Ballymena

[Ablondiebutagoody]

AIBU to think that this kind of unrest/attack is happening more frequently now? Or did I just not notice before?

NBU - Yes, it's more frequent
ABU - You didn't notice before

Literally just said this to my partner. Best of it is they smash up their own city in the process

The mob have set a migrant centre on fire now. It was housing Romanians. Absolutely horrific scenes, how has it come to this?.

Yep. It's the season for loyalists to burn people not like us out and destroy their own communities causing huge damage and costing loads.

It's disgusting and there's absolutely no excusing or justifying it.

Yeah. That worked out really well the last time they did it in NI.

I didn't see anything like this response to Jeffrey D's allegation and the likes of his kind.

No, because it's got nothing to do with rape or vawg

I feel actually quite shocked that rape rate in NI is high ;(

I haven't heard of any protests or demonstrations against domestic abuse or sexual assault which are at crisis levels in NI. I very much doubt women and children feel safer during the riots.

I keep remembering the clip of them singing about Michaela McAreavey's murder.

NI and Ireland also need to sort out their home grown reproductive rights issues.

I'm from northern Ireland, very close to ballymena and coleraine infact but no longer live there. The racism is disgusting and I'm ashamed of the place. But then I largely left because of the small minded, backward views of the place. I go home a fair bit, miss it when I'm away but am inevitably horrified by the chat from people when I go home. Not my family and friends and also there are so many more progressive people who are not like this but it's like the secterian hatred never healed and turned outward for many. Like a lot of the secterian activity in the 90s and beyond it's born of poverty and a lack of opportunities. There was no government there basically for ages and things like child are hours were never made available in the way they are in the rest of the UK.

I'm so saddened by the footage. I wish I had something more hopeful to say.

Really? A country still recovering from a level of mysogyny that allowed travesties like the magdelene laundries? I'd say northern Ireland is about 20-49 years behind in women's rights and domestic abuse compared to the rest of the UK. Many people still suffer mental health issues as a result of the time during the 'troublee' and everything else was ignored in that time including women's rights and children's rights. The mysogyny of the place (I'm in my 40s and I'd say the younger generation is improving but in my dating days I saw being from northern Ireland as a massive red flag straight away because of the men and boys I'd grown up with)

What do you mean by that?
The Republic of Ireland has different laws to Northern Ireland obviously and I’m curious what reproductive rights issues you mean.

It's still difficult to get an abortion in NI and women regularly travel to England to have one. It's only legal up to 12 weeks.

Clearly you can no idea what you are typing about.

Clearly you don't. Abortion law is not the same as in the rest of the UK.

Were there riots in response to the Ulster rugby players rale trial? Bet she was “a stupied girl making trouble for the lads” . And were there loud cries for Dennis Coulson to be deported from France?

When did I type that it was the same as the rest of the UK?
I lived in NI. My husband is a Belfast born Catholic.
It is a million miles from the UK and has an extremely high number of pro-life, anti abortion activists.
It's a dominated by religion and misogyny on both sides of the coin.

Are the riots in Salford (which have been kept very quiet) for the same reasons, or different?

Yes locals do rape, but I think what people are sick of is the UK importing criminals or would be criminals, unchecked. We really do have enough problems without those that immigration levels are bringing.

Immigration needs to be curbed, not stopped.

Within groups that I mix in, this is increasingly the view of those in the centre-left.

The UK aren't importing criminals unchecked.

I think you are right, a lot of people do share this view and it should not necessarily be defined as “right wing” or “extremist”.

We have enough British/Irish sexual predators without importing anymore. If we had the chance to send British/Irish sexual predators somewhere else we would. But we can’t. Where we are able to send recent immigrant sexual predators back to their country of origin after they have served their sentences we should do so.

But what we cannot have is a conversation in which foreign nationals are automatically condemned for alleged crimes in advance of the court process, while we reserve judgement on “OUR fine upstanding” British/Irish lads until the court process has ended. And so often that process as reported is one in which which “OUR fine upstanding” lads are given the benefit of the doubt and in which their victims are condemned as trouble makers. And that view often prevails even when the details of what they did are available for all to see.

There is a clear, racist, double standard at play. And while it may be true that young men from some countries are more likely to commit sexual crimes than men from other backgrounds we should not loose sight of the fact that only a small number of men from those countries commit this kind of crime.

People in the UK and Ireland are entitled to due process - not judgement by a lynch mob of violent thugs.

@ellie09well put response

A community minister disclosed the name of the centre holding the Immigrants before it was burnt.
Absolutely lawless.

Well, maybe the checks aren't up to scratch.

There's an awful lot of foreigners getting away with petty crime in my area; this would be happening far less if we had more robust immigration and deportation policies.