It seems they are Romany, Dog .... Here is an excerpt from a long "special report" in the Mail:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194358/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-As-hate-filled-mobs-drive-Romanian-gipsies-Ulster-ask-whos-REALLY-blame.html
(The sight of) foreigners being evacuated with their belongings were received with horror.
This, after all, is a city still nervously emerging from decades of violence and bloodshed. The last thing anyone wants to see is new fissures in Ulster’s tragic history of ethnic hatred.
Indeed, so appalled was Naomi Long, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, that she was in tears when she was asked about the violence.
‘A minority of people in this city have brought shame on us and I urge the good people of Belfast, the overwhelming majority, to co-operate with the police and bring the perpetrators of these racist attacks to justice.’
As Gordon Brown called on the authorities to take all possible action to end the violence, and former IRA terrorists now sharing power condemned those involved in the violence, Mrs Long pledged to do everything possible to persuade the Romanians to stay in Northern Ireland.
‘If they go back to Romania, the thugs will think they have won,’ she added. ‘That is the last thing we want. We must find them permanent new homes.’
Not everyone shares her sentiments. There was fury in The Village, a rugged working-class area a mile from the attacks, some of whose residents joined the mob wanting to drive the Roma out.
With murals of the Queen painted on walls and Union Jacks fluttering from virtually every window, the people of The Village are incensed at the ‘special treatment’ they say immigrants receive, while they themselves live in grim terrace homes with outside toilets.
‘These people are sly,’ said Annie Johnson, a local woman. ‘It’s all just a racket — they put on their sad faces and get moved to the top of the queue for housing.
‘Politicians are full of cr*p. They leap into action at the first mention of racism — but what about the poor people who have lived here all their lives?’
Opinion has been inflamed not only by the crimes the police and locals agree some of the Roma commit — but also by the fact that no one has even been able to debate the issue of their presence in the city without being accused of racism .
Ian Magill, 45, runs the only shop in The Village, which was once a stronghold for Loyalist terrorists. He is a calm, intelligent man, whose greatest wish is that his three sons do not get into trouble with the law.
Dominic, his youngest son, was adopted from Croatia, so Mr Magill can hardly be described as someone with a hatred of foreigners.
Romanians arrive with some possessions at the Ozone Leisure Centre
Romanians arrive with some possessions at the Ozone Leisure Centre
But he is under no illusions about why people from his area were involved in the violence.
‘People feel like they are under siege because of all the immigrants coming in,’ he said. ‘It’s getting to the stage where people just don’t care any more.
‘You get branded a racist if you speak out about the issue of immigration. But I think I’m being a realist, not a racist, when I say that this is something we must address.
‘Most of the Polish immigrants work — but these people
don’t,’ he added.
‘They are pretty uneducated and they seem to think that the only way they can survive is to bend the rules.
‘But when you are doing this, and carrying out crimes against local people, it becomes a problem. They shouldn’t be here.’
Not all Mr Magill’s fellow citizens are as considered as he is. At a nearby off-licence, a young, welldressed man of about 30 erupts in anger.
He says all these ‘foreigners should be burned out of their f****** homes. All we hear about are their problems. For once, why don’t you write about the problems these people cause to us locals’.
He is referring to a wave of petty crime that has swept Belfast over the past two years — the period in which the Roma have arrived.
The crimes, confirmed by police, range from ‘mobbing’ elderly ladies at cashpoint machines, distracting them while they steal cash, to using razor blades to slice the straps of handbags and disappear with possessions before anyone knows.
Roma have also been linked with prostitution and people trafficking. But it is the petty crimes that are causing such fury.
Countless people I spoke to in The Village reported clothes being stolen from their washing lines — one man claimed to have seen a Roma wearing his distinctive jeans, which had disappeared while hanging out to dry, only for the thief to laugh in his face — and children’s bikes being taken from back yards.
Of course, no one is suggesting that every Roma in Belfast is a criminal. And it’s also true that many in the province are deeply troubled by the presence of any foreigners, however law-abiding they might be.
Northern Ireland during The Troubles was hardly an ideal destination to start a new life — with more than 3,000 murdered during the decades of bloodshed between Catholics and Protestants.
Things changed after the 1998 peace agreement, however, and as Britain’s borders were thrown open by Tony Blair, Ulster became a popular destination for immigrants from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe.
The British government, of course, insisted that only 20,000 people would come from Europe. In reality, a staggering 600,000 poured into the United Kingdom, putting a huge strain on health services, housing and jobs.
But it was the admission of Romania to the EU in 2007 that caused the gravest problems.
Interpol has since warned that organised criminals among the Romanian immigrants are stealing from indigenous populations on the orders of gangsters back home.
British police said last year that they were struggling to cope with a staggering 800 per cent increase in crimes, such as pickpocketing, committed by Romanians since they started coming to Britain in large numbers.
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As I said above, hurling accusations of "racism" solves nothing, however much it may warm the cockles of "progressive" hearts. We need to ask what is the cause of the anger.
Now we know.