Asylum supporters face growing online abuse

Frequent abusive and threatening messages online in the wake of recent anti-migrant protests are being aimed on local community groups that that have voiced their support for refugees and asylum seekers.

e protests have become more frequent in the last six months, with greater numbers in attendance and dangerous rhetoric being used both at the protests and online, where they are often live-streamed.

e protests have been attended by members of already established far right groups, local residents, and what anti-racism demonstrators call “outside agitators” who recruit fellow protestors via social media.

In recent weeks, prominent anti-refugee campaigner, Graham Carey, was charged with incitement to hatred over online posts made that were alleged to be threatening, abusive or insulting and that were intended to stir up hatred.

Rhetoric has been frequent on social media as the protests have continued, with disinformation being widely shared and hateful comments directed at community groups and activists working to support asylum seekers in their areas.

People Before Pro t activist Conor Reddy has frequently spoken out against the protests on social media and as a result, he said his name has been mentioned at some protests that have taken place. He told e Journal that the negative online messages he receives are “relentless”.

“I think pretty much everybody who has come out with a message against the pro- tests or a message that asylum seekers are welcome, we’ve all faced some level of blowback.”

Mr Reddy said the comments he receives range from those repeating the “Ireland is full” hashtag used by some on Twitter, to repeating known conspiracy theories about the systematic replacement of Irish people by asylum seekers.

“I’ve gotten quite a lot of messages personally directed at me, DMs on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, where people will make all sorts of allegations,” he said, adding that this was mostly “intimidation and just outright lies”.

“ ey call me a paedophile or a paedophile apologist. I’ve had a couple of threats on Twitter, a couple of people have said di erent things. One lad told me last week not to go anywhere near Dublin 1. Another person told me that I’d want to be very careful next time I come into the area that he’s from.

“ ere was one guy who I was engaging with at rst. I thought he had some genuine concerns, he was talking about housing. So I gave him the bene t of the doubt and after a couple of days, he became completely unreasonable.

“I must have gotten 500 messages from him.” e number of cases of cancer saw Ireland at the top of the European Union table for the illness in 2020, with a 26.3% rate above the average, a seminar has been told.

Cancer deaths in Ireland were an estimated 11% above the average EU country in 2020, the latest gures available, according to estimates in a recent

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Professor Deirdre Murray, director of the National Cancer Registry of Ireland, speaking at an event on the future of cancer care in Ireland organised by the Royal College of Surgeons, was asked by moderator Dr Ronan Glynn, the former deputy chief medical o cer at the Department of Health who is now with