Mina Choi says she no longer feels safe in Dublin City. Last Tuesday night the 51-year-old was attacked by a group of around a dozen male teenagers on Henry Street, she told The Irish Times.
She was hit with a rubbish bag as the teens – aged between 15 and 17 by her estimate – laughed and filmed the attack, she said.
“They were circling me. I got hit three or four times in the back with a hand or an elbow maybe. One kid tossed a rubbish bag in my face quite hard… They were taking their phones out; they were filming me and jeering. I felt like a circus animal,” she said.
Ms Choi said she used her walking stick to ward them off and they took off after a few minutes.
The teenagers used a racist slur, Ms Choi said, and she believes the assault was racially motivated.
“This is just the latest in the chain of violence and hate crime I’ve witnessed and [been] subjected to on the streets of Dublin,” she said. These incidents range from being called Asian slurs, to people whispering “Wuhan”, to threats of physical violence.
“I think it is scary when the hissing becomes physical intimidation and that leads to assault,” she said.
Ms Choi, who lives in the city centre, said she has bruises and is still shaken and too scared to walk alone at night: “I am absolutely frightened. If these lads run into me again, would I be safe even with another person?”
Ms Choi reported the assault to gardaí that night, but she felt the garda taking her statement was reluctant to accept it was racially motivated.
Ms Choi said the garda said CCTV cameras were pointing away from the scene and could not be of assistance, a fact Ms Choi finds difficult to believe considering the teenagers likely had to pass the cameras to get to and from the scene.
Ms Choi said she felt the garda was “unwilling to be outraged by what I was describing and to pursue the crime”. She said people will be discouraged from reporting such incidents if they are not taken seriously.
Of the people who logged a racism-based crime on iReport, an anonymous online reporting tool hosted by the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR), just 27 per cent had been satisfied with the response they received when they reported the incident to An Garda Síochána.
Poor responses by gardaí included refusing to record crimes, failing to attend the scene and collect evidence, failing to take statements from victims and investigate crimes, and failing to communicate updates to victims, according to the INAR report published last week.
Ms Choi worries the “lukewarm” response to her report means the situation will “only get worse” for her and others, particularly people from Asian and other minority ethnic groups.
“I am not going down Henry Street again, but I am worried about other people… What about all the Asians who work along Capel Street and Talbot Street?” she asked.
“I pray and hope that it won’t take a more serious incident and yet another murder before the city of Dublin wakes up,” she added.
A Garda spokesman said gardaí are investigating the assault of a woman in her early fifties following an incident on Henry Street on Tuesday night.
“It’s understood that the woman was set upon by a group of unidentified individuals. The woman did not sustain any injuries over the course of this incident,” he added.
