The following list of sectarian and other hate-driven incidents and attacks is from 1 through 31 October 2003. The criteria we use for inclusion is based on the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) criteria; if a person/organisation feels that the motivation for an attack against them was sectarian (or racist or homophobic), then it should be counted as such. We rely on a number of sources for our information, but this is by no means comprehensive. If you find incidents that have been left off the list please contact us.
1 October, Wednesday. Loyalist paramilitaries fired shots at a Catholic home in the Ballysally estate in Coleraine, Co Derry. The PSNI said they were treating the attack as sectarian. The family, who had lived in the house for 20 years, moved out. (UTV, CW, DJ, PSNI)
In north Belfast, calls were made to the mainly Protestant Girls' and Boys' Model schools claiming bombs had been left there, however, none were found. (IN, BBC)
The UDA was blamed for firebombing Our Lady of Mercy School, in Ligoniel, north Belfast. (NBN, CW)
The UDA was also blamed for planting an "elaborate hoax" device at Dungannon Integrated College, Co Tyrone. (IN, BBC)
2 October, Thursday. Nationalists were blamed for an arson attack on the mainly Protestant Ligoniel Primary School in north Belfast. (CW, NBN
3 October, Friday. Nationalist youths in Ardoyne, north Belfast, stoned a number of buses carrying pupils from mainly Protestant schools. (IN, CW, NBN)
4 October, Saturday. PSNI said they found a hoax device outside a house in Dunamanagh, Co Tyrone. (PSNI)
5 October, Sunday. Masked loyalists attacked the home of a Catholic family on the mainly Protestant Parkhall estate in Antrim. The family have since fled. The attackers shouted "fenian bastard". The PSNI said they were keeping an open mind as to the motive for the attack. (UTV, CW, IN)
PSNI were looking for a man in connection with two arson attacks and a hoax pipe bomb attack in Sion Mills, near Strabane, Co Tyrone. (PSNI)
Loyalists were blamed for a petrol bomb attack on a Catholic home on Deerpark Road in north Belfast. ( CW, PSNI, NBN)
On the Cliftonville Road four men in a car stopped and assaulted a 21-year-old Catholic man who was wearing a Celtic jersey, hitting him repeatedly on the head with an object believed to be either a hammer or a wheel brace, before driving off. (CW, PSNI, NBN)
Loyalists attacked a number of Catholic homes in the New Barnsley area of west Belfast. (AN, CW)
In Larne, Co Antrim, a gang of loyalists attacked the home of a Protestant widow after she gave shelter to a Catholic man who they were chasing. The PSNI said the attack may have been sectarian. (IN, BBC)
7 October, Tuesday. In north Belfast, nationalists were blamed for petrol bomb attacks on Protestant homes on the Ardoyne Road. Pensioners' homes were also attacked with paint-bombs in Ohio Street in Woodvale. Loyalist sources blamed nationalists for this attack while Sinn Fein said that it believed that it was the work of the UDA trying to stir up tensions. (NBN, UTV, PA, IN)
A caller, claiming to represent the "Catholic Reaction Force", warned Protestant postal workers that they would be shot if they entered nationalist areas. (AN, BBC)
8 October, Wednesday. A loyalist on a motorcycle used an iron bar to attack Catholic schoolboys at St Gabriel's school on the Crumlin Road, north Belfast. (UTV, IN)
A gang attacked a family home on Ardcaoin Avenue, in Dunmurry, south of Belfast, firing a shotgun at the home. (UTV, PSNI)
At a north Belfast interface off the Crumlin Road, loyalists threw fireworks and stones at a Catholic home in the mainly Protestant Sommerdale Park, while another house occupied by Catholics in Kingsmere Park was attacked with paintbombs. Later, in three further attacks blamed on the UDA, Catholic owned homes in Mountainview park were also attacked. Graffiti left at the scene read "We're back! Taigs out!" (BBC, UTV, IN)
Also in north Belfast, a gang of 20 nationalists attacked the Whitewell Road home of a Catholic couple whom they believed to be Protestant. (UTV, BBC, CW )
