Burned halal shops, mosques guarded by armed police and talk of racist paramilitary activity. Just a taste of the terror Muslims are witnessing in Belfast as 5Pillars correspondent Robert Carter discovered on his first day arriving in the city, where he found a community under siege as Muslims retreat into their homes, terrified of continued attacks after days of violence:
Day one in Belfast, and the fear is impossible to ignore. For Muslims here, they feel besieged.
It’s Jummah, a day when Muslims of all backgrounds mobilise, coming together to pray, hang out and enjoy each other’s company in and around local community centres and mosques. However, I was stunned to find that at the Belfast Islamic Centre, the masjid stands behind round-the-clock armed police protection. Worshippers are being urged to finish their prayers and leave the area immediately, to return directly home, minimising their time in public. Community leaders are circulating safety advice. Mothers are too worried to let their children out.
More shocking was witnessing the charred remains of halal businesses destroyed in recent violence – a visible reminder of what has happened and what many fear could happen again.
People speak in hushed voices. Some are too frightened to talk at all. Many others confess they are too terrified to leave their homes except when absolutely necessary, placing themselves and their loved ones in total isolation, worried they could be attacked for simply being Muslim. Their fear is not folly. It is due to a very real threat.
As a visitor, it is impossible not to notice. Belfast is a city renowned around the world for its historic sectarian violence and political tribalism. It has endured decades of conflict, division and pain, mostly between settler Unionist Protestants who back the United Kingdom and the mostly Catholic Republicans who advocate for a united Ireland.
After salah, I spoke with Kashif Akram, a trustee of the Belfast Islamic Centre (BIC).
Mr Akram explained the deep fear the recent attacks have caused for Muslims all across Belfast and, although the aggressors were a minority, the threat remained very real.
“We have members of our congregation who are facing racism daily. They are too afraid to come forward. We are encouraging people to come forward but at the same time we don’t want to put people under stress. And this has been building up for some time. A woman who fled Sudan was burned out of her house a year ago. She was targeted because she was a Muslim refugee living in a white area.
“She faced harassment every day. She was assaulted, had her hair pulled out, and burning paper was pushed under her door.”
The BIC is no stranger to Islamophobic hate. In June 2025, a man threw a pipe bomb into the building as Muslims prayed inside. Luckily, no one was harmed.
In August 2024, the mosque was targeted by anti-Muslim far-right protesters during the summer riots, which occurred following the Southport knife attack, another incident where Muslims were blanket blamed for the crime of a Welsh-born lone attacker from a Christian household.
I asked if Mr Akram agreed that what has occurred this week were anti-Muslim pogrom conducted by far-right racists. He agreed.
“These are anti-Muslim pogroms, absolutely. This comes after all the years of demonisation that the right has put on Muslims. And I feel the media has a part to play in this as well. Islam rejects oppression, we don’t support criminal behaviour. They shouldn’t blame all Muslims for the disgusting behaviour of an individual.”
Historic hate, new victims
The latest widespread violence comes after a horrific knife attack by a Sudanese man on June 8, which left a local Stephen Ogilvie, hospitalised in a critical condition. The suspected attacker, Hadi Alodid, who came to Britain as a refugee, has been charged with attempted murder.
The family of the victim said in a statement: “We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward. We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country … We do not want this tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.”
Alas, their efforts to condemn the violence have been widely ignored by far-right agitators who continue to gather each night, posing a continued threat to minorities all across Belfast.
After my time at the Islamic Centre, I walked to a nearby Unionist stronghold, Donegall Road. A Syrian-owned halal shop, the Sham supermarket located on the street, was burned down during the week’s violence. One of several businesses owned by immigrants targeted by racist thugs in the area.
A local, who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of attack, told me this was the second time the shop had been burned down in recent years. The owners have since reportedly decided to abandon the location.
Today, Muslims are a new target of the same violence that has plagued this city in past decades. Pogroms, house burnings, masked men hunting people down in the streets. These are all scenes witnessed this week in predominantly Unionist areas of the city.
The recent unrest that has flared across parts of Northern Ireland has once again exposed uncomfortable truths about the fragility of community relations and the ease with which minorities can become targets when tensions rise. Outside forces have been condemned in recent days for fanning the flames as mobs of masked men mobilized to attack communities.
