Violence monetised: How livestreamers on TikTok turned Ballymena's unrest into a profitable spectacle

Kurtis Reid, Belfast Telegraph, June 14th, 2025

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS GOT UP CLOSE TO BRING FOOTAGE OF RACIST RIOTING TO VIEWERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

It could be the opening sequence of a Netflix dystopian drama: smoke curling through a housing estate in Ballymena, voices rising in anger, a dozen phone screens glowing like lanterns against the dark.

Across the road, the camera focuses on the unfolding events as shouts crackle through the night. This isn't just a riot — it's content.

As petrol bombs arc overhead and fireworks slice through the sky, livestreamers jostle for position.

On TikTok, their comment feeds pulse with fire emojis, donations and one repeated instruction: “Get closer!”

Behind every burst of violence, someone is chasing engagement.

For the past week, Ballymena — along with pockets of unrest in east Belfast, Newtownabbey, Larne and Coleraine — has become the latest flashpoint in Northern Ireland's uneasy social terrain.

The spark: protests following the reported sexual assault of a teenage girl in Ballymena. Two boys, who required a Romanian interpreter when they appeared in court, have been charged.

What supposedly began as demonstrations has, in some areas, spilled into sustained violence with more than 60 PSNI officers injured, cars and buildings set alight, families forced to flee, and widespread damage.

The trouble has filled days of TV news bulletins and newspaper column inches. But for many, the frontline hasn't been the Six O'Clock News — it's TikTok Live. Footage from attendees on the ground, streamed in real time, has drawn enormous audiences, some of whom are rewarding their streamer with 'gifts', on-screen graphics shared which result in real money being awarded to the account.

One live steamer had ten times BBC’s Air India crash report

One livestream from Ballymena reached more than 50,000 concurrent viewers — 10 times that of a BBC News TikTok live covering Thursday's Air India crash, despite the broadcaster's 8.5 million followers.

Some riot clips have racked up millions of 'likes' — TikTok's metric for appreciation, handed out with a simple tap. The money might be small — for now — but as interest grows, so does the revenue.

This isn't simply a new form of reporting — it's a new kind of participation, a digital proximity that pulls the viewer into the scene — and blurs the lines between journalism, activism and entertainment.

It also raises an uncomfortable question: are these livestreams about protest or profit?

Among the most visible TikTok figures this week is 27-year-old Jonny Hanlon, a Ballymena local.

Until recently, his account was a modest one, featuring car videos and clips of his personal vehicle.

He had around 3,000 followers — just enough to unlock TikTok's live streaming function.

That changed this week. Hanlon's nightly TikTok Lives — some stretching over several hours — have captured crowd interviews, police standoffs, and petrol bombs thrown just metres from the camera.

One stream, filmed on Tuesday night near the street where the alleged assault is said to have taken place, drew nearly 40,000 live viewers and more than a million 'likes'.

His following has now grown to close to 30,000, while his bank account has also seen a small increase.

Asked why he began livestreaming the unrest, Hanlon told this newspaper: “I have been doing it for my safety — mine and other people around me.

“There's been more than one million people on my live streams, just before I ended the stream I had 2.2 million likes on it.”

‘I’m a popular person’

He admits he attended the 'protest' and said he was asked to go live on his TikTok account by his followers after uploading some videos. “I'm a popular person, and people kept saying to me 'Jonny, go live' and I think I was the only one who did it, I just went for it.”

Hanlon said so far he's made close to £40 — as he wasn't in TikTok's creator fund (a monetisation programme that allows eligible creators to earn money based on the views and engagement) prior to his live streams, meaning he couldn't cash out most of the gifts sent to him.

“I've only just got it, because I'm up to nearly 30,000 followers now, it's mental, one of my videos is sitting at two million views, 2,000 comments and 7,000 shares.

“The first night (on Monday) I went live and then I went again and everyone was telling me to go live again. Ever since Wednesday my phone hasn't stopped, I've had people reaching out to me from Jamaica, Canada and America telling me they're watching. People have been telling me to go to Coleraine and Larne and all, and video there.”

Hanlon also admits he is enjoying his new-found viral fame videoing riots, which political leaders have slammed, and which the First Minister called “racist” earlier this week.

“People are coming up to me, asking for shoutouts and all, which I don't want to do, because it was about safety.”

Another prolific user, who spoke on condition of anonymity, admits he purposely attended the protest because of the “hype” and “people making money from the streams”.

“I had one stream that lasted over two hours and I got about 7,000 new followers from it, with the live itself getting one million likes. At one point I had around 15,000 live viewers,” the TikTok streamer, who now has close to 10,000 followers, said.

“I went down to go live, I've around 10,000 coins (the currency TikTok uses to send gifts) sent to me, so you do the maths.”

Tik Tok gifts

According to TikTok, just over 10,000 coins roughly equates to just below £100. “(It's) based on the demand of people who enjoyed my commentary,” he said, when asked about attending another protest.

“I probably will go down again, it's an opportunity to make a few quid while also promoting my page.”

When asked to explain if there was any other reason for his live streams, he added: “There's a lot of misinformation going about too, I saw loads of different races at the protests too.”

On Thursday evening, the account posted a TikTok story asking followers: “Where is going to be the maddest place tonight?”

Lana Kearney, who is from Belfast, is a social media expert who advises creators on TikTok on how to grow their platform. She said she has noticed the recent trend of people placing themselves at the forefront of events simply for social media gain.

“There are people who deliberately go to events so that they can go live on TikTok and grow their following — absolutely,” she said.

“TikTok are really pushing lives at the minute. They're incentivising it — both for creators and for viewers.”

She added that a simple search for 'Ballymena' results in various live streams being presented — but added that the content, which does show often violent scenes, can regrettably slip by the app's moderation.

“TikTok has community guidelines for live streams: no smoking, vaping or drinking for example,” she added.

“They say you can't show any behaviour that incites violence or harms others — but enforcement is very hit and miss. The system relies heavily on the algorithm, and it doesn't always get it right. Some harmful content gets flagged and removed. Some doesn't.”

TikTok was approached for comment.

Boutcher has upset ‘business as usual’ for the securocrats

OPINION: John Ware, Irish News, June 14th, 2025

OUT of sight and certainly out of the minds of the rest of the United Kingdom, a constitutional crisis is rumbling away in Northern Ireland that ought to matter to everyone.

