March 22, 2004 Boy is Attacked for 'Looking Like Fenian'
by Seamus McKinney, Irish News

Three teenagers responsible for a sectarian attack on a young Derry boy told him "you look like a fenian, we are going to give you a battering" moments before the assault.

The 13-year-old was treated at Altnagelvin Hospital for cuts and bruising after the sectarian assault at the entrance to Lisnagelvin shopping centre on Wednesday night.

SDLP councillor Gerard Diver said the attack had taken place in front of the youngster's mother, who wished to remain anonymous.

"Minutes earlier the three thugs, aged around 16, had been stalking the child and his mother in the shopping centre and made sectarian anti-Catholic remarks to the child," he said.

"When the mother and child left the shopping centre, the child was viciously attacked in front of his mother by the three boys."

Mr Diver said the attackers had confronted the boy inside the shopping centre telling him: "You look like a fenian, we're going to give you a battering."

The councillor said the victim's mother had been telephoning her husband when the three youths started beating her son around the head. The attack ceased when security personnel from the shopping centre intervened.

Confirming that there had been an attack, a police spokesman said officers spoke to a 12-year-old boy in the presence of his parents about the incident.

They also plan to talk to two other youths.

Mr Diver said: "I speak for people right across this city when I condemn the attack outright."

Since news of the attack broke, Mr Diver said he had been contacted by the father of another boy who was assaulted in almost identical circumstances two weeks ago.

"The people are sick and tired of sectarianism and it is pathetic that it still exists at all in our society.

"Sectarianism leads to violence and people being hurt and it is a scourge on our society."

Sinn Féin's Lynn Fleming also called for unionists to speak out about the attack, saying that all sectarian attacks were wrong.

"This young boy was attacked in front of his mother for being a Roman Catholic and no other reason," she said.