Belfast: The most racist place in the UK?

Back in the 1960’s the UK was awash with the type of racial hostility and violence that even today makes people shudder: Excrement through doors, racial abuse on a daily basis, and threats of violence common practice. Thankfully those days have gone, unless that is you live in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Over the past few days an African pensioner has been forced to leave his house after racists paint-bombed his home, along with threats that he must leave.

Adu Kyermateng , a 65-year-old Ghanian said he felt “threatened and I want to get out” adding that he no longer felt safe at his home in Townsend Terrace in the loyalist Shankill area.

He stated:

I can’t go on like that. I haven’t done anything to anybody and I don’t have conflict with anybody. I have a right to live in peace without being threatened by anybody so I’m going to see houses I could live in tomorrow. I just don’t want to risk it."

The rising majority of racist attacks in Northern Ireland have taken place in loyalist areas, mainly in Greater Belfast.

Last June a mixed heritage couple Rima and Michael Lynch complained about six years of racial torment. Rima, a Christian-Israeli Arab, has been branded a "Roma", "Romanian", "Jew whore" and a "dirty Arab" .

Last June the annual benchmark report on human rights and racial equality by the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, revealed that there were 982 racist incidents in 2013-14 compared with 750 incidents the previous year.

Whilst the authorities have made vast improvements in quelling Sectarian hostilities, racism to people of colour is barely acknowledged much less dealt with. For many 2015 is like living in the 1960's.

The good people of Belfast, in particular the politicians, must act quickly to investigate and prosecute the racist perpetrators. Moreover, they must demand and impliment racial equality and respect for all people of Northern Ireland, not just those on either side of the Sectarian divide.

Simon Woolley