To the Northern Ireland Office, the chief constable of the PSNI Jon Boutcher has had the effrontery to challenge MI5’s veto on what information should be disclosed to the families of relatives who were murdered with the involvement of state agents.

These were agents that either MI5, or more usually, special branch and the military, employed during the conflict.

It is this issue – of who ultimately has the final say over disclosure of secret intelligence – that more than any other has paralysed the vexed question of how to deal with the conflict’s many still unsolved killings.

This week, the matter came before the Supreme Court in London.

Although the High Court and the Appeal Court have sided with Boutcher in favour of more disclosure to relatives in several yet to be held inquests, the secretary of state Hilary Benn has been persuaded by the men in suits to dig in, as has been the case with all his predecessors.

On Wednesday Sir James Eadie, the KC acting for the government, made the extraordinary suggestion that Boutcher might even consider resigning if he couldn’t accept the secretary of state’s decision over what constitutes a threat to national security.

Nothing electrifies a public spat quite so much as those two words: national security.

For when the crown submits to the highest court in the land that a chief constable – a chief constable no less! – might want to pack his bags because he disagrees about how to safeguard the nation, it implies a metaphorical fox has been let loose in the henhouse of state security.

Of course, any idea that Boutcher might be some kind of latter-day subversive in police uniform would be preposterous.

Prior to becoming chief constable, working hand in hand with MI5, he locked up a load of Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Challenging the status quo

But now he’s come to Belfast the securocrats don’t like him any more because he’s upset business as usual, the first chief constable to publicly challenge their status quo.

For his part, Eadie is the kind of barrister who dominates the court: fluent, a master of detail, exuding a level of confidence.

On Wednesday Eadie accused Boutcher of “playing politics” by usurping Benn’s role in deciding what does and does not constitute a threat to national security.

Eadie didn’t say what sort of politics, but it sounded as if he regards Boutcher so openly siding with conflict victims as a kind of popularity ploy.

“I wonder if that’s a fair characterisation” Lord Hodge interjected.

“I mean, presumably, the chief constable is wanting to do as much as he can to reassure all the communities in Northern Ireland about the fairness of policing.”

That does indeed seem to be what Boutcher has been about.

Legacy wrangles undermining legitimacy

The continuing wrangle over legacy is inhibiting the recruitment of nationalist officers, essential to healing the divisions in Northern Ireland society.

The case before the Supreme Court goes to the heart of Boutcher’s attempts to free Northern Ireland from decades of paralysing government secrecy.

It concerns the 1994 sectarian murder of Paul ‘Topper’ Thompson by a loyalist death squad in which a state agent, or agents, are suspected to have been involved.

Boutcher had prepared a summary or ‘gist’ of the intelligence available in his murder, telling the Coroner Louisa Fee he was satisfied this limited disclosure would not breach national security.

Advised by MI5, Benn disagreed and judicially reviewed the coroner’s decision to release the ‘gist’.

Benn lost in both the high court and at appeal which is why the case has ended up at the Supreme Court.

Upon the outcome of Thompson, however, depend several other inquests into murders involving state agents.

A ‘gist’ produced at the inquest into the 1997 murder of Sean Brown, a 61-year-old GAA official, revealed that more than 25 people had been linked by intelligence to his death, including several state agents.

Jon Boutcher has challenged the NCND policy

Last April, Mr Justice Kinney, a high court judge acting as coroner, said he was unable to continue the inquest because of the sheer scale of confidential material being excluded by the government under a ministerially signed public interest immunity certificate.

He suggested there should instead be a public inquiry to “examine the full circumstances of the killing”.

Boutcher supported the judge arguing that gists can safely be disclosed without compromising national security. To suggest otherwise was “poppycock”.

He’s also pledged “unfettered and unredacted access” to PSNI files about the case, saying the Brown family had been “failed by the establishment”.

Boutcher’s own unfettered turn of phrase is not the kind of language the securocrats who’ve ruled the roost for decades are used to.

He complains that nowhere else in the UK is NCND (Neither Confirm Nor Deny) applied as extensively as it is in Northern Ireland.

And it is a fact that advised by MI5, ministers have routinely refused to neither confirm nor deny if state agents were involved in unsolved murders from the conflict.

Over the years, the NCND protocol has morphed into a robotic mantra chanted by securocrats, and used to obscure, as Boutcher has put it “wrongdoing by the security forces or serious criminality by agents.”

He has emphasised that he has no intention of identifying agents by name, thereby safeguarding national security. Instead, he argues that 27 years after the end of the conflict relatives have a right to know if the state played a role in the murder of their nearest and dearest.

On Thursday, Eadie inched back by making it “absolutely clear, no one on this side – is suggesting that the Chief Constable needs to or should resign.”

In using the word “resign” in his previous day’s submission, Eadie said he’d merely been pointing out that resignation was an “option” for someone if their “conscience dictates that you can’t carry on as it were, with that disagreement in place.”

Be in no doubt, however: if the securocrats could get rid of Boutcher they would.

On that front, Benn’s predecessor Chris Heaton-Harris opened the batting by referring to Boutcher’s “unwelcome” comments on legacy and expressing his “deep concern” at a “developing trend” towards departures from the NCND policy in legacy inquests.

This provoked a salty reminder from Boutcher that as chief constable he is “independent of the Executive and not subject to the direction or the control of government ministers, department or agencies” adding: “Furthermore, I am under a duty to maintain this independence and I also have no intention of breaching this duty.”

Judges are of course also robustly independent so it might appear mischievous of me to point out that Lord Sales – one of the Supreme Court justices adjudicating the landmark Thompson case – advised the Blair government in 2003 on how to safeguard NCND in a case which some lawyers have described as an “elaborate legal charade”.

No mischief is intended. I have no doubt that Lord Sales will adjudicate entirely on the merits of the case.

I just observe that as the then so-called “Treasury devil”, it was advice from the then Philip Sales that allowed the government to preserve NCND so that it could continue to protect Freddie Scappaticci from being officially confirmed as the murderous agent known as Stakeknife – a protection that MI5 bizarrely continues to this day.

It’s this kind of thing that gets noticed in large parts of Belfast, and the wrong end of the stick taken.

