Dublin-based activist Gavin Pepper says he is engaging with legal representation following a segment on the Dublin Riots broadcast on Virgin Media last night, November 30th. The broadcast, titled “Dublin on Fire” featured one of Mr. Pepper’s tweets from the evening of the riot, overlaid with an audio recording of a voice message urging people to “tool up” – commonly understood to mean to bring weapons – and to “just kill” any “foreigner” or “gypo” that they encountered. The segment, Mr. Pepper says, left viewers with the false impression that the voice being played over his tweet belongs to him.
Mr. Pepper is a well-known campaigner on immigration and housing issues and plans to run, he says, in next year’s local elections. This week, speaking under privilege in the Oireachtas, Deputy Paul Murphy described him as “far right”. TDs and Senators cannot be sued for comments they make on the floor of the Dáil or Seanad, as a result of parliamentary privilege.
Gript Media has confirmed that the voice in the audio featured on Virgin Media is not that of Mr. Pepper.
Mr. Pepper told Gript Media that the broadcast had inflicted a “devastating impact” on his family. “My wife gets her nails done by a lady from Nigeria, and we have friends all across the community”, he said. “This morning she was getting text messages from her friends asking if that was Gavin on the tape saying that foreigners should be killed”. Mr. Pepper also said that he feared for the safety of his family and his children, and that they had not slept at home after the broadcast went out, given the number of people who – he argued – may have been left with a false impression that he had urged violence against people from minority backgrounds. He said that his daughter – currently on a school tour overseas – was falsely hearing that her father wanted to kill migrants.
Mr. Pepper said that he had urged people to go into O’Connell street on the night of the stabbing attack in Dublin to take part in a “peaceful protest”, against what he said was the lack of safety in the North Inner City, and the impact of uncontrolled immigration. He said that once he arrived on the scene, and experienced the atmosphere, he worried that there might be trouble and immediately deleted his tweet. “All I wanted was a peaceful, respectful protest”, he said. “I never called for any violence, or anything like that, and that’s the truth”.
Mr. Pepper said that he felt that the comments from another man on the audio recording played by Virgin Media over an image of his tweet were “disgraceful”, and that “whoever made the comments, I hope he faces the full force of the law”.
Gript Media attempted to contact Richard Chambers, the primary presenter of “Dublin on Fire”, for comment, but our call was not returned.