United Nations committee calls out paramilitary involvement in NI racism

-Credit: (Image: Declan Roughan / Press Eye)
-Credit: (Image: Declan Roughan / Press Eye)


An expert UN committee has called out paramilitary involvement in racist violence and intimidation in Northern Ireland, and said the Stormont government should begin "systematically" collecting data on the problem.

The United Nations committee responsible for combatting racism has in recent weeks criticised the UK over continuing hate crimes, hate speech and xenophobic incidents, following riots fuelled by hate and misinformation that gripped the country this summer.

The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published a report in late August, expressing concern about the use of racist speech on various platforms - particularly by politicians and public figures. And it also looked, specifically, at the situation in Northern Ireland where it identified paramilitary involvement in "acts of racist violence and intimidation" as a particular area of concern.

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The committee also issued its findings on Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Venezuela, after reviewing them in its latest session.

On the situation in the UK as a whole, the committee said it is “particularly concerned about recurring racist acts and violence against ethnic and ethno-religious minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by extremist far-right and white supremacist individuals and groups”.

On Northern Ireland, the commitee report said: "While noting the efforts by the State party to tackle paramilitarism in Northern Ireland, the Committee is concerned about reports of paramilitary groups and affiliated individuals perpetrating acts of racist violence and intimidation to deter persons belonging to ethnic minorities and migrants from taking up housing or establish business in certain areas. It is also concerned about information indicating that victims do not always report these acts for fear of reprisals and that the response by the authorities and the police has been ineffective."

The UN experts called ror "robust measures" to combat paramilitary intimidation and violence, and for the Stormont government to "systematically collect information on these acts of intimidation and ensure that cases of paramilitary racist violence and intimidation are promptly and effectively investigated, prosecuted and punished".

Daniel Holder, director of the Committee for the Administration of Justice, told Belfast Live his organisation had given evidence to the UN committee.

"We were involved in the hearings in Geneva at the UN that looked at the record on tackling racism, here and in Britain," he said. "This committee, every five years, will look at how the UK as a whole is complying with the UN anti racism treaty, and it will raise specific concerns where there are problems and where international human rights obligations aren't being dealt with. We've engaged in that process, provided evidence to it.

"The committee had a particular interest, obviously, in the outbreak of far right violence that happened both in England and then here, at the beginning of August. In their focus on Northern Ireland, specifically, they've called out the paramilitary involvement, which is what's what sets us aside here from the incidences in England."

He continued: "What we're talking about is an escalation of an existing pattern of elements of loyalist paramilitarism, not all but certainly elements, involved in racist violence and intimidation. That includes the type of posters that go up on lampposts to intimidate people from a particular area, up to and including violent evictions from housing - although there's often been an attempt to downplay paramilitary involvement.

The UN committee has now called this out. So even the UN is now raising issues about paramilitary involvement in racist violence and intimidation.

"The UN is raising concerns, and they're asking Stormont to adopt robust measures to prevent this. And one of the things that's notable is that Stormont does have a 'tackling paramilitarism' strategy. But that strategy makes absolutely no reference, whatsoever, to paramilitary involvement in racist violence even though it's been known for years that this has been the case."

He added: "There's no real information available unless you piece it together yourself about paramilitary involvement and racist intimidation. It certainly seems that the correlation is between particular areas of loyalist paramilitary control. But there is no real publicly available data or mapping on the source of threat."

The UN report was also welcomed by the Derry-based North West Migrants Forum.

Project Research and Campaigns Worker Shannon Doherty told Belfast Live: "North West Migrants Forum represents and works with people who have been the victims of hate crimes and housing intimidation. These incidents not only inflict suffering on the victims, but also undermine the values enshrined in human rights legislation; respect for human dignity, freedom, and equality. We are grateful that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has made clear recommendations that reflect the issues we raised with them."

She added: "We call on the NI Executive to fully consider the implications of these observations and take urgent steps to action these expert recommendations."

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