ELECTORAL POLITICS | GOVERNMENT POLICY
As anti-migrant, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI rhetoric in electoral campaigning are increasingly interlinked, we reflect this in the coverage below which also includes information on the influence of the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
21 September: As thousands of Palestine solidarity activists congregate outside the Labour party conference calling for a total arms embargo of Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign reports that it has not been allowed to use the words ‘genocide’ or ‘apartheid’ in its description of a fringe event in the official guide. (Guardian, 21 September 2024)
22 September: The Irish government considers cutting funds to loyalist organisations linked to paramilitarism. The International Fund for Ireland, which donated £1.6m to four UVF and UDA-backed charities in Belfast over two years, is summoned before the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. (Belfast Telegraph, 22 September 2024)
23 September: Germany’s Social Democrats narrowly win a victory in Brandenburg, receiving 31 percent of the vote following a tactical drive to exclude the far-right AfD, which came second with 29 percent of the vote after a wave of youth support. (Guardian, 23 September 2024)
25 September: A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the European Cultural Foundation suggests that the EU is moving to a more ethnic, closed and xenophobic understanding of Europeanness. (Guardian, 25 September 2024)
25 September: Demonstrations are held across Italy against the far-right government’s introduction of a security bill that comes down hard on climate activists and migrants. (Guardian, 25 September 2024)
26 September: Former cabinet minister Baroness Warsi resigns the Tory whip, saying that the party has moved too far to the right, as it investigates her tweet on the acquittal of the ‘coconut’ protester. (Guardian, 26 September 2024)
27 September: Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof says that it is unacceptable for far-right cabinet member Chris Jansen (PVV) to say in a TV interview that, in his private capacity, he supported the call for ‘fewer Moroccans’ in the Netherlands. (Dutch News, 27 September 2024)
29 September: On the eve of the Austrian election, three well-known members of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) attend a funeral where a song with a Nazi history is sung, though it remains unclear whether the politicians joined the singing. (DW, 29 September 2024)
29 September: In Austrian parliamentary elections, the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), campaigning with the slogan ‘Fortress Austria’, advocating ‘remigration’ of ‘uninvited foreigners’ and calling for the suspension of asylum law, wins the most votes (29 percent), leaving it the strongest party in the parliament, ahead of the conservative ÖVP (26.2 percent) for the first time. (Deutsche Welle, 29 September 2024; Guardian, 30 September 2024)
29 September: On a BBC programme, Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch reiterates views she expressed in a Telegraph article that ‘not all cultures are equally valid’ and that some immigrants brought ‘ancestral hostilities’. ‘I am struck’, she says, ‘by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel’. (Guardian, 29 September 2024)
30 September: Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick, who claims that migrant crime rates are being covered up, pledges to publish data identifying migrant nationalities with the highest crime rates if he becomes prime minister. (MSN, 30 September 2024)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
With anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
19 September: Alex Edwards (FKA Alex Hutton), a 19-year-old far-right extremist, is sentenced to ten years and four months in jail for sharing terrorist documents and attacking a transgender woman in a Swansea park in May 2023. (Guardian, 19 September 2024; Wales Online, 19 September 2024)
25 September: Analysis of court data about participants in the August far-right riots finds that the majority of people charged were local to the disturbances; more likely to suffer from poor health and come from deprived neighbourhoods; and live in areas with higher levels of support for Reform UK. (Guardian, 25 September 2024)
POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
18 September: Following a review of the Child Q case, Hackney schools adopt the Met police’s revised safety plans, meaning that Safer Schools Officers will now act as ‘tactical advisors’ while ‘avoiding’ involvement in non-criminal or minor issues involving schoolchildren. (BBC, 18 September 2024)
18 September: Black student Samuel Ackon claims he was assaulted by a police officer in Northampton after being mistaken for a drug dealer when he stopped to hand a homeless man some change on 8 August, with the incident captured on video. (MSN, 24 September 2024)
20 September: Following the screening of RTE Investigates’ inquiry into six months of protests against asylum seekers in Coolock, Dublin, Ireland, the Garda Commissioner concedes that standing down the Garda National Public Order Unit was not the right decision and promises to prosecute people seen committing offences in the documentary. 26 people have appeared in court so far. (RTE, 20 September 2024)
21 September: The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories calls for German riot police to face disciplinary action and human rights training after videos emerge of them arresting a 10-year-old child who raised the Palestinian flag at a demonstration in Berlin. (X, [Francesca Albanese], 21 September 2024)
23 September: After being cleared over the ‘coconut’ placard, Marieha Hussein asks the IOPC to investigate the Met and the CPS for their ‘politicised’ handling of the case, which damaged her reputation and career. (Guardian, 23 September 2024)
23 September: A coalition of civil society organisations writes to the home secretary calling for an overhaul of counter-extremism policies, including the Prevent programme, and the suspension of the Conservatives’ controversial new definition of extremism. (Middle East Eye, 23 September 2024)
We joined human rights orgs in calling the Home Secretary @ukhomeoffice to ensure the review on counter-extremism measures includes human rights impact on communities.
