BBC reporter:
Welcome to Northern Ireland. Just six weeks after arriving in Belfast, Hualong Lin lies in hospital recovering after being attacked on Saturday evening. His wife is expecting a baby on Christmas Day, but the holidays will be spent in sheltered accommodation.

They waited until it got dark before they forced their way into this house on Broadway Parade. Hua was at home when the gang arrived. They hit him in the face with a brick before they assaulted his wife and another pregnant woman who lived in the house. Just a few minutes earlier around the corner in Kitchener Street another house had its windows smashed. A Chinese family live there. They too were forced to flee. Within an hour the third attack. This time a Ugandan man and his wife and week-old twins were targeted. The couple had moved into this house on Tavanagh Street just a fortnight ago. A few days later paint was thrown at the outside of the house. Neighbours who got on well with the family say they are shocked.

Florence Armstrong:
They were nice. They are nicer people than some of ours. They have got manners, where our people have got no manners. But there was "please" and "thank you" with them, like, you know. Oh they were quite nice.

Bob Stoker, UUP Councillor South Belfast:
Last night and this morning, I have had quite a number of phone calls from local people who live here condemning this attack. There's literally hundreds of decent people live here. They want to live here in peace and quiet and they don't want to see this happening.

BBC reporter:
The police say the attacks were pre-planned and orchestrated. They have not ruled out paramilitary involvement. Racist graffiti in the Village area highlights links between some loyalists and far-right groups like Combat 18.

Davy Carlin, Anti-Racism Network:
These organisations - what they tend to do is to try and raise myths and perceptions. For example 'they are taking your homes', 'they are taking your jobs', etc. They target social and economic deprived areas, where they think they can get a hearing, where they put the blame of the ills of society on people who are most vulnerable within society. And that's how these organisations operate.

BBC reporter:
For the three families forced out of their homes on Saturday this Christmas will be one they remember for all the wrong reasons.

Ita Dungan - BBC Newsline, South Belfast (22/12/2003)

BBC reporter:
Back home after a terrifying ordeal these two children, aged six and four were among a group of eight Portuguese people whose homes were attacked last night. Several men carrying baseball bats tried to break into three flats at Moeran Park in Portadown around half past one. The children's father, who didn't want his face shown, explains.

Paulo Fialho:
They kick in my door, they listen to my children cry - and my wife - they not stop. Then I call to police. It's when they stop the kicking and they ran you know.

BBC reporter:
Like his friend, Toni Antonio has been in Northern Ireland for ten months. Neither has had any problem before.

Toni Antonio:
I am not angry but sad because I think we are in 2004 in a democracy and I think this kind of thing is impossible to happen now. But it happens. It's a reality.

BBC reporter:
Two young Portuguese women who travelled from Belgium to visit their brother cut short their holiday and left this afternoon after his flat was attacked in the same incident. The Mayor of Craigavon has condemned those behind the attack.

David Simpson, Mayor of Craigavon:
If this is purely and solely to do with the colour of a man or a woman's skin, then I would have to say to those people that carried this out that they are not fit to live in the Borough of Craigavon.

BBC reporter:
One of the men attacked last night is determined to stay. The family with the two young children though are moving out. They say it's no longer safe to remain here.

Conor Macauley - BBC Newsline, Portadown. (21/08/2004)

Mohammad Hossain:
Suddenly I heard a bang on the front door and I opened the door and I saw that the door is under fire. So I had some letters lying in front of the door, so I bring them in and call the fire brigade.

I don't know why these people are doing (this) to me. I never do any harm to these people. This is an ongoing problem. I have been attacked about 20 times in that house. They burn my house. They try to burn before by putting a burnt rope through my letter box. They burned my ... they broke my window, they smashed my door with a baseball bat. I don't know why they are doing that to me.

BBC reporter:
Do you think that these kind of attacks - have they become more frequent or worse in recent years?

Mohammad Hossain:
Well I pity them man. I mean I call upon my previous experience. Last few years things is going worse and worse and worse, things like that.
When you walk down and they call you every name under the sun like "You Paki B", things like that, which I am not. I am from Bangladesh and I am living here a long time. I have every respect for any single person in this society. It's like a wildness. I mean, I don't know why these people are doing that to me. I mean I do not know. I have no clue about that.

BBC reporter:
What about your little girl? I mean she must have been...

Mohammad Hossain:
Well, I am not worried about myself. I am particularly worried about my daughter. I mean I don't worry about any person who would do that thing, but if anybody going to touch my daughter they will come over my dead body. Yes I could say that.

BBC reporter:
What do you think needs to change in this society?

Mohammad Hossain:
Well I think to recognise other peoples. Try to be nice to the people that's what I would say to them. I just am here to carry on my life this time and my family and my daughter. That's the best I want to do.

(Report from BBC Newsline 22/07/2004)