Man (34) charged over attack on Belfast Islamic Centre
A man has been charged in relation to an attack on Belfast Islamic Centre.
A viable device was thrown through a window of the centre during evening prayer on Friday.
Police cordoned off the area and the public were encouraged to avoid it.
On Sunday, a man aged 34 was charged with a number of offences including attempted arson with intent to endanger life.
READ MORE
He was also charged with attempt to cause an explosion, making explosives with intent to endanger life and criminal damage.
He is expected to appear before Belfast Magistrates' Court on Monday.
The attack has been criticised by politicians over the weekend. - PA
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Man (34) charged over attack on Belfast Islamic Centre
A man has been charged in relation to an attack on Belfast Islamic Centre. A viable device was thrown through a window of the centre during evening prayer on Friday. Police cordoned off the area and the public were encouraged to avoid it. On Sunday, a man aged 34 was charged with a number of offences including attempted arson with intent to endanger life. READ MORE He was also charged with attempt to cause an explosion, making explosives with intent to endanger life and criminal damage. He is expected to appear before Belfast Magistrates' Court on Monday. The attack has been criticised by politicians over the weekend. - PA
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
PSNI investigate if Belfast Islamic Centre attack was a hate crime
Police are investigating whether an attack on the Belfast Islamic Centre was a hate crime after a viable device was thrown through a window. A man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Northern Ireland's Minister for Justice, Naomi Long , has described the attack as 'abhorrent' and 'absolutely despicable'. A viable device was thrown through a window of the centre during evening prayer on Friday. A 34-year-old man was arrested and police are investigating whether the incident was a hate crime. READ MORE The Alliance Party leader said it was 'despicable' that people were afraid to go to their place of worship. 'I think it was an abhorrent attack on people who were at worship, and I think that for any of us, we would accept that that is just not acceptable,' Ms Long told the BBC's Sunday Politics programme. 'This is not who we want to be as [a] society. It's not what we want to be known for around the world. 'I think it is despicable that people are afraid to go to their place of worship, afraid to go to live in their own homes or go to their school or go to their workplace because of fear of attack because of the colour of their skin or their religion. 'That just isn't acceptable, and that needs to be condemned unequivocally by everyone in society.' Ms Long was also asked about policing resources in the wake of riots across Northern Ireland, which have been criticised as 'racist thuggery' by police. After disorder broke out in Ballymena for several nights after an alleged sexual assault of a girl, disturbances spread to other areas of Northern Ireland including Portadown, Larne, Belfast, Carrickfergus, Derry and Coleraine. The Stormont Executive pledged an extra £5 million (€5.8 million) for the Police Service of Northern Ireland to respond. Ms Long said that most of that funding had already been spent as the disorder had been a 'drain' on resources. [ Ballymena: Week of violent attacks on Northern Ireland's small immigrant community 'akin to 1930s Germany' Opens in new window ] 'It's hugely frustrating at a time when our justice system is so stretched that we have people not just putting pressure on the resources of the PSNI, but destroying their own communities at a cost to everyone in our society, because that will all have to be repaired and rebuilt,' she said. – PA
Irish Times
17 hours ago
- Irish Times
Irish influencers trolled on Tattle life: ‘They said I'm a bad mum. That I'm ugly. They wrote my address on it'
Earlier this week, Co Antrim entrepreneurs Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 (€352,000) in libel damages following a defamation and harassment lawsuit over abusive comments posted on gossip website Tattle Life. Tattle Life describes itself as a platform for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'. Users post messages and discuss influencers and others with an online profile, many of whom complain they are being trolled. A number of Irish influencers have been the subject of negative 'threads' on Tattle Life. The judge in the case, heard in Belfast , said it had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing the anonymous trashing of people's reputations. The site was revealed on Friday, June 13th, as being operated by UK national Sebastian Bond. Julie Haynes' Instagram account Twins and Me has 218,000 followers. She first became aware of Tattle Life when one of her own online followers sent her a link to a comment posted about her on the site, she says. READ MORE 'I was sent a screenshot and then I went on and I was scrolling through the threads, and I was like, what the hell? ... They were saying stuff like I take drugs.' None of it was true, she says. 