At Crooksling’s asylum shelter, harassment on the ground and drones in the sky

On Saturday morning, a group of men trickled off the 65 bus at the stop outside the old nursing home in Crooksling and knocked on a tall barricade.

As they waited, a young guy in a crimson jumper with a map of Palestine, pulled out his phone to show a video of his friends being harassed around the entrance here recently.

“It is 20 minutes long,” said the man, who wrote down his name but requested anonymity because he said he was afraid those harassing them outside the shelter would track him down and target him.

The video is on a YouTube channel called “Audit Activist”, with around 16,000 subscribers. “Immigrant vs Irishman: The Immigration Crisis at Crooksling Revealed”, says its caption.

In the video, a man calling himself a journalist films, provokes, and follows men as they step out of the asylum shelter and go about their days, some waiting on the bus to the city.

At one point, he taunts two men who walk out of the shelter and get into a white car. “Ooooh, yous have a car, lads?” he says.

On Tuesday, the video was made private, and the account owner posted that YouTube had started taking down some of their videos.

On Saturday in Crooksling, the guy in the crimson jumper said some men had been there again a few days ago, harassing people. Four or five of them tried to enter the camp and demanded to talk to a resident who spoke good English, he says.

It was Thursday, a guy beside him says.

The man in the crimson jumper says his English is probably the best among the group, but “to be honest, I don’t love to talk to strangers, especially if they’re against our situation”.

Drones have been flying over their shelter, too, he said, the aerial footage posted online.

The guys outside Crooksling said they hadn’t seen the guards during those episodes of harassment.

Criminal justice researchers say Gardaí inaction can be down to a few factors, but most important among them are the status of the victims as asylum seekers and the threat of right-wing extremism still being taken lightly.

“They’re very slow to deal with this kind of thing because the victims here are not the ideal type of victims,” said Cian Ó Concubhair, assistant professor in criminal justice at Maynooth University.

The guards might reasonably say that they just don’t have the resources, said Ian Marder, assistant professor of criminology at Maynooth University.

“But police researchers like me typically consider the protection of vulnerable populations from imminent harm to be a good use of police time,” he said.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána did not respond to queries sent on 4 September, including one asking if there are any plans to prevent harassment of men who live on the grounds of the old nursing home in Crooksling.

Publishing without consent

Under section 26 of the International Protection Act 2015, publishing anything that causes someone to be identified as an asylum seeker without the person’s consent is illegal.

It can lead to a fine or imprisonment of up to 12 months or both, according to the act.

Ó Concubhair, the assistant professor at Maynooth University, says that sometimes a rank-and-file guard can have a poor grasp of the law and might not see something that can be prosecuted as a crime.

Sometimes, they’re anxious that when the accused is tried in the district court, the offence could be a hard sell to the jury, he said. But they’re not trying either, he said.

Lower-rank officers are often mostly familiar with the kinds of offences that they deal with and send for prosecution on the regular, Ó Concubhair says. “Drug offences, sometimes sexual offences, and generally homicide offences.”

Marder, Ó Concubhair’s colleague at Maynooth, says most European police forces are still reluctant to accept the gravity of right-wing extremism and dangerous offline activities associated with that.

“Until it is too late,” he says.

Ó Concubhair says that right-wing extremists here haven’t faced any serious consequences that could discourage others from getting involved.

“I think what’s necessary for the police is to take these threats far more seriously and morally, take a look at the victims and take their victimisation seriously,” Ó Concubhair said.

As for drones flying over asylum centres, Ó Concubhair says that’s tough to police. An injunction would be tricky to enforce, and he doesn’t see that happening anyway, he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Children and Equality said it condemns all acts of criminality targeting its residents anywhere.

“There is a dedicated Garda Liaison Officer at Inspector level appointed to each accommodation centre,” they said.

Its International Protection Accommodation Services’ (IPAS’) centre management and compliance team are in ongoing contact with these liaison officers about the safety of residents and staff, the spokesperson said.

In search of normal

In Crooksling on Saturday morning, the man in a crimson jumper says he hasn’t himself been harassed right outside the centre.

But he has in the city. “I was in Dublin, in the town, just standing there, and someone came and started filming me,” he said. “Maybe because I was speaking Arabic.”

As he talks, the other men around him nod and listen. A security worker, a short skinny Black man in a high-vis yellow vest, asks them if everything’s okay. They say yes and nod.

The security worker squints and frowns.

A little later, another group of guys burst through the gates of the old nursing home, and crosses the street to wait for the 65 bus towards the city.

The bus is late, but they don’t seem too bothered. It’s a sunny day. The guys laugh and take photos of each other.

One politely asks for a group photo at the bus shelter. They all smile. Some make sideways V-signs at the camera.