Scottish justice minister to address SDLP conference

Scottish Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson has been lined up as a guest speaker at an SDLP conference next week on sectarianism and racism, it was confirmed today.

The Labour MSP has, along with Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell, spearheaded the Scottish Executive’s bid to stamp out sectarian and racist chants on football terraces.

Her appearance at the Belfast conference on Monday will come just hours after she launches an anti-sectarian initiative in Scotland.

She will appear in a panel discussion chaired by broadcaster Seamus McKee featuring SDLP leader Mark Durkan and Ulster Unionist MLA Esmond Birnie.

The conference will also be addressed by Mirsad Tokaca from the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Centre, who hopes to complete by next March a register of all the people killed during the Balkans war in Bosnia Herzegovina.

More than 90 people drawn from community and voluntary groups, political parties, trade unions and the public have registered to attend the conference.

Former Stormont Finance Minister Sean Farren said that while sectarianism ran deep and broadly in Northern society, there was growing evidence they were translating easily into racist confrontation.

“This conference provides an opportunity to scope and scale the problem, but it is our hope that it can do more than that,” the North Antrim MLA said.

“We can’t afford to wait for attitudes to change. Sectarian and racist attitudes tend to grow more strongly in the absence of positive political leadership, so there is a challenge for all the political parties.

“We are strong advocates of political action to combat these problems, and we urgently need to explore common ground and the potential for consensus-building on a shared future.”

Other guest speakers include Policing Board member and former Ireland rugby international Trevor Ringland of the One Small Step Campaign, Nobuhle Nduka from Akidwa, which represents African women in Ireland and Reverend David Clements from the Wave Trauma Centre.