Archive for the ‘Human Rights’ Category
Join Community Standout Against Racism — Monday January 30 6pm @Ashtown Station, Dublin 15
A Homeless migrant camp in Ashtown was brutally attacked on January 28 2023 in Dublin. Ruth Coppinger, a former member of the Dáil (TD) for the Dublin West constituency circulated the report below. Directions at this link : https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/station/ashtown
Earlier today there was a brutal racist attack in Ashtown at a site where a group of migrant workers, made homeless by unaffordable rents, have been living in tents for months.
A gang of 5 or 6 men with dogs, armed with sticks and baseball bats descended on the camp and violently attacked and injured at least one person. They would have done more damage, only that witnesses disturbed them.
Read the rest of this entry »‘REFUGEES WELCOME’ THE OTHER SIDE OF PROTESTS – When far-right protests against asylum seekers housed in the former ESB building started in Dublin’s East Wall, Molly Hennessy wanted to do something. So she went down on her own with a cardboard sign that said, “Refugees Welcome”.
This report was published in the January 28 2023 edition of the Irish Times. The author is Patrick Freyne
‘REFUGEES WELCOME’ THE OTHER SIDE OF PROTESTS
Community groups are stepping up their opposition to those demonstrating about asylum seekers being housed in their areas
When far-right protests against asylum seekers housed in the former ESB building started in Dublin’s East Wall, Molly Hennessy wanted to do something. So she went down on her own with a cardboard sign that said, “Refugees Welcome”.
She says some of the protesters there on November 21st, 2022, were chanting “Refugees out” and “Ireland is full”. A man started shouting at her, she says. “He said he was going to follow me and burn my house down. And I was like, ‘okay, that’s mad, seeing as you’re here saying, “protect our women and children”.’ He was up in my face. I’m not even going to say some of the things he was saying about the people …I was crying walking away.”
It turned out a lot of local people were as upset by the protests as Hennessy and were contacting with one another. Soon East Wall Here for All was born. It’s one of a number of groups springing up across the city – Ballymun for All, Clondalkin for All, Tallaght for All, Drimnagh for All – that seek to show solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees. The groundwork was partly laid in the local Starbucks, where I meet some volunteers. “This place is to us what Liberty Hall was to James Connolly,” laughs Roxanna Nic Liam. “My family all live here and I work in a cafe in here. I saw the protests and I was mortified. I texted people in the area I knew and a few of us met up here in these very seats.”
“I was really shocked,” says her neighbour Paddy O’Dea. “I thought, ‘is this where I live now?’ I’ve a two-year-old and seeing parents at the protests with kids, I was like, ‘are these the views that are going to be passed on to my little man’?”
Read the rest of this entry »Rishi Sunak’s Westminster Parliament Blocks Scottish Parliament Transgender Law Reform – British Labour Leader Keir Starmer Surrenders to the Union-Jack Far-Right
Rishi Sunak’s governing Tories at Westminster have blocked a minor administrative human rights reform adopted by the Scottish Parliament which protects the rights of a very small minority, transgender people. It is an easy-peasy issue for all people on the liberal/social-democratic spectrum in Ireland – ranging from the entire left into significant sectors of the big right wing parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
In Scotland a similar liberal/social-democratic spectrum includes the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), the SNP’s government coalition partner the Greens, and the Scottish Labour Party.
The Scottish Parliament voted for this minor reform – which is less favourable to transgender people than the existing law in the 26 county bit of Ireland – by 86 votes to 39. This huge majority followed a very long drawn-out debate.
Irish Far-Right Threatens Dublin Mid-West TD Gino Kenny (People Before Profit)
This story was published in the Irish Examiner newspaper.
Gino Kenny says he ‘will not be intimidated’ by far-right threats to his home
PAUL HOSFORD, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, Irish Examiner, January 17 2023
The Dublin Mid-West TD says he has received threats after he joined a counter-demonstration at a temporary centre for asylum seekers in Clondalkin.
The far-right has been targeting me and my family,’ says People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny.
People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny says he “will not be intimidated” by members of Ireland’s far-right who have threatened to come to his home.
Read the rest of this entry »Rishi Sunak’s Westminster Government Blocks the Scottish Parliament’s Gender Recognition Reform legislation – A “constitutional nuclear ☢️ option”
Rishi Sunak’s Westminster government is using a “constitutional nuclear ☢️ option” (see Financial Times report below) to block a Scottish parliament gender recognition reform.
This Changes Everything
Mike Small reports on the Scottish Bella Caledonia blog : https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/01/16/this-changes-everything-2/
Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, has confirmed that the British government is using article 35 to block the Scottish government gender recognition reform bill. This is unprecedented and represents a full-on attack on the devolution settlement. It’s a desperate escalation and dramatically ups the stakes for not just the British government but also the Labour and Scottish Labour party. Will Anas Arwar simply over-turn his parties own position? It is billed as an attack on the SNP but it is actually an attack on the Scottish Parliament where the legislation received cross-party support after years of delays, amendments and debate.
Read the rest of this entry »Transgender Rights – “Scotland is now ahead of the rest of the UK – though still behind Ireland” – Michael Farrell
Veteran human rights activist Michael Farrell has campaigned in favour of transgender people for many decades. He publicly posted this comment in support of a recent Scottish Parliament Law reform:
Congratulations to the Scottish Parliament for taking a big step to protect transgender rights and resisting a bitter campaign by anti-trans groups to prevent them from making it easier for trans persons to get legal recognition. The new law, passed by 86 votes to 39, means trans people won’t have to get a medical diagnosis and wait for two yeas to register their gender. Scotland is now ahead of the rest of the UK – though still behind Ireland. A good day for a small community of people who have been abused and discriminated against for generations.