Details of Lord Sales’s advice and the exceptional lengths to which the government went to protect NCND in this alleged “legal charade” were reported in two parts in the Irish News last March. (and on the www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie). 

The week that saw festering anti-immigrant tensions flare

John Breslin, Irish News, June 14th, 2025

IT WAS a week that began with people thronging the streets of a Co Antrim town in their hundreds. It was extraordinary given it appeared to have happened without any time for organising and it was peaceful. By its end, many immigrants were left homeless and scores of police officers injured as festering anti-immigrant sentiment in some communities was fully revealed.

Members of the family of a young girl allegedly seriously sexually assaulted two days previously were among those marchers. By Thursday, it emerged the young girl was further traumatised by the nights of violent chaos.

Within a couple of hours of the march, a mob was rampaging through an area of Ballymena that is home to some immigrants.

Clonavon Terrace was the epicentre of the violence, with homes torched and windows smashed.

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher was blisteringly blunt following the sustained attacks on his officers over the nights and the targeting of those from a different ethnic background.

“The people who are threatening families, who are different to them – that is racism,” the chief constable said.

But he went further when asked whether everyone who took to the streets is racist, he replied: “I can see no other reason because they are focusing on families from ethnic and diverse backgrounds. It’s racist and we all know it.”

All was quiet with a relaxed air on warm and sunny early summer’s evening shortly after 7pm in Ballymena on Wednesday evening.

The police presence on the now flashpoint Clonavon Terrace was light, a single Land Rover posted at each end. People then began gathering, many on the Harryville bridge and adjoining Bridge Street.

Caught by surprise

At approximately 7.30pm. dozens of vans had been deployed and the police operation began in earnest. It became clear later the plan was to close off the terrace and many of the surrounding streets. On Monday, it was equally clear the police were caught by surprise, allowing the mob to do their dirty work.

Large numbers were now on the bridge and the street. It included one young man in a light coloured hoodie holding a near empty two litre plastic bottle dancing among the crowd, to laughter.

The crowd was pushed up Bridge Street, with multiple warnings to disperse and that violent acts will be met with force. Apart from jostling, there was no violence. The police formed a line along the street.

Hundreds of people were now gathered waiting to see what happened next, milling around and chatting. A group of no more than a dozen in black clothing and masked hid behind the wall of an end house. They were the only ones witnessed firing missiles, fireworks, masonry and one petrol bomb.

It was not long before the first missile was thrown. Then they came again and again, fireworks, including many that failed to ignite, and masonry, some so heavy they landed well short of the police line.

The man in the light hoodie made a reappearance, firing missiles, including a petrol bomb that nearly exploded before being thrown. He danced in front of the vans at times. He was hit by the water cannon and, it is believed, a police projectile.

Elsewhere, a masked individual with an impressive catapult fired into the air, apparently towards a drone hovering hundreds of metres in the air, his ambition falling far short of his, or anyone else’s, ability.

The water cannon was deployed and this stand off continued for a number of hours, with the police making no move to charge after the missile throwers, and certainly not the watching crowd.

It can never be known how many of that crowd gathered for the spectacle would be described as racist.

Larne - people inside during arson attack

But over in Larne, they were smashing windows of a local leisure centre and burning the foyer with people inside after it emerged it was used to temporarily accommodate some of those driven from their homes in Ballymena. Some of those involved could be heard making vile racist comments on footage posted online.

In Portadown, they were likely planning the march for the following evening, with their flyer linking “pedophiles”, scum and “foreign nationals”. Police said they came under sustained attack the following night as they prevented the march from happening.

Meanwhile, over in east Belfast bricks were thrown at two homes, with anti-immigrant graffiti appearing, both actions a regular occurrence now in parts of the north.

On Mount Street in Coleraine, a family that included three children, were evacuated from their home after it was torched in a racially motivated hate crime.

Kevin Rous’s home came under attack on Monday night. The Philippines national was working but his wife and two young children were inside their Cullybackey home.

“I have always considered most of my neighbours as my friends. My family are part of this community. The problem is that the attackers saw us as their enemies, and suddenly our lives changed,” he said.

Incoherent DUP vulnerable if voters realise it lobbied for more migration 

Sam McBride, Belfast Telegraph, June 14th, 2025

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SIMULTANEOUSLY ARGUE FOR INCREASED IMMIGRATION WHILE DECRYING THE EFFECT OF MORE FOREIGNERS — BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT THE DUP HAS BEEN DOING FOR YEARS

The monstrous fury unleashed in Ballymena this week before infecting other towns is a problem for all of society — but it is a particular crisis for the DUP.

The DUP is being grossly hypocritical on immigration — claiming now that it's highly sceptical about immigration when for years it lobbied the Government to make it easier for more low -skilled foreigners to come to Northern Ireland as cheap labour for big business.

This party has led unionism for almost a quarter of a century and has failed to coherently explain how migration has benefited Northern Ireland in that time.

Some in the DUP and TUV have responded to this week's disorder by saying that there must be a conversation about migration. For the DUP, that's not going to be a comfortable conversation.

The DUP has been thoroughly incoherent on this issue.

Just last month, the party brought a motion to the Assembly about the role of houses in multiple occupation being used by illegal immigrants.

Upper Bann MLA Jonathan Buckley told the Assembly that small firms are being “taxed to death” to pay for “a hopeless, regrettable, failed open border policy”.

That debate focused on illegal immigration. It's perfectly reasonable to advocate firmer enforcement of immigration policies. Doing so isn't inherently racist or xenophobic.

Every country has borders and has rules about who can settle within its territory; almost no one advocates for a fully borderless world and so this is ultimately a debate about where to draw a line on immigration rather than whether to draw a line.

Yet the DUP motion was avoiding the far more significant issue. The vast majority of migrants to Northern Ireland are here legally. If all illegal immigration was ended overnight, it wouldn't radically change the face of towns like Ballymena and Dungannon.

If the DUP believes that migration is straining public services, then ending illegal immigration wouldn't fix the problem it identifies.

The Assembly 'debate' also demonstrated the depressing inability of Stormont to truly debate these issues. MLAs mostly read out pre-prepared speeches and several repeatedly refused to take interventions from those with differing views.

This wasn't just the DUP. Alliance's Peter McReynolds said that “we need debate here to take place on the basis of evidence…rather than ideology”.

