attack \u2013 which showed a man straddling another lying in the street, slashing him with a knife \u2013 went viral across social media platforms.<\/p>\n

Sudanese national Hadi Alodid appeared in court<\/a> on Wednesday charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, who remains in hospital.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, protester Hilary Hunter, 63, told the AFP news agency she was there because she was \u201cjust disgusted at what\u2019s going on, our beautiful country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s here just to show that those people [anti-immigrant rioters] \u2026 causing all the problems aren\u2019t speaking for us,\u201d she said at the rally organised by the Unite Against Racism group.<\/p>\n

\"PeopleCalling out racism at a rally in Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 13, 2026 [AFP]<\/p>\n

Protesters held the \u201cbiggest\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The message is that \u201cdespite 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\u201d, said Corrigan.<\/p>\n

The authorities were not sufficiently prepared to deal with the past several days of violence, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

To prevent future incidents, \u201cwe need clear political leadership from the top down \u2026 from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer down to Northern Ireland\u2019s own political leaders,\u201d said Corrigan, adding: \u201cAll that we\u2019ve seen from Starmer this week are words of condemnation \u2013 that\u2019s wholly inadequate to the task\u201d.<\/p>\n

Targeted because of the \u2018colour of their skin\u2019<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said on Thursday that the rioting had created a sense of fear<\/a> with some being \u201cintimidated\u201d and \u201cburned out of their houses by masked thugs on the basis of the colour of their skin\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Local councillor Seamas de Faoite of the SDLP nationalist party, said people had turned out to show that they were \u201cappalled\u201d at the \u201cracist violence\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said organisations across the city had been working tirelessly to rehouse people who were now \u201ctoo frightened\u201d to return to their homes.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Both countries have seen frequent anti-immigration protests in recent years, some turning violent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rallies in Northern Ireland come after two nights of anti-immigrant violence sparked by a stabbing incident. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1024431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[68102,299,6657,12,1144,2579,15894,74429,16,15],"class_list":["post-1024430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-demographics","tag-europe","tag-migration","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-protests","tag-racism","tag-the-far-right","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116743889822687982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1024430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1024430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1024430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1024430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}