A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.

ASYLUM | MIGRATION | BORDERS | CITIZENSHIP

Asylum and migrant rights

30 September: A Refugee Council report, Identity Crisis: how the age dispute process puts refugee children at risk, finds that the Home Office wrongly classified hundreds of underage asylum seekers as adults last year, exposing them to neglect and abuse as well as putting them at risk of deportation to Rwanda. (Guardian, 30 September 2022)

6 October: Following a High Court challenge, the home secretary concedes that a family currently in hiding in Afghanistan cannot be required to take biometric tests before travelling to the UK to join relatives. The requirement was lifted for Ukrainians but not for Afghan families, about 100 of whom are believed to be in a similar situation. (Guardian, 6 October 2022)

9 October: Home secretary Suella Braverman’s claim that migrants are ‘gaming the system’ by making false claims of trafficking is questioned by former anti-slavery commissioner Dame Sarah Thornton and rebutted by Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority chief Elysia McCaffery, as analysis shows that 97 percent of trafficking claims in the first half of 2022 have been confirmed as genuine. (Independent, 5 October 2022, Guardian, 9 October 2022)

Borders and internal controls

21 September: The Spanish interior minister denies that a massacre took place in June at the Melilla border with Morocco, where at least 37 died in an attempted border crossing. The minister blames the migrants for the tragedy, calling them a ‘violent group’, and describes the force used as ‘proportionate’. (El Pais, 21 September 2022)

26 September: The European Commission announces the signing of a deal with North Macedonia to ‘strengthen Frontex’s capacity’ to operate in the country and clamp down on ‘irregular migration’. (European Commission, 26 September 2022)

27 September: Human rights groups and academics publish an open letter directed at an EU-funded project, ITFlows, calling for it to stop development of its programme providing prediction and risk analysis of migration flows, which signatories fear states will use to further criminalise and securitise migration. (Statewatch, 27 September 2022)

29 September: The Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London releases The Hostile Environment remains in place, detailing how hostile environment policies criminalise lawfully residing workers waiting for renewal of their visas, leading to wrongful suspensions from work and denial of state and non-state services. (RAMFEL, 29 September 2022)

29 September: Finland bans Russian citizens travelling with Schengen tourist visas from entering the country, on the grounds that they are a threat to Finland’s international relations. Russians entering for work, study and family visits will not be banned. (Euronews, 29 September 2022, Al Jazeera, 29 September 2022)

29 September: It is revealed that over 2,000 unaccompanied children, including a two-year-old, have been fingerprinted and photographed by police after arriving in the UK as part of Operation Innerste, an immigration enforcement operation to ‘build rapport and lock in identity’ according to a Home Office guidance document. (Guardian, 29 September 2022)

30 September: The European Commission publishes visa guidance requiring EU member states to apply ‘a higher degree of security checks’ to visas and border checks for Russian citizens while ‘fully respecting EU asylum law’. (European Commission, 30 September 2022)

30 September: The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre publishes Scrutinising migration surveillance: human rights responsibilities of tech companies operating in MENA, which finds that European tech companies including G4S, Thales, Airbus, BAE and Irisguard are ‘deeply implicated’ in human rights abuses against migrants such as drones which monitor their sea passage without rescuing them. (Computer Weekly, 30 September 2022)

1 October: New right-to-work checks come into force, which employers are required to perform in person or through online checking service or using identification document validation technology (IDVT). (Free Movement, 26 September 2022)

2 October: Norway’s justice minister says the country’s 178-km land border with Russia, where there have been only four known irregular crossings since the invasion of Ukraine, is ready to be closed at a few hours’ notice if necessary. (Barents Observer, 2 October 2022) 

5 October: The Finnish prime minister convenes talks to secure cross-party support for a proposal by the border guard, about which she is ‘positive’, to build a fence on parts of its 1,300-km eastern border with Russia. (Helsinki Times, 5 October 2022)

10 October: The EU Ombudsman investigates Frontex and the European External Action Service (EEAS) for failure to perform human rights risk assessments before providing surveillance capacity, training and other assistance to non-EU states, including Libya, following complaints by several human rights and rescue NGOs. (Euronews, 10 October 2022)

Reception and detention

28 September: A local MP criticises the Home Office decision to extend its contract with a hotel company to house 130 asylum seekers for another year in Manvers, near Rotherham, calling the accommodation ‘utterly unsuited’. (Yorkshire Live, 28 September 2022) 