That sounds reasonable but seemed not to appreciate that all sides involved have their own ideology, whether that's to be generally welcoming to certain categories of migrants or hostile to them. The DUP, now under growing pressure from the TUV on its right, is acutely vulnerable in this area.

DUP championed cheap migrant labour

What the DUP is now attempting to camouflage is that it championed increased migration to Northern Ireland - and specifically migration which focused on areas such as Ballymena.

No party in Northern Ireland is more enthusiastic about Brazilian-owned poultry behemoth Moy Park — the company which brought thousands of low-skilled migrants to Northern Ireland to work on low wages in its slaughterhouses, one of which is in Ballymena.

The DUP's approach to the RHI scheme was shaped to a significant extent by its attempts to help this firm which for a while managed to have the taxpayer — via that DUP-run scheme — effectively subsidising its Northern Ireland operation.

Yet at the heart of the model of massive meat packers like Moy Park are poor wages in conditions few local people would relish. Inevitably, this means that to sustain their operations they need substantial immigration.

In 2017, Ian Paisley Jr — then the MP representing Ballymena — boasted in Parliament that “one in every four chickens consumed [in the UK] is produced or processed in Northern Ireland”.

Yet this is an industry whose industrialised model of farming — cooping up tens of thousands of birds in conditions which are legal but to many people seem inhumane — has contributed to Lough Neagh being turned into a toxic luminescent toilet.

A 'farmer' can have several hundred thousand birds on just a few acres of land. You don't have to be a slurry expert to work out that this will create vast volumes of excrement which can't be spread on that land.

Paisley spoke of Moy Park as gushingly as some of the company's paid spin doctors. However, he had a problem; he'd been at the forefront of the Brexit campaign which was for many people founded on the need to take back control of immigration.

Yet Moy Park's model would collapse without cheap foreign labour.

Paisley told MPs that 60% of the poultry industry's employees were from outside the UK. But rather than frame this negatively, he said that “they make an obvious and valuable contribution to the United Kingdom and to the rich tapestry of the culture here” and “require certainty about their contracts”.

He said euphemistically that they worked in a sector where it was “difficult to attract our local, home-grown workforce”.

Openly arguing for the sector to grow and for a corresponding increase in migration for its benefit, he said: “The Government must look at a favourable visa and immigration scheme that stabilises the situation and ensures that need is met in the coming years.”

He proposed “a simplified work visa system that allows in workers who are needed in particular areas, such as the poultry sector”; in other words, he wanted to make it easier for migrants to enter the UK to work for companies like Moy Park.

Paisley went further, lobbying for increased tariffs on EU meat while would allow companies like Moy Park to expand further and grow its workforce, a tariff policy which left poultry feed imports “unrestricted”, and the opening up of new trade routes for poultry to Asia and America, allowing big chicken to get even bigger.

Two years later, the DUP sharply criticised the Government after it used Brexit to restrict immigration. Clearly with companies like Moy Park in mind, it argued for more low-skilled migrants to be allowed in.

The DUP criticised the Migration Advisory Council's approach, saying that “appropriate future access to low-skilled labour in Northern Ireland is important”.

It said that without access to cheap low-skilled foreign labour, local firms could be at a competitive disadvantage to those in the Republic.

This was, quite simply, insane. If the DUP wanted freedom of movement as they have in the Republic, why did it argue for Brexit which ended such freedom of movement?

And if it believes too many foreigners are irrevocably altering the face of swathes of Northern Ireland, why was it lobbying in favour of more migration?

A decade ago, a report for the Housing Executive involved detailed examination of migration and its impact on society.

Focusing on Dungannon, where a huge percentage of migrants work for Moy Park and other food companies, it found “no evidence that foreign-born workers had displaced native workers in the local labour market to any significant extent”.

It quoted someone saying: “Some of the jobs in the food processing sector involve very unpleasant work and 12-hour shifts; no amount of money would pay me to do it”. Another person said: “In spite of the recession most locals will still not do the kind of work migrants do. The jobs in the agri-foods sector are hard, dirty and low paid”.

The DUP has also lobbied to relax immigration rules for migrant fishermen and more broadly argued in favour of migration to help the economy.

All of this is perfectly reasonable; what's incoherent is then decrying the impact of such policy choices.

Immigration took off after rise of DUP

As it happens, immigration really took off in Northern Ireland just after the DUP emerged as the biggest party. This is an example of where correlation does not mean causation.

Migrants weren't suddenly coming to Northern Ireland because they were fans of Ian Paisley or Peter Robinson but because peace seemed to be more secure, and the expansion of the EU meant growing numbers from eastern Europe were attracted to a place where they could have a good life while keeping more of the money they earned due to a lower cost of living than elsewhere in the UK.

It was in 2004 that Northern Ireland first began to experience net immigration — that is, more people arriving than leaving.

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council data from 2017 show that at that point it actually had less migration than the Northern Ireland average — 11% per 1,000 people as opposed to 13% for Northern Ireland as a whole.

Immigration is complex and involves trade-offs. It is the responsibility of politicians who understand these trade-offs to explain them honestly to the public.

For instance, does the DUP want universities to turn away brilliant students simply because of their nationality? If it does so, the fees for local students would have to be hiked because foreign students' fees effectively subsidise those of the rest of us.

Does it want the NHS to restrict foreign recruitment? If so, the implications for an already crumbling system are obvious.

Does it want a restriction on migrants coming to work as low-paid carers in homes for the elderly or as home helps? If so, where is it going to get the money to drastically increase wages for these roles to a level which will make them more attractive to more locals?

Immigration often involves both positive and negative aspects.

In Ballymena, for instance, two primary schools have some of the highest proportions of newcomer children (defined as those for whom English is a second language) in Northern Ireland.

Some 55% of pupils in Harryville Primary are newcomers; in nearby Ballymena Primary, 54% of pupils are newcomers.

This involves challenges for teachers in particular, who will need more resources and that means more public funding.

Yet it also means that as school numbers fall across Northern Ireland due to a declining birth rate, schools which might otherwise close can remain open — and that means the continuation of well-loved and convenient schools for families who have lived in an area for decades.

To any rational person, what happened in Ballymena was alarmingly lawless. The idea that the young victim of an alleged attempted rape last week has been at the centre of the rioters' thoughts is absurd.

