58 February-March
February-March 59
Dear Chairperson and Members of the Press Council,
I am writing to lodge a formal request for expulsion
or censure by you of right-wing political website Gript.
ie (‘Gript’), a member publication of the Press Council of
Ireland.
I believe Gript has engaged in systemic and repeated
breaches of your Code of Practice — particularly Principle 1
(Truth and Accuracy) and Principle 8 (Prejudice) — and that
these breaches raise serious concerns about whether Gript
satisfies the membership requirement that a publication
must “meet editorial standards and transparency
requirements as the Press Council may require”.
The Constitution (Memorandum of Association) of the
Press Council at 3.4 says one of its objects is to “protect
the public interest by ensuring ethical, accurate and
truthful reporting by the press”.
Elsewhere the Constitution entitles the Press Council to
do all such other lawful things as may be incidental or conducive to the objects of the Council and/or shall further
the objects or any of them.
According to its website: “The Press Council of Ireland is responsible for the oversight of the professional
principles embodied in the Code of Practice…Press regulation is a way of making sure that member newspapers,
magazines and online-only news publications comply with an agreed set of ethical standards and behaviours”.
Clearly the Press Council may act widely to ensure publications meet editorial standards, to protect the public
interest by ensuring ethical and truthful reporting and to make sure that members comply with agreed ethical
standards and behaviours.
According to the Preamble to the Code:
“ Members of the press have a duty to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards.
This Code sets the benchmark for those standards. It is the duty of the Press Ombudsman and Press
Council of Ireland to ensure that it is honoured in the spirit as well as in the letter, and it is the duty of
Press Council print and online media members (the press) to assist them in that task”.
It is clearly the duty of the Press Council and its members, including Gript and Village to ensure that the Code is
honoured. That is an obligation that is stated clearly, separate from the complaints procedure.
If it has not made demands to this eect, I would respectfully submit the Press Council is obliged to do so now.
Village is happy to play its role in “assisting them in that task”.
I wish to emphasise that this duty which falls on the Press Ombudsman, the Press Council and the press is rendered
literally meaningless for each of them if a publication can repeatedly breach the Code in relation to principles which
must be inferred to guide the Press Ombudsman and Press Council in all their actions, without consequence. The
“duty” to maintain “the highest” standards imports that publications must not systemically breach the Press
Council’s primary principles.
This complaint draws on material highlighted in Village Magazine’s analysis of Gript’s coverage of migrants
(editorial, October 2024) and asylum seekers. While I provide additional damning supplementary evidence and
am prepared to supply specific articles, the Village editorial already identifies a troubling journalistic pattern.
Systemic breach of Principle 8 – Prejudice (racism, stereotyping, incitement)
Principle 8 of the Code requires that the press shall not publish material “intended or likely to cause grave
oence or stir up hatred” against groups on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, colour, ethnic origin or
sexual orientation. This is broadly reflected in Principle 9 of Code of Conduct of the National Union of Journalists
which expects its members to abide by principles including not ‘producing’ material likely, inter alia, to lead to
hatred or discrimination on grounds of race, colour or creed.
The Village editorial documented a consistent pattern in Gript’s output where migrants, asylum seekers and non-
nationals are portrayed in a manner:
• designed to generate fear, hostility and resentment,
• employing racialised generalisations,
• linking migrants with criminality or threat, on the basis of little or no evidence,
• using sarcastic or mocking headlines that dehumanise or single out minorities,
• treating individual incidents as representative of entire groups.
Village highlighted specific headline patterns, such as articles that frame migrants as invasive, dangerous, or
OPEN LETTER COMPLAINING
TO THE PRESS COUNCIL OF
IRELAND
LETTER ASKING PRESS COUNCIL TO REMOVE GRIPT FROM MEMBERSHIP
NEWS
Village_FebMarch26.indb 58Village_FebMarch26.indb 58 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
58 February-March
February-March 59
socially corrosive; imply that migrant communities threaten Irish public order; repeatedly highlight nationality where
irrelevant; or use inflammatory rhetorical structures (“yet another…”, “again…”, “flood”, “overrun”, “crisis caused by
them”).
These concerns are reinforced by Gript’s own public headlines relating to Africa and Nigeria, which contribute to a
racialised editorial atmosphere.
