Calendar of Racism and Resistance (11 – 25 April 2023)


Calendar of Racism and Resistance (11 – 25 April 2023)

News

Written by: IRR News Team


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

11 April: Following several protests 20 asylum seekers begin a hunger strike at an emergency shelter in Purmerend, Netherlands to draw attention to the long delays in processing asylum applications. (Netherlands Times, 11 April 2023)

11 April: For the first time since 2011, the Italian government declares a 6-month state of emergency, releasing €5 million initial funding to create new facilities for speeding up the processes of identification and expulsion of migrants, and calling on the EU for funding to relocate migrants from Lampedusa across Italy. (Euronews, 13 April 2023; InfoMigrants, 14 April 2023) 

12 April: In a case that has spanned many years, involving many court hearings and a huge volume of correspondence, Saiful Islam, who came to the UK in 2003 from Bangladesh is granted leave to remain after having his work visa curtailed in 2010 due to Home Office errors in attributing several other people’s criminal convictions to him. (Guardian, 12 April 2023) 

16 April: Details emerge of the ‘Face Behind the Case’ Home Office training module, introduced by Priti Patel following the Windrush scandal to prevent ‘further reputational damage’, in which caseworkers are told to call asylum seekers ‘customers’. Immigration lawyers say they have seen no change to the culture of disbelief and refusal. (Guardian, 16 April 2023)    

16 April: Documents obtained by the Observer and Liberty Investigates on the government’s Operation Innerste, to prevent unaccompanied child asylum seekers being trafficked from hotels, reveal that police share children’s biometrics with immigration enforcement, and may use force to keep a child in custody. (Guardian, 16 April 2023)

17 April: Following an international study into the government’s handling of the Windrush scandal, a Human Rights Watch report criticises delays in processing the compensation scheme, the complexity of the 44-page application and the absence of legal aid for applicants, and says the scheme should be handed to an independent neutral organisation. (Guardian, 17 April 2023)  

20 April: As the prime minister caves in to hard-right backbench MPs’ demands to amend the Illegal Migration Bill to enable rulings from the European court on deportation to Rwanda of small boat arrivals to be ignored, foreign secretary James Cleverly argues against leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, and a former lord chief justice says ignoring the ECHR undermines the rule of law. (Guardian, 20 April 2023)

21 April: Amendments to the Illegal Migration bill include a new requirement for ‘age-disputed’ asylum seekers to undergo ‘scientific’ age assessment or be treated as adults, and new powers to immigration officers to search for and seize mobile phones from asylum seekers arriving in small boats. (National, 21 April 2023)

24 April: A report from the Helen Bamber Foundation, Humans for Rights Network and Asylum Aid, collated from freedom of information requests, shows that at least two-thirds of children assessed as adults by the Home Office are later confirmed as children. (Guardian, 24 April 2023)

24 April: An investigation reveals that the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs has since 2015 been using a secret algorithm to score visa applicants, ignoring warnings of potential ethnic discrimination by its own data protection officer. (Lighthouse Reports, 24 April 2023)

Borders and internal controls

12 April: The IOM’s Missing Migrants project records the deaths of 441 migrants in the Central Mediterranean in the first quarter of this year, the worst since 2017, holding countries around the Mediterranean responsible through delays in launching state-led search and rescue operations and policies that impede humanitarian rescue efforts. (Deutsche Welle, 12 April 2023)

13 April: A 19-year-old migrant is charged with manslaughter over the deaths of four migrants who drowned in the English Channel in December 2021 when the boat they were travelling in sank. (Independent, 13 April 2023)

17 April: A 3-year investigation by a UN mission confirms that EU funding and its technical and logistical support for the Libyan coastguard and its Directorate for Combatting Illegal Migration has facilitated crimes against humanity including torture, extrajudicial killing, rape and sexual slavery. (The Gray Zone, 17 April 2023)

19 April: In addition to the patrols, drones and planes being used to monitor 150 kilometres of coastline along the Nord and Pas-de-Calais region, Britain and France aim to use SPYNEL panoramic infra-red surveillance cameras to monitor the coastline day and night. (Marine Link,19 April 2023)

19 April: Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine alleges that Bariş Büyülsi. a Turkish asylum seeker who was found unconscious in a boat that was pushed back from Greece to the Turkish coast in October had been tortured prior to his pushback. (Turkish Minute, 19 April 2023)