Not only did her family issue a statement making clear their opposition to the violence, but PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said after meeting the family that the violence was “retraumatising” for her.

To live in a society governed by the rule of law is to accept that those charged with serious crimes are tried in a court of law, not by a rampaging mob.

It's not just that mob 'justice' is savage; it's that it's hopelessly indiscriminate.

Even viewed in purely utilitarian terms, attacking random foreigners because of their skin colour or nationality isn't going to 'punish' wrongdoers.

Kafkaesque society

In the Kafkaesque world of the rioters, they protected women by terrorising women; they opposed the strain on public services by trying to burn down a public leisure centre; they supposedly upheld traditional Christian values by rampaging through a street where a Ukrainian immigrant suffering from cancer read to her children from the Bible.

Many in our society now don't want to hear this. Even plenty of those who condemn the violence hasten to add a 'but' or a 'however' or a 'there are real concerns'.

Any civilised person should be able to condemn attempted murder without qualification.

That's not to suggest that DUP members are anything other than sincere in condemning the violence; they know that this has the potential to lead to someone's death and is trashing areas about which they care.

But the DUP needs to decide on a coherent stance. If it wants to drastically reduce immigration, that is a perfectly reasonable policy. If it wants more immigration, that is a perfectly reasonable policy.

But it is impossible to simultaneously argue for increased immigration while decrying the effect of more foreigners.

North’s health workers left ‘frightened and vulnerable’ by racist violence

Allan Preston, Irish News, June 14th, 2025

HEALTH Minister Mike Nesbitt has praised international workers left feeling “frightened and vulnerable” after four nights of racist violence.

With the disorder in Ballymena spreading to areas including Larne, Belfast, Coleraine and Portadown, he said: “The actions of recent days have no doubt left some members of our HSC family feeling frightened and vulnerable.

“It is well accepted within health and social care that without our international colleagues, the health service would collapse.

“The international recruits who arrive to work here across our HSC system provide an immensely valuable contribution to the delivery of health and social care services and enrich our communities with their diversity.”

Having met many overseas health workers in the last year, he said: “They are greatly needed, very much appreciated and highly valued. They are deeply welcome here and their health, safety and wellbeing are of paramount importance.

“People should be entitled to live in peace, free from harm and intimidation, and I stand against this reprehensible, racist and xenophobic behaviour.”

Health workers feeling concerned are encouraged to reach out to their health trusts for support.

Since 2016 over 1,700 nurses and 188 doctors recruited overseas

Since 2016, the health service in Northern Ireland has recruited more than 1,700 international nurses through the International Nurse Recruitment project.

A total of 188 overseas doctors have also started employment between April 2023 to March 2024.

As of June this year, there are also nearly 8,000 people registered in social work or social care from outside the UK and Ireland – with 95 social workers and 7,688 social care practitioners.

A joint statement from Northern Ireland’s Chief Professional Officers – covering specialties including medical, nursing, social work, pharmacy and dentistry – also called this week’s violence “nothing short of shameful”.

“That people should be targeted and threatened simply because of their ethnicity, skin colour or cultural background is utterly despicable,” they said.

“That they should be intimidated out of their own homes is vile. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and to live in a safe environment free from harm and intimidation. We know there will be many of our international colleagues within the committed and dedicated health and social care and independent sector workforce who will be distressed by what has unfolded.”

They added that it was less than a year since race-fuelled riots in Belfast and elsewhere had left health workers in fear.

“But please know this: You are welcome, you are deeply valued, and you have our full support. We are the better for your presence here. This behaviour is not representative of Northern Ireland, nor the people who live here.”

Images released of people police want to speak with over race riots

Brett Campbell, Belfast Telegraph, June 15th, 2025

PSNI ALSO WARNS SOCIAL MEDIA USERS OF HATE POSTS AND INCITING DISORDER

Police have released images of four individuals they wish to identify and quiz in relation to race riots that have erupted in parts of Northern Ireland.

The PSNI has also issued a warning to social media users posting hate online, inciting disorder or seen to have been involved in the violence that detectives are actively investigating what they have said and done.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson reiterated his appeal for calm in the days ahead as the total number of officers injured reached 63.

“Let Northern Ireland return to normal and start the process of recovery,” he pleaded following what has been described as a “week of shame” after disorder first erupted in Ballymena on Monday before spreading to other parts of the region.

It followed an alleged sexual assault of a girl in the Co Antrim town last weekend.

ACC Henderson said large-scale police deployments have been seen across NI, including in Portadown where officers came under “significant and sustained attack” from rioters on Thursday.

He said the release of images of four people detectives wish to speak to marks the latest phase of the ongoing investigation.

“I am asking the wider community to step forward and help us to identify these individuals. It is in all of our interests, and in the interests of justice, that those responsible are dealt with and I would urge anyone who may have information to bring it forward,” Mr Henderson said.

“If you are able to identify any of the people shown in these images or can provide information about them you should contact us on 101 or on our major incident portal, which is accessible on our website.”

A total of 22 officers were injured in Portadown on what was the fourth consecutive night of disorder in Northern Ireland and which resulted in a man and a woman being arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour and other offences.

Sporadic disorder also flared in east Belfast where bricks were thrown through the windows of two houses on Avoniel Road in what police have termed a racially motivated attack.

It followed incidents in other towns, including the burning of Larne Leisure Centre on Wednesday and an arson attack on a house in Coleraine in the early hours of Friday from which a man and woman and four young children escaped.

It is being treated by police as arson with a racially motivated hate element.

ACC Henderson said the disorder was brought under control using a range of public order tactics and by making proactive arrests as he praised the “bravery and determination” of the men and women in uniform who stayed on the line despite their injuries.

“These are men and women working to protect their communities and the attacks against them must stop,” he said.

Some of those perpetrating this violence claim to be protecting women and girls.

“This is simply not true, they are criminal acts. Destroying and vandalising local communities do not make our towns safer for women and girls and to claim otherwise is nonsense.

“Tackling violence against women and girls is a key priority for the Police Service of Northern Ireland and we will work hard for justice for any reporting female.”

The senior police officer welcomed a peaceful night in Ballymena on Thursday, but promised that a large policing presence will be visible over the weekend including the deployment of Mutual Aid resources from Scotland.

