12 April 2001 Edition
An Post delivers racist leaflets
BY ROISIN DE ROSA
Semi-state company An Post has been delivering, door to door, Immigration Control Platform (ICP) leaflets in several areas of Dublin City. The ICP is a group which promotes anti-refugee policies and calls for an end to the internationally recognised rights of those who face persecution to seek sanctuary here in Ireland.
The leaflet invites you to send a postcard to another government employee, the Minister for Justice, urging him to ``disengage from the Geneva Convention Relating to the status of Refugees (1951)'' because ``it now facilitates a migratory impetus allowing no restrictions on numbers entering and almost no subsequent deportation''.
Factually incorrect? Certainly. Racist? Only by implication.
In fact, notwithstanding the State's obligations under the Geneva Convention, Minister John O'Donoghue has gone to great lengths in legislation and in deployment of Ôsecurity' on ferries coming to Ireland, to prevent asylum seekers coming to Ireland. He has also limited the right of asylum seekers to a court hearing of their case to be considered as living in fear of persecution The Minister's latest step was the refusal of the Legal Aid Board to take on asylum seekers' judicial review cases. Several asylum seekers have been deported before their listed court hearings for judicial review. Many have been arrested and detained in prison pending deportation.
No one can say the minister is not doing his best, even sailing very close to the wind of his own draconian laws, which are there precisely to prevent Ireland offering sanctuary to the thousands of people in the world who suffer persecution.
However, as the chief legal officer of An Post, Hugh Reilly, points out, it is not the job of An Post's legal department to check factual accuracy. An Post will distribute, for a price of roughly 4p a delivery, any material which is not slanderous, defamatory, or promoting illegal activity.
According to a postal worker who had to deliver the postcards, he was specifically instructed to deliver to working class areas of his route and avoid more middle class areas. He also claimed that the postal workers' union, the Communications Worker Union, negotiated away the right of workers to refuse to handle material they might find offensive.
The fact that the government proposes to attract 285,000 workers from abroad to meet the National Plan's labour requirements only underlines the implicit racism of the ICP's concern about asylum seekers, the majority of whom have fled persecution in black Africa.
The fact that this government declares its policy to be one of combating racism might not seem consistent with the semi-state company, An Post, receiving money for promoting opportunities to join, and financially contribute to the ICP. But does that give An Post the legal right, or even the discretion, to refuse to distribute them?
Should the ICP's material be delivered without a counter argument? In our Ôfree' society that comes down to money. Who can afford a 4p per delivery to the nation? Money talks.
Roisin De Rosa can be contacted at [email protected]
Semi-state company An Post has been delivering, door to door, Immigration Control Platform (ICP) leaflets in several areas of Dublin City. The ICP is a group which promotes anti-refugee policies and calls for an end to the internationally recognised rights of those who face persecution to seek sanctuary here in Ireland.
The leaflet invites you to send a postcard to another government employee, the Minister for Justice, urging him to ``disengage from the Geneva Convention Relating to the status of Refugees (1951)'' because ``it now facilitates a migratory impetus allowing no restrictions on numbers entering and almost no subsequent deportation''.
Factually incorrect? Certainly. Racist? Only by implication.
In fact, notwithstanding the State's obligations under the Geneva Convention, Minister John O'Donoghue has gone to great lengths in legislation and in deployment of Ôsecurity' on ferries coming to Ireland, to prevent asylum seekers coming to Ireland. He has also limited the right of asylum seekers to a court hearing of their case to be considered as living in fear of persecution The Minister's latest step was the refusal of the Legal Aid Board to take on asylum seekers' judicial review cases. Several asylum seekers have been deported before their listed court hearings for judicial review. Many have been arrested and detained in prison pending deportation.
No one can say the minister is not doing his best, even sailing very close to the wind of his own draconian laws, which are there precisely to prevent Ireland offering sanctuary to the thousands of people in the world who suffer persecution.
However, as the chief legal officer of An Post, Hugh Reilly, points out, it is not the job of An Post's legal department to check factual accuracy. An Post will distribute, for a price of roughly 4p a delivery, any material which is not slanderous, defamatory, or promoting illegal activity.
According to a postal worker who had to deliver the postcards, he was specifically instructed to deliver to working class areas of his route and avoid more middle class areas. He also claimed that the postal workers' union, the Communications Worker Union, negotiated away the right of workers to refuse to handle material they might find offensive.
The fact that the government proposes to attract 285,000 workers from abroad to meet the National Plan's labour requirements only underlines the implicit racism of the ICP's concern about asylum seekers, the majority of whom have fled persecution in black Africa.
The fact that this government declares its policy to be one of combating racism might not seem consistent with the semi-state company, An Post, receiving money for promoting opportunities to join, and financially contribute to the ICP. But does that give An Post the legal right, or even the discretion, to refuse to distribute them?
Should the ICP's material be delivered without a counter argument? In our Ôfree' society that comes down to money. Who can afford a 4p per delivery to the nation? Money talks.
Roisin De Rosa can be contacted at [email protected]