{"id":174213,"date":"2025-06-10T23:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T23:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174213\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T23:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T23:48:11","slug":"racially-motivated-attacks-spark-second-night-of-unrest-in-northern-irish-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174213\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Racially motivated&#8217; attacks spark second night of unrest in Northern Irish town"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police clashed with protestors in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena for the second straight night on Tuesday after the arrest of two teenagers for their alleged rape of a young girl led to \u201cracially motivated\u201d attacks on &#8220;foreigners,&#8221; a continuation of recurring racism-fueled unrest in the country in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Violence flared for a second night Tuesday in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/northern-ireland\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Northern Irish;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Northern Irish<\/a> town after &#8220;racially motivated&#8221; attacks sparked by the arrest of two teenagers accused of the attempted rape of a young girl.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of protestors, many of them masked, took to the streets of Ballymena, throwing petrol bombs and masonry as police responded with water cannon, an AFP journalist said.<\/p>\n<p>There was a heavy police presence in one area of the town, some 30 miles (48 kilometres) northwest of Belfast, as the protesters set fire to a car and barricades. Police also fired plastic baton rounds to disperse the crowds, an AFP journalist saw.<\/p>\n<p>The unrest first erupted Monday night after a vigil in a neighbourhood where an alleged serious sexual assault happened on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Read more<a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/europe\/20240329-northern-ireland-s-dup-leader-donaldson-steps-down-after-sex-offence-charges\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Northern Ireland&#039;s DUP leader Donaldson steps down after sex offence charges;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">Northern Ireland&#8217;s DUP leader Donaldson steps down after sex offence charges<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,&#8221; Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Houses and businesses were attacked, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said, adding it was investigating &#8220;hate attacks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/europe\/20250610-racially-motivated-attacks-spark-second-night-of-unrest-in-northern-irish-town\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Read more on FRANCE 24 English;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Read more on FRANCE 24 English<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police clashed with protestors in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena for the second straight night on Tuesday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[72113,958,1144,72111,48887,1610,72112,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-174213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-attempted-rape","9":"tag-ballymena","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-northern-irish","12":"tag-police-presence","13":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","14":"tag-straight-night","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114661746512658573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174213","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=174213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}