MORE than one in six hate motivated incidents and crimes are being reported to police every day, with racism continuing to outstrip sectarianism.
Figures from the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) tracking police reports over the past 15 years found 936 racist incidents and 626 racist crimes recorded by the police during 2019/20 - a slight decrease on the previous year, but still one of the highest figures since police records began in 2004/05.
Last year also saw 888 sectarian incidents and 640 sectarian crimes and 272 incidents and 196 crimes with homophobic motivation as well as nearly twice the level of transphobic incidents and almost three times the number of transphobic crimes as the year before.
Reported racially-motivated hate incidents in Northern Ireland overtook sectarian incidents in 2016/17.
The data release comes amid warnings the black community is under-reporting racist abuse and attacks due to declining trust in the police - exacerbated by the service's `mishandling' of Black Lives Matter protests this summer.
Patrick Corrigan of Amnesty International described the hate crime figures as "worryingly high".
"The notable decline in incidents motivated by sectarianism since records began is a welcome long-term trend, with the number of incidents halved since 2005/06.
"However, that is still 888 incidents too many."
