Beorn
07-24-2009, 07:39 PM
A firebomb attack has caused extensive damage to the offices of The Somali Voice newspaper in Bristol.
The attack was made on the newspaper's Stapleton Road base in Easton, in the early hours of Thursday, an Avon and Somerset police spokesman said.
He said the force were treating the incident as a possibly racially-motivated attack.
A spokesman for an anti-racist group said the building had already had the word "die" scrawled on to its shutters.
There are around 20,000 Somalis living in Bristol, up from 4,000 seven years ago.
'Wonderful resource'
In 2007 several Somali women living in the Hillfields area of the city were subjected to racist attacks and had stones thrown at them.
Batook Pandya of Support Against Racist incidents (SARI) told BBC News Online he was appalled by the attack.
"It's quite complex. I think the issue is that it could be a racist attack and in this case whether it's because of race or because it's the patch I don't know," he said.
"There was some graffiti with the word 'die' on the shutters there already.
"It is a shame because it is a wonderful resource and people could have used this for the community cohesion that we need in Bristol.
"They were funding everything from their own pockets."
--(Via the benefits system:rolleyes2:)--
Police want any witnesses or anyone with information about the incident to contact them.
Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8167747.stm)
The attack was made on the newspaper's Stapleton Road base in Easton, in the early hours of Thursday, an Avon and Somerset police spokesman said.
He said the force were treating the incident as a possibly racially-motivated attack.
A spokesman for an anti-racist group said the building had already had the word "die" scrawled on to its shutters.
There are around 20,000 Somalis living in Bristol, up from 4,000 seven years ago.
'Wonderful resource'
In 2007 several Somali women living in the Hillfields area of the city were subjected to racist attacks and had stones thrown at them.
Batook Pandya of Support Against Racist incidents (SARI) told BBC News Online he was appalled by the attack.
"It's quite complex. I think the issue is that it could be a racist attack and in this case whether it's because of race or because it's the patch I don't know," he said.
"There was some graffiti with the word 'die' on the shutters there already.
"It is a shame because it is a wonderful resource and people could have used this for the community cohesion that we need in Bristol.
"They were funding everything from their own pockets."
--(Via the benefits system:rolleyes2:)--
Police want any witnesses or anyone with information about the incident to contact them.
Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8167747.stm)