Too many innocent people have been damaged by “Prevent”. Enough is enough.
Read on: https://t.co/YwNr8u3G15 pic.twitter.com/XmeINPnNKU
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) September 23, 2024
23 September: As part of the Met’s race action plan to rebuild trust with London’s Black community, Scotland Yard launches a new stop-and-search charter to reset how the procedure is carried out. (Guardian, 23 September 2024)
23 September: A final warning is issued to a Met police officer in relation to a September 2020 incident in which a taser was held to the neck of a 16-year-old Black boy during a stop and search in southeast London. The IOPC finds that the officer’s behaviour was not influenced by Jamar Powell’s ethnicity. (IOPC, 23 September 2024)
23 September: An Amnesty report documents French police responses to migrant women who report sexual violence, which range from ignoring or belittling them to arrest and threats of deportation. (InfoMigrants, 23 September 2024)
25 September: In Paris, France, the Brigade for the Repression of Crimes Against the Person detains Eliaz d’Imzalene, a Muslim activist from Urgence Palestine, on charges of ‘public incitement to commit crimes’ after it is alleged that he called for an ‘intifada’ in Paris at a Palestine solidarity protest on 8 September. (Middle East Eye, 25 September 2024).
25 September: Italian police ban two pro-Palestinian marches in Rome on 5 October. (ANSA, 25 September 2024)
26 September: As Irish media hand over footage of anti-immigrant riots in Coolock, Dublin, to the police, the Commissioner confirms the purchase of two new water cannon for public order purposes. (RTÉ, 26 September 2024)
28 September: Two Croydon police officers are found guilty of misconduct following an incident in which Child B, a 14-year-old Black schoolboy, suffered excessive use of force in handcuffing during a stop and search in June 2022. (Sutton and Croydon Guardian, 28 September 2024)
1 October: In a review of progress on separation of children in young offenders’ institutions, HM Inspectorate of Prisons finds that little has changed from its 2020 report, and that children subjected to widespread solitary confinement are not provided with adequate access to education and exercise. (Howard League, 1 October 2024)
1 October: The Met settle a civil action for race discrimination, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, misfeasance and breach of data protection by Black bank executive Dale Semper, who was wrongly accused of involvement in gun crime in August 2017. (Guardian, 1 October 2024)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
18 September: A 16-year-old Iraqi boy who was assessed to be aged 24-26 by the Home Office and the London Borough of Greenwich, and placed in adult accommodation, has proven his age claim after a three-year dispute. (Guardian, 18 September 2024)
18 September: Days after the ECtHR rules against Hungary in another case involving lengthy confinement of an asylum-seeking family in inhuman conditions at the now closed ‘transit zone’, the EU activates a procedure to deduct an unpaid €200m fine for earlier violations of asylum law from its budget share. (Euronews, 18 September 2024; ELENA weekly update, 20 September 2024)
25 September: A Guardian investigation reveals that the Tunisian national guard, which was granted €89 million by the EU to reduce Europe-bound migration, systematically rapes and tortures people on the move and abandons women and children in the desert to die. A complaint is made to the International Criminal Court but the EU denies that its funding facilitates abuses. (Guardian, 19 September 2024; Euractiv, 25 September 2024)
26 September: A tribunal judge rules that the Home Office must release a 52-page analysis by a historian into the background of the Windrush Scandal, that it commissioned and then supressed for 3 years. (Guardian, 26 September 2024)
