BBC
One of the vehicles at the scene of the attack
A landlord, who is housing Filipino workers in a number of properties near Ballymena, County Antrim, has said he fears for his own safety and theirs.
Sam Carson spoke to BBC News NI after six vehicles were burnt and destroyed outside a house in Lisnevenagh Road where six of his tenants live.
The tenants, who are employed by a large business nearby, were inside the property when the cars were targeted on Sunday night.
Police are treating the arson attack as a racially-motivated hate crime.
Sam Carson is a farmer and landlord of the property
A farmer and a landlord, Mr Carson said he has been the victim of an “online hate campaign” and thinks the attack is related to his decision to house Filipinos.
Mr Carson said they have lived in the house for two years, and he described them as “peaceful people, working hard”.
Speaking to BBC News NI he said he had never experienced any trouble, until the Ballymena riots in June.
“Since the riots, we’ve had a hate campaign on TikTok, against myself and against my tenants, but thought nothing of it.
“Some people in Ballymena do not like foreign nationals, even though they are good working people, they don’t understand that.”
He added: “Social media has a real problem with misinformation, and there seems there is nothing the police can do.”
‘Very fearful’
Mr Carson said he “complained 10 days ago to police officers about the online hate” he was receiving and was told they could do “nothing”.
“Our names were published and our address and directions to our farm were given online and the police could do nothing,” he said.
He added: “Now if they can do nothing, the politicians have to sort that out. Something has to change.”
“It wears you down. We basically knew we were going to be attacked and the police said they could do nothing, and then we were attacked.”
Mr Carson said “politicians are failing us” and he believes they should “try and tone down the racial tensions”.
He also said “something really should be done” about the misinformation spreading on social media.
Mr Carson said “everybody was afraid” during the attack on Sunday.
“We were in great panic. We didn’t know whether we would be attacked. We saw flames on the vehicles and it was all a great shock,” adding “everybody was very fearful”.
Six vehicles were destroyed in the attack
One of the Filipino victims, who did not want to be named, spoke to BBC News NI about the ordeal.
“I didn’t expect this, I was just planning on getting some sleep and going to work tomorrow.
“This has never happened before. We’ve lived here for about two and a half years.”
Confused by the attack, the man said he “didn’t know we had enemies here”.
“We didn’t come here for any reason, Filipinos are in every country, just for work, we are not illegal, we pay tax.
“Please don’t attack us personally, we can fix everything in a peaceful way.”
‘Take responsibility’
The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) MP for the area, Jim Allister, said the attacks were “wrong” and that “we are taking steps with the police and with TikTok”.
Speaking on the Nolan Show, Allister added that “those who were attacked are lawful migrants”.
“They came here on work visas. They’re not illegals. They’re not undocumented. They didn’t come here until they had a job to go to.”
Mr Carson, who was also on the programme, said: “The problem of illegal immigrants has been blown out of proportion” and said many of the Roma people that “were put out of Ballymena were working hard in the food processing factories”.
The Alliance MLA, Eoin Tennyson, called on politicians to “take responsibility for our language”.
He also said the nature of the debate on immigration “has created an environment where this kind of violence has flourished”.
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MLA, Jon Burrows, said: “I am surprised that the police did not find a crime there of incitement or some other form of criminal harassment.
“To start posting the details and the address of someone who houses legal migrants and spread dis-information about them, in my view, is likely to be a crime,” he added.
“I think we need to review that and make sure the police are doing their job on that, but of course we have a police service that is being run down.”
“I’m asking for additional patrolling of that area but of course the police will have very little resources to do that. Their ability to swiftly investigate crime has been compromised,” he said.
A police spokesperson said: “We received a report at around 10.10pm that six vehicles had been set alight and were destroyed.
“Our enquiries are ongoing and, at this time, we are treating this as arson with a racially-motivated hate element.
“We are appealing to anyone who might have any information which may assist us, to get in touch.”
Rise in race hate crime in NI
On Thursday three homes in north Belfast were attacked.
A house occupied by a woman and her two children, aged 12 and 14, had the living room window smashed and graffiti saying “locals only” was daubed on walls
Another house in Manor Street and one in nearby Summerhill Court, were also damaged.
Police are investigating a potential link between all three incidents.
And on Saturday a window was smashed and graffiti daubed on the wall of a property in the Killaughey Road area of Donaghadee in County Down.
A woman and her three young children were in the property at the time of the attack, which police have said was racially motivated.
Recent data showed race hate crime is at a record level in Northern Ireland.
In the 12 months to the end of June, there were 1,329 crimes with a race motivation.
This was up by 434 year-on-year and was the highest figure since records began in 2004.