19 April: Fatmata, 23, dies after being shot accidentally by police in North Macedonia who were attempting to arrest a suspected people smuggler in Gevgelija, close to the border with Greece. The humanitarian organisation Second Tree supports her husband Abu Bakar who was with Fatmata when she died. (InfoMigrants, 20 April 2023; Second Tree (Instagram), 24 April 2023)

20 April: In France, a decree comes into force allowing the police to use drones equipped with cameras for a wide range of tasks including crowd monitoring and border control. (Reuters, 21 April 2023)

21 April: In France, a court jails four Afghans for illegally smuggling migrants across the Channel to the UK on dinghies in 2021. Defence lawyers emphasise that they were all refugees living in poverty. (Le Monde, 21 April 2023)

21 April: Amnesty International, Global Leaders of Lithuania (GLL) and other migrant rights organisations criticise amendments to the Lithuanian Law on the State Border and its Protection which enshrine in domestic law the ongoing practice of border pushbacks, creating also a civilian volunteer force to support border guards (ECRE Weekly Newsletter, 21 April 2023; Amnesty International,  17 April 2023)

Reception and detention

11 April: UN Human Rights Council experts say the UK government is failing to uphold its international law obligations to ensure the best interests of children, by accommodating unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels, which is discriminatory and puts them at risk of trafficking. They stress the urgent need to trace missing children and to end the use of hotels for them. (Guardian, 11 April 2023)

12 April: Unaccompanied child asylum seekers in Paris, France are being forced to hide alone on the streets in fear of police, it is reported, as moving around in groups is prohibited and an earlier policy of tolerance ends as migrant encampments are being systematically dismantled without alternative accommodation. (Info Migrants, 12 April 2023) 

12 April: Experts presenting to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases call for better care for asylum seekers and improved health screening of people arriving in small boats, to combat a sharp increase in diphtheria outbreaks in the UK and across Europe, traceable to ‘travel within migrant facilities’. (Guardian, 12 April 2023)

13 April: Wirral MPs criticise government plans to house 1,800 asylum seekers on a boat in Birkenhead, Merseyside as inhumane and criticise the Home Office’ failure to consult as Wirral Council hears of the plans for the first time. (Wirral Globe, 17 April 2023)

14 April: Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte tells a press conference that asylum seekers may again have to sleep outside the main asylum reception centre in Ter Apel, where last year hundreds frequently slept outside due to a lack of space. (Netherlands Times, 14 April 2023)

14 April: The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, passed by the House of Commons last year and to be considered by the House of Lords next week, gives the government the power to bypass normal planning permission on Crown land for asylum accommodation and other urgent developments ‘of national importance’. (Independent, 14 April 2023)

17 April: Concerns are raised over numerous attempts at serious self-harm and a hunger strike at a makeshift camp on the US and UK naval base Diego Garcia where, following their rescue 18 months ago, 60 Sri Lankan Tamil men, women and children are living in ‘degrading conditions’ without access to a mobile network, whilst their asylum applications are being processed in London. (Byline Times, 17 April 2023)

19 April: Official figures from Brook House, a privately operated immigration removal centre, reveals 18 occasions last year when physical force was applied to prevent the self-harm or attempted suicide of detainees, where a report published last September found it was overcrowded, with a prison-like environment, and failed to meet the needs of detainees with mental health issues. (Guardian, 19 April 2023) 

21 April: A report by an engineering consultancy identifies possible radioactive contamination at the MoD Wethersfield site in Essex where the Home Office intends to accommodate 1,700 asylum seekers, as Braintree council fails in its legal challenge but is granted permission to appeal. (Guardian, 21 April 2023) 

22 April: A Migrant Voice report, with testimony from 170 asylum seekers in London hotels, describes a litany of shocking living conditions including cramped, overcrowded, windowless rooms, inadequate toilet and washing facilities, food described as ‘inedible’ or ‘rancid’, and abusive and obstructive staff. (Guardian, 22 April 2023) 

Deportations

11 April: The European Court of Human Rights publishes an application by an Iraqi asylum seeker arguing that his removal to Rwanda would violate the prohibition against inhuman and degrading treatment. (ECRE/ECtHR, 11 April 2023)

13 April:  Research by Statewatch and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung reveals that European interior ministers signed a secret ‘Regional Return Mechanism’ in February last year committing EU and Schengen states to increase financial and material support for deportations from the Balkans. (Statewatch, 13 April 2023)

15 April: An undisclosed number of asylum seekers who were issued with notices of intent to remove them to Rwanda, have the notices withdrawn and are admitted into the UK asylum process for their claims to be fully considered. (Independent, 15 April 2023)

Protesters holding placards outside the High Court during the judicial review hearing of the Rwanda policy
A protest outside the High Court during the Rwanda policy hearing. Credit: Steve Eason, Flickr.

