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Wilson accuses anti-racism groups
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Candidate
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| Contributor | New Jerusalem |
| Last Edited | New Jerusalem Aug 06, 2009 05:20am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | TV News - British Broadcasting Corporation BBC News |
| News Date | Thursday, August 6, 2009 11:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The finance minister has criticised some anti-racism groups for what he says is their failure to have an open debate about immigration and racism.
Sammy Wilson has claimed some organisations use charges of racism to get public funding.
He said when there was "any attempt to have an honest debate" on the issue of immigration "the people involved in that were accused of being racist".
He said racism charges coincided with appeals for money from some groups.
Mr Wilson said his remarks were made "in the context" that the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities Executive Director, Patrick Yu, had "raised the issue of racism".
"He had raised the issue of my remarks, the fact that local people should have precedence for jobs and had raised that in the context of wanting more money for his organisation to deal with racism in Northern Ireland," he said.
"What I had said was that first of all when there was any attempt to have an honest debate on the issue of immigration, immediately the people who were involved in that were accused of being racist.
"Secondly these charges of racism then were always coincided with the holding out of the hand for more money for the organisations which were dealing with the issue.
"From that point of view organisations like NICEM needed to keep raising this issue because that was one way of perpetuating their own existence."
Mr Wilson said the "anti-racism industry" brought in millions of pounds and employed "scores of people".
"Of course they have to justify their existence and now and again I think they take an unfair shot at politicians and when they do they can't expect people to remain silent," he added.
NICEM are expected to comment later. |
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