North of Ireland authorities increasingly assisting the far-right

In recent weeks, there has been increasing evidence of authorities in the north of Ireland aligning themselves with dangerous far-right thugs. On May 1, the racists and Islamophobes of Our Northern Ireland Voice (ONIV) shared a video showing a group of men assaulting a person they described as a “Pakistani male”.

Later identified as Mohammed Manai, the thugs allege he was attempting to enter a primary school, though no evidence has been produced for his alleged crime. However, thanks to ONIV, video evidence does exist of thugs attacking Manai with punches and knees to the body as they pin him to the ground.

Despite this proof of criminal violence, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) instead arrested Manai, but not any of those who brutally set upon him. Manai remains on remand (held in police custody), despite reports that his:

…full case file is not due to be with prosecutors from police by mid-June.

Thugs attack person of colour, but police arrest only the victim

The PSNI are holding Manai for the generic catch-all charge of alleged “disorderly behaviour”. However, if the police are detaining the man purely on the basis of witness statements from those who attacked him, it represents a disgraceful failure by the police force.

In messages passed to the Canary from ONIV’s then-private Facebook forum, commenters refer to Manai as a “scumbag immigrant”. The forum has since been made public, exposing the torrent of hateful bile circulating within it. The PSNI have not yet used hate speech legislation to prosecute these commenters.

The reason ONIV seems confident to expose their previously internal messaging seems clear. On the same day that Manai was attacked, ONIV staged a protest at Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council’s Coleraine offices. The result of that was securing a meeting with the council’s chief executive David Jackson.

As pointed out by the Belfast Telegraph, the meeting essentially amounts to local authorities endorsing the work of racist thugs, who are currently attempting to assemble nightly patrols in the Coleraine area. Ostensibly to ‘protect’ local residents, their real purpose is to intimidate local people of colour. A May 20 post on ONIV Facebook asks for:

…men out there willing to stand together and help protect and strengthen our community presence…

This is next to posts screaming:

At the end of the day, if nobody takes a stand now against Third Worlders..

In time, we’ll have nowhere to stand!!

It’s more likely that local residents need protection from ONIV, given their leader Dan Grundle (who also goes under the surname Douglas) has been convicted for loyalist rioting. Fellow member Mark Brown is a Nazi ex-National Front leader who was convicted for a racially motivated attack in 2019. Brown punched a taxi driver in the head and called him a “Muslim cunt” and “low-rent Jihadi bastard”. Yet these people were invited in to the offices of their local council, on the basis of them having:

…raised concerns regarding HMO [House in Multiple Occupation] enforcement with council officials.

These are the words of a council spokesperson. A “council source” told the Telegraph:

Council officials are saying that they didn’t know about Mark Brown’s background, which isn’t good enough because you don’t have meetings with people you don’t know, especially high-profile Nazis about a topic as inflammatory as immigration.

As previously reported by the Canary, low quality HMOs are a real issue, as is lack of social housing generally. Such properties are often used to house immigrants. The outrage should be that anyone is forced to live in such sub-standard housing, but the issue is exploited by the far-right to drive resentment of new arrivals to the Six Counties.

Housing failures once again leveraged by far-right

A post provided to the Canary from an observer of the ONIV group shows “Irish only” graffiti painted on houses in the south of Ireland, with an ONIV admin suggesting that this tactic should perhaps:

…be the kind of response to any property approved as an HMO intended to house immigrants in Northern Ireland [sic] ?

Commenters say:

Get invaders out of every country illegal immigrants all of them

Another states “Only way to sort it”.

End Deportations Belfast (EDB), which opposes “border regimes, detention and deportation” in the north of Ireland, recently pointed out another state authority doing the far-right’s work. EDB report receiving:

…disturbing information and video footage regarding an ongoing immigration raid in Castlewellan.

It showed Immigration Compliance Enforcement (ICE) officers in Castlewellan “searching for People of Colour (POC) on the street.” EDB point out that:

Home Office official policy is clear, that immigration officers must not engage a person simply on the basis of their appearance, race, colour, ethnic origin or nationality.

It won’t surprise anyone that immigration enforcement is engaging in racist practices, though it is more alarming in a climate of “spiralling” race hate crimes, as EDB points out. Combined with the PSNI turning a blind eye to the likes of ONIV’s racists, and their local council endorsing them, these horrifying figures may climb further still.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

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