CATHOLIC TEEN VICIOUSLY BEATEN IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Four men have been arrested for questioning following a serious assault of a teenager in County Antrim, Northern Ireland at the weekend.

The 15-year-old boy was walking home with friends after a night out, when they were confronted by a gang of men between midnight and 1am on Sunday. The victim's friends managed to escape, however when the teenager became separated from his friends, he was attacked and beaten, possibly with baseball bats. He managed to make his way back home, before being taken to Antrim Area hospital, where he remains in a critical condition on a life support machine.

The following is from Sinn Fein News.

Unionists attack leaves 15-year-old Catholic boy critically injured

A 15-year-old Catholic boy was critically injured in a sectarian attack in County Antrim on Saturday. The boy and a friend were brutally attacked by a unionist mob some of whom were armed with weapon who attacked him with a baseball bat and then jumped on his head. His friend escaped.

Saturday nights attack is the latest in a long line of attacks on Catholics, their homes churches and schools in the wider Ballymena area.

The DUP fail to engage in any power sharing on the Council. The local MP Ian Paisley went AWOL last summer at the height of the last anti-Catholic campaign which saw an attempt to ethnically cleanse a neighbouring village.

Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Antrim Philip McGuigan has said that unionist politicians in Ballymena and the areas MP Ian Paisley cannot ignore their responsibility for creating the conditions which gave rise to the sectarian attack on a young Catholic man in the town over the weekend. Mr McGuigan said that he would be contacting the Irish government to insist that they began to take some action to guarantee Irish citizens safety in the town.

Mr McGuigan said:

"Unionist politicians and in particular the DUP who control the local council cannot ignore their responsibility for creating the conditions which have given rise to violent attacks upon Catholics in this area by unionist gangs.

„The DUP failure to create conditions in Ballymena where the small Catholic community can live and work in peace does raise serious questions about the ability of the DUP to share power at any level with the representatives of the nationalist and republican community. Time and again when they get the opportunity to do so they fail to step up to the mark instead preferring to play to the lowest common denominator within their community."