'Writing stuff like that is absolutely horrific,' Haynes says, but it didn't stop there. Haynes' father died during Covid. 'We had five people at the funeral. Me, my mam, my brother and my twins. And we had a camera set up in the church because we were allowed to do that at the time, and you just basically livestreamed it and family and friends at home were able to tune in. The link then was put up on Tattle Life and every single one of my trolls tuned in.' Her young son needed to go to the toilet during the funeral, and so she brought him. Comments followed that she had 'walked out of the church' and that the funeral was like 'an episode of EastEnders'. 'Every single move I made' was commented on, Haynes says. 'She's drunk, that's why she's run out of the church. She had to go get sick.' Julie Haynes and her children Erin Rose and Fionn Haynes says she has seen comments stating that she's 'a bad mum. That I'm ugly'. Her mother had breast cancer two years ago and had a mastectomy. Haynes shared her mother's experience with her followers, but because her mother's recovery was deemed quick by some she was accused of making the story up 'for content'. 'They wrote my address on it, saying that 'I'd love to go down Julie's house in X and kick ... her. They write about my children all the time. What they call my kids is absolutely horrific, they screenshot them. I'm so, so upset.' [ Women in Ireland increasingly subjected to online hate and misogyny, groups warn Opens in new window ] Haynes says she has considered taking her children offline. 'No one should be calling these children those names,' she says. Her social media presence is an income source. 'Only for my social media, I'd have nothing,' she says. 'I'm a single mum … I do all this for my kids. And the only way I can go for [a] mortgage is by working. To earn a couple of bob I do my social media but these trolls, then, are trying to ruin it.' For brands looking to work with influencers, 'the first thing you do is check Google and the first thing that pops up when you put in my name is all these Tattle threads'. Louise Cooney has 250,000 followers on Instagram. She became aware of Tattle Life around the time of the Covid pandemic. 'It has completely changed my life for the last five years. It's something I've never spoken about. It's incredibly traumatising and hurtful. Some of the things that have been said and written, and not having control over your digital footprint in that way, is really upsetting,' says Cooney. Louise Cooney: 'It's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules' 'It's made me less trusting of people,' she says. 'It makes me second-guess people's intentions. And it makes me question everything that I do, how I share.' She says it's good to be cautious about sharing. Cooney stays away from the site as much as possible. She says she doesn't want the upset and stress it causes her to have an impact on her toddler son. 'Once or twice I've had a weak moment ... All it does is upset me. Why do I look? But then, if you know it's there and other people can read it, sometimes curiosity can get the better of you,' she says. 'We grew up in a generation ... we're the first ones doing this, and it's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules.' Cooney says some people who believe that comment posted on the internet is anonymous and that they can't be traced perhaps don't realise that 'technology is advancing all the time. And of course it can be traced.' The experience has had an effect on her mental health: 'I definitely experience anxiety because of it.' Sisters Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone have, combined, almost 66,000 followers on Instagram and run the Mums on the Run group on Facebook. Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone Jordan first became aware of Tattle Life a few years ago when someone sent her a link to a thread, after she had been on the Elaine show with presenter Elaine Crowley on Virgin Media. Jordan had kept her job, working in frontline homeless services, very separate from her online presence, never speaking about her work due to its sensitive nature, she says. 'So to have people go on there and say this is what I do, keep an eye out for me, it put me in danger … I never shared that information ever. How dare anybody do that? But then it evolved into calling me an alcoholic. No such thing, never was. This is stuff that could actually affect my real-life job.' She describes what happens on Tattle Life as 'systemic harassment and abuse'. Tattle Life has had a 'massive' impact on Stone. She says there have been posts saying her children have a 'horrendous upbringing' and that they 'hate' her. 'They tried to savage my kids, my older kids, their dress sense, their fashion sense, their choices – everything,' Stone says. She says she has mostly stopped attending events. 'I think it's because I don't want to put myself out there any more to be slapped down every time. It's constantly in your head.' 'I've stopped going out generally. Other than school runs and groceries ... I've a tiny friend circle,' she says.
