Targeted Romanians leave Belfast

Tue, 06/23/2009 - 3:14pm

In a sad end to a shameful episode in Northern Irish history, 100 of the 114 Romanians who were harassed into leaving their Belfast homes have elected to return to Romania:

Twenty-five Romanians who were the victims of racist intimidation in Belfast left Northern Ireland today, with 75 others due to leave later this week.

The Stormont social development minister, Margaret Ritchie, confirmed earlier today that 100 of a group of 114 who had been targeted in racist attacks wanted to return to Romania.

Ritchie said only 14 of the Romanians subjected to the attacks – a family of seven and seven single men – had opted to remain in Belfast.

"I deeply regret that, but it is a matter of personal choice," the SDLP minister said.

Ritchie added that the Romanians' decision to leave "runs against our aims to build a shared future within Northern Ireland".

She said funds from the Northern Ireland housing executive had been found to cover the cost of flying the 100 Romanians home. Last week, the Romanian consul said his country had no plans to pay for the flights.

Meanwhile, the Belfast church in which the Romanians took shelter after the attacks has been vandalised.

Seven windows in the Belfast City church were smashed and the front door damaged in the attack, which happened overnight.

Much has been made of the cross-cultural unity after the shooting of two British soldiers and a policeman (and, in fairness, British and Northern Irish leaders were quick to condemn the attacks and offer protection), but if this xenophobia is the new anti-Catholicism/Protestantism, Northern Ireland still has much work to do.

PETER MUHLY/AFP/Getty Images

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Belfast has an ugly underbelly...

by Lure D. Lou on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 4:48pm

it is a city full of low-life junkies and alkies with no education, bad-teeth and rotten attitudes. The fact that they've been at peace with each other is nothing short of a miracle...but now we see that their basic attitudes haven't changed. Personally I would have deported the miscreants who terrorized the innocent...send them to Transylvania where they belong. (It's funny that the news stories never say if it's Prod or Catholic miscreants doing the harassing of the Romanians...what's that all about?...political correctness? They only say South Belfast...who lives there?)

Romania

by PaulR on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 5:57pm

Why Transylvania Lure D. Lou?
Do you realize that Transylvania is a region of Romania, the country the people that were attacked came from?

But you are right there is a lot of PC in this case.
These people were most probably attacked because they are Roma (Gypsy) but almost every newspaper just calls them Romanian. By talking only about their citizenship and hiding their true ethnic identity PC newspapers are hiding the true problem, the fact that it is Roma/Gypsy that are discriminated and not ethnic Romanians.

This is not new. Five years

by moneyinabox on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 1:15am

This is not new. Five years ago the same thing happened with Chinese, Pakistani, and Indian residents of South Belfast. Who is the majority in this neighborhood? It is overwhelmingly Protestant/Loyalist. 17th Century immigrants attacking 21st Century immigrants, or in a phrase, racism is NI's new sectarianism. The PSNI should hang its head in shame at their utter incompetence, as should the media for once again tiptoeing around the obvious, endemic rottenness that lies at the core of NI society, instead of challenging this sub-human behavior head on.

Paul makes a good point,

by sashenka on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 4:31pm

Paul makes a good point, though I was surprised to see this reported on FP as a case against Romanians - the major articles on the incident which I saw all referred to them as Roma of Romanian origin.

However, I think it's a huge mistake to start trying to link this incident to NI's own history of sectarian conflict or write it off as a result of their history as I felt (perhaps incorrectly) was indicated in two of the above posts. Violence against Roma has been escalating all over Europe for over a year now, in a trend that pairs latent racism with the threat of a worsening economy. Roma have been attacked across Western Europe, and Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have had the worst cases thus far, with homes being fire-bombed and families being stabbed. In fact, in contrast to ambiguous and tepid response to violence in these three countries, Northern Ireland should be commended for taking and immediate and unqualified public stand against it.

In terms of the neighborhood, whether its predominantly protestant or catholic is completely beside the point. In point of fact, however, it is a poor working class protestant neighborhood that used to be a hub for both of the primary wings of the protestant paramilitaries (UVF and UDA) which, like many of the paramilitaries, led to strong gang-like elements developing among some of the groups' harder elements. I think these economic and criminal factors have much more relevance than any sectarian identity.