On Monday night, a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder in relation to a knife attack, that was filmed and shared across social media. The footage was shared by multiple far-right channels, encouraging a protest in reponse to the violent act.
X owner Elon Musk shared a post announcing locations of the protests and a post that read, "Do not make peace with evil. Destroy it."
Police and political leaders in Belfast urged the public to be cautious and not to act before they know all of the facts of the situation. Director of research at Hope Not Hate, Joe Mulhall told the Guardian that when something horrifying happens, the public tend to attach the event to a narrative. For this instance, he said the far right are pushing a narrative that mass migrations "is the reason" for the brutal knife attack.
On BBC's Good Morning Ulster, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher asked people to desist from violent disorder. He said: "We live in a democracy. If there is to be a debate about immigration, if there is to be a debate about any key issues, that's through politicians and elected mandate that will occur next May. Do not, do not, act in a way that literally brings this place into a disrepute that it doesn't deserve. This is an incredible place, Northern Ireland, absolutely fabulous. We lobbied continually for people to recognise how great Northern Ireland is. Last night took us back seismically."
The Guardian described the violent events that occured on Tuesday night, as masked men approached a boarded up house on a residential street near Belfast’s Shankill Road, whilst a woman that is reportedly from an ethnic background was on the top floor. The masked men rushed to the front door and threw bricks at the windows of the house. Reports have stated that a young girl was inside the house during the attack.
A man who was wearing a skull mask told people to put their phones away, whilst chaos unfolded and cars were set alight.
In a Unionist area in east Belfast, the masked men set fire to bins and pushed them onto a bus, which caused bus services to be suspended. Reports state that several hundred people stayed to watch the burning bus. Three home were also torched throughout the violent event.
Boutcher told the BBC that those involved in Tuesday nights disorder will be prosecuted. He also claimed that the response to the violence from politicians was "really positive." "Last night there were so many local community leaders, MLAs, on the streets trying their very best to dissuade these young people from doing what they're doing - who, by the way, we will go and arrest and prosecute, and their lives will be changed forever," he said.
"They won't be able to do the jobs they want to do, their futures will be damaged in ways that they just don't understand," he continued.
Boutcher told the BBC that the PSNI had to rescue many families during the violent event with a two month old baby being among those rescued. "Last night we rescued so many families. Taking families - a baby as young as two months - out of their address to safety, taking them to police stations," he said.
"And by the way, these weren't just families from ethnic minority communities, these were families from across communities that were caught up in this vile behaviour last night. There is absolutely no excuse for it," he continued.