9 October, Thursday. A petrol bomb was lobbed at a parked car in Ferndale, Newtownabbey (PSNI)
Arson attack on caravan in Killinchy, Co Down (PSNI)
Loyalist paramilitaries were blamed for the attack on the Rathenraw estate home of Antrim Sinn Fein activist Paddy Murray. Mr Murray was in bed asleep with his pregnant wife and 18 month old child. The attackers fled to the mainly loyalist Steeple estate. The PSNI said they could not establish the motive for the attack. (IN, CW)
10 October, Friday. Two teenagers suffered serious injuries in an attack by a gang of 15 youths on Seymour Street in Ballymoney, Co Antrim. (UTV, PSNI, IN)
Explosion at phone box in Bangor (PSNI, UTV)
Gun attack on family home in Bangor (PSNI)
11 October, Saturday. In Ballymena, Co Antrim a 28-year-old man was charged with attempted murder after a number of loyalists assaulted and stabbed a Catholic man, in the Patrick Place area, near Harryville. (UTV, PSNI, IN, CW)
12 October, Sunday. A riot erupted in the mainly Catholic Short Strand area of east Belfast after two men, presumed loyalists, began vandalising Catholic-owned cars in the Mountpottinger Road area. (IN, AN, SBN, CW)
In Derry a Catholic owned home on Upper Bennet Street was struck by paintbombs thrown by loyalists in the Fountain estate, according to local sources. (CW)
13 October, Monday. Nationalist youths daubed republican graffiti and vandalised a cross-community primary school in Ligoniel, north Belfast. (IN, CW)
14 October, Tuesday. In Derry, a young girl in the mainly Protestant Fountain estate picked up a device which had been thrown into her garden. The device turned out to be an elaborate hoax. (DN, CW)
15 October, Wednesday. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission publicly admitted that it had made a mistake in sending out mixed signals in relation to the case being taken by one of the Holy Cross parents against the RUC/PSNI for their failure to adequately protect children's rights. In spite of the Commission adopting a policy of supporting and funding the case, Chief Commissioner Professor Brice Dixon undermined this policy by expressing reservations about it in correspondence with then RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan. (IN, UTV)
A young Moslem woman and her two children fled their Craigavon home after loyalist youths attacked it with stones. (IN, CW)
16 October, Thursday. Around 60 homes were evacuated in west Belfast after security forces were called to deal with devices found on St James' Avenue in a mainly Catholic part of West Belfast. Loyalists from the nearby Village area were blamed for planting the devices. (UTV, IN, AN, PA)
17 October, Friday. A wide cross-community coalition of community groups, political parties, non-governmental organisations and academics, presented a petition to Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, demanding he expel Craigavon Councillor Fred Crowe for the Racist and Islamaphobic remarks. In opposing the building of a Mosque in Craigavon, had said "Fred Crowe was reported as having said: "Their [Muslims] greatest enemy is Jesus Christ, and I have seen papers coming from them that it is their intention to wipe out Christianity." In response to this, Jamal Iweida of the Islamic Centre in Belfast said, "They had a rethink because of the remarks made and the community feels intimidated." Craigavon-based neo-nazi group the White Nationalist Party (an organisation whose membership overlaps the UDA's) picked-up on Mr Crowe's sentiments and distributed a leaflet which read "This is Ulster, not Islamabad" which lead to a sharp increase in serious racist attacks on minority ethnic people in Craigavon. Mr Crowe was later filmed by the BBC encouraging Craigavon youths to take an anti-Moslem stance. Although Crowe is reported to have been "reprimanded", he was not expelled from David Trimble's Upper Bann constituency Ulster Unionist party. (IN, AF, CW, BBC)
18 October, Saturday. Arson attack on Kilkeel Primary School. (PSNI)
