Websites encourage racist attacks

British based far-right websites are publishing the details of black and Asian workers and of anti-racist activists in the North and are actively encouraging violent attacks on ethnic minorities.

A Sunday newspaper discovered the extremist websites, which carry people's photographs, addresses, telephone numbers and work details in an attempt to encourage racist attacks.

The British-based sites have more contributions from the Six Counties than from anywhere else.

Many of the contributors voice support for unionist paramilitaries and state that their aim is to drive out ethnic minorities.

The most vicious and extensive racist violence is by unionist paramilitaries across the North. The UVF collaborates with Combat 18 and the White National Party.

The Combat 18 website glorifies these racist attacks and one contributor foulmouthedly lauded an attack on three Nigerians in South Belfast last month:

"Three coons have been forcibly evicted from South Belfast after a suspect device was found in the back garden of their house. It was only a firework but the end result is all that matters. The three niggers have moved out. Keep Ulster white."

The site also contains photos of black men with white women in a popular Belfast nightclub and states "Race mixing white slags with their mud coloured ethnic boyfriends are condemned". It calls for "these dives" to be shut down.

The Redwatch website carries the photograph, home address and phone number of executive director of the Six-County Council for Ethnic Minorities, Patrick Yu.

The site contains photographs of anti-racist and anti-war activists under the headline, "Any further information on the freaks below will be gratefully received. Contact Redwatch urgently."

Yu said he was disgusted by these sites: "Before, these people put up names of nationalists and republicans; now they are trying to encourage attacks on ethnic minorities and gays," he said.

In the year to April 2004, there were 453 racial incidents reported to the PSNI, but only eight prosecutions, with another two pending.

Immigration lawyer Barbara Muldoon believes there is institutional racism. "I know of no other crime with such a low prosecution rate. The PSNI's commitment to tackling racism must be seriously questioned."