{"id":179342,"date":"2025-06-12T21:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T21:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179342\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T21:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T21:13:11","slug":"protests-in-portadown-and-ballymena-as-belfast-anti-immigration-gathering-passes-off-without-trouble-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179342\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests in Portadown and Ballymena as Belfast anti-immigration gathering passes off without trouble \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anti-immigration protestors took to the streets for the fourth night on Thursday, but no major trouble has been reported as rain fell across the north.<\/p>\n

Masonry was thrown at police Land Rovers in Portadown at one point in the evening, while protestors jostled with police as they were prevented from moving off on a planned march through the town.<\/p>\n

In Ballymena,<\/a> there was some stone throwing but no repeat of the major violence of the last three evenings. <\/p>\n

Around 100 protestors gathered at the junction of the Newtownards Road and Templemore Avenue in east Belfast, but dispersed after approximately 30 minutes. <\/p>\n

\"Loyalists<\/a>\"Gordon<\/a><\/p>\n

The protests took place just hours after Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said he had met the young victim of an alleged serious sexual assault and revealed she was \u201cfurther traumatised\u201d by the rioting over the week.<\/p>\n

Widespread violence has marked the protests that began following a march through Ballymena on Monday evening by hundreds of people.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> First Minister adds to calls for DUP minister Gordon Lyons to resign for \u2018inflaming\u2019 tensions over Larne arson attack<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The march happened following the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl in the town on Saturday. Two 14-year-olds were charged on Monday with attempted rape.<\/p>\n

Gangs rampaged through Clonavan Terrace and surrounding streets, torching two homes and smashing the windows of multiple other houses.<\/p>\n

Violence returned to the streets of the town over the next two nights. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Larne Leisure Centre was attacked<\/a> and burned while users, including children, were inside. <\/p>\n

Read more: <\/b>Women forced to flee yoga class through broken glass during \u2018shameful\u2019 Larne Leisure Centre attack<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Recap on how the evening unfolded below.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anti-immigration protestors took to the streets for the fourth night on Thursday, but no major trouble has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[958,73833,40,1144,73832,1618,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-179342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-ballymena","9":"tag-east-belfast","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-portadown","13":"tag-psni","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114672461962569622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179342","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=179342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}