Campaigning together to combat racism: Read more here

Have you ever experienced racist abuse or witnessed a racist incident? Have you ever wondered whether anyone cares that this is happening? Perhaps you wondered whether it was an isolated event or part of a bigger pattern? When we conducted a survey about this in Cork last year, we were shocked to learn that some 70% of the residents of our city believe that racism is an issue here. Well, now there is something you can do to make sure that it doesn’t go unnoticed.

In many cases, racist incidents may not constitute a crime at all, for example if someone makes a racist comment in the street. For that reason, there is no official mechanism for An Garda Suíochána to record such an incident. However, Cork’s community Gardaí are keenly aware that they need to know what is going on in their city, and they want to know why 70% of you are worried about racism. Nasc and An Garda Suíochána in Cork city have developed a mechanism through which we can record any incident of racism and report it to the local Gardaí, whether it constitutes a crime or not. This initiative is funded by the now defunct Office of the Minister for Integration, and forms part of the Cork City Integration Strategy.

All you have to do is call us on 021 4317411, or contact grace@nascireland.org. Please mention that you wish to make an appointment to report a racist incident.

If it turns out that your experience constitutes discrimination under the Equality Acts, Grace will let you know what you can do about it. We can also assist should you wish to make a complaint about a member of the Gardaí. Finally, we will make sure that your experience helps to keep racism on the national agenda, through our work with INAR…

Nasc is an active member of the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR), which is affiliated to the European Network Against Racism (www.enar-eu.org). INAR has developed a system through which racist incidents in Ireland, wherever they are reported, will be recorded in a central database. This will allow INAR and its members to provide evidence to policy makers in Ireland that racism is a reality that needs to be taken seriously.

By reporting the incident, you’ll help INAR to:
• understand how often racist incidents occur in Ireland
• understand who’s really experiencing racism
• in some cases, if you’re willing, take action against the people responsible, to try to ensure incidents like it can’t happen again.

Any information reported to INAR will of course remain entirely confidential. You can report an incident to INAR through Nasc, or simply go online and report it yourself, here. 

INAR and Nasc believe that the state should support the reporting and recording of racist incidents nationwide, so that national policy can be developed to deal with racism here. The Irish Human Rights Commission agrees; it has included the recommendation that Ireland “Introduce a comprehensive system for the monitoring of racist incidents“ in its recent list of key recommendations for human rights reform in Ireland.