Travellers may sue newspaper on item "inciting hatred"

TRAVELLERS' representatives are taking advice on legal action against the Sunday Independent under incitement to hatred legislation.

At a packed press conference in Dublin yesterday, Pavee Point and other traveller organisations criticised as "disgraceful" media coverage of travellers in relation to recent crimes.

Politicians, community and equality organisations expressed their support for travellers and criticised media coverage. The Government was also criticised and one organisation pointed to the "stark contrast in the rush to push through" bail laws and drugs laws compared to the slow progress of equality legislation.

Traveller groups criticised all the media, including The Irish Times, the tabloid press and the broadcast organisations. But they were particularly incensed at an opinion piece in the Sunday Independent, which was described as incitement to hatred. Mr John O'Connell, director of Pavee Point - a travellers' rights organisation - said that "our main concern is that travellers as a group are being scapegoated". He said travellers were the only group named in news coverage of crime.

Mr O'Connell read a couple of paragraphs from the Sunday Independent article by Mary Ellen Synon in which she described travellers as living "a life worse than the beasts, for beasts at least, are guided by wholesome instinct. Traveller life is without the ennobling intellect of man or the steadying instinct of animals".

"That a national newspaper in Ireland would include such a racist article in 1996 is a statement in itself of the challenge we face," Mr O'Connell said, adding that Pavee Point is considering legal action under the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989.

Ms Nancy Collins said that "as a traveller I condemn all the crime that has happened, but all travellers have been blamed. If a traveller commits a crime they should be treated as an individual."

Ms Geraldine McDonnell of the National Traveller Women's Forum told the press conference that travellers lived in fear of retribution, and that their children were afraid in school.

Mr Michael McDonagh of the Irish Traveller Movement was afraid the coverage could lead to travellers being attacked or shot. "I fear it will give some kind of warped mandate for people to hold on to their prejudice."

Ms Ronnie Fay of Pavee Point, urged the National Union of Journalists to publicly call for stricter adherence to its guidelines.

"We are obviously very concerned about the level and nature of some of the coverage," said Mr Eoin Ronayne, Irish secretary of the NUJ. The union has written to the Sunday Independent criticising the article by Ms Synon, who is not an NUJ member. The union is already in discussions with the Irish Traveller Movement to adapt the NUJ's racism guidelines. "We cannot police news coverage," he said, but there were procedures for ethics breaches if members complained.

Mr Aengus Fanning, editor of the Sunday Independent, said yesterday there was no intention on the part of the paper to scapegoat travellers in the general sense. It gas clear that the alleged offences among travellers related to a very small minority but there was great fear among rural communities, particularly in the west. The article "does not represent the views of the Sunday Independent. They were Mary Ellen Synon's own views as a columnist but we published the article and we stand over that."