“We are grateful to Chief Constable Farrell and her colleagues for their support. These officers, trained to work in our environment, will be working side by side with their PSNI colleagues at various locations as part of our policing operation,” Mr Henderson continued.

“Finally, I would reiterate my appeal for calm in the days ahead.”

Meanwhile, racist graffiti was sprayed on walls in numerous parts of Bangor in Co Down yesterday including on a bungalow which was also vandalised.

A gunsight symbol was also daubed on the window of the property underneath a chilling threat which reads “24 HRS”.

Sinister messages were reported to police throughout the day as sinister messages such as “locals only” and “get them out” were spotted in residential parts of the city accompanied by images of crosshairs.

The words “keep our kids safe” accompanied one of the disturbing slogans.

Anyone with information or photos on disorder can share it with police through the Major Incident Public Portal.

A report can be submitted online using the non-emergency reporting form or by contacting Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online.

More homes targeted in another night of disorder

Allan Preston, Irish News, June 14th, 2024

FURTHER racist attacks on Thursday night saw a young family evacuated from a house fire in Coleraine and bricks thrown two windows in east Belfast.

An update from the PSNI also said that 22 officers were injured during “significant disorder and violence”.

Some protests took place in Belfast but were “mainly peaceful,” with travel disrupted in the Templemore Avenue area of east Belfast , while bricks were thrown through the windows of two houses in the Avoniel Road area of east Belfast in a racially motivated attack.

Other incidents included a protest at Carrick roundabout and a small fire in the Manse Road in Newtownabbey, with reports of anti-immigration hate graffiti being investigated in Newtownards.

A house fire in the Mount Street area of Coleraine is being treated as deliberate and a racially-motivated hate crime – with a family with three young children evacuated from the property.

The situation in Ballymena was more subdued without the “disgraceful scenes” of rioting over the previous three nights.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said: “Last night in Portadown police came under sustained attack from rioters throwing masonry and other missiles.

Officers deployed a variety of public order tactics to restore order to the town as quickly as possible.

“Twenty-two officers were injured and I am so grateful to them for their bravery and selfless dedication in protecting the community of Portadown from this criminality.

“We saw calm in Ballymena and I hope the powerful words of the family who asked for calm during this really difficult time were heard and continue to be heard over the coming days.

“Two arrests were made in Portadown last night and more will follow.

“I repeat, once more, our appeal for calm across Northern Ireland in the coming days.”

Commenting on the disorder in Portadown, UUP MLA Doug Beattie said: “What I saw mostly was young kids being orchestrated by older people to throw stones or try and circumvent the police lines.

“Lighting fires and then attacking the police at the end of the evening.

“Absolutely none of this was about safeguarding women and girls in our society. This was about disorder, this was about anarchy.”

No crisis in Executive after call for Lyons' resignation, insists O'Neill

Andrew Madden, Belfast Telegraph, June 14th, 2025

The First Minister has insisted there is no “crisis” in the Executive, after she called for the resignation of DUP Communities Minister Gordon Lyons over a social media post he made about racist rioting in Larne.

Michelle O'Neill made the comments during a press conference following the 43rd meeting of the British-Irish Council (BIC) in Co Down yesterday.

She said everyone was “on the same page” in relation to condemning the disorder in Ballymena, Larne and other parts of Northern Ireland over successive nights this week.

“I said what I said in terms of the [Communities] Minister's Facebook post in particular and his approach, but look — it doesn't mean there's a crisis in the Executive,” she said.

“We have a job to do and I am committed to continuing to lead in that Executive to work with colleagues in the area, particularly to get us through this period that we're in now.

“It's four nights in a row. What we've seen on our streets is totally unacceptable and I hope that we all can stand strong in terms of facing it down and say no to racism in our society.”

The BIC meeting was attended by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, representatives of the NI Executive, the UK Government, and the governments of Scotland, Wales, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

Earlier this week, Gordon Lyons came under attack for comments he made about Larne Leisure Centre being used to house immigrant families impacted by the violence in Ballymena.

He added that all those who had been staying at the facility were in the care of the Housing Executive and had been moved out of the town. The leisure centre was subsequently attacked by masked youths, who broke windows with stones and set it on fire.

Lyons at Bay

Mr Lyons rejected calls for him to quit, insisting that he did not publicly reveal the leisure centre was being used as a shelter.

A motion of no confidence in the Communities Minister has been tabled and Ms O'Neill said he should “consider his position”.

Meanwhile, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said her party colleague has “come out and said very clearly that his intention was to defuse tensions in the local area due to a significant amount of rumour going around in the community”.

“The local council had already confirmed that the centre had been used in that way, but [Mr Lyons] was indicating that the families were not in that centre,” she said.

“I think that was a very clear attempt to stop the centre being attacked by some of those disgraceful elements that wanted to do so.

“The DUP position has been completely unambiguous, Gordon Lyons' position has been unambiguous, my position has been unambiguous.”

The PSNI, which has been dealing with falling officer numbers and significant financial pressures, has been stretched to the limit by the disorder and has had to call in mutual assistance from Police Scotland.

Looking for more police resources

Ms O'Neill said she has spoken to Finance Minister John O'Dowd regarding providing more resources to the PSNI.

“I asked him about making up some resources that we could invest in our police service, and to put a written proposal to our Executive, where we could find an additional £5m to actually deal with this response that we're going through right now,” she said.

“Keeping the public safe is an absolute priority, not just for the police and I, but for the government in Northern Ireland.”

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn was asked about comments from DUP leader Gavin Robinson, in which he branded Mr Benn “foolish and hapless” in relation to his handling of efforts to deal with the legacy of the Troubles.

Mr Robinson claimed Mr Benn's actions amounted to a “disgraceful” attempt to “satisfy the Irish government”.

“I make no apology at all for trying to work with the Irish government, because the lesson, indeed exemplified by the Good Friday Agreement, is we make most progress when we work together,” he said.

“And that is what I'm determined to do in the interests of truth and reconciliation and, finally, giving answers to families who have suffered so much.”

Mr Robinson made his comments after Mr Benn announced the appointment of a chair to lead a public inquiry into the 1989 loyalist murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. The DUP leader said the Finucane inquiry indicates an approach by the UK Government that represents a “distasteful elevation” of some high-profile cases, while countless other victims still await answers and have no been granted public inquires.

