Cars were damaged and paint thrown at walls and vehicles in fresh spate of hate crimes in Northern Ireland's capital

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A fresh wave of race hate attacks directed mainly at Romanian immigrants has occurred in East Belfast.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is investigating a spate of incidents that happened in the east of the city on Monday night.

Paint was thrown at a car in the Rosebery Street area and all its windows were smashed.

Racist slogans including "Romanians out" were daubed on a wall and windows were smashed, paint thrown and a car damaged in two other streets nearby.

All the incidents took place some time before 10.50pm on Monday night in loyalist districts of the city – where most racist attacks occur.

A PSNI spokesman said: "Inquiries are continuing and at this stage police are investigating a link between these incidents and are treating each of them as a hate crime."

East Belfast has been the focus of many of the racist attacks in the city this year.

In one of the worst directed at the Romanian and Roma communities, a young Romanian man was showered with a bag of excrement while cycling down the Lower Newtownards Road.

Last month, a flag from the US racist movement the Ku Klux Klan was also raised in East Belfast although it was taken down after complaints from the community.

The annual benchmark report on human rights and racial equality by the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, released in June, revealed that there were 982 racist incidents in 2013-14 compared with 750 incidents the previous year.

It noted that over the past five years 75% of all complaints to the equality commission in Northern Ireland about harassment in offices, shops or factories were related to racial abuse and intimidation.

Over the past year Northern Ireland has become one of the worst spots for racist crimes and race hate-linked incidents in the UK, but the authors of the report say the region is home to only 1% of all the non-EU/EEA migrants who have come into the UK.