It is vital to state clearly that “Antifa” is not an organisation. It is simply an abbreviation for anti-fascist or anti-fascism, a long-standing political position held by people across the world, including Ireland, for generations. Anti-fascism is a stance against authoritarianism, racism, and far-right violence; it is not a membership-based group, has no leadership, no central structure, no registry, no meetings, and no organisational hierarchy.
To treat “Antifa” as though it were a single coordinated body is to fundamentally misunderstand what anti-fascism is. Worse, it risks setting a dangerous legal and political precedent: if a court begins defining broad political ideologies as formal organisations, then any individual who simply identifies with a belief could be portrayed as part of a coordinated network, even when no such network exists.
This has implications far beyond this case, it opens the door to mislabelling and potentially criminalising diverse political viewpoints under the guise of dealing with “groups”.
In Ireland, where political policing has a long and painful history, such conflation should alarm everyone across the political spectrum. Ideas are not organisations. An ideology cannot “hate” a person, and suggesting otherwise obscures the distinction between individual actions and broad political principles. If some individuals dislike said individual, that is a matter between those individuals and the law, not evidence of a unified “Antifa” body determined to harm him.
Invoking “Antifa” as a shadowy organisation responsible for threats is not only factually incorrect but reinforces a narrative that has been imported uncritically from other countries, particularly the United States, where far-right commentators routinely use the term to manufacture a sense of organised menace. Ireland should resist adopting such sensationalised frameworks, which do little but muddy the waters and distort public understanding of political activism.
No one disputes that said individual may face hostility from certain individuals, but mischaracterising anti-fascism as an extremist organisation risks undermining democratic freedoms and shifting attention away from the core issue before the court: whether the defendant sent grossly offensive communications and whether proportionality was applied in sentencing.
Anti-fascism, as an ideology, cannot target or hate a living being. Only people can. And individuals must be held accountable for their own actions, not for a political ideology that has no central body and cannot be said to act in any coordinated way.
If Irish society values clarity, fairness, and political freedom, we must challenge any attempt, intentional or not, to turn political principles into imaginary organisations. Doing so protects not only anti-fascists but all who hold strong political beliefs, whether socialist, republican, conservative, or otherwise.
⏩Pádraig Drummond is an anti-racism activist.
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