Travellers and state racism: New strategies

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Ronit Lentin

travellers1I was privileged to speak at the Irish Traveller Movement 2012 AGM. Travellers have campaigned for recognition as an ethnic group for years and the state’s refusal in 2003 to recognise them as such after years of government attempts to settle and assimilate Travellers was a major setback, because it deprives them of a coherent platform from which to conduct an antiracism campaign.

My argument is that although there is plenty of individual racism against Travellers, from local councils to local residents who do not want Travellers to be accommodated near them, the chief offender is the state. In attempting to settle Travellers, in not providing sufficient halting sites, in prohibiting camping on public or private grounds, in not supporting Travellers in seeking second and third level education, and in denying Traveller ethnicity, the Irish state racialises Travellers as a group apart. Continue reading “Travellers and state racism: New strategies”

Special present on World Refugee Day 2012

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Ronit Lentin

stop-deportationsTwo things happened on this year’s World Refugee Day. While Sophie Magennis, head of the UNHCR office in Ireland, wrote on the continued relevance of asylum, another mass deportation to Nigeria took place after many direct provision centres were raided at dawn by the GNIB.

Magennis reminded Irish Times readers that worldwide 42 million people ended 2011 as refugees, internally displaced, or seeking asylum, and that humanitarian catastrophes in Afghanistan (the largest producer of refugees), Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, continue to produce refugees.

Though the UNHCR has been working with the Irish government (some say too closely), Magennis criticised the inhumane direct provision system and advocated a ‘single procedure’ in the determination of asylum cases. In the current system people seeking asylum in Ireland are first interviewed by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner to determine whether they were persecuted on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion. Only after this procedure ends must applicants raise their fear of returning home where they may be tortured or killed.  Magennis and the UNHCR recommend a ‘single procedure’ to determine both persecution and protection, which, she believes, the new version of the Immigration Residence and Protection due before the Dáil, will address. Continue reading “Special present on World Refugee Day 2012”

Short plays about (racist) Ireland – 3

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Ronit Lentin

On 20 June, International Refugee Day, Another mass deportation to Nigeria from Ireland took place.

According to Joe Moore of Anti Deportation Ireland (ADI: Hostels were raided at 5am approx this morning. The information I have to date is:

Carriick-on-Suir, one woman and her three children taken

Ashbourne House, Cork, one woman and her three children taken, she has been in Ireland for 6 years.

Portlaoise, two women, with three children each, all taken. One of the women has recently had a serious stomach operation. She became so distraught when the GNIB entered her room, that she attempted to harm herself with a knife. She was dragged outside, naked from the waist up, where she was severely beaten, peppered sprayed and handcuffed. As a result of the beating her operation scar opened. She was taken to hospital but after a short time she was brought back to the hostel, and she and her three children was taken to the airport by the GNIB. Her lawyer is in the High Court now trying to get her released.

The lawyer failed in reversing this deportation and the woman was on the plane!!