Professor Gavan Titley did a report for Village on Gript. He noted, for example that, of its ‘popular’ news stories on
the day he looked, seven out of eight stories were about “immigration, asylum-seeking, and people who migrate and
seek asylum”. Gript obsesses about immigrants and its coverage is pervasively negative.
For example:
15 headlines for a Google search under ‘Gript Nigerian’ on 1 October 2024:
1. Sentences extended for Nigerian traffickers who forced victims into prostitution after ‘voodoo ceremony’;
2. Supreme Court: deportation order against Nigerian would not interfere with children’s rights;
3. Gardaí set sights on leader of notorious Nigerian ‘Black Axe’ gang in Ireland;
[The next six entries are all about the ‘Black Axe Gang’]
10. Nigerian Matthew Fadeyi was this week jailed for raping a woman;
11. “Highly likely” Nigerian who raped elderly woman also linked to ‘Black Axe’ gang;
12. Adeniji was sentenced to 11 years in prison, with the fi nal year suspended, in July 2020, for the rape of the 73-
year old woman;
13. ‘Religious for ransom’: Booming Church in Nigeria plagued by kidnappings for ransom;
14. Three Nigerian men have been charged in Ireland for running a romance scam targeting women;
15. Spokesman for ACN Ireland Michael Kelly told Gript that kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria has become an
“industry”.
It tells us all we need to know about Gript that not one of the 15 articles appears to consider Nigerians positively, or
indeed anything other than negatively.
Delving into Gript’s archive more generally shows it is no stranger to incendiary headlines and articles that
demonise migrants and asylum seekers. It exploits the fact some asylum seekers are “fake” and arriving from
“safe” countries to whip up its followers and create an ‘us against them’ narrative.
I decided to update the survey to 21 January 2026 for “Gript Migrant”. I cite only articles published by Gript and
do so in date order:
1. 70% housed by De Paul in 2024 had been in IPAS — 15 Jan 2026
2. Ireland prefers payments over migrant intakes — 8 Dec 2025
3. Women’s Coalition on Immigration Launches [“formed in reaction to growing concern about impact of immigration
policies on women’s safety”] — 2 Dec 2025
4. 96% present with false or no docs allowed to stay 15 Apr 2025
5. From Ashling Murphy to Parnell school stabbings we are being gaslighted on immigration — Nov 20, 2024
These headlines and the content and images that come up when you Google “Gript Migrant” betray a strategy by
Gript to question the legitimacy of asylum seekers without drawing attention to the difficulties including threats to their
lives they often experience. They stoke division and alienation.
I decided to update the survey to 21 January 2026 for “Gript Nigeria”. I cite only articles published by Gript and
do so in date order.
1. “Blind spot” to religious persecution of Christians — 20 Nov 2025
2. Trump is right about Nigerian Christians — 5 Nov 2025
3. 64 killed in Jihadist attack on Catholic parish — 25 Sept 2025
4. MYERS: Interview with a migrant June 8, 2025 [includes the untruthful comments that “Across Europe, liberals have
been roundly defeated in their insane and ruinous immigration schemes, which in England have led to the rape of
tens of thousands of underage white working-class girls”] – 8 Jun 2025.
5. State deports 35 people to Nigeria — 5 Jun 2025
I also looked directly on Gript.ie’s website on 21 January 2026 under: “African”. These are the first five items:
1. The five worst tales from the Child Law Project Reports — January 19, 2026
2. 166,900 illegal migrations detected by Frontex in 2025 — December 15, 2025
3. There’s Plenty of Land Why can’t Africa feed itself?
4. French leftist theatre face bankruptcy as African migrants refuse to leave — January 14, 2025
5. Why is Africa falling behind? — 26 Oct 2024
These headlines reveal definitive prejudice. They form part of a consistent editorial pattern in which “Nigeria” and
“African” are invoked in contexts that suggest dysfunction, threat, or civilisational decline, reinforcing narratives about
ethnic groups and migrants that are likely to provoke hostility. Taken cumulatively, this constitutes a prima facie breach
of Principle 8.
The Village article’s central assessment — that Gript is a “racist organ” and that its editorial approach “stirs hatred
against immigrants” — may be strongly worded, but it reflects the clear eect of the publication’s editorial pattern.
These are not isolated breaches: they constitute a systematic editorial strategy.
