The Celtic League have written to Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin TD, urging him to take action to combat the negative portrayal of the Irish Traveller community in the UK media (see below):

"Micheál Martin TD Minister for Foreign Affairs Department of Foreign Affairs 80 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2

03/01/09

Dear Minister,

I draw your attention to an article which appeared in a United Kingdom daily newspaper on 3rd of January which contains the following statement:

"An amendment to race relations legislation in 2000, which resulted in Irish travellers being legally accepted as an ethnic group like their Romany counterparts, has given council officials almost carte blanche to put their interests before those of just about everyone else.

It is Irish travellers, of course, who have already been blamed for causing so many problems in Bedfordshire and elsewhere in Britain"

The link to the full article is at:

(voir le site)

The article is in our view generally negative towards the Roma and Traveller communities and seems to be part of an increasingly negative stance adopted towards them in the media in many European countries.

Given that the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is actively engaged in tackling discrimination towards vulnerable groups (including the Roma and Traveller communities) in the EU our General Secretary will be expressing concern about the impact of negative news reporting on addressing such discrimination. As the UK news article specifically mentions the Irish Traveller community I would trust that the Department of Foreign Affairs will consider representations to the United Kingdom government.

I would stress that discrimination toward the Roma/Gypsy/Traveller communities is a growing and endemic problem in many European States.

In relation to the United Kingdom the United Nation Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its most recent report highlighted the plight of the Roma/Traveller communities. Ref: CERD/C/63/CO/11-10 December 2003.

Yours sincerely,

J B Moffatt Director of Information"

See related articles on Celtic News at:

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J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League 10/01/09

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