1 October: Campaigners protest against the Home Office’s plans to reopen the Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre in Oxfordshire, which was closed in 2018. (BBC, 1 October 2022)

2 October: Charity Refugees at Home says the conditions and requirements attached to the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme make it unworkable, and as more Ukrainians housed under the scheme become homeless, it can no longer take on rematching with new sponsors. (Guardian, 2 October 2022)

4 October: A new Helen Bamber Foundation report, Abuse by the system: survivors of trafficking in immigration detention, with Medical Justice, reveals that the number of potential trafficking victims detained by the Home Office has tripled in 4 years. (HBF, 4 October 2022, Guardian, 4 October 2022)

5 October: The French government announces an exceptional measure for families hosting refugees from Ukraine, who will get an extra €150 per month assistance if they host refugees for at least 90 days. (RFI, 6 October 2022)

5 October: Charities warn that asylum seekers arriving on small boats are being asked to find their own accommodation following initial processing at Manston near Ramsgate, Kent, leaving some traumatised and vulnerable people at risk from traffickers. (Guardian, 5 October 2022)

7 October: Prison Officer Association (POA) members of Border Force at Manston initial processing centre warn that it is like ‘a pressure cooker coming to the boil with a jammed release valve’, with fights breaking out in crowded marquees where asylum seekers sleep, inadequate bedding, laundry and cleaning facilities, sometimes food and water shortages, and insufficient staff. (Kent Online, 7 October 2022)

7 October: The Belgian asylum agency, Fedasil, has been convicted over 4,500 times so far this year for failing to provide accommodation to asylum seekers, it is reported. (AA, 7 October 2022)

Deportations

3 October: Figures from Eurostat show a significant increase in deportation orders and deportations carried out across the EU in the second quarter of 2022, with France, Germany, Sweden and Greece carrying out the most, and France, Germany and Italy issuing the most orders. (InfoMigrants, 4 October 2022)

Citizenship

27 September: The Brussels Court of Appeal rules that the Belgian state must seek the repatriation from the US of its citizen Nizar Trabelsi and pay him €10,000 for each year of his decade in US prisons under conditions of extreme sensory deprivation following his extradition. (Politico, 27 September 2022)

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.

27 September: An analysis of donations received by Bob Blackman, Conservative MP for Harrow East and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for British Hindus, suggests he has ‘funding ties’ to the far-right Hindutva movement. Blackman recently wrote to the home secretary blaming clashes between Muslims and Hindus in Leicester on ‘Islamist extremists’. (Byline Times, 27 September 2022)

28 September: The Labour party leader says comments made by Rupa Huq MP at a conference fringe meeting suggesting that the chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was ‘superficially’ black were ‘stupid and racist’. Huq, who has apologised, is suspended pending an investigation. (Sky News, 28 September 2022)

30 September: As part of its attempt to overcome Turkish objections to its bid to join NATO, Sweden lifts its 2019 ban on exports of military equipment, introduced after Turkey’s incursion against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. (Euronews, 30 September 2022)

2 October: The far-right Sweden Democrats, who won the second-highest share of votes in the general election, are awarded the chairmanship of four parliamentary parties – justice, foreign affairs, business and labour affairs. (Independent, 2 October 2022)

3 October: New home secretary Suella Braverman says ‘a plane taking off to Rwanda’ is her ‘dream’, and pledges an immigration policy which will impose a blanket ban on asylum claims from Channel crossers, put them in jail, and ‘cut down on those [migrant] numbers that aren’t meeting the needs of our economy’. (The National, 4 October 2022; Independent, 4 October 2022)

6 October:  Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tells a meeting of British Indians that he is determined to stamp out Hinduphobia and deal with extremist elements exploiting social media to spread hate within communities. (Indian Express 6 October 2022)

8 October: Around 10,000 people attend a far-right Alternative for Germany demonstration outside the Berlin parliament against the ‘economic war’ waged against Russia, demanding ‘energy security and inflation protection’ and ‘our country first’. (Deutsche Welle, 8 October 2022)

9 October: In Spain, the far-right Vox party hosts a rally in Madrid which features a video message from Donald Trump, South American and European extreme-right leaders. The Polish prime minister who attends in person says the EU is in danger of becoming ‘a transnational beast without real and traditional values, without a soul’. (Deutsche Welle, 9 October 2022, Wyborcza, 11 October 2022).