26 September: A new report by Micro Rainbow finds that the government’s hostile environment and vilification of refugees have left LGBTQI refugees facing the same problems as 10 years ago regarding access to housing, financial stability and employment. (EIN, 26 September 2024)
Borders and internal controls
19 September: Guardian analysis of Home Office statistics shows that 86 percent of people on the 10-year route to permanent settlement are from African or Asian countries, confirming the policy is racist and leaves many in debt as they are forced to pay thousands in renewal fees. (Guardian, 19 September 2024)
23 September: UNHCR issues important guidelines on the Refugee Convention’s Article 31, clarifying the preference for using the term ‘irregular’ instead of ‘illegal’ migration as seeking asylum is not a criminal act. (EIN, 23 September 2024)
Reception and detention
18 September: Of the 33 recommendations for urgent changes made in the Brook House Inquiry Report into serious abuse at the immigration centre a year ago, only one has been accepted by the government, the inquiry chair reveals. (BBC, 18 September 2024)
19 September: Albanian prime minister Edi Rama insists that the deal with Italy to house those rescued at sea by Italian authorities while their claims are processed by Italian officials is a ‘one-off’ after the UK prime minister reportedly expressed interest in a similar deal. (Euronews, 19 September 2024)
23 September: A report by Bail for Immigration Detainees finds that 85 percent of respondents held in prisons had no legal representation and 71 percent no access to legal advice, while detainees held in IRCs had access to free legal advice. (EIN, 23 September 2024)
25 September: The Home Office announces plans to replace the temporary asylum reception and processing centre at the Manston airport site in Kent, with a new ‘fit for purpose’ facility that includes fencing around the site boundary. (Kent Live, 25 September 2024)
30 September: The public prosecutor in the Canary Islands, Spain, opens four investigations into the abuse and mistreatment of minors in various reception centres on the islands. (El Pais, September 2024)
Deportations
18 September: Over 30 charities and migrant rights organisations write to the home secretary saying that they will not be complicit in the £15 million Home Office Reintegration Programme, working with people who have been deported from the UK, as they regard the initiative as unethical and cynical. (Guardian, 18 September 2024)
Crimes of solidarity
16 September: Five migrant solidarity activists from Italy, France and Spain who were arrested on 10 September in Malko Tarnovo, on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, as they responded to a call from a group of migrants in distress, claim they were assaulted, abused and threatened by Bulgarian police after calling an ambulance for an unconscious child. (Balkan Insight, 16 September 2024)
23 September: Italian authorities impound the Médecins sans Frontière vessel Geo Barents days after it landed 206 people in Genoa and rescued another 110 people amid intimidation by Libyan coastguard officials. The order detains the ship for 60 days for alleged technical faults. (Common Dreams, 26 September 2024)
HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION
20 September: Two rights groups threaten legal action against the government, stating that UK officials could face criminal liability if they continue to export UK-made components for F-35 fighter jets that might end up in Israel. (Middle East Eye, 20 September 2024)
EDUCATION
Although we do not cover student protests for Palestine, we do track university administrative measures that deny the right to protest and authorise the use of force, or silence pro-Palestinian voices and display anti-Palestinian bias.
