Belfast will stage an anti-racist rally on Saturday as new police figures show that hate crimes involving racist and homophobic attacks are running at five per week in Belfast.
There were 129 incidents of racial or homophobic abuse reported to the PSNI over 183 days - about five per week, police statistics presented to Belfast District Policing Partnership this week revealed.
Alliance Assembly member Ms Naomi Long said that the figures were disturbing and revealed just how common such crimes were in Belfast. The Anti-Racism Network, which is organising the rally for 2 p.m. on Saturday, called for the public to come out in force to demonstrate its opposition to hate crime.
The figures confirm that south Belfast is the worst area for racist incidents. In south Belfast there were 61 racist and nine homophobic incidents for the six-month period from April to September this year, compared to 59 racist and 10 homophobic incidents in the same period last year.
Racist attacks in north Belfast for the same period almost doubled from 15 last year to 29 this year, with five homophobic attacks compared to seven last year. There were four homophobic attacks in west Belfast and one racist incident. There are no comparative figures for last year.
In east Belfast there were 20 such hate crime incidents, with no breakdown between racist and homophobic attacks, compared to 14 in the same period last year.
Ms Long said the figures illustrated that hate crime was a Belfast citywide problem.
"I would urge both the PSNI and public to be more pro-active and vigilant, and while I congratulate the police for initiatives to tackle hate crimes, there have been too few convictions.
"We also need more responsibility to be shown by elected representatives when they speak out on hate crimes. They need to speak out clearly against racism and homophobia, and not provide any excuses or justification for them," said Ms Long.
Sinn Féin Assembly member Mr Alex Maskey said there must be more action and less talking on the issue.
"These statistics showing on average five racist attacks each week, and a majority taking place in south Belfast only prove what we all already know - that racism in the city is now an urgent and very real problem."