Village_FebMarch26.indb 59Village_FebMarch26.indb 59 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
Breach of Principle 1 – Truth and
Accuracy (misleading narratives)
Principle 1 requires that “in reporting news
and information, the press shall strive at
all times for truth and accuracy”.
Village’s analysis in its October 2024
editorial, which I request the Press Council
to consider, identifies repeated instances
where Gript:
• presents unverified claims as fact,
• uses selective, incomplete or context-
free data to imply wrongdoing by
migrants,
• amplifies allegations without confirming
their accuracy,
• employs headlines that misrepresent
the underlying article,
• distorts information in ways consistently
aligned with an anti-migrant narrative.
Again, this is a pattern, not an accident.
Where misleading presentation
becomes editorial routine, it is a clear
breach of Principle 1.
Concerns raised in the Oireachtas
The seriousness of these issues has
already been acknowledged in the
Seanad:
• On 19 January 2024, Senator Malcolm
Byrne questioned how Gript remains
accredited by the Press Council given its
persistent anti-migrant framing.
• On 13 March 2024, Senator Paul Gavan
stated in the Seanad that “Gript deals
with spite, hatred and lies”.
Membership requirement: editorial
standards and transparency
The membership criteria require that a publication must:
“meet editorial standards and transparency requirements as the Press Council may require”>
This clause is essential. If it is not enforced, it loses all meaning.
A publication cannot be considered to “meet editorial standards” if it:
• repeatedly breaches the Code on racism,
• repeatedly publishes content likely to “stir up hatred”,
• uses misleading narratives to target minority communities,
• relies on inflammatory rhetoric to shape its coverage,
• treats prejudice as a routine editorial tool.
To allow such behaviour from a member not only contradicts the Code of Practice but undermines the credibility of the
Press Council itself.
Request
I respectfully request that the Press Council:
• Investigate whether Gript has engaged in repeated serious breaches of Principles 1 and 8; and
• Assess whether, in light of the Membership Criteria, Gript continues to satisfy the requirement to “meet editorial
standards and transparency requirements”.
If systemic breaches are confirmed, I request that the Press Council consider:
• whether Gript’s continued membership is appropriate;
• or whether non-renewal or expulsion is warranted to protect the Council’s standards.
A regulatory system that cannot respond systemically to persistent and blatant racist, hatred-stirring and untruthful
coverage — in breach of its governing principles — abandons its function.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Smith, editor of Village Magazine which is a member of The Press Council
60 February-March
Village_FebMarch26.indb 60Village_FebMarch26.indb 60 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
This is what Fatima Gunning told a recent conference:
“To me, integration is about intention, respect, and volume. When tens of thousands of a particular ethnic or
religious group land on our shores practically overnight, the idea that such a volume of people can, or even want to,
integrate in any kind of meaningful way is nonsense. Many of our new neighbours appear to see Ireland as merely
an economic zone, sticking together and not bothering about the pressure their presence is placing on housing. It
is not only those who can pay their own way who are flooding here either. Some local authority lists in Ireland are
almost half comprised of foreign nationals.
In Japan, I had two options: support yourself or go home.
On a much more serious note, for our closest neighbour, the failure to recognise deep incompatibilities between
dierent groups has led to the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of British children by Pakistani Muslims across
England. Some of the court transcripts describing the depraved sexual abuses of girls as young
as ten were said to sound like they were written by Satan himself.
Sixteen-year-old Lucy Lowe was pregnant with the child of her abuser when he burned her
alive by setting fire to her Telford home. He had been abusing her since she was just twelve
years old. This is just one name, although it is estimated that the true number of victims of
Muslim rape gangs in the UK is six figures. When a country imports whole lots of people with
vastly dierent moral standards, disaster is sure to follow. Indeed, Islam in particular has
shown that it does not exist peacefully alongside other faiths.
Ireland’s token relatable Muslim, Umar Al-Qadri, recently said that “for some people even a
smile can be seen as consent”, when talking about the brutal murder of a seventeen-year-old
Dutch girl named Lisa. Lisa was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant who claimed to be from Nigeria and was
arrested at an asylum centre. This man had no identity documents and was arrested on suspicion of carrying out a
violent rape as well as another sexual assault. We do not know if these are “accidentally smiled” particular; we do
know that she was a teenage girl, simply going by her friend’s house, and that she should still be alive.