Reform UK, Tommy Robinson, Elon Musk, Restore UK and GB News are among some of the prominent names, politicians, activists and media platforms which have been accused of weaponizing the bloody knife attack for their benefit, stoking tensions for political or personal gain.
It is worth noting at this stage that not all the protesters gathering in outrage at the knife attack are engaging in violent behaviour and some protest organisers have condemned the violence too.
However, fears are rising that the violence here in Belfast is not spontaneous or organic but premeditated and organised.
Later in the day, I spoke to Sean Murray, a Republican activist and documentary filmmaker based in Belfast. He has produced detailed work on the history of the violence in Northern Ireland and has a clear understanding of how local politics and sectarian divisions work in the city.
He explained the driving force behind various local groups that could be involved in the violence.
“An ethno-supremacist mentality still exists here in the north of Ireland. We have a British Protestant ethno-supremacist state here which has a history of persecuting the Catholic minority. And what you are seeing today, the burning of houses and the attacks on immigrants already happened in the 60s on a much larger scale against the Republicans. We saw pogroms against Catholics; that’s what inspired the peace wall construction.
Murray agreed with the idea I presented that the riots were not random but a planned attempt by racists to chase Muslims out of Belfast.
“There are loyalist paramilitaries involved in these riots. We know this for sure. These groups could stop the violence if they wanted to. That’s how it works here, but they don’t because they are white supremacists with an agenda. They detest immigrants, they detest Republicans, and they idolise other supremacist regimes like Israel and, formerly, the apartheid regime in South Africa. They’d love nothing more than to commit genocide, as the Israelis have done to the Palestinians.
“The Unionist paramilitaries do exist. They are heavily armed. They always are a threat, and it would be silly to think otherwise, but we have faced these challenges before, and we always rise against this. The majority of people in the north do not agree with their agenda and actively oppose it. Muslims should always remember that they will be welcomed in Republican areas and can feel safe here with us.”
Far-right radicalization
Conversations with members of Belfast’s Muslim community reveal a deep sense of vulnerability. Many speak not only about the violence itself but about the uncertainty it creates. Nobody knows whether the worst has passed. Nobody knows where the next incident might occur. Nobody knows whether inflammatory rhetoric online will translate into real-world attacks tomorrow or next week.
It is important to understand that Muslims in Northern Ireland are not outsiders. They are doctors, nurses, teachers, shopkeepers, students and entrepreneurs. They contribute to the economy. They raise families here. They pay taxes here. They volunteer in local charities and community organisations. For many, Northern Ireland is the only home their children have ever known. Yet moments like these remind them that acceptance can sometimes feel conditional.
The irony is impossible to ignore.
Northern Ireland’s history is often told through the lens of division between Protestant and Catholic communities. The Protestants themselves are the descendants of English and Scottish settlers and immigrants who came following the British takeover of Ireland. The plan, to create a loyalist Protestant stronghold in the north, laying the ground for the split between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
That history, combined with the violence during The Troubles, should make Belfast one of the places most sensitive to the dangers of hatred and exclusion. Instead, some appear willing to repeat familiar mistakes by directing anger towards new targets.
An agenda is clearly underway across the UK. Far-right forces backed by foreign regimes and wealthy billionaires are amplifying fear, hate and misinformation centred around the “threat of Islam” to Western civilisation.
The idea that Muslims are dangerous savages who are “coming here to rape white girls en masse” and “lay the ground for a future conquest of the UK” is an idea that is spreading in the minds of impoverished and ignorant white communities across the kingdom.
The organised nature of the violence and the various actors attempting to legitimise the outburst following the June 8 knife attack suggest that Belfast might be a testing ground for future racist violence for the rest of the UK. If the far-right forces that are providing cover or support for the unrest in Belfast manage to secure greater power in Westminster, the prospect of Belfast-style organised hate, burnings, and pogroms seems a real possibility.
After seeing what it looks like here in Belfast, just a short one-hour flight from Manchester, I’d say this alarming hypothetical scenario is perhaps more realistic than some optimists would like to believe. As scary as that is, for now, we must focus our attention on assisting our terrified and widely oppressed brothers and sisters in Belfast who may just be on the front lines of a growing danger that threatens to spread further.
Source: 5pillarsuk.com
