Northern Ireland's first Chinese politician has vowed not to be deterred by racists after abuse was posted about her on a high-profile website.
Police are continuing their investigations into allegations of racism against south Belfast MLA Anna Lo after new bigoted footage appeared on the video website YouTube. The videos, which are seen 100m times a day, were removed after they appeared in the comedy category showing a poster of the new Alliance MLA being defaced while the culprits ridiculed her accent.
The footage was removed as soon as the Belfast Telegraph alerted Ms Lo, the PSNI and the website to the material.
This is the latest in a series of racist on- line attacks against Ms Lo, who is the first politician of Chinese descent to be voted into government in Europe. Ms Lo's face has been maliciously posted onto pornographic websites and she has been abused on a hate site which links into a network "for national-socialists world-wide" and claims to be part of the infamous neo-Nazi group Combat 18.
Ms Lo today said that, while the racist slurs are upsetting, the overwhelmingly warm response she has received following her election as south Belfast MLA is much more representative of local people.
"I have had a meeting with police about this kind of thing before but they cannot do much because no actual threats have been made against me. When the sites are shut down, they are just re-opened somewhere else. In all societies there are small elements who are against you simply because of who and what you represent. I think my election shows how far we have actually progressed as a society. The fact that Northern Ireland is the first place in Europe to vote in a (Chinese) politician is a very positive image for the province world-wide. Therefore, I try not to think about the abuse on the internet."
A PSNI spokesman said: "Police inquiries are ongoing into an existing issue regarding internet content. The PSNI do not monitor internet sites on a day-to-day basis; however, we will take appropriate action when we receive a complaint of a criminal offence in our jurisdiction."
Nobody from YouTube was available to comment.
Belfast Telegraph
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