Edwin Poots says racist violence 'has to stop' and questions what attackers have done for their country

Meanwhile, the PSNI has been unable to provide figures for the number of racially motivated attacks it has recorded in recent weeks, amid daily media reports of homes and businesses being targeted. The force told the News Letter that the figures would have to be obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

The racist targeting of ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland has seen individuals attacked in the street, homes attacked and a number of businesses burnt out in actions often motivated by the skin colour of their victims.

On Friday, the BBC reported an attack on a family living in East Belfast. The Palestinian family have had to be moved to County Londonderry for their safety.

Three men attacked the family home when the woman was home alone with her one month old baby.

Earlier this week, a business was burnt out in Newtownabbey and anti-Muslim graffiti was daubed on the walls, despite the owner not being Muslim.

Abjan Acharya, a British-Nepalese man who recently bought the restaurant, is a personal friend of the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Edwin Poots.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme, Mr Poots said: “Abjan is a friend of the family – went to school with my nephew, was at my daughter’s wedding. He put around £100,000 into that business just to see it go up in smoke – for what?”

He said Mr Acharya is a “hard working young lad who has been here from his childhood”.

“If that was a loyalist that done that – the Nepalese people have stood shoulder to shoulder with the British Army for many generations, through the Gurkhas – and fought for King and Country and Queen and Country.

“And I wonder if the people who set that building on fire would have done as much for their country as the Nepalese people have done over the years.

“This is the ludicrous behaviour of some that they will persecute people who would go out and fight for the United Kingdom”, the DUP MLA said.

Speaking to the BBC about those who attacked the Palestinian family in East Belfast, Mr Poots said “They’re damaging their own community, they’re bringing real trauma, it doesn’t represent what we think as unionist people.

“This has to stop. This can’t go on.”