The DUP leader said: “The Irish government have knowledge of and influence upon UK legacy plans, yet Northern Ireland victims, veterans and Parliamentarians are kept in the dark by the Secretary of State without so much as a blush on his face.”

PSNI to get emergency funds for riots

Mark Hennessy and Patsy McGarry, Irish Times, June 14th, 2025

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is to get emergency Stormont funding to cope with anti-immigration riots across Northern Ireland, First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said.

Announcing that a proposal for a £5 million payment will be brought quickly to the Northern Ireland Executive, Ms O’Neill said the heavily-understaffed police service was “really under pressure and really under financial strain”.

“Keeping the public safe is an absolute priority, not just for the PSNI but for us,” she said, speaking after a meeting of the British-Irish Council in Newcastle, Co Down, that included Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Northern Ireland Secretary of State Hilary Benn.

However, the First Minister and her Democratic Unionist Party counterpart, Deputy First Minister Emma Little- Pengelly insisted that divisions over Communities Minister Gordon Lyons would not threaten the existence, or the operation of the Executive.

Mr Lyons has been heavily criticised for a social media message about the use of Larne Leisure Centre to house members of the Roma community who were forced to flee their Ballymena homes after riots erupted this week.

Violent racism

Saying that the Executive’s parties are “all on the same page”, Ms O’Neill said: “This violent racism that we have seen on our streets has to be called out for what it is. It’s absolutely wrong and it must stop.

“What we’ve seen over the course of the last few days has been devastation and has been horrific for those people that have been targeted.”

Ms O’Neill, who said on Wednesday that Mr Lyons should resign, went on: “This is about women and children; this is about families. They have been at the front of racist, violent attacks and it is wrong on every level. I think the whole of the Executive is united on that front.”

Defending Mr Lyons, Ms Little-Pengelly said her DUP colleague had been “unambiguous” in trying to prevent violence, adding that the controversy about his remarks had been “a distraction throughout” Thursday “from our very clear and unified message”.

'Everyone's been focusing on the riots not what's going on in our town'

Gabrielle Swan, Belfast Telegraph, June 14th, 2025

BALLYMENA LOCALS REFLECT ON WEEK'S DISORDER AND ISSUES FEEDING TENSIONS

As scenes of unruly mobs, burnt-out homes and terrified families made headlines around the world this week, Ballymena found itself in the spotlight.

Several nights of rioting saw the Co Antrim town make the news for all the wrong reasons.

Home to around 31,000 people, it is often referred to as the Bible Belt of Northern Ireland, the one-time powerbase of the late Rev Ian Paisley.

These days, Ballymena has its fair share of troubles. The demise of factories such as JTI Gallaher and Michelin — both big employers — hit the area hard. And, like many towns, Ballymena has been in the grip of a drugs crisis too. It is a troubled mix, and this week's riots have added to its problems.

A total of 17 people have been arrested since the disorder began on June 9, with 13 charged. More than 60 police officers have been injured.

Yet many locals are fiercely proud of their town, insisting that the news reports are an unfair reflection.

One locally based social worker believes “intense social and economic deprivation” is fuelling the violence.

Demi Laverty, a support worker of six years, expressed her “frustration” over perceptions from the outside about where she lives.

Having grown up in Ballymena, Ms Laverty argued that the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl in the Clonavon Terrace area of the town is not the only instigator fuelling recent tension.

Two boys, both aged 14, have since been charged with attempted rape. Speaking through a Romanian interpreter, they have denied the charges.

Though there was a lesser-known demonstration on the Sunday evening in Harryville, which did not evolve into a riot, Monday evening saw police come under attack from missiles such as fireworks and bottles.

Six houses attacked, four destroyed

Monday's trouble also saw homes targeted — the rioters' main focus was members of Ballymena's ethnic minority community. Six houses were attacked, with four destroyed in an arson attack.

The following night, the home of a Bulgarian family was targeted. A mother-of-two, Mika Kolev, said she fears for her children, with her family now planning to leave the country.

In addition, the car of a Filipino mechanic, Michael Asuro, was tipped over and destroyed in a fire.

Since the attacks began, locals and ethnic minorities in the area have been marking their windows and doors with signs and flags. Some of these include Union flags and signs reading “Locals live here” and “Filipinos live here”.

Explaining what has fed into rising tensions, Ms Laverty attributed the main cause as Ballymena's “high rate of deprivation”.

“Everybody has been focusing on the riots, and not necessarily what has been really going on in Ballymena,” she said.

“Not just in my community, but in other deprived areas of Northern Ireland too.

“To understand how the riots came about, we need to understand what deprivation is.

“Ballymena is ranked as one of the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.

“Out of over 800 areas, Ballymena is ranked number 14 in terms of most deprived. For such a small town, I think it just speaks for itself.

“Unfortunately, with the riots being so highly reported on... [people have] focused on the riots.

“I think it shows how misinformed people can be in relation to the town. The socio-economics and deprivation here is multi-layered.

“That is where terminology like racism and sectarianism come in. Deprived areas are more likely to be impacted by those things.

“I think, contextually, Ballymena, and many towns like it in Northern Ireland, the issues which affect it are very oversimplified.”

Parts of Ballymena is in top 25% of most deprived areas in North

Specific areas in the town such as Harryville, Ballee and Ballykeel are within the top 25% of the most deprived areas in NI.

“Statistics are clear. With poverty, there is a much higher rate of crime,” Ms Laverty continued.

“It's poverty more so than religion and ethnicity.

“Young people from deprived areas aren't necessarily seen as economically profitable, which means that their education isn't invested in and isn't put in high regard.

“People here, with the deprivation, feel like their government have abandoned them.

“They have been given singular issues such as housing, immigration and poverty as reasons for this frustration.”

Masked youths were seen engaging in rioting in Clonavon Terrace, Harryville and other areas.

Ms Laverty added: “Under child safeguarding laws in Northern Ireland, the radicalisation of children into committing crimes and having dangerous, hateful beliefs, that is classed as child abuse.

“Again, this arises from misinformation about your situation.

“TikTok comments on the 'lives' [clips broadcast on social media] say that Ballymena has always been the same, that we're uneducated and all we do is kill each other. But again, these are all things born out of deprivation.