18 September: Analysis by FFT Education Datalab of students who failed to achieve Grade 4 or above in GCSE Maths and English shows that ‘more than half of disadvantaged pupils did not achieve the basics, compared to just over a quarter of their peers’. (TES, 18 September 2024)
20 September: The vice-president of the Max Planck Society warns that German universities could become ‘less attractive’ to students and academics after the success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in recent state elections. (THE, 20 September 2024)
23 September: Research by Refugee Education UK finds that thousands of teenage asylum seekers who arrive in the UK after the start of the school year find themselves trapped in an education limbo, leaving them vulnerable to isolation, mental health deterioration and exploitation, impacting 15- to 17-year-olds worst. (Guardian, 23 September 2024)
HOUSING| POVERTY| WELFARE
19 September: The Public Interest Law Centre publishes a report detailing how the ‘affordable’ housing options set to replace council-rent homes after estate demolition are instead worsening the housing crisis for working-class Londoners. A guide for residents and organisers challenging estate demolitions is included. (PILC, 19 September 2024)
24 September: Homelessness applications from refugees in Glasgow have almost doubled in the last year, rising from 1,384 to 2,709, with other areas in Scotland also facing increases, it is revealed. (Glasgow Times, 24 September 2024)
25 September: An academic study that includes a survey of 138 people in Scotland with no recourse to public funds or other restricted eligibility for statutory support finds that 93 percent were experiencing homelessness and 97 percent destitution, with government policies described as ‘destitution by design’. (Inside Housing, 25 September 2024)
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
17 September: The Finnish Medical Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility condemn as ‘problematic and damaging’ government proposals to ban undocumented migrants from entitlement to non-emergency health care. (ECRE, 20 September 2024)
26 September: A survey finds that though Black men are twice as likely than the overall population to develop prostate cancer, 62 percent believe that racial discrimination prevented them or a loved one from accessing testing. (Guardian, 26 September 2024)
1 October: A review conducted by the UCL Institute of Health Equity, led by Sir Michael Marmot, finds that structural racism is exacerbating health inequalities in London, with inequalities in housing, employment and poverty resulting in poor health outcomes. (Guardian, 1 October 2024)
EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION| INDUSTRIAL ACTION
23 September: In Greece, the anti-racist organisation Keerfa says that it is supporting a Pakistani migrant worker whose employer allegedly claimed to be a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn and exploited, beat and racially abused him. The police refused to file the migrant worker’s complaint. (Keerfa, 23 September 2024)
CULTURE| MEDIA| SPORT
While we cannot cover all incidents of racist abuse on sportspersons or their responses, we provide a summary of the most important incidents. For more information follow Kick it Out.
18 September: Essex County Cricket Club is fined £100,000 by the Cricket Discipline Commission, half of which is to be suspended for two years, after admitting to the ‘systemic use’ of racist language between 2001 and 2010. (Guardian, 18 September 2024)
18 September: The arts union Equity criticises a ‘growing culture of censorship’ after a retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was cancelled by The Royal Exchange in Manchester, reportedly due to a dispute over references to trans rights and the conflict in Israel and Palestine. (BBC News, 18 September 2024)
25 September: Former Conservative government minister Michael Gove is appointed editor of the Spectator, weeks after GB News backer Paul Marshall completed a £100m takeover of the magazine. (Guardian, 25 September 2024)
25 September: Publishers for Palestine, which represents 500 publishers in 50 countries, calls on the Frankfurt Book Fair to cut ties with Israel, highlighting the event’s cancellation of Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli’s scheduled award ceremony, its pledge to increase Israeli programming, and the German state’s clampdown on Palestine solidarity. (Literary Hub, 25 September 2024)
26 September: In Spain, following racist abuse against Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr and Samuel Chukwueze in a 1-0 victory last year, a Mallorca fan is handed a one-year suspended sentence to a year in prison and a three year stadium ban after being found guilty of ‘two crimes against moral integrity’ aggravated by racist motives. (AlJazeera, 26 September 2024)
27 September: In Spain, UEFA bans Barcelona fans for one game after they displayed a banner with Nazi overtones. The banner, directed towards their German manager Hansi Flick, read ‘Flick Heil’. (AlJazeera, 27 September 2024)
30 September: Abdul Hai, acquitted of the murder of Richard Everitt in 1994, calls for legislation to control social media after being falsely accused on X by Tommy Robinson of having committed the murder. (Guardian, 30 September 2024)
1 October: A BBC investigation finds that the far-right group Active Club (AC) uses sports to recruit young men into militias. AC, which praises Hitler and the SS, was founded in 2020 and has expanded to 100 cells across the US, Canada and Europe, with the first UK branch opening in 2023. It seeks to build ‘a mass movement of strong, able-bodied, capable guys’, in what researchers describe as a preparation for future acts of violence. (BBC News, 1 October 2024)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
24 September: North Belfast MLAs condemn those behind a series of posters put up in Rathcoole, Newtownabbey, featuring the slogans ‘Stop the illegal immigrants’, ‘We need to protect our children’ and warning that ‘Anyone facilitating the settlement of Muslims in our area will be held responsible’. (Belfast Media, 24 September 20245)
25 September: Following a cybersecurity incident that impacted Network Rail-managed train stations in Manchester, Birmingham and London, passengers trying to log in to public Wifi receive Islamophobic messages and a passage referring to a UK terror attack. (Sky News, 26 September 2024)
30 September: Fearing an increase in ‘hate crime’ following Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon, London mayor Sadiq Khan announces increased spending to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in the capital. (Guardian, 30 September 2024)
This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.