Twelve-year-old Lola Daviet, sexually abused and killed by an illegal Algerian migrant in Paris, should still be
alive. Our own Ashling Murphy, murdered by a welfare parasite, should still be alive. Malika Artkta, who was just
eight years old, had her throat slit by her father, Mohammed Al-Tamimi, in Wexford last December; she should still
be alive too.
There exists in the West the dangerous idea that, beneath the surface, everyone is fundamentally the same; that
the “cultural misunderstandings”, as they are often categorised, are easily rectified; and that we can all just get
along if we try hard enough. While speaking out about the over-representation of men from the MENA region — that
being the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and Pakistan — often gets you castigated as racist or Islamophobic, the
fact remains that such men are frighteningly over-represented in sexual-crime statistics.
This pattern is being repeated across Europe, where open-border politics and the abuse of the asylum system
have led to startling demographic change and a marked rise in sexual assault. Immigration, integration, and cultural
cohesion can have positive results, but, as I hope I have made obvious, this is down to the type of immigration,
limited numbers conducive to proper integration, and welcoming people who share our values.
For there to be any hope of social cohesion going forward, strong political leadership is required. Instead, thanks
to irresponsible immigration policies across Europe, we now have honour killings, female genital mutilation, forced
marriage, bombings, vicious child gangs, homophobic murders — and, of course, our climate-obsessed government
has chosen to ignore these giant red flags. Thinking about the future, if things do not change dramatically, it does
not really inspire much hope in me.
Thank you”.
1. Introduction
I, Michael Smith, wish to file a formal criminal complaint regarding the conduct of Ms Fatima Gunning, a reporter
employed by Gript Media (Gript.ie), whose public speech and pattern of published work constitute, in my view,
serious breaches of Irish hate-speech law.
This complaint concerns:
a. A public speech delivered by Ms Gunning at the Battle of Ideas Dublin Conference, held at the Royal Dublin
Society (RDS) on Saturday, 18 October 2025; and
b. A wider pattern of racially charged publication by her on Gript.ie and Gript Media over several years;
c. Her decision to publish and disseminate the speech on her Twitter/X account, ensuring wide distribution and
ongoing impact.
The speech and the accompanying publication must be assessed in light of a substantial corpus of previous and
current writings by Ms Gunning which display consistent hostility toward identifiable ethnic, national and religious
groups.
I respectfully submit that these materials collectively satisfy the elements of criminal incitement to hatred as
defined in Irish law.
COMPLAINT TO AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA
COMPLAINT TO GARDA ABOUT RACIST SPEECH BY GRIPT’S FATIMA GUNNING
February-March 61
Village_FebMarch26.indb 61Village_FebMarch26.indb 61 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
62 February-March
February-March 63
2. The Speech (Primary Offending Material)
At the Battle of Ideas Conference, during a session addressing immigration and social integration, Ms Gunning delivered a speech
which, in both tone and content, was explicitly hostile to Muslims, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Algerians, and migrants more broadly.
A verbatim transcript is attached in Appendix A (included at the head of this article).
The speech asserted that large numbers of people from certain religious and ethnic backgrounds “cannot integrate,” that they
possess “vastly dierent moral standards,” and that their presence leads inevitably to “disaster”. Islam was described as a religion
that “does not exist peacefully alongside other faiths”. These assertions were accompanied by explicit narratives linking horrific
crimes committed by individuals to entire national or religious groups, suggesting inherent criminality in Nigerians, Pakistani
Muslims, Algerians, and men from the MENA region. The speech described some foreign nationals as “welfare parasite”, and
presented migration as a form of demographic threat.
The framing was not analytical or contextualised. It was accusatory, generalising and dehumanising. In short it was racist.
The substance and presentation of this speech are abusive, insulting, threatening and group-targeting, satisfying the core
definitional elements of incitement.
Immediately after the conference, Ms Gunning posted a video of the speech on her Twitter/X account, ensuring public dissemination.
Much of her speech and its thrust is counterfactual.