“I have seen the tensions rise in our community for a while.”

‘We don’t want to live in a place of violence’

Rodney Quigley is an independent councillor who heads the Carson Project, a local community group known for its outreach activities, including women's meetings and breakfast mornings.

While the group deals with conflict resolution, Mr Quigley revealed that “not many” have come seeking their help.

“We have not had many engagements with people at the moment. I think they may be too afraid to come to any of the community groups,” he said.

“People have no problem with people who come from other countries here. We have lots and lots of good people who have integrated into the community.

“They get involved in the groups and respect people on the street.

“The real Ballymena, to me, is full of lovely people. There are a lot of people in the local area who have been welcomed from other countries.

“Ballymena is a great town. There is a lot to offer for people here. There should not be any fear for anyone coming to the town at all. Obviously, the recent violence has put people off coming — it has given it a bad name.”

Sinn Fein councillor for the area Bréanainn Lyness also feels this past week's scenes are not reflective of the town as a whole.

He branded the violence as “simple and pure racism” from a thuggish minority.

“The real Ballymena is an accepting town, an accepting one for all types of people, for minority groups who come to live and work,” he said.

“It is not what we have seen over [recent days]. We have seen ethnic minority communities being scapegoated because of the alleged sexual attack which happened in Clonavon Terrace.

“It is abhorrent and racist violence. We have seen some disturbing scenes over the past couple of nights.

“Seeing people put out signs and flags so they won't get targeted, it is very disturbing. It's reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

“It's like in the past, when Catholics were being burnt out of Bombay Street [in Belfast] in the 1960s.

“People had come out in a peaceful protest... but what happened, with the rioting, what it boiled down to was racism.

“Ballymena is a good place for business. There is a lot of foreign business here as well.

“It's a great place for shopping; it's a great and central location.

“But the riots are going against everything we are trying to promote.

“We don't want to live in a place with violence.”

Home Office targeting suspected cross-border 'people smuggling' operation 

By David Thompson, Belfast News Letter, June 14th, 2025

A major criminal investigation has been underway for months into an organised crime gang suspected of trafficking Roma people into Northern Ireland – with evidence uncovered of potential fraud relating to post-Brexit immigration rules, the News Letter can reveal.

Tensions over immigration erupted in Ballymena this week, with violent mobs attacking and burning homes of foreign nationals. It was sparked by a criminal investigation into an alleged serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town last weekend.

During the week, the MP for the area Jim Allister said that illegal immigration had been a problem in the town – a statement the Justice Minister Naomi Long said he “had no way of proving”.

The TUV leader has also highlighted concerns about the “concentration” of members of the Roma community in the area, which he said had been caused by people crossing the border with the Republic, where they are entitled to move freely within the EU.

There are concerns from those close to the Roma community in Northern Ireland that many are victims of exploitation and control by organised crime groups.

Most EU citizens who lived and worked in the UK prior to Brexit were allowed to stay if they applied to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS). However, certain criteria must be met – such as having lived in the UK for 5 years in a row and the application was made by 30 June 2021.

The News Letter understands that the Home Office has been investigating an organised crime gang suspected of people trafficking – and as part of that has uncovered evidence of fraudulent EUSS applications and other suspected immigration offences. A number of arrests have been made and an investigation is ongoing.

The people smuggling probe is understood to involve the trafficking of mainly Roma people into Northern Ireland from mainland Europe, via the Republic of Ireland.

Because of the post-Brexit commitment to an open border on the island of Ireland, policing immigration across the 310 mile frontier is almost impossible. The focus is largely on public transport – with busses regularly pulled over by Irish immigration officials on the southern side, and intelligence-led checks conducted by the Home Office at transport hubs in Belfast.

Racial tensions in Ballymena have been growing for some time, and while local politicians have condemned the violence outright, some have raised concerns about problems within the area over housing, anti-social behaviour and the exploitation of the Roma population by criminals – including concerns about illegal immigration and people smuggling.

TUV leader alleges illegal Roma immigrants entering North through Republic

The local MP Jim Allister has asked the government to make a statement to the House of Commons on “what it is going to do to constrain the flow of migrants who legitimately travel under freedom of movement from one EU country to another, in this case, into the Republic of Ireland, and then pass unchecked from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland”.

The TUV leader says this has been a contributing factor – particularly in respect of Roma – to “underlying tensions produced by uncontrolled and often undocumented immigration”.

His party has pointed to “the influx of Roma, in particular into Ballymena in recent years” as having driven “rapid demographic change”.

Ballymena has a large Roma population, who have worked in various industries and attended churches here for years. Their children – many of whom were born here – attend local schools. However, there has been little in the way of social integration – and the often-transient population largely lives in a confined area of the town, which has resulted in tension in local communities.

For years, there have been concerns about the level of control over these people by powerful figures within their own community, both in the UK and across Europe. But people close to the Roma community say they are being scapegoated, with the entire ethnic group targeted over the behaviour of a few.

One source told the News Letter people are forgetting that “the vast majority are working in our factories, care homes, hotels and are washing our cars – jobs that very few locals would take”.

They said that they are victims of “exploitation, deception and control” by organised criminals.

There are believed to be more recent arrivals living here illegally – prompting the crackdown by the Home Office.

As part of its investigation, the Home Office’s Immigration Enforcement team has searched properties and seized suspected criminal cash, electronic devices and financial records. In one case, social services were called due to the squalid living conditions of a child found on the premises. The Home Office declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

BBC will not appeal Adams’ Dublin defamation case win

Irish News, June 14th, 2025

Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams sued over a 2016 BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight story and online article on the murder of British agent Denis Donaldson

THE BBC has said that it will not be appealing Gerry Adams’s libel case victory.

The former Sinn Féin leader sued over a 2016 BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight story and online article on the murder of British agent Denis Donaldson.

Last month, a jury found Mr Adams was defamed when it was alleged by an anonymous contributor that he sanctioned the 2006 killing.

He was awarded €100,000 in damages.

The combined legal costs of both parties is estimated at between €3-5m.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We have given careful consideration to the jury’s decision.

“We will not be appealing its verdict, bringing this matter to a conclusion. We remain committed to public interest journalism and to serving all BBC audiences.”