Joint statement: Solidarity with the people of Ballymena and Northern Ireland/North of Ireland
As organisations working for the rights of migrants and anti-racist groups working in the local community, we stand in solidarity with the people of the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland.
Fascist violence has erupted following the weaponisation of sexual violence in Ballymena. Rather than examining systemic patriarchy and gender-based violence that causes these incidents to occur, the far-right consistently appropriates them to incite terror on racialised people.
Misinformation, systemic racism and fascist conspiracy theories have become the new norm- that much was clear from last summer’s racist riots. What many have failed to collectively realise is that the violence didn’t happen in a vacuum, and has been enabled by legitimatising ‘concerns around migration’- by politicians, the media and the charity sector. But for those of us that have been paying attention, it’s evident that the far-right have been tightening their grip on communities in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland for some time.
While anti-migrant racist rhetoric has moved into the mainstream across the UK, in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland this is exacerbated by racist paramilitaries, sectarian violence and enforced deprivation. Both UNCERD and the European Commission have warned that there is a seeming reluctance to investigate paramilitary involvement in racist violence effectively while people in racialised communities have been begging for essential support for years only to be ignored. Governments may attempt to distance their policy and rhetoric from this violence, but it acts as an endorsement of (and accelerant to) racist mobilisation.
Calls for action have been ignored for too long and many outside the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland are unwilling to understand the unique barriers that create a catalyst for fascist violence of this nature.
We specifically demand:
- An end to the racist rhetoric from No. 10 and the Home Office
- Implementation of an asylum system based on dignity, safety and respect
- An end the grossly disproportionate targeting of Northern Ireland / The North by the Home Office for immigration raids
- Uphold Common Travel Area movement rights in full
- For the UK Government to commission a new review into paramilitarism in Northern Ireland to update their outdated 2015 assessment
- For there to be a full and independent panel-led inquiry into recurring paramilitary backed far-right violence in Northern Ireland / North of Ireland
Signed,
- Migrants’ Rights Network
- End Deportations Belfast
- Migrants at Work
- INQUEST
- Black Europeans
- Migrant Workers Union
- Migrant Democracy Union
- Stop Trump Coalition
- CARAS
- All African Rainbow Family
- Falls Women’s Centre
- West London Welcome
- Our Second Home
- Social Equity Centre
- the3million
- Melted Parents NI
- Past Tense Publication
- Another Europe is Possible
- Migrants in Culture
- Ecojustice Ireland
- Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID)
- Socialist Lawyers Association of Ireland
- Manchester Migrant Solidarity
- Right to Remain
- POMOC
- ACH
- UCU Branch Queen’s University Belfast
- Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
If you want to support the statement, you can add your organisation as a signatory here.