In Derry, loyalists in the Fountain estate were blamed for five paint bombs being thrown over the peace line at houses on the mainly Catholic Upper Bennet Street. (CW, DJ)
22 October, Wednesday. Loyalists were blamed for a xenophobic attack in which four shots were fired from a car at the home of a young Swedish family in Ard Ri Gardens, Armagh. A 5 year old girl was showered in glass when one of the shots went through her bedroom window. Two other children were uninjured. (UTV, IN, PA, PSNI)
23 October, Thursday. This date marks the 10th anniversary of the IRA's bomb attack at Frizzel's Butcher Shop on the mainly Protestant Shankill Road in Belfast. Nine Protestant civilians were killed in the blast, as was one of the bombers, Thomas Begley. The IRA claimed at the time that their intended target had been the Shankill headquarters of the UDA, above the shop, but that the bomb had detonated prematurely. The civilians killed were John Desmond Frizzel, 63, his daughter Sharon McBride, 29, George Williamson 63, Gillian Willamson 49, Evelyn Baird 27, Michelle Baird 7, Leanne Murray 13, Michael Morrison 27, and Wilma McKee, 38. (IN, BBC, UTV, PA)
24 October, Friday. In Ballysillan, north Belfast, a youth was injured when a brass plug attached to a rocket-type firework hit him. (UTV, PSNI)
26 October, Sunday. Four flats were gutted in an arson attack in Dunlea Vale, Dungannon, Co Tyrone. (UTV)
Loyalists were blamed for firebombing the home of a pregnant woman in Lisanally Gardens, Armagh town. (UTV, PA, PSNI)
Catholics returning home after a night out in Randalstown, Co Antrim, were attacked by a crowd of loyalists. Community sources complained that the PSNI intervened by charging at the group of nationalists, who were largely outnumbered, and had grouped to defend themselves. (AN, CW)
27 October, Monday. Loyalists were blamed for firebombing the Catholic Our Lady of Assumption Chapel Hall on the Main Street in Newcastle, Co Down. (IN, UTV, BBC, PSNI)
28 October, Tuesday. Loyalists were blamed for firebombing the home of a Catholic couple in Lonsdale Villas, Armagh. (UTV, PSNI)
29 October, Wednesday. Loyalists were blamed for an attack in the Mill Road area of Newtownabbey, north of Belfast in which cars were firebombed and houses were paintbombed. (UTV, PSNI
In Derry, nationalist youths threw a number of petrol bombs at houses in the mainly Protestant Fountain estate. (UTV, PSNI)
30 October, Thursday. This date marks the 10th anniversary of the UDA's "trick or treat" attack on a Hallowe'en celebration at the Rising Sun Bar in Greysteel, Co Derry. One of two masked gunmen shouted "trick or treat" and both sprayed customers with machine gun fire in what the UDA claimed was a revenge-attack for the IRA's Shankill bombing a week earlier (see October 23). Nineteen people were injured and eight people, from across the community, were killed. One killer's gun jammed, leading to speculation that many more lives were could have been lost. Those killed were: Steven Mullan (20), Karen Thompson (19), James Moore (81), Joseph McDermott (60), Moira Duddy (59), John Moyne (50), John Burns (54) and Victor Montgomery (76). There may have been a ninth victim. Although ill, Karen Thompson's 45-year-old father had been expected to make a full recovery in hospital. He died a few months after his daughter's murder, many said from a broken heart. (UTV, IN)
Sources:
AN: Andersonstown News
BT: Belfast Telegraph
BBC: BBC radio and television news, BBC online, Radio Foyle
CW: Local community workers
DJ: Derry Journal
DN: Derry News
G: Guardian
IE: Irish Examiner
IN: Irish News
IT: Irish Times
ITN: Independent Television News
LI: London Independent
LS: Londonderry Sentinel
NBN: North Belfast News
NL: Newsletter
NoW: News of the World
OB: Observer
PA: Press Association
PFC: Pat Finucane Centre
RM: RM Distribution
PSNI: Police Service of Northern Ireland (RUC) press office.
SBP: Sunday Business Post
SBN: South Belfast News
ST: Sunday Tribune
UPMJ: Ulster Protestant Movement For Justice website
UTV: Ulster Television