Jules Gnezekora claims he was questioned four times in queues in one return journey

The Equality Commission is investigating allegations of racial profiling by Northern Ireland immigration officials, brought by a black British lawyer on the eve of a key Brexit vote on border checks in the region.

Jules Gnezekora, who lives in County Down, lodged the complaint after an incident in which he claims he was singled out for questioning from an otherwise all-white queue four times on one return ferry journey between Belfast and Glasgow.

“I was not treated equally to the white people who were travelling on the boat with me. Never at any point when I was being questioned on all four occasions, was I told either the legal basis for being stopped and questioned,” Gnezekora said in a statement to the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland.

The complaint has raised concerns that black and minority ethnic passengers are subjected to racial profiling on domestic routes between Northern Ireland and Britain, even though passport checks are not mandatory on the routes because all of the UK falls within a legally defined “common travel area”. Campaigners warned that such checks could become more common post-Brexit.

A dual Ivorian-British national, Gnezekora has been in the UK for 25 years but moved to Northern Ireland less than six months ago to be with his girlfriend. He is a commercial lawyer and travels frequently.

Gnezekora said that he merely wanted to know whether the officers were following orders to carry out the checks and if not then he said they should undergo racial training.

“As a black person I don’t want anyone else to suffer because of the colour of their skin. It was humiliating.

“It is fundamentally wrong that someone can be pulled aside for a check merely because of the colour of the skin. They can make that mistake once, but to make it four times is not okay.”

Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Belfast-based human rights campaign group the Committee on the Administation of Justice, said his concern was the Irish border would “end up with border controls that are essentially racist” if checks are introduced after Brexit.

The CAJ is backing an amendment to the European Union withdrawal bill, which will be debated in the Commons this week, to prevent any kind of north-south border checks post-Brexit.

“The incident this man has reported makes a mockery of the assurances there will be ‘no border in the Irish Sea’,” said Holder.

Gnezekora said that no white people were stopped in the queue when he was checked. “They singled me out. Even after asking to see my passport and seeing it was British they continued to ask questions about where I was going and how long I was in the country for.

“The first time it happened I was really upset but I didn’t say anything, but when the same thing happened three more times I was furious.

“It was like there was this assumption that the passport may not have been mine and I wasn’t entitled to it.”

The Equality Commission said its work was confidential and it had no comment to make.

A Home Office spokesperson said immigration enforcement “does not discriminate against any individual” but it can stop people on domestic routes “where intelligence has shown they can be used by immigration offenders”.

“Immigration officers speak to members of the travelling public using these routes, regardless of appearance, and a consensual request for photographic ID can form part of that conversation.”