21 April: The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros says it will not accept migrants expelled from the neighbouring French island of Mayotte under Operation Wuambushu (Take Back) aimed at removing around 300 undocumented migrants per day. Previously, President Azali Assoumani had described Operation Wuambushu as a ‘threat to the region’. (Le Monde, 21 April 2023; Le Monde, 11 April 2023) 

24 April: The Court of Appeal hears an appeal from Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian asylum seekers and Asylum Aid, challenging government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, as over 830 medical professionals write to the prime minister expressing their concern. (Guardian, 24 April 2023)

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.

12 April: The British Pakistani Foundation, Conservative peer Baroness Warsi and Conservatives Against Racism for Equality all call on the prime minister to distance himself from the ‘racial insensitivity’ and ‘racist rhetoric’ of home secretary Suella Braverman. (Guardian, 12 April 2023)

12 April:  Conservative Pembrokeshire county councillor Andrew Edwards is referred to the public services ombudsman over an audio recording alleged to be of his voice, saying ‘all white men should have a black man’ or a ‘black woman’ as ‘a slave’, and black people are ‘lower class’ than whites. (Metro, 12 April 2023)

14 April: The Hungarian parliament approves legislation that paves the way for citizens to report same-sex families with children to the authorities for breaching the ‘constitutionally recognised role of marriage and the family’. Marriage is defined as ‘between one man and one woman’, adding that ‘the mother is a woman, the father is a man’. (Pink News, 14 April 2023)

17 April: The French prime minister and interior minister are criticised by Le Monde for promising to look into the funding of the League of Human Rights as prime minister Elizabeth Borne says its ‘ambiguities in the face of radical Islamism’ need to be considered. (Le Monde, 17 April 2023)

19 April: As part of a government 100-day action plan introduced after the pension reforms, the French minister of economy and finance, Bruno Le Maire, vows to crack down on welfare fraud, saying recipients often send benefits illegally to their families in the Maghreb, and the interior minister promises to tackle ‘foreign delinquency’ through the new immigration bill.  (Middle East Monitor, 19 April 2023; France 24, 19 April 2023)

22 April: In the run-up to Spanish local elections, far-Right Vox party spokesperson Jorge Buxadé is accused of manipulating crime statistics in a speech accusing the parliamentary left in Catalonia of trying to censor discussion about crime, as ‘illegal immigration, by its own definition, is a crime’. (El Pais, 22 April 2023)

23 April: Former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott is accused of antisemitism and suspended by the Labour party for a letter to the Observer, for which she later apologised saying it was a draft sent in error, which said that the prejudice faced by Jews and other white minorities is not the same as the racism faced by black people. (Independent, 24 April 2023)

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.

14 April: Leaked messages from anonymous sources reveal that Patriotic Alternative and the Pie and Mash Squad continue to target proposed refugee housing in Llantwit Major, Wales, planning a second intervention at a public consultation around the development of Seaview Park. (Nation Cymru, 14 April 2023)

20 April: After a court in Belgium overrules a ban by Leuven university on an event organised by the NSV, a nationalist student’s organisation, a talk by Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner goes ahead. (VRT News, 20 April 2023)

20 April: In Scotland, Patriotic Alternative splits, with a breakaway faction forming a new group called Homeland which holds its inaugural meeting on Hitler’s birthday. (The National, 24 April 2023)

23 April: Anti-fascists mobilise against an anti-immigration protest outside RAF Scampton in Lincoln over government plans to house asylum seekers there. West Lindsey District Council announces legal action to oppose the move. (BBC News, 23 April 2023)

POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Cases of police racism and sexism – and the way they are dealt with – are often linked, and as a reflection of this, this section includes information on police misogyny.

11 April: An investigation by the Guardian and BBC Radio 4 finds that police officers in England and Wales accused of violent and sexual misconduct are less likely to face disciplinary action under the revamped complaints system. (Guardian, 11 April 2023)

11 April: After the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the interior minister propose more weapon-free zones on trains and inner-city areas to tackle knife crime, the chair of the parliamentary interior policy committee says that data does not show an increase in knife crime and that the new measures will lead to an increase in suspicionless stop and frisk. (Deutsche Welle, 11 April 2023) 

12 April: An IOPC investigation finds that six Greater Manchester police committed misconduct or gross misconduct by sharing ‘abhorrent’ racist, ableist and other offensive messages on ‘the Dispensables’ WhatsApp group. (Guardian, 12 April 2023)

