Chief Imam at Dublin Islamic centre calls for hate speech legislation after verbal abuse on flight
Vivienne Clarke
The chief Imam at the Dublin Islamic centre, Dr Umar al-Qadri, has called for the introduction of some form of hate speech legislation.
The call comes in the wake of an incident during a Ryanair flight from Poland to Dublin earlier this week, when he was verbally abused by a man who called him a paedophile and said “your prophet is a paedophile".
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Dr Al-Qadri said there was no justification for abusing somebody in that manner.
“The world that we live in is changing, it is becoming more divisive. We see more and more rhetoric of division, of hate against immigrants, against Muslims, and this is across Europe. We see this in Ireland also, since the Dublin riots.
“We all are witnessing and observing a lot of division particularly online. The other thing also, I call for the government to have some kind of hate speech legislation. I understand that there were concerns, reservations about the hate speech legislation bill in the past.
"Those concerns need to be addressed, but we definitely need to have legislation that is very clear that when it comes to hate, especially hate crimes that are violent, it's not acceptable, and that in Ireland, nobody will tolerate this.
"What happened on the plane? It was definitely hate.”
When the abuse happened Dr al-Qadri began recording the abuse.
“I asked him how dare you talk to me like this. Why are you talking to me like this? I don't know you. Why are you abusing me?
"I spoke to the captain and I said I want to report this because this is not acceptable. What he's done to me, out of nowhere, imagine if this was a Muslim woman with a hijab.
"I want him to know that this is not acceptable. You know, first of all what he said was completely untrue. As a Muslim, the majority of Muslims don't believe anything like that.”
When the flight arrived in Dublin, gardaí were waiting and interviewed the Imam and the man who verbally abused him.
“They asked me, what do you like to do? Do you want to press charges? And I said what are the consequences? What is going to happen then?
"The Ryanair official explained to me that if you press charges, this man can get a ban. And there is a ban up to 10 years, so he cannot fly with Ryanair anyway.
"And the gardaí informed me and I asked him: Where does he live? Does he live in Poland or Ireland? They told me he lives in Ireland for the past 20 years.
"So at that time I thought, you know, this person obviously has family back home in Poland, where he's from originally. Like myself, he's an immigrant, and he must use Ryanair often because of the cheap flights.
"If I get him banned, he probably will be upset and angry, and his family members, and he will probably be really, really upset with all Muslims, and he will keep that hatred in him.
"So I thought that I shouldn't press charges at that time. The guard also told me he wants to apologise. So then I decided, well, he wants to apologise and that I want to speak to him.
"So he came, we spoke, and he apologised to me. And I asked him, why did you do that? Like, do you know me? He said, no, I don't know you. But I've just seen you somewhere on internet, and I know you're a Muslim.
"And I explained to him whatever he believed or whatever he said was completely untrue. But even if that was true, it doesn't give him a right to abuse somebody because of their religious beliefs. He apologised. I accepted the apology. We shook hands.”
