Campaign to highlight hate crime

A rally against race hate was held in Belfast last November

A poster campaign to raise awareness of hate crime in Northern Ireland is being launched by the police.

Figures show there were 530 reported incidents between April and December last year, a rise of 184 on 2003.

The campaign will run in areas which have the largest number of hate crimes. They are parts of Belfast, Craigavon, Ballymena, Foyle, Dungannon and Tyrone.

The PSNI is hoping the posters, which carry the message Hate Crime is Wrong, will persuade victims to come forward.

The posters feature images of race hate, homophobia, sectarianism and crimes against the disabled.

Reporting hate crime is one way of ensuring that further incidents are prevented and offenders held to account Robin Dempsey PSNI

Police also hope to promote the introduction of online internet reporting through the police website.

Inspector Robin Dempsey of the PSNI said while reports of hate crime had increased, there was still an under-reporting of such incidents.

"This poster campaign is one of a number of initiatives which police are using to highlight the nature and impact of hate crime," he said.

Homophobic incidents

"Reporting hate crime is one way of ensuring that further incidents are prevented and offenders held to account and we want to encourage people, whether they are victims of a crime or witnesses to an incident, to report it to police."

In the April-December 2004 figures, there were 444 racial incidents and 73 homophobic incidents.

Over the same period in 2003, there were 299 racial incidents and 47 homophobic ones.

Last November, representatives from the PSNI and the Policing Board gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into hate crime.

A preliminary report by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said the problem was significant.

Up to 2,000 people attended a rally in Belfast's city centre calling for an end to racism that same month.