Dublin Mayor Fears for Daughter’s Safety Over Racial Abuse

DUBLIN’S Lord Mayor, Hazel Chu, says she “fears for daughter’s safety” following a prolonged campaign of racial abuse.

The Green Party politician, who is Irish of Chinese heritage, says she has been subjected to racist abuse since she became Dublin’s Lord Mayor in June 2020.

In a recent intimidating incident, anti-lockdown protesters outside her official Mansion House residence in Dublin’s busy city centre and challenged her for wearing a facemask. One racist activist made the bizarre comment that “when you turn into a shape-shifting dragon, we will catch it on camera”.

The mayor told Ireland’s RTE state broadcaster that such incidents make her double check if its safe to bring her 3-year old daughter to creche every morning.

She said her little girl has previously been called a “mongrel”, but said she was “too young to understand”. She said some appalling online trolls had posted the child “should be deported back to China and aborted there.”

Hazel Chu has spoken of her own experiences of racism, from playground namecalling growing up in suburban Dublin to online abuse she’s received since becoming the capital’s mayor. She warned that far-right groups and racism are issues that Ireland needs to address.

“These things don’t just die down, they build-up to the point where, if you don’t challenge groups like this, if you don’t call it out, what will inevitably happen is this boiling point or something happens, and we all say, ‘why didn’t we do something about it’.”

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