Eight racist incidents reported each week

Racist incidents are being reported at a rate of eight per week, according to a new survey by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, which claimed there has been a surge in cases this summer.

The ICI said it had responded to 120 racist incidents in the past 12 months and warned that it had dealt with 52 reports in June and July alone.

That is compared to just three cases in the same two month period last year, and the ICI also warned that there has been a rise in online racist incidents, while, overall, more than one in 10 cases of alleged racism reported to the ICI in the past year involved physical violence against the victim.

Cyber-racism accounted for almost 17% of all incidents logged by the ICI and its chief executive, Denise Charlton, said urgent action was needed to tackle the problem.

The ICI found that cyber-racism took a number of forms, including people being abused on extremist websites and direct messaging through social media.

“We believe Ireland should now ratify conventions of the Council of Europe which would outlaw such acts,” Ms Charlton said. “A delay of over a decade in ratifying is leaving people open to online abuse and bullying.”

She said such a move would mean the production and distribution of offensive material would be criminalised.

The ICI survey also revealed that gardaí were contacted about the alleged incident in 43 cases and the Garda National Immigration Bureau were contacted in another seven cases.

In another 38 cases, the ICI was liaising with or making a referral to the appropriate organisation or service, but in other cases, victims did not want to take the matter any further.

The survey showed that almost 40% of complaints related to verbal harassment, while one third of incidents reported were of alleged discrimination and one in five were linked to written harassment.

Physical violence was a factor in 11.7% of cases and there was a threat of such violence in another 5.8% of cases.

The ICI said it was now responding to an average of eight cases each week, with people of African background more likely to report being the victim of racism.

The perpetrators in the majority of cases reported to the Immigrant Council are Irish.

In addition to the ratification of Council of Europe Conventions and Protocols on cyber crime and online racism, the ICI said it wanted to see the establishment of a national database on racism and the introduction of new comprehensive anti- racism policies across statutory bodies and service providers.

Ms Charlton said the results of the survey were “alarming”, not least the fact that the fact that 20% of reported incidents occurred in the workplace, while 29% of victims alleged they had encountered racism when accessing government, community, or customer services.

Meanwhile, Cork-based asylum seeker support group Nasc has claimed that both Irish and foreign nationals are suffering by the State’s failure to legislate for family unity.

It referred to two cases, one involving a returning Irish national and her Turkish partner, and another involving a Congolese man and his family, in which Nasc said those applying for family reunification were placed under emotional and financial strain.

Nasc chief executive Fiona Finn said: “Reforms to family reunification law have been promised for years and we are still waiting. Irish citizens, residents, and refugees around the world are struggling. It cannot go on.”

Tks to everyone who reported Burgh Quay racist graffitti to us today...Your actions led to its removal, [e-mail] RT

— Immigrant Council.ie (@immigrationIRL) August 21, 2013

120 cases

ICI racism reports:

* 120 cases of alleged racism reported to Immigrant Council in the past year.

* 52 cases in June and July 2012 alone.

* 11.7% of cases involved physical violence.

* 17% of cases involved cyber-racism.

* Gardaí or GNIB contacted in 50 cases.