Letter: Branding the people of Ballymena as racist is both demeaning and wrong
A letter from K J Turner:
To all those who wish to label the people of Ballymena as racists, I ask this question.
Why, when the people of the Ukraine needed a safe haven did Mid and East Antrim Borough Council step up to the mark and beyond to provide all that was needed for them with the help of the people of Ballymena and beyond?
Why are there numerous businesses, Turkish barbers, food outlets, etc. thriving with the support of the local people? Our care homes and major businesses employ many migrant workers and are paid fairly and have full employment rights.
The plain and simple fact is that after several incidents of social and alleged sexual malevolence by one section of the migrant population, the people of Ballymena had had enough and took to the streets to show their frustration at the events that were happening around them.
No one wants to see violence and there is always an idiotic minority that goes too far and those quite rightly will be dealt with by the law.
But branding the people of Ballymena as racist is both demeaning and wrong.
They have been let down by those that should be protecting them.
The justice minister, Naomi Long, vowed to make the streets of Northern Ireland safer for women.
She has failed, and no matter how much her cohorts in the Alliance Party try to deflect the blame, that is where it lays.
The people of Ballymena are not racists.
They are a tight-knit community that care for each other and will not countenance the behaviour that they are being subjected to by a group that failed to live by the laws and standards that are to be expected of anyone that resides in a host country.
K J Turner, community worker