The British Home Office’s ‘Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation: Characteristics of Oending’ (December 2020) report found
no evidence that Pakistani, Muslim, or broader MENA-background men are disproportionately responsible for sexual oences
nationally; most identified oenders are white British men. Localised grooming-gang cases in towns like Rotherham involved
over-representation within those specific areas, not a UK-wide pattern. The most authoritative victim-number estimates come from
independent inquiries, not political claims: the Jay Report (2014) identified around 1,400 victims in Rotherham, later refined by
the NCA to 1,510. Fact-checkers such as Full Fact emphasise that national figures cannot be reliably extrapolated from these cases
and that claims of “tens of thousands” lack evidential bases. Across Europe, apparent over-representation of non-European or
MENA-born suspects typically falls sharply once age, poverty, migration stress, and policing patterns are controlled for, as shown in
Swedish (Brå) and German (BKA) analyses. The credible overall picture is that **thousands—not tens of thousands—**were abused
across multiple English towns over decades. Accurate framing is essential both to honour victims’ experiences and to prevent unjust
collective blame, social polarisation, and the distortion of evidence for political narratives.
3. Relevant Legislation
3.1 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989
Under Section 2, it is an oence to:
• publish or distribute written or visual material
• that is threatening, abusive or insulting,
• with intent, or where it is likely, to stir up hatred
• against a group of persons on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, or membership of the
Traveller community.
Ms Gunning’s material satisfies every element of this oence, except that none of it appears threatening (though that element is
disjunctive).
The article contains material that is abusive or insulting within the meaning of the Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate
Oences Act 2022, and in several instances appears capable of inciting violence or hatred against persons defined by race, nationality,
religion, or ethnic origin, all of which are protected characteristics under the Act. The text deploys explicit generalisations that attribute
grave criminality to entire protected groups, including the claim that “tens of thousands of British children” were abused by “Pakistani
Muslims” and that the real number of victims of “Muslim rape gangs” is “six figures”. These assertions are materially inaccurate, grossly
inflated, and presented as categorical fact, thereby fostering hostility towards Muslims and Pakistanis as groups.
The speech repeatedly uses dehumanising and inflammatory descriptors to frame migrants as a threat, referring to people arriving
“in tens of thousands… practically overnight”, “flooding here”, and possessing “vastly dierent moral standards”. It further claims
that many migrants “see Ireland as merely an economic zone” and “do not bother integrating”, imputing negative moral character
to entire national and ethnic groups. Such assertions constitute abusive and insulting communications by attributing collective
inferiority and bad faith to protected classes.
The text also contains essentialist statements that portray protected groups as inherently violent or incompatible with society.
It declares that “Islam… does not exist peacefully alongside other faiths” and that “when a country imports whole lots of people
with vastly dierent moral standards, disaster is sure to follow.” It links a series of isolated, extreme criminal cases to broader
populations, citing, for example, murders by individuals and concluding that immigration has brought “honour killings, female
genital mutilation, forced marriage, bombings, vicious child gangs, [and] homophobic murders.” This rhetorical technique creates a
false causal association between protected groups and violent criminality, likely to generate hatred or hostility.
The repeated linkage of specific crimes committed by individuals — such as those involving persons described as “Algerian migrant”,
“illegal immigrant”, or “welfare parasite”—to entire ethnic, national, and religious categories is precisely the form of abusive and
insulting group-based attribution that the 2022 Act was designed to address. By suggesting that these crimes arise from inherent
cultural or religious characteristics, the article encourages the perception that these protected groups pose a collective danger.
Taken together, the cumulative eect of the text — its false assertions, dehumanising metaphors, collective accusations, and
essentialist claims about morality and violence — is a communication that is abusive and insulting on prohibited grounds and is
likely to incite hatred, within the meaning of Section 7 of the Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Oences Act 2022.
The 1989 Act has been interpreted such that intent may be inferred from:
62 February-March
Village_FebMarch26.indb 62Village_FebMarch26.indb 62 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
62 February-March
February-March 63
• the nature of the material,
• the context of publication,
• the history or pattern of similar conduct, and
• the foreseeable impact on the audience.
Each of these evidential pillars is present in this case.
3.2 Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill
Although not yet enacted, the Bill reflects modern Irish and EU standards for assessing incitement, and reinforces that:
• incitement does not require explicit calls for violence;
• the likelihood of stirring up hatred is sufficient;
• public dissemination via digital platforms constitutes publication.
This Bill is directly relevant to interpretative context and demonstrates the State’s contemporary policy stance on hate-based
communication.
