A senior official within the Irish government has discussed giving migrants special protections under the state’s coming hate speech laws.
Simon Harris, who is currently serving as Ireland’s minister for justice, has discussed with fellow parliamentarians the possibility of giving foreign legal and illegal migrants special protections under the country’s coming hate speech laws.
It comes as authorities in the country attempt to crack down on growing anti-mass migration protests in the country, with authorities repeatedly suggesting that making “hate speech” and anti-immigration protests illegal may help curb the spread of the political right in Ireland.
Discussions regarding the implementation of the special protections began at a government committee on the state’s coming “Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offenses” bill, with Independent MP Thomas Pringle suggesting that additional protections be added to the forthcoming legislation to safeguard people with “any regular or irregular [illegal] migrant status”.
Pringle in particular highlighted the addition as something that could be of use “in the current climate”, an apparent reference to the ongoing protest movement against the government’s open borders approach to mass migration.
In response to the suggestion, Minister Harris — who is sitting in for the actual Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, who is currently on maternity leave — said that while he would have to seek legal advice on the change, he said he “instinctively” likes it.
“We’ve had discussions in this committee before in relation to concerns that all of us have had in relation to some issues we’ve seen in the not too– well, currently, quite frankly,” Harris told the group of parliamentarians. “So I instinctively see what you are trying to do and I am instinctively supportive of it.”
Should the proposed amendment make it into the finished bill — which is highly likely to be passed by the current government should it last long enough to see the bill to fruition — will give both legal and illegal migrants significant legal and social protections, both from physical crimes as well as so-called “hate speech”.
As the bill stands now, those found to have used “hate speech” against any group protected under the bill would face a maximum of five years in prison.
Such individuals would also be branded “hate criminals” in the eyes of the law, a designation that would follow them in many aspects of their day-to-day life, such as police vetting or future court hearings.
Officials from within the country’s ruling government parties have also been considering ways of making the ongoing protests against their country’s migrant crisis illegal, with one Senator suggesting that demonstrations outside asylum centres and hotels should be made illegal.
However, as government politicians plot to find ways of making the activities of the growing Irish right illegal, the country’s protest movement only continues to grow, with there being at least three separate demonstrations planned for Wednesday evening in the country’s capital of Dublin alone.