12 April: An official inspection of HMP Whitemoor finds prisoners let down by poor education provision and neglect of inmates’ welfare. (Justice Inspectorate, 12 April 2023)

12 April: An official inspection of HMP Long Lartin finds a doubling of self-harm in five years along with high levels of drug use and violence, poor physical infrastructure and no plans to improve the situation. (Justice Inspectorate, 12 April 2023)   

14 April: Two Metropolitan police officers are sacked for sharing racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and ableist messages, including derogatory comments about Katie Price’s disabled son, in a WhatsApp group called Secret Squirrel Shit. (Guardian, 14 April 2023)

17 April: The IOPC launches an investigation after a man believed to be black falls to his death from a block of flats in Peckham when a taser was discharged after he threatened to jump from the balcony. Police are being treated as witnesses. (Guardian, 17 April 2023)

17 April: A Guardian investigation reveals that three forces – Essex, Suffolk and Staffordshire – have proportionally higher rates of sexual misconduct and racism claims than the Met, as starkly different approaches to recording complaints across forces mean some forces do not formally record discrimination cases. (Guardian, 17 April 2023)

19 April: Human rights groups raise concerns about the piloting of Serious Violence Reduction Orders in the Thames Valley, West Midlands, Merseyside and Sussex areas, which give new stop-and-search-powers to their police forces. (Liberty, 19 April 2023)

20 April: Following a request from the justice minister (also public prosecutor general), Poland’s supreme court overturns a hate speech conviction against a man who wrote ‘Poland for Poles’, called for a ‘white Poland’ and condemned ‘rainbow politicians’. (Notes from Poland, 20 April 2023)

21 April: Following an analysis of newly released emails from the run-up to a cancelled Brixton event by Digga D, music venues promoting black music genres say the Met police continue to racially profile and censor rap and drill events, and that the ‘voluntary partnership approach’ to promoting and licensing events reincarnates the discredited Form 696, removed in 2017 following protests. (Guardian, 21 April 2023)

21 April: A French court convicts Lebanese-Canadian professor Hassan Diab in absentia of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing in which four died, with a warrant issued for his arrest, though in Canada the case has been regarded as based on mistaken identity and a miscarriage of justice. (Guardian, 21 April 2023)

24 April: The family of Elizabeth Chau, 19, whom a serial killer claims he murdered in 1999, say they have been failed by the Met, who they say never took her disappearance seriously because of their race and Elizabeth’s gender. (Guardian, 24 April 2023)

DISCRIMINATION | EQUALITIES | HUMAN RIGHTS

18 April: The Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms publishes the UK’s first ever report on gambling within ethnic minority communities, highlighting that systemic racism critically impacts the respondents’ experiences of gambling, the criminal justice system and seeking help with both. (Independent, 18 April 2023)

EDUCATION

19 April: The European Commission launches an action against Slovakia in the European Court of Justice for violating the Race Equality Directive through its provision of segregated school education for Romani children, 65% of whom remain in segregated schools. (ERRC, 19 April 2023)

21 April: Eight teachers are suspended from a sports school in Hasselt, Belgium, for sending racist, homophobic and discriminatory statements in a WhatsApp group. Three are visited by police. (Nieuwsblad, 21 April 2023)

25 April: The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI’s) first equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, with a budget of £25 billion to spend over three years, is criticised for failing to mention the words ‘race’ ‘racism’ or ‘ethnicity’ even once, focusing instead on a ‘diversity of people and ideas’. (THE, 25 April 2023)

HOUSING | POVERTY | WELFARE

11 April: Following an alternative dispute resolution process, around 900 bereaved family members, survivors and local residents whose lives were devastated by the Grenfell Tower fire agree a settlement of their claims against civil and corporate bodies. (Inside Housing, 11 April 2023) 

19 April: Research by the National Housing Federation finds that two million children from 746,000 households – or one in every six children – are living in overcrowded homes with no personal space and that households from ethnic minority backgrounds are three times more likely to be affected. (Inside Housing, 19 April 2023)

24 April: According to the Museum of Homelessness, one homeless person dies every 6.5 hours in the UK. More than 4,000 people have died while homeless in the last four years, according to latest data. (Euronews, 24 April 2023)

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

14 April: MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee find that DWP health assessments continue to cause acute psychological distress and contribute to claimants’ deaths, five years after an earlier damning report by the committee drew attention to the issue. (The National, 14 April 2023)