3.3 EU Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA (Combating Racism and Xenophobia)
This binding EU instrument (which Ireland has opted into) requires Member States to criminalise:
• public incitement to violence or hatred directed at groups defined by race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.
Ms Gunning’s speech squarely falls within this definition.
Ireland’s national law must be interpreted in harmony with this EU obligation.
3.4 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Article 10(2)
Free expression may be restricted where necessary “for the protection of the reputation or rights of others”.
ECHR jurisprudence (including Belkacem v Belgium and Norwood v UK) confirms that racist, xenophobic or Islamophobic
expression enjoys no protection when it targets minorities as inherently inferior or dangerous.
Ms Gunning’s speech employs precisely the patterns condemned in these cases.
4. Ms Gunning’s Pattern of Racist Publication (Evidence of Intent)
The speech cannot be viewed in isolation. Ms Gunning has a documented public history of racially charged and xenophobic writing
on Gript.ie, forming a continuous editorial pattern. This pattern is crucial for assessing intent under the 1989 Act.
The following seven articles (each verified as authored by her) illustrate consistent hostility toward protected groups, including the
linking of crime to nationality, scepticism about anti-racism, and an ethnically restrictive conception of Irish identity.
1. Irishness means something, and it’s ok to say so (17 June 2024), which advances an ancestry-based definition of Irish identity
and suggests that Irish-born children of migrants are not truly Irish.
2. Capitalising ‘black’ is dumb (27 March 2022), which derides racial identity and minimises recognition of Black communities.
3. Is wearing fake tan really racist? (28 July 2022), which mocks cultural sensitivity and belittles minority experiences.
4. Man punched and threatened during ATM theft (25 November 2025), in which the suspect’s Somali nationality is highlighted to
imply a link between foreign origin and criminality.
5. Romanian couple stole over €100k from social welfare, emphasising nationality in a way that reinforces stereotypes about
migrants abusing the welfare system.
6. A series of crime reports in which the foreign origin of suspects is emphasised exclusively when the person is non-Irish,
establishing a consistent pattern of portraying criminality as an immigrant trait.
7. Broader commentary across multiple years in which Ms Gunning consistently characterises immigration as socially corrosive and
identifies specific ethnic and religious groups as uniquely problematic.
These articles — presenting a coherent, long-running political worldview — demonstrate that the Battle of Ideas speech was not
aberrational but rather the explicit crystallisation of ideas she has advanced repeatedly in written form.
5. Harm, Impact and Public Safety
The combined eect of this speech and her wider body of work is to encourage suspicion, hostility and resentment towards Muslims
and migrants. It promotes an environment where minority communities are viewed as threats, criminals or cultural enemies. Given
current social tensions around immigration in Ireland, such commentary poses a real risk to public order and community cohesion.
6. Request for Investigation
I request that the Garda:
• open an investigation under Section 2 of the 1989 Act;
• obtain the original conference recording and the Twitter/X video and metadata;
• gather witness statements and details from the Battle of Ideas organisers;
• assess the broader pattern of Ms Gunning’s published material;
• consider the inference of intent arising from repeated racially charged content;
• refer the matter to the DPP.
I am willing to provide a full statement, transcripts, screenshots, and all relevant supporting evidence.
Signed
Michael Smith
February-March 63
Village_FebMarch26.indb 63Village_FebMarch26.indb 63 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
64 February-March
February-March PB
To: Press Ombudsman
From: Michael Smith
Date: 03 February 2026
Re: Complaint regarding Grip.ie — breaches of Principle 1 (Truth & Accuracy) and Principle 8 (Prejudice),
Press Council Code of Practice Concerned journalist: Fatima Gunning
I wish to lodge a formal complaint against Gript Media and Gript.ie concerning the published work of Ms Fatima
Gunning, one of their journalists. The articles identified below represent a sustained pattern of prejudicial, racially
charged and misleading coverage that, in my view, constitutes systemic breaches of the Press Council Code of Practice,
specifically Principle 8 (Prejudice) and Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy).
