People Before Profit Newry Slams “Racist” Violence Following Belfast Attack

With the protests emerging after the North Belfast stabbing attack, a car has been set alight in Kilkeel and rolled into a set of buildings in the town.

People Before Profit representative for Newry & Armagh Marc Mac Seáin comments:

“A man in Belfast has been brutally attacked and any right-headed person condemns that. As the alleged perpetrator of that attack is a migrant, some have now seized upon that opportunity to begin terrorising anyone from a migrant background. We’re seeing pogroms enacted, this must stop immediately.

“Random protest callouts are being made on social media, often with AI generated graphics and short notice. There was even a late callout in Newry last night which thankfully did not produce any protest like we’ve seen elsewhere in the North. These callouts are often accompanied by instructions to dress in black, hide your identity and to engage in violence. We call on people to stay at home and not join these protests, not join in the violence against their own communities.

“In Kilkeel, locally, witnesses say fires are being set in bins & cars. A car was rolled towards a Chinese restaurant but instead crashed into a charity shop. Someone had to jump from a building above for their own safety. In Portadown a mental health charity shop was smashed up, a Turkish restaurant was burnt out. The intense pogrom scenes in Belfast are terrifying with migrants being burnt out of their homes, checkpoints stopping drivers to check their nationality and gliders being burnt out. This is completely unacceptable and must stop.

“This is wanton racist violence and intimidation. Destroying our own communities doesn’t make anything better, it makes things quite obviously worse. This whole matter is being directly ginned up further as division, distraction by billionaires like Elon Musk, far-right opportunist politicians like Farage, Lowe. Even locally the DUP, TUV are relishing using these events to distract from their own failures and complicitly in austerity. Pogroms aren’t an answer to deep socio-economic inequity, we need a strong politicised workers movement to take action and force the change we need to see in society.”

ENDS