Major Antiracist Rally Held in Belfast to Condemn Anti-Immigrant Riots Egged On by Elon Musk

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AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report . I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Northern Visions TV, community television here in Belfast. We’re here in Belfast for the Docs Ireland film festival. The film about Democracy Now! , Steal This Story, Please! , will be premiering first at the film festival on Tuesday night at Queen’s cinema. We look forward to seeing folks there. I’ll be there with the director Tia Lessin.

Here in Belfast, Northern Ireland, tens of thousands of people gathered Saturday outside Belfast City Hall for a rally organized by United Against Racism. The solidarity protest, which was supported by local trade unions, followed several days of violence in Northern Ireland in which masked rioters set fire to houses and cars, targeting immigrants and ethnic minorities. In one incident, four masked men reportedly chased a nurse into the Ulster Hospital. In another, two Ugandan health workers were barricaded in their home for four hours as neighboring properties burned and rioters threw stones at their windows. Emergency services told them it was too dangerous to try and leave. Their pastor eventually managed to negotiate their exit. This is Belfast resident Greg Sachno, who attended the “Together Against Hate” demonstration.

GREG SACHNO : It’s wrong, it’s racism, and it’s not what this city is. So, everybody here today is united in support of our migrant and new arrivals. We’re here showing solidarity. This is what this city is about. And I say to those racists: You’re not welcome. This isn’t your city. This belongs to everybody.

AMY GOODMAN : The disorder began a week ago after an asylum seeker from Sudan was charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack. As video of the attack circulated online, calls for protests against immigration followed. The family of the victim, Stephen Ogilvie, who lost his eye in the attack, urged against violence. They wrote in a statement, quote, “We are aware of the tensions and talk of the protests following this incident. We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome. … We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility,” they wrote.

Less than 24 hours after the attack, hundreds of people joined protests, some becoming violent. Police in Belfast deployed water cannons to quell the anti-immigrant rioters. At least 23 people were arrested, 12 police officers injured. Hilary Benn, the U.K.-Northern Ireland secretary, condemned the violence as “racist thuggery,” speaking on Sky News.

HILARY BENN : Well, if you are targeting people on the basis of their color of their skin, how else can you describe them? This is — that is racist thuggery. There’s no question about it at all, because we are a society where, as Martin Luther King famously said, we should judge people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. And these, these are people who have come to Northern Ireland, settled. Someone was forced out of their home. They’ve been living here for 20 years. And they’re working in the health service. They’re working in industry. They are colleagues and friends of people who were born and brought up in Northern Ireland. And there is no place for this whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN : Hilary Benn is Northern Ireland’s secretary of state. He’s an MP, a member of the British Parliament. He’s also the son of the late MP, for over 50 years, Tony Benn, the famous antiwar Labour MP.

When the anti-immigrant violence broke out, Belfast resident Ruchira Rangaprasad put out a call on social media offering to provide food to people too scared to leave their homes, and also requested volunteers help make the deliveries.

RUCHIRA RANGAPRASAD : I think I’m personally scared to step out of my house. I don’t want to be out. I don’t want to, because especially, like, there was like a hit list being passed around with, like, addresses and all of that. And a lot of those hit list roads are very close to me. And there are so many — like, literally, basically, every single area in Belfast is somehow on that hit list, so, like, people are scared to step out of their home. And food is like a basic need. And especially like a nutritious, home-cooked food is so, so important, especially during this time. So, that’s why I thought, “OK, let me, like, cook can help feed people.” …

I’ve been in Northern Ireland about three years now. Actually, if anything, I feel like from this experience, from yesterday and today, I have a lot more respect for Northern Ireland, and I love Northern Ireland and Belfast a lot more, because in one day 30-plus people showed up, all strangers, just being like, “I will help.” And there’s literally war out there. There’s petrol bombs being thrown out there. And they don’t care, and they’re like, “We will help, and we will give this food. And, you know, we got you.” And that spiri…