9 October: In the Austrian presidential election, the incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen wins around 56 percent of the vote, with the far-right Freedom party challenger Walter Rosenkranz receiving 19.1 percent, before postal ballots are counted. (ABC News, 9 October 2022)

10 October: In Denmark’s general election campaign, the Social Democrats, Danish People’s Party and Danish Democrats all support the plan to ‘offshore’ asylum seekers arriving in Denmark to Rwanda. (Euronews, 10 October 2022)

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.

28 September: In Antwerp, Belgium, a trader in military items is killed in gunfire exchange with police following at least ten anti-terrorist raids in seven different municipalities targeting suspected far-right extremists preparing terrorist acts in which weapons and ammunition were seized. A plot to kill the justice minister had recently been uncovered. (Euronews, 28 September 2022)

POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

26 September: An investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman finds that prisons frequently break Rule 39, which protects lawyer-client privacy, by opening and reading prisoners’ private legal letters. (Inside Times, 26 September 2022)

28 September: As the trial of the police officer accused of beating black footballer Dalian Atkinson with a baton prior to his death in August 2016 ends with her acquittal, Atkinson’s family criticise the justice system for taking six years to complete the criminal trials of officers involved. (Guardian, 28 September 2022)

28 September: Following the attorney general’s intervention in the case of the Colston 4, the Court of Appeal rules that protests involving significant damage to property fall outside protections for freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. (Guardian, 28 September 2022)

29 September: Two Metropolitan police officers plead not guilty to assaulting Emmanuel Ugborokefe, a black man who was handcuffed and allegedly beaten in Barnet, north London, in a case of mistaken identity over a reported robbery in December 2021. (MyLondon, 29 September 2022)

1 October: Officers involved in the deaths of Oladeji Omishore and Chris Kaba have yet to be interviewed under caution, it emerges, with the two officers involved in Omishore’s death still remaining on full duties. (Guardian, 1 October 2022)

5 October: An equality analysis assessment issued by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, following an FOI request, reveals racial targeting through tagging, with black British Caribbean men comprising almost a quarter of knife crime offenders fitted with ankle tags on release from London prisons in 2021, and black British Africans 16 percent. (Guardian, 5 October 2022)

6 October: After the BBC reports that a group of serving police officers had posted racist content on WhatsApp, including the P-word and the N-word, the IOPC says six serving police officers and one former officer, all from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary where Sarah Everard’s murderer Wayne Couzens formerly served, are under investigation. (Guardian, 6 October 2022, Independent, 7 October 2022)

7 October: Scotland Yard says it is setting up a new Anti-Corruption and Abuse Command to spearhead efforts to identify, through ‘covert tactics’ if necessary, racist, misogynist and abusive officers and staff. (Independent, 7 October 2022)

7 October: Five years after a brutal house search, Nottinghamshire police pay out £40,000 in damages to ‘Sharon’, who was forcibly restrained during the search of her home in support of a bailiff. (Iain Gould Blog, 7 October 2022)

8 October: The IOPC opens an investigation into the death of a mixed-race man following an alleged restraint in Waltham Cross, Broxbourne, by Hertfordshire police. Police used incapacitant spray during a mental health crisis, it is alleged. (IOPC, 8 October 2022, Guardian, 8 October 2022

11 October: In Greece, Costas Plevris, the lawyer for Golden Dawn MEP Giannis Lagos, reportedly gives the Nazi salute while defending him in court. (Keep Talking Greece, 11 October 2022)

COUNTER-TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY

3 October: Freedom of information requests reveal that 40 members of the armed forces have been referred to counter-terrorism services, with the numbers doubling within a year amid warnings from the Intelligence and Security Committee that the far Right is ‘targeting the military’. (Daily Mail, 3 October 2022)

EDUCATION

28 September: The Office for Students announces that its new ‘national risk register’ on higher education access and participation issues will focus more on equality of opportunity than meeting targets. (Times Higher Education, 28 September 2022)

3 October: At a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference hosted by MillionPlus and Conservative Home, skills minister Andrea Jenkyns accuses universities of feeding students ‘critical race theory’, ‘anti-British history’ and ‘sociological Marxism’. (Times Higher Education, 5 October 2022)

9 October: Aberdeen University votes against adoption of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, saying it risks stifling academic freedom, adopting instead the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA). (National, 9 October 2022)

HOUSING | POVERTY | WELFARE

4 October: Research by Friends of the Earth finds that people from a minority ethnic background are nearly three times more likely to live in neighbourhoods with very high air pollution, putting them at disproportionate risk of heart attacks, cancer and strokes. (Guardian, 4 October 2022)

