THERE has been a wave of racist assaults and verbal attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest report from The Irish Network Against Racism. Findings from its 2020 iReport.ie racist incident reporting system, which allows people to log racist incidents online using an app, reveals a surge in the number of racially motivated incidents since the start of the pandemic. There were 700 complaints logged in 2020 compared with 530 in 2019 as well as 159 racially-motivated crimes on top of a record 51 racist assaults and 594 incidents of racial slurs or hate speech incidents, according to INAR. Minorities making complaints about repeat harassment have told us about more instances of inappropriate responses from gardai than before” she said. "This requires taking bold measures for eliminating structural, institutional and cultural racism in all areas of life.

Source: Irish Independent March 23, 2021 06:33 UTC