TWO East Belfast councillors have compared the racist attack on the occupants of a car at Connswater Retail Park on Monday night to an attempted lynching – and they've called on Justice Minister Naomi Long to do more to tackle the growing issue of vigilante racism.
 
Three men were surrounded by a crowd of men who attacked the vehicle, shaking it violently and shouting racial abuse at those inside. Those who attacked the car where videoed kicking the vehicle and banging the windows while shouting racist insults at the occupants. At one point one man was seen throwing an object into the open driver’s door. The driver eventually managed drive the car away from the scene.
 
Police have been criticised for not intervening during the terrifying incident.
 
Monday’s attack is just the latest racist incident in East Belfast where in recent weeks gangs of men have been harassing and intimidating people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
 
Brian Smyth is a Green Party Councillor for Lisnasharragh, which encompasses areas of both the East and South of the city. He traces the increasing racist incidents in East Belfast to last year’s racial violence in parts of the North, which he says has "gone unchecked".
 
“There’s been a complete failure of the Stormont Executive, but in particular the Justice Minister," he said. "She has taken five years to implement hate law and hate crime laws. But also there’s been nothing done to challenge the disinformation and the lies from these groups and it’s allowed to go unchecked and I think there’s been a massive failure here from Stormont to deal with this and it has built and it has built and you now have ethnic minorities in inner East Belfast who are terrified and who are frightened for their life.

"But I will say this as well, I have had people from a unionist background, members of the Orange Order, ex-loyalist prisoners contact me and saying they’re horrified by this and they feel let down. This is plain old-fashioned racism and fascism and there is no other way to describe it.

“I agree with what Seamas said on Twitter, it was an attempt at a racial lynching. It was Mississippi in the fifties.”
 
Fellow Lisnasharragh Councillor Seamas de Faoite of the SDLP reiterated his uncompromising words about the Connswater mob attack.
 
“I’ve said this before in relation to some other incidents when people have been targeted in the streets and where we have had attacks on people’s homes and also with what we have seen in Ballymena," he said, "it is a reflection very sadly of the stuff that we have seen happening in the Deep South (of America). It’s racially motivated, it is going to result in people being seriously injured and potentially someone dying and that means that it has all the hallmarks of a lynching. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
 
Those behind the vigilante groups that have emerged in East Belfast justify their racist activities with the excuse that they are concerned about the protection of women and girls – something that Cllr Smyth finds impossible to believe.
 
“There are a few main protagonists behind this and who are whipping this up and they need brought to account,” he pointed out. “As we have seen in recent media reports a number of these people have serious significant criminal records for serious harm to women and children, they are the last people you want protecting women and children. They are absolute vermin.”

While he believes the police are under-resourced, he maintains that they should have intervened on Monday evening.
 
“The police have to look at what happened the other night and should they have intervened when that car was being attacked? There needs to be questions asked there. But in terms of a resource issue, there is a lack of officers on the ground, and that creates a vacuum. There’s been a political vacuum here from Stormont, the Justice Minister, and it’s leading to what we are seeing on the ground, that police numbers are stretched, they are under-resourced and that these scumbags are allowed to operate with impunity and we’ve seen it reach this crescendo on Monday night.”
 
Cllr de Faoite says he is concerned that the message being sent out to people in ethnic minority communities is that "the streets are not safe".
 
“But also,” he added, “that the people perpetrating this are people who clearly have a record or history of targeting women and vulnerable groups of people but who feel that they can get away with this with impunity. 
 
“There is a resource issue for policing but there are also things that policing can get right and better. They are not actively monitoring how these vigilante groups are being organised online. We are seeing a significant backlog in terms of cases coming through for prosecution.
 
“Look at what happened in Britain after the riots last year. You had late night courts, you had expedited sentencing. When there was very clear evidence that people were involved in violence people were put through the justice system pretty quickly and it sent a very strong message of deterrent and whilst there are still protests happening in some parts of England at the moment we are not seeing the groundswell of violence that we are now starting to see in a very regular basis in parts of Belfast.”

The SDLP man said Justice Minister Naomi Long needs to do more.
 
“Last night (Tuesday) she tweeted four times about a spat in the Assembly chamber over standing orders and said nothing about an attempted lynching in her constituency. Where is the leadership here? Once again another issue has been left to councillors on the ground to deal with. We have no authority in relation to Justice. I sit on the Policing and Community Safety Partnership for East Belfast, we therefore have a good working relationship with the police but the only thing we can do with that vehicle is to challenge the police where we think they are getting things wrong or are not living up to the expectations that the community have. We try to do that. Ultimately, though, the Justice Minister has to stand up.”
 
Cllr de Faoite said unionist representatives in East Belfast have to show more leadership when it comes to racism.
 
“Why is unionism continuing to chase Farage down this right wing, racist and xenophobic rabbit hole?” he asked.

“It’s not my job to sell the union, it’s quite the opposite. I want a pluralist and inclusive new Ireland, but if I were a unionist I would be looking at how to build the broadest possible coalition to vote to remain in the union in an eventual referendum, which is coming.

"Instead they are narrowing the parameters of what unionism looks like. And instead that means for those of us who want to argue for constitutional change and to build something new that we have a much broader audience of people who we can speak to and say, we will guarantee your rights in a new Ireland, we will build something that is inclusive, we will reject division and racism and all of the nonsense of the far right and we will do that in a way that makes sure that people feel safe and comfortable in their communities and that’s the right way to do it."