6 October: Research by the Runnymede Trust reveals that Black and minority ethnic people in the UK are twice as likely than white people to experience ‘deep poverty’, struggling to afford food and energy, and are more exposed to the cost of living crisis than white people. (Guardian, 6 October 2022)

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

29 September: Health secretary Thérèse Coffey is reported to have abandoned the government’s white paper on tackling racial, class and regional health inequalities, promised for last spring. (Guardian, 29 September 2022)

CULTURE | MEDIA | SPORT

8 October: The British Museum apologises to Muslim parents after a member of staff allegedly called their six-year-old daughter a security risk because she posed for a picture at the museum’s doors.  In a separate complaint, a security guard is alleged to have asked Muslim visitors where they were hiding their ‘bomb’. (My London, 8 October 2022)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

29 September: A 59-year-old woman is convicted of two racially aggravated public order offences and criminal damage after racially abusing her neighbours, a Black mother and daughter, and breaking a panel of glass on their front door with a stone. Swindon Magistrates’ Court imposes a 12-month community order and imposes fines and costs totalling £510. (Mirror, 3 October 2022)

30 September: A 34-year-old man from Hartlepool is convicted of racially aggravated harassment against a Cleveland police officer during an arrest in August for assaults on two women in March. Teesside magistrates sentence him to 24 weeks’ prison and a £100 victim surcharge in respect of all three charges. (Hartlepool Mail, 30 September 2022)

30 September: Northampton magistrates sentence a 38-year-old man to 11 months’ prison on three charges of racially aggravated assault for racially abusing a man of Asian heritage and attacking him twice with a pool cue at Cuetopia in Kettering on 14 September. He is ordered to pay compensation of £100 to the victim, who sustained no serious injury. (Northamptonshire Telegraph, 30 September 2022)

2 October: St Albert’s primary school in Pollokshields, Glasgow, issues a statement condemning racist abuse against pupils on social media after Scotland’s first minister posted a picture of herself with children from the school. (Morning Star, 2 October 2022)

3 October: Warrington magistrates sentence a 32-year-old woman to a 12-month community order, including 25 days of rehabilitation activities, and fines totalling £415, for drunken racial abuse of a Turkish taxi driver in front of three young children in June. (Daily Mail, 3 October 2022)

3 October: Southampton Crown Court sentences a 22-year-old Southampton man to 10 months prison suspended for 18 months, 250 hours of unpaid work and 20 days’ rehabilitation activities for racially aggravated assault on a postman and causing criminal damage with a meat cleaver following an incident on 10 September. (Hampshire Live, 3 October 2022)

3 October: A 42-year-old St Helens man admits a religiously aggravated assault, further aggravated by the perceived sexual orientation of his victim, committed in April, and Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens magistrates sentence him to 90 days’ abstention from alcohol, a 28-day curfew, a two-year restraining order not to contact the victim, 20 rehabilitation days and £400 in compensation and costs. (St Helens Star, 10 October 2022)

4 October: Racist graffiti featuring the slogan ‘locals only’ are sprayed on the walls of a house, reportedly days before a family is due to move in, in the Donegall Pass area of Belfast, following damage to windows of the house in previous weeks. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is treating the case as a hate crime. (Irish News, 8 October 2022)

5 October: A 40-year-old man from Reading is given a community order with a drug rehabilitation requirement for a racially aggravated public order offence in a Swindon shop last November. (Reading Chronicle, 10 October 2022)

6 October: Home Office statistics on hate crime show a record of nearly 110,000 racist crimes in the 12 months to March, of a total 155,841 hate crimes, 26 percent up from the previous year. Religious hate crimes rose by 37 percent, with Muslims the most targeted religious group, while anti-trans hate crimes rose by 56 percent to over 4,000. (Guardian, 6 October 2022)

6 October: A 28-year-old man who knocked an elderly Sikh priest unconscious and left him for dead, resulting in permanent brain damage, is sentenced to three years in prison at Manchester crown court. (ITV, 6 October 2022)

11 October: In Leipzig, Germany, videos surface of demonstrators protesting rising energy prices and sanctions against Russia, chanting at Ukranian counter protesters ‘get lost, you’re living at our expense’ before going on to attack them. (Deutsche Welle, 11 October 2022)

The calendar was compiled with the help of Graeme Atkinson, Sira Thiam, Oscar Herzog Astaburuaga, Sophie Chauhan and Joseph Maggs. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far-Right, racial violence 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.