Hard hitting anti-sectarianism campaign hits the streets of Dumbarton

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A leading equalities charity has brought a hard-hitting new campaign to the streets of Dumbarton to hammer home the impact of sectarian graffiti on the area.Nil by Mouth has launched the ‘Writing on the Wall’ campaign which will run across high streets in the west of Scotland with the aim of encouraging people to report incidents they see, and to push for those convicted of hate crimes to be forced to scrub walls clean of offensive slogans.Earlier this year vile anti-Catholic slurs were scrawled at locations throughout the area, including the Denny Tank Museum and Lidl.Offensive stickers were also plastered around the Dumbarton East astroturf football pitch, just hours before Dumbarton Harp held a tournament to raise supplies for lifeline local foodbanks.Nil by Mouth has undertaken research using Freedom of Information legislation into the extent of the problem in Scotland.Using evidence provided by 30 local authorities it revealed that one in five reported cases are recorded as being offensive, with 2,716 hate incidents being recorded from 12,996 reported cases between April 1 2020 and September 30 2021.Against this backdrop the charity last week visited Dumbarton with their campaign van to highlight its research and the impact of graffiti hate crime on both community relations and taxpayers pockets.Director Dave Scott said: “‘Sadly, we’ve been contacted by numerous people and media outlets in last few months about this sort of hateful behaviour in West Dunbartonshire as one moron tries to outdo another in the hatred stakes.“Our research uncovered that 20 percent of all reported graffiti incidents to councils have been recorded as being offensive and it’s’ been clear for a while now that this is a growing problem.“Sever