{"id":161376,"date":"2025-06-05T22:42:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T22:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161376\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T22:42:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T22:42:18","slug":"gerry-kelly-challenges-psni-over-reluctance-to-blame-paramilitaries-for-sectarian-attacks-on-houses-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161376\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerry Kelly challenges PSNI over \u2018reluctance\u2019 to blame paramilitaries for sectarian attacks on houses \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior police officers have been challenged over a \u201creluctance\u201d to state that sectarian attacks on homes in north Belfast were organised by paramilitaries.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in Policing Board member Gerry Kelly said it almost seemed like there was an \u201cavoidance\u201d of blaming terrorist groups, after an officer said there had been conflicting reports over their involvement.<\/p>\n

There was widespread political condemnation following the attacks on homes last month, when masonry was thrown at a number of properties<\/a> in Annalee Street and Alloa Street.<\/p>\n

Clanmil Housing Association, which operates the housing scheme in the area, said the attacks were a \u201csectarian-motivated hate crime<\/a>\u201d, and police have said they have stepped up patrols in the area.<\/p>\n

\"‘Significant<\/a>\"Armagh<\/a>\"NorthernNorthern Ireland Policing Board member Nuala McAllister raised the issue of attacks on homes (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n

Alliance Party member Nuala McAllister asked about the policing response to the attacks in the north of the city.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cA number of us political representatives have met with these families and sat with them and they have been understandably very upset and scared.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to think that it is 2025, this long after the Good Friday Agreement and actually we could have families living in shared neighbourhoods welcomed by all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a minority who are frightening others for the aim to get them to move out of their area and it is not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said he wanted to publicly condemn the \u201chate-filled abhorrent behaviour\u201d last month.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThat day we saw attacks on houses, windows broken and clearly a sectarian attempt to intimidate people out of their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has no place in our society and should not be tolerated. We will bring all of our investigative powers to bring people to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the police investigation is continuing and a man had been charged over damage to properties.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n

Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck said there are \u201csignificant tensions in the area primarily around the issue around housing\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWhat we are picking up in terms of local information, and there has been some conflicting reporting, some of that reporting indicated persons linked to paramilitary groups have been involved in the activity, however other reports indicate that the attacks have stemmed from a much more community level, rather than an organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is similar to what we saw around August last year and the disorder as well. We will continue to monitor that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly responded: \u201cI find it quite hard to begin to accept that when a number of houses are done, when it is co-ordinated, when there was a number of people in masks standing around for two hours before it and all this information was given to the police, that at this stage it almost seems like an avoidance of saying there was paramilitary involvement here.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that there is tension around housing doesn\u2019t say it. This is sectarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly added: \u201cThere seems to be a reluctance in these things, not just this, if it is paramilitary, of let\u2019s not say it is paramilitary and I don\u2019t know what the fear is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am certain and everybody in that area is certain it is paramilitary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sinn F\u00e9in representative added: \u201cPeople need to know that you are not trying to avoid saying what this is really about because they want to know if they are safe going back in there, is there an organisation which is going to attack them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Beck said: \u201cFrom a factual basis I have indicated what information we have at this moment in time and there are conflicts around that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that does include that there are indications that there were persons involved who were linked to terrorist and paramilitary organisations as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior police officers have been challenged over a \u201creluctance\u201d to state that sectarian attacks on homes in north…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[6416,67950,67951,67952,1144,67953,67954,67955,1618,67956,28389,11528,16,7913,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-161376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-alliance-party","9":"tag-clanmil-housing-association","10":"tag-davy-beck","11":"tag-gerry-kelly","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-nuala-mcallister","14":"tag-paramilitaries","15":"tag-policing-board","16":"tag-psni","17":"tag-ryan-henderson","18":"tag-sectarianism","19":"tag-sinn-fein","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-ulster","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114633175714298085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161376","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=161376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}