Member's statement: National Hate Crime Awareness Week
Member's statement by Mr Stewart Dickson on .
- MLA
- Mr Stewart Dickson
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 14 October 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- National Hate Crime Awareness Week
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5180500
Read the official Assembly record
Text
This week marks National Hate Crime Awareness Week. I would like the Assembly to join organisations across the United Kingdom that are marking this important week, encouraging those who are victims or witnesses to hate crimes to report them to the authorities. Hate crimes are a scourge on our society. Many in the Chamber have been subject to hate crimes at home and at places of work. Depressingly, data released by the PSNI shows that, in the 12 months to June 2025, there were almost 2,300 hate crimes across Northern Ireland, with 1,329 of those being motivated by racial issues. That is the highest figure since records began in 2004. It is horrifying that hate crimes have become so commonplace in Northern Ireland. Every person in Northern Ireland has the right to live without fear or intimidation during Hate Crime Awareness Week and, indeed, during every week. If you are a victim of a hate crime or an incident, it is good to speak to someone who can hear about your experience. Support services, such as the Hate Crime Advocacy Service, are available and can help to deal with the impact of crime. Those services offer a safe and confidential space to provide support to victims of hate and signal crimes across different protected characteristics. In the summer just past, we witnessed shameful scenes of families being burnt out of their homes, something that we thought that we had left in our past. That toxic racist rhetoric has been amplified by the spread of misinformation and the lack of government action, which has been fuelled by social media platforms failing to monitor rampant tirades of hate. The individual targets in those crimes were attacked or terrorised solely because of the colour of their skin, their background or their community. Those are real people with real families. At this time, I am calling on our Executive to do more to protect those who are targeted simply for the colour of their skin or their race. If we are to truly tackle hate crime, there needs to be a purposeful move in prioritising action against race hate at all levels, from Westminster getting a grip with social media platforms, to the Executive Office promoting and delivering on its range of strategies, which, thus far, have not extended beyond sound bites or press releases. I pledge to support my constituents across East Antrim. I trust that all in the Chamber will agree that, one day, we should not need a hate crime awareness week. Until that day, I pledge to deliver my actions by working on delivering hope, not hate.
437 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.09 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.71).
- The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.99).
- Subject area: Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.14 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.07 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.71 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.09 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.01 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it (chosen) | 0.99 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.72 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.28 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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