Human rights, not racism

national | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday March 15, 2011 17:17 by Residents Against Racism rar.info at yahoo dot ie c/o Connolly Books, 43 East Essex Street, Dublin 2 087 6662060 or 087 7974622

New government - time for a new policy

DEMONSTRATION
Time for a new policy:
HUMAN RIGHTS, NOT RACISM
Dáil Éireann, Kildare Street, Dublin
12.30 pm, Tuesday 22 March

After 14 years we have a new government, promising to bring change. But one of the areas where change is most needed is the way we treat people coming to Ireland from other countries.

For years, government policy has been based on injustice towards people who have come to Ireland to escape from poverty or oppression. Asylum applications are decided by people hired and fired by politicians, and routinely refused at a rate far higher than other countries. People awaiting a decision are left to survive on a pittance of only €19.10 a week, often living in uninhabitable hostels, and legally denied the right to work or study.

The worst part of the process is the state’s deportation machine. Immigrants are rounded up, including children in their school uniform, forced on to a plane, and kicked out of the country. Often Irish children are deprived of a parent, or are even deported themselves. People still in the middle of the legal process get deported. People who have lived in Ireland for years on end can still face deportation. Although the numbers seeking asylum in Ireland has dropped, the deportation machine has been cranked up, with mass deportations now taking place nearly every month.

Thousands of Irish immigrants in the US are forced to live and work illegally, and Irish politicians have lobbied the government there to allow them the right to work and stay. Every decent person will support this demand—and should demand that undocumented immigrants here in Ireland will have that same right.

Many of the Irish politicians who have been responsible for policies that discriminated against people from other countries are now gone, rejected by the electorate. Their attempts to whip up racism so as to divert blame from their own failures should go too. It is time for a new policy that welcomes people from other countries, allows them to live here, work here, and play their part in Irish society.