Northern Ireland – praag.org

Three race-related incidents reported daily in Northern Ireland

Up to three race-related incidents are now being reported to the police in Northern Ireland every single day, a new study of racism in the region has found.

But only 12 out of a reported 14,000 race hate crimes in Northern Ireland over the last five years have resulted in successful prosecutions, according to a report backed by the power-sharing administration in Belfast.

Despite an increase in racist attacks in the first six months of this year, so far the police clear-up rate for race hate crimes is just over 8% of incidents reported between January and April 2014, the report reveals.

The annual Human Rights and Racial Equality Benchmarking Report 2013/2014, released on Tuesday, points out that there were 982 racist incidents in 2013-14 while there were 750 such incidents in 2012-2013.

The survey, which was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Council For Ethnic Minorities (Nicem), also found that racism has supplanted traditional sectarianism as the main reason for employees being harassed, bullied or threatened in the region’s workplaces.

It noted that over the last five years 75% of all complaints about harassment in the office, shop or factory to the Equality Commission in Northern Ireland are related to racial abuse and intimidation.

Yet while over the last year Northern Ireland has become one of the worst hot spots for racist crimes and race-hate linked incidents, the authors of the report say that the region is home to only 1% of all the non-EU/European Economic Area migrants who have come into the UK.

Overall, in local schools, the report reveals that 75% of children from ethnic minority groups experience derogatory racist name calling and that 42% of minority ethnic 16-year-old students had been “a victim of racist bullying or harassment in their school”.

Source: The Guardian

G8 hosts spar over ‘war criminal’ Obama

President Obama’s visit to the Group of Eight summit has created a political row in Ireland after an outspoken liberal lawmaker on Wednesday denounced the U.S. president as a “war criminal” for his drone use and his decision to arm the Syrian rebels.

Parliamentarian Clare Daly said her country’s government had showcased the country “as a nation of pimps, prostituting ourselves in return for a pat on the head,” The Irish Times reports.

The “unprecedented slobbering” during Obama’s two-day visit to Northern Ireland, she said, had even led to speculation that “you were going to deck the Cabinet out in leprechaun hats decorated with a bit of stars and stripes to really mark abject humiliation.”

The Irish head of government, Enda Kenny, called the remarks “disgraceful.”

“I think they do down the pride of Irish people all over the world who are more than happy to see this island being host to the G-8,” he said.

“And for you to stand up and criticize the American president for giving a continuation of support for a fragile peace process in Northern Ireland, where over 3,000 people lost their lives in 30 years, is a disgraceful do-down.”

Daly’s pique appears to have been provoked by the White House’s announcement last week that it will provide “military support” for the Syrian rebels after accusing Bashar Assad’s forces of using chemical weapons.

Ireland has remained neutral since shortly after its independence from Great Britain in 1922, and was one of the most vocal critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“This is the man who is in essence stalling the Geneva peace talks [scheduled for next month] by trying to broker enhanced leverage for the Syrian opposition by giving them arms — and to hell with the thousands more who’ll lose their lives, or the tens of thousands who will be displaced,” Daly said.

“This is the man who has facilitated a 200 percent increase in the use of drones which have killed thousands of people, including hundreds of children.” – The Hill

G8: UK’s Cameron welcomes world leaders to N. Ireland

Police patrol the water around Enniskillen in Northern Ireland where the G8 summit is being held

British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country’s ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict.

Speaking hours ahead of the summit’s official opening at a lakeside golf resort, Cameron said he expects formal agreement to launch negotiations on a European-American free trade agreement. He said a pact to slash tariffs on exports would boost employment and growth on both sides of the Atlantic.

“This will be a summit that will drive growth and prosperity all over the world,” Cameron declared as he arrived at the summit venue ahead of leaders from the United States, Canada, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Japan as well as the 27-nation European Union.

Referring to Northern Ireland’s ability to leave behind a four-decade conflict that claimed 3,700 lives, he said leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations should be inspired by the setting – the lush lakelands of County Fermanagh – to deliver their own economic breakthrough.

“Ten or 20 years ago, a G-8 in Fermanagh would have been unimaginable. But today Northern Ireland is a very different place … a symbol of hope to the world,” Cameron said.

Obama, seizing on that theme, was beginning his trip in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast, where he’s delivering a speech on sustaining Catholic-Protestant reconciliation 15 years on from the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord.

The U.S. leader was scheduled to speak inside Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, a glass-fronted building that would never have been built during the city’s long era of car bombs that ended with a 1997 Irish Republican Army cease-fire.

But with IRA splinter groups still active today, Northern Ireland’s police appear to be leaving little to chance in ensuring security around the Lough Erne resort west of Enniskillen.

More than 3,500 officers from Britain have been imported to double the security detail, and British Army engineers have helped to erect a daunting perimeter of steel fences and coiled razor wire for miles (kilometers) around the resort’s lone road entrance.

Air space over much of Northern Ireland is being restricted to summit traffic for the duration of the summit, which concludes Tuesday. And the water around the resort’s peninsula has been similarly closed to civilians, with police patrolling by boat, although the public is still free to fish from shore.

And Northern Ireland’s riot-savvy police have been deployed in armored vehicles and flame-retardant suits. They’re keeping massive mobile water-cannon vehicles in reserve, lest hard-left protesters make any serious bid to breach the security fence.

However the police commander of G-8 security, Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, says he expects peace to reign when socialist and anti-globalization protesters march Monday night from central Enniskillen to the fence.

Finlay said while officers had trained to manage crowds of more than 10,000 protesters, this was unlikely to materialize Monday, with just 2,000 expected and few anti-G-8 activists traveling from continental Europe for the occasion.

As the protesters march, G-8 leaders are due to hold a working dinner where foreign policy issues – especially the increasingly opposed positions of the United States and Russia over Syria’s civil war – will be on the menu.

Obama was expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin before that dinner. Obama last week announced that the United States would begin arming rebel groups trying to oust the Russian-backed government of Bashar al-Assad.

Cameron said he also hoped to achieve agreement that no G-8 member should pay ransoms to secure the release of hostages in North Africa, where western and Asian workers are top targets for kidnappers. – AP