{"id":445122,"date":"2025-09-23T06:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/445122\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T06:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:29:19","slug":"anti-immigrant-protesters-planned-to-block-northern-irelands-airports-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/445122\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-immigrant protesters planned to \u2018block\u2019 Northern Ireland\u2019s airports \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A plan from far-right anti-immigration protesters to \u201cblock\u201d Northern Ireland\u2019s main airports next month was scrapped less than an hour after being reported to the PSNI.<\/p>\n

A wave of protests against what organisers refer to as \u201cillegal immigration\u201d have sparked across the north in recent months, including 15 small protests with total numbers of around 200 dubbed \u201cOperation Shutdown\u201d taking place last Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n

A follow-up \u201cOperation Airplanes\u201d was announced by a group known as the Official Protestant Coalition on social media on Saturday. The group has links to those who organised flag protests in Belfast in 2012 following a decision to fly the Union flag on selected days at Belfast City Hall.<\/p>\n

The group advertised a two-day protest beginning on October 17 which included instructions to \u201cblock\u201d both Belfast International and Belfast City Airport.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/a>\"‘There<\/a><\/p>\n

Instructions to followers said that it expected the airports to be blocked for precisely \u201c1 hour and 23 minutes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Plans also included \u201cblocking\u201d Larne harbour overnight between 2am and 6am.<\/p>\n

Protesters aimed to \u201ctarget freight trucks delivering to specific supermarkets to maximise disruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PACEMAKER
\nAnti Immigration protest at Carrickfergus roundabout earlier this month. PICTURE Pacemaker<\/p>\n

(Andrew McCarroll\/Andrew McCarroll\/ Pacemaker Pres) <\/p>\n

The organisers said everyone was welcome to participate in the blocking of the airports, \u201cno matter your race, creed or colour\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, shortly after \u201cOperation Airplanes\u201d was announced, the group faced an online backlash from other prominent anti-immigration groups while the PSNI were also informed of the plans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood the PSNI received a complaint shortly after 5pm regarding the operation, with detectives making enquiries over the next hour.<\/p>\n

A public post from the Official Protestant Coalition announced the Operation had been cancelled less than an hour later. <\/p>\n

All posts providing details on the botched plans were later removed from social media.<\/p>\n

The Irish News asked the PSNI what, if any, engagement it had with the organisers of the protest in the time between it being publicly announced and subsequently cancelled.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s protests saw a number of buses diverted due to protests at 15 locations across the north after a sustained effort was made in order to drum up support for the protests.<\/p>\n

Organisers had calledfor roads to be blocked in effort to \u201ctake our country back\u201d and highlight the consequences of \u201cmass migration\u201d.<\/p>\n

One group representing migrants advised its members to avoid a long list of locations across the north where it was believed protests were going to take place, while the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust issued advice to pregnant mothers who may have been fearful of attending hospital due to the protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plan from far-right anti-immigration protesters to \u201cblock\u201d Northern Ireland\u2019s main airports next month was scrapped less than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[87753,54012,40,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-445122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-belfast-international-airport","9":"tag-belfast-city-airport","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115252203823797518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445122","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=445122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}