'PSNI inability to combat ethnic cleansing is leading to loss of confidence in police'

12.00.00am GMT Fri 9th Jan 2004

ALLIANCE Councillor Geraldine Rice has said that the PSNI will lose the confidence of ethnic minorities in South Belfast unless it ends the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the Village and Donegall Road areas.

Cllr Rice, who is a District Policing Partnership member and stood in South Belfast in the recent Assembly election, said it was clear that loyalists were involved in the attacks on the homes of people from ethnic minorities, the denials from the PUP and UPRG.

Cllr Rice said: "It is no secret that the UVF has been involved in extortion rackets focusing on Chinese-owned businesses in South Belfast and that the UDA has been infiltrated by far-right groups like Combat 18 in the Village.

"Together, these groups have engaged in the abuse and ethnic cleansing of minorities in South Belfast. While the numbers of families forced from their homes in the Village and Donegall Road areas is now in the double figures, there has been just one arrest, and not a single conviction.

"The PSNI have described the most recent attack as hate crimes. Alliance has been campaigning for Hate Crimes Legislation for years, and while the Government has promised to introduce it soon, the fact remains that it won't make any difference unless racist criminals are caught first.

"The police are failing ethnic minorities and will lose their confidence until and unless there is a concerted effort to bring the hate-filled racists behind these attacks to justice."