Leaflets stating that AIDS is rampant in several of the countries Ireland receives asylum-seekers from are being distributed by the Immigration Control Platform. It calls for mandatory testing of asylum-seekers for infectious diseases and a vote on the immigration issue.
The flyers have been criticised as "classic scaremongering" aimed at turning rural communities against asylum-seekers and the Government's recent policy of dispersing them outside Dublin.
They were distributed this month to homes in the Clonakilty area of Co Cork, where some 80 asylum-seekers have recently been sent.
The ICP's spokesperson, Ms Aine Ni Chonaill, said 5,000 leaflets are to be distributed in Dublin and parts of Co Cork which have recently received asylum-seekers.
Mr Piaras Mac Einri, director of the Cork-based Irish Centre for Migration Studies, said the "not-so-subtle message" in the leaflets was that immigrants contaminated.
"It is a disgraceful and quite outrageous attempt to label an entire community of people as untouchables and to play upon the irrational fear of `the other' in a way that is both sinister and designed to foment hatred. Images of immigrants and disease are a classic element in the language of right-wing xenophobes and racists," he said.
Ms Ni Chonaill, who lives in Clonakilty, rejected criticisms of the leaflets as scaremongering and said such claims were an attempt to "demolish me and my organisation".
Ms Imelda Kingston, a member of the recently formed Clonakilty Friends of Asylum-Seekers, said the leaflets did not reflect the general opinion among locals. "It is trying to stir up `anti' feelings against asylum-seekers," she said.