My complaint concerns both individual articles and an editorial pattern evident over several years, in which Ms
Gunning consistently centres race, nationality and religion in her reporting and commentary in ways that stereotype,
generalise and stigmatise entire communities. This pattern is materially harmful in its impact on public discourse and
contravenes the requirement that member publications must not publish content likely to cause grave oence or stir
up hatred on the basis of race, nationality, religion or ethnicity. Because of this unrelenting pattern, because of Gript.
ie failing to take systemic action after previous complaints and because of the previous history of correspondence
between me on behalf of Village magazine of which I am editor and Gript.ie, I am avoiding the pointless exercise of
complaining direct to Gript.ie in the first instance. The Ombudsman has a mandated discretion to deal with complaints
in this way.
The following seven articles, authored by Ms Gunning, and accessible on Gript.ie, exemplify this pattern:
1. Irishness means something, and it’s ok to say so (17 June 2024). This article advances an exclusionary definition of
Irish identity based on ancestry rather than citizenship, suggesting that people born in Ireland to immigrant parents
are not truly Irish.
2. Capitalising ‘black’ is dumb (27 March 2022). This piece dismisses the capitalisation of “Black” as political
correctness, deriding racial self-definition and minimising the lived experience of racism.
3. Is wearing fake tan really racist? (28 July 2022). This article ridicules concerns of minority communities regarding
cultural appropriation and presents such concerns as frivolous — “Is dying your hair red culturally appropriating the
unique heritage of Ireland and Scotland?”.
4. Man punched and threatened during ATM theft (25 November 2025). Here, Ms Gunning foregrounds the suspect’s
Somali nationality in a manner that serves no journalistic purpose except to attach criminality to ethnicity.The article
opens, “A Somali man who has been “in and out of custody” since he was 19 has received a two year jail sentenced
[sic]”.
5. No jail for man who lied to get social welfare (November 7, 2025). The piece opens, “The Circuit Criminal Court
heard how Nigerian Christopher Oshodin (48), of Kildare Road Crumlin 12, came to Ireland in 2001, where he
claimed to be from Zimbabwe after he said he was told the Taoiseach at the time was deporting Nigerians”.
6. Romanian couple stole over €100k from social welfare (archive). Again, the emphasis on nationality appears
designed to reinforce negative stereotypes regarding migrants.
7. Man says he was just on his way to the shop (September 3, 2025). The piece again opens on a racial point: “A
Nigerian man who came to Ireland over two decades ago was convicted of obstructing Gardaí, but avoided any
‘punishment’ after appearing before Dublin District Court on Monday last”.
8. Additional crime-linked articles within her archive that highlight nationality only when the oender is a non-Irish
national demonstrate that this practice is systematic, not incidental.
9. Across Ms Gunning’s broader commentary output, there is a consistent theme: portraying cultural diversity as a
source of decline, foreign origin as a marker of criminality, and anti-racism initiatives as misguided.
This pattern, particularly emphasising a wrongdoer’s race in the first sentence of her articles, is incompatible with
Principle 8, which prohibits prejudicial or discriminatory emphasis on race, religion, nationality or ethnicity. It also raises
remoter concerns under Principle 1, because selective emphasis on nationality in crime reporting misleads readers by
implying causation or correlation where none is demonstrated.
While my complaint focuses primarily on published articles, I also note that Ms Gunning delivered a speech at the
Battle of Ideas Dublin Conference (RDS, 18 October 2025), which she subsequently posted on her social-media account.
The speech contained sweeping generalisations about Muslims, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Algerians and other groups.
Although this speech was not published by Gript itself, it forms part of the same editorial posture cultivated on Gript’s
platform. It is relevant to assessing whether the publication has exercised systemic care in choosing its journalists.
Gript Media, as a member of the Press Council, is required to “meet the editorial standards…the Press Council
may require”. Allowing a journalist to repeatedly publish racially-charged, stereotyping and group-targeting material
without correction, context or restraint is incompatible with that requirement. It is my submission that the volume and
consistency of these violations necessitate regulatory scrutiny.
I request that the Press Ombudsman investigate whether Gript has breached the Code of Practice through the
publication of these articles and whether systemic corrective action is required.
I am prepared to supply links, screenshots, and archived copies of each article upon request.
Signed:
Michael Smith
COMPLAINT TO PRESS OMBUDSMAN
ORDINARY COMPLAINT ABOUT FATIMA GUNNING’S JOURNALISM
64 February-March
Village_FebMarch26.indb 64Village_FebMarch26.indb 64 03/02/2026 08:2403/02/2026 08:24
