travellers
Pumped Up Vigilantes?
A response to Derek Hanway's (director of Irish traveller organisation An Munia Tober) claims that those who defended the Roma under attack in Belfast in the summer of 2009 were pumped up vigilantes.
Derek Hanway’s article in the July/August issue of Fortnight magazine, among other inaccuracies and distortions, accused anti-racist activists of being pumped up vigilantes whose actions were counter-productive.
No Gods, No Masters: how the churches and politicians failed to help the Roma in Belfast
Comments on the failure of the churches and politicians to tackle racism in Belfast.
When the attacks on Roma homes in South Belfast finally ceased after a week, it wasn’t because of the actions of eager politicians or earnest church representatives. However when the Roma made the final decision, 6 days after the first attack, to leave their homes, politicians were in for the photo ops, and the churches weren’t far behind in using the crisis to promote themselves.
1985: Battle of the beanfield
A short account of the brutal police attack on a convoy of travellers and others on their way to the annual the Stonehenge Free Festival.
[I] "All of us were shocked by what we saw: police tactics which seemed to break new grounds in the scale and intensity of its violence.
Dale Farm traveller reprieve
Hopes have been raised that Dale Farm, the largest traveller site in the UK, will gain a reprieve from eviction in the New Year.
Two appeals in the area at nearby sites have led to one yard on Cranfield Road given a five-year allowance for residential use, and three other sites, on Gypsy Hill, have won four years each.
’Ethnic cleansing’ in Essex
Travellers in Essex, who claim they are living in fear of an apartheid-style dawn eviction, say they will defend their homes using non-violent resistance and human shields.
Dale Farm, near Basildon, is the largest travellers' community in Britain, the home of approximately 600 residents living in 86 homes. Virtually a village, with chalets, mobile-homes and brick-walled gardens, Dale Farm's residents have erected barbed-wire, scaffolding and multiple steel gates because they say they expect to wake up any day now to find themselves under siege.
Irish travellers scapegoated
Its power for the course for the mainstream media, politicians and their lackeys to make a career out of criminalisation and scapegoating of minorities.
In Ireland if a scapegoat is needed all too often Travellers are made to fit the bill.
