MOYGASHEL, Northern Ireland, July 10 (Reuters) - A replica of a mosque was set alight on a bonfire in a pro-British town near Belfast on Thursday night before police had a chance to remove what they described as a "hate display" that was condemned by politicians across the region.
Bonfires are lit across the British region in mainly Protestant "loyalist" neighbourhoods on the eve of July 12 commemorations of William of Orange's victory over the Roman Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
A 56-year-old man was charged with incitement to hatred in relation to the incident. He denied the charges at a hearing in Dungannon Magistrates' Court on Friday, and was refused bail.
The replica mosque on a tall structure of wooden pallets was erected a month after anti-migrant violence swept Belfast.
A Facebook page for a group called the Moygashel Bonfire Association said it organised the fire, which had been due to be set alight in front of large crowds on Friday but was lit a day early as police were preparing to remove it. The page includes anti-immigrant and anti-Islam slogans.
'HATE CRIME WILL NOT BE TOLERATED'
"Had the bonfire not been lit, police would have secured the site and removed the offending material and seized it as evidence," Police Chief Superintendent Norman Haslett said in a statement. "Hate crime has no place in our society and will not be tolerated."
Britain's minister for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, described the display on Thursday as a "sickening and cowardly act of intimidation".
Anti-migrant imagery has in some instances replaced pictures and effigies of Catholic Irish politicians and anti-Catholic slogans commonly placed on some of the bonfires.
A model of refugees in a boat was set alight last year at the same location in Moygashel, 65 km (40 miles) west of Belfast. That also followed a period of violence in which migrants' homes were attacked.
Rioters attacked homes and businesses of ethnic minorities in riots last month after a viral video showed a stabbing in which a man lost an eye. A man police say is from Africa has been charged with attempted murder.
The replica of the mosque had an effigy of a person in one window holding an item that looked like a knife. Banners below it read "secure our borders" and "end the threat of radical Islam".
(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson in Belfast, Writing by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Timothy Heritage, William Maclean)