Michael Farrell, a founding member of People’s Democracy, was a revolutionary socialist activist in the six counties of Northern Ireland during the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Read the rest of this entry »Racism in Dublin’s East Wall Area : “Demanding Garda vetting for asylum seekers and refugees and using this as an excuse to surround asylum seekers and chant “Get them out” is as racist as it gets”
Let’s be clear and unambiguous.
A correspondent writes :
Demanding Garda vetting for asylum seekers and refugees and using this as an excuse to surround asylum seekers and chant “Get them out” is as racist as it gets. That’s the inner core of the protests in East Wall and it has nothing to do with housing. Calling for vetting to make sure these black men are not pedophiles is a propaganda repeated everywhere such protest emerge. It is learned from European racism over the past decade. Nothing can make this look any different. Nothing should try to make this any different than what it is.
Statement by Ukrainian Feminists in Solidarity with Iranian Women
Ukrainian Feminists offer solidarity to their sisters in Iran. The Teheran and Moscow régimes are reactionary allies.
the Iranian state is not only oppressing its own citizens. It also provides support for other oppressive and imperialist regimes. During the last few weeks, Iranian drones employed by the Russian army have killed tens of civilians and destroyed countless housing and critical infrastructure objects in Ukraine.
We, Ukrainian feminists, express our solidarity with Iranian uprising, triggered by the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini by the Iranian Morality Police. Thousands of women responded to this crime by going out on the streets, cutting their hair and publicly taking off and burning hijabs as a symbol of their oppression. What started as a protest against police brutality and obligatory hijab, quickly transformed into a general resistance of the Iranian people against the patriarchal and dictatorial mullah regime and the authoritarian form of capitalism that it represents. The grassroot mobilization is today being joined by schoolgirls, students, trade unions, ethnic minorities, and people from other social groups affected by the economic crises, high food prices, social cuts, and privatization. This new wave of struggles thus continues and expands the series of uprisings against socio-economic inequalities, political oppression and ethnic disctimination that shook Iran during the last decade.
Source : https://femwork.org/en/fm-news/solidarity-with-iranian-women-eng/
Two tweets, a ‘Phoenix’ fable and a hatchet to the bud of left solidarity with Ukraine.
Guest post by Des Derwin
The Phoenix piece (below) from 5th May 2022- re-posted in the ‘Left Links’ Facebook group on 3rd October 2022 – is a case of accusation through association, and association through juxtaposition, seeking to identify Ukrainian activist and academic Nadia Dobrianska with the far right.
In the Facebook group ‘Left Links’ the Phoenix piece was re-posted (3rd October 2022) with the demand for “some kind of explanation why socialists in Dublin would be hosting an event with Nadia Dobrianska who, if not a fascist, would certainly appear to be aligned with them”. There is no evidence provided for these innuendos and claims. There is possibly ground for a case of defamation from Nadia Dobrianska.
The flyer for the public meeting organised by Irish Left With Ukraine (with additional speakers’ names covered to keep them out of the present controversy).
Two tweets referring to Russian refugees from Nadia Dobrianska were also posted on ‘Left Links’ (29th September). If these tweets are genuine they – or one in particular – are problematic for her and for a speaker at a left public meeting on Ukraine. These will be discussed later but for now it should be noted that they do not offer evidence that she is fascist, or far right or even has an anti-immigrant position in general.
The general political background to a piece on Ukraine in the Phoenix is that the magazine tends, like much ‘left-leaning’ commentary in Ireland on Ukraine, to blame the US and NATO for the invasion and to portray the Zelensky government as oppressive, right wing and particularly objectionable.
The Phoenix piece is headed “Azov Human Rights”. Azov is a sea to the South of Ukraine. It is also a signal for the imputation of fascist politics to Ukraine’s resistance to the invasion, extrapolated from the common propaganda claim that the far right Azov paramilitary organisation reflects the viewpoint of the Ukrainian government. The claim usually denies that Azov has been depoliticised and incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard engendering the departure of its leaders to found new independent political organisations. Indeed the claim is exactly repeated later in this Phoenix article where it says: “The Azov Battalion is a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine which has as its core white supremacist and neo-Nazi members and ideology.”
The first sentence in ‘Azov Human Rights’ contains a gratuitous claim that Nadia Dobrianska “has become quite the Irish media darling”. This is another signal to those who object to the mainstream media’s support for Ukrainian defence and who would see it as the same as the usual media bias and misrepresentation in favour of the West on Palestine, Iraq, Julian Assagne, etc.
The Phoenix article begins:
Irish-speaking Nadia Dobrianska works for a human rights organisation in her native Kyiv and has become quite the Irish media darling. Dobrianska works for ZMINA, which ‘aims to promote human rights, the rule of law and the ideas of civil society in Ukraine’ … one of the high profile cases is that of Serhiy Sternenko… “former head of the regional branch of the Right Sector’ [which] has been widely described as neo-fascist [and] has been linked to attacks on journalists, left-wing party members and offices.
A second case of ZMINA support for a rightest is then offered. Note she works for ZMINA. That is, she does some of the work that ZMINA does and would not presumably be involved at all in every case that ZMINA takes up, such as for instance the two cases cited by Phoenix.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 