Pandemic triggers a wave of racist attacks and slurs says INAR in latest report

Oein DeBhairduin

Allison Bray

March 23 2021 07:00 AM

THERE has been a wave of racist assaults and verbal attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest report from The Irish Network Against Racism.

Findings from its 2020 iReport.ie racist incident reporting system, which allows people to log racist incidents online using an app, reveals a surge in the number of racially motivated incidents since the start of the pandemic.

There were 700 complaints logged in 2020 compared with 530 in 2019 as well as 159 racially-motivated crimes on top of a record 51 racist assaults and 594 incidents of racial slurs or hate speech incidents, according to INAR.

Traveller activist and author Oein DeBhairduin said: “Contrary to what we might expect, the pandemic and associated lockdowns did not result in a quieter time for minorities in Ireland.

"In fact, the situation worsened for minorities, both in terms of the absolute number of online and on-the-street hate incidents, and in terms of the disproportional impacts of Covid on almost all minority groups. It’s been a bad year for everyone and racism and hate crime have made it an even worse one for all minorities.”

Dr Lucy Michael, research lead at INAR and author of the report said: “The report findings are also disappointing in what they tell us about our institutions and how they respond to minorities. Minorities making complaints about repeat harassment have told us about more instances of inappropriate responses from gardai than before” she said.

“We’ve also sadly logged an increase in instances of racial profiling by gardai,” she added.

Meanwhile Mr DeBhairduin said while INAR welcomes the Government’s intention to bring in hate crime legislation this year, “we also need measures to tackle hate speech in the online environment.”

He added institutional racism “and the systemic racism it enables” are still issues that need to be addressed.

"This requires taking bold measures for eliminating structural, institutional and cultural racism in all areas of life. For us to be able to make these aspirations real, we need focus, ample resourcing and real leadership from our government, and we need it now,” he said.