It seems that the start of August is becoming a moment when we look back at the previous year’s racially motivated violence. Last year, we were about to publish a series of blogs on the racially motivated violence of August 2023 - the racist destruction of a Sudanese owned computer shop on Sandy Row, the arson attack of a Syrian owned business on Donegall Road, which could have claimed the lives of the inhabitants of the flat above, Nazi flags being flown close to the mosque at Dunmurry– when a new wave of racist violence erupted.

The problem of racist violence and intimidation is of course, not a new one - rather it has been bubbling away in Northern Ireland for decades, made more complex by the undoubted involvement of loyalist paramilitary actors, providing an infrastructure and support to perpetrators of far-right and racist violence.

In recent days, Freedom of Information media reports have also shown that 40% of those arrested across the 27 towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland which saw racially motivated violence last August had been reported previously for domestic violence - highlighting the link between misogyny and bigotry and making many of us more aware than ever to the repercussions of violence across all aspects of our society.

What is the picture now? Well, this July alone, effigies of asylum seekers have been burnt on the top of a Moygashel bonfire, a group has attacked some homeless people sleeping in tents on waste ground in Belfast, sending one of them to hospital, and protests and racist [mistakenly anti-Muslim] graffiti have been directed against the Coptic Christian Church in North Belfast. That follows a June attack on a mosque in Belfast in which an assailant, later arrested, broke a window and threw a viable device inside as people were at prayer inside.

At PPR, as elsewhere, much of this year has been spent trying to support people directly impacted by the violence and its aftermath. How are they, and how are their children? How have they been impacted by their experiences? Have they tried to access justice, and if so did it work? Have they been reassured or helped by the response of public bodies and elected representatives to the violence?

One example is three of the businesses owners who lost everything after the targeted attacks on their premises in August 2024 - accruing losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds. All three men had arrived in the UK seeking asylum, all three had received refugee status, and like thousands of others, all three had worked hard to build their lives again, contributing jobs and tax income into the local economy. Their story was one of creation, which was to be met locally with mindless destruction, not once, not twice, but a total of eight times between them, over the years.

Cumulative attacks, such as those experienced by the business owners - a brick, graffiti, a small fire, broken glass - are not simply designed to cause fear and intimidation. They are designed to have people call upon their insurance company, which after the second, third or fourth attacks, simply refuse to provide cover (or, in one case, insured the business, with the exception of cases of ‘riot’). The ‘drip drip drip’ of repeat attacks drives up the cost and risk of doing business, pushes businesses into the arms of paramilitary protection rackets or wears them down to the extent that they just give up and move on. In the 21st century, people threatened by changes in their formerly ‘white only’ streets are falling back on tried and true methods from the sectarian past.

The Criminal Damage Compensation Scheme administered by the Department of Justice is theoretically intended to cover such cases. This process is still in motion at time of writing, but we are given to understand that businesses are being offered only around a quarter of their outlay. As we reported back in 2023, the scheme remains narrowly drawn, is difficult to access without legal support, rejects the great majority of applications, and remains impervious to equality monitoring which might help policy makers to understand more about who are the victims of criminal damage. The refusal of the scheme to compensate victims of racist violence during the 2023 attacks led Geraldine Hanna, Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime for Northern Ireland, to call it unfit for purpose. She indicated then that barriers to the scheme are hindering victims from getting ‘appropriate financial redress.’

In the aftermath of the 2024 attacks, and to its credit, Belfast City Council quickly passed a motion in support of the targeted businesses, initially brought by the SDLP and Greens and then amended by Sinn Fein to include “a programme of financial assistance.” However, once the warm words were done, it took almost 9 months for such a programme to be agreed, only for businesses to then receive an offer of £4,000 – a tiny amount when set against the value of their losses. Tens of thousands of people engaged with this story across multiple media platforms, over a hundred galvanised to contact the Council to express their displeasure, through PPR’s Take Action page.

The business owners themselves contrast their experience of fighting to be offered £4,000 in support with the £5,000 available to those who have experienced traffic disruption and a reduction in footfall in Sandy Row because of the closure of the Boyne Bridge for roadworks earlier this year. Both businesses have made an application to the scheme, which local and Assembly politicians advocated hard for, and which was put in place very promptly - a sharp contrast to the experience of businesses destroyed by racist violence.