18 April: The parliamentary Women and Equalities Commission publishes a report highlighting racial disparities in maternal deaths and calling for faster action from the government and NHS to tackle the higher maternal death rate for women belonging to ethnic minorities. (Leigh Day, 18 April 2023)

21 April: An open letter coordinated by Level Up calls on L’Oreal to withdraw hair straightening products largely used by black women after studies found a link with cancer, and to invest in research on the long-term use of chemical relaxers, which make hair easier to straighten. (Guardian, 21 April 2023)

23 April: A petition is launched calling on the BMA to reverse the suspension of striking black junior doctor Kayode Oki after right-wing newspapers published old tweets by Dr Oki calling out systemic and structural racism in medicine and British society. (Change.org, 23 April 2023) 

EMPLOYMENT | EXPLOITATION | INDUSTRIAL ACTION

12 April: A British Indian social worker wins a race discrimination case against Leicester City Council after having been put through an undue disciplinary investigation in January 2021 and harassed at work. (BBC, 12 April 2023)

17 April: Truck drivers, mainly from Georgia and Uzbekistan, continue a strike starting in early April when they parked up in a motorway service area in Bavaria, Germany. A Polish company is withholding their wages as part of ‘drive & survive’ employment conditions facilitated by European law, says the European Transport Union. Members of the Rutkowski Patrol, a private security company hired to retrieve the strikers’ trucks, are arrested after driving an armoured truck into the service area. (EuroTransport, 17 April 2023; Wiadomosci, 7 April 2023)

18 April: The Trades Union Congress (TUC) warns that the use of AI in British workplaces could increase discrimination when used to make decisions about management, recruitment and dismissal. (Research Live, 24 April 2023)

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.

11 April: It is revealed that BBC chair Richard Sharp’s personal charity is under investigation by the Charity Commission for alleged donations to right-wing political groups. (Left Foot Forward, 11 April 2023) 

13 April: Essex police, who previously confiscated racist golly dolls from the White Hart Inn pub in Grays, confirm they are looking at Facebook posts by the pub’s landlord, in which he allegedly joked about the dolls and referred to Mississippi lynchings. (Guardian, 13 April 2023)

15 April: Real Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger is racially abused by Cádiz fans in a La Liga game. (Guardian, 16 April 2023)

19 April: Former Crawley Town manager John Yems, who referred to Asian and Black players as ‘curry munchers’ and likened them to Zulus, has his football ban for breaching 12 anti-discrimination rules extended to three years, making it the longest ever ban in English football for discrimination. (Guardian, 19 April 2023)

20 April: Research by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip) finds an increase in requests to remove books dealing with race, empire and LGBTQ+ themes, with reports of threats of violence to librarians attempting to ‘decolonise’ collections. (Guardian, 20 April 2023)

21 April: The editor of The Voice newspaper writes that Manchester City and United football clubs should remove the ships from their badges, due to the city’s links with the cotton trade and transatlantic slavery. (Guardian, 21 April 2023)

22 April: In Italy, the ban against Romelu Lukaku is rescinded by the Italian Football Federation due to the players subjection to multiple instances of racial abuse. (Gazzetta, 22 April 2023)

22 April: The 30th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence is remembered at a memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, with Neville Lawrence, writing in the Guardian, saying he has no interest in meeting the Met commissioner and no faith in the police. (Guardian, 22 April 2023) 

22 April: Following complaints from the prime minister, Poland’s broadcasting regulator launches proceedings against the private American-owned TVN network over an interview with Barbara Engelking, director of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, who suggested that Poles did little to help Jews during the second world war. (Notes from Poland, 22 April 2023; Haaretz, 23 April 2023)

24 April: Descendants of some of Britain’s wealthiest slave owners launch Heirs of Slavery, an activist group calling on the government to apologise for slavery and begin a programme of reparative justice in recognition of ‘ongoing consequences of this crime against humanity’. (Guardian, 24 April 2023)

24 April: In Italy, a further 171 Juventus fans are banned by Turin police after the fans racially abused Inter’s Romelu Lukaku in a Coppa Italia match earlier this month. (Gianluca DiMarzio, 24 April 2023)

24 April: Twitter gives the account of the far-Right party Britain First a gold tick, with its leader, Paul Golding, also having a blue tick added to his personal account. (Guardian, 24 April 2023)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

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

12 April: Leeds Magistrates Court sentences a 39-year-old man to 16 weeks in prison for a racially aggravated public order offence committed at a football match at Elland Road on 2 October 2022. (York Mix, 12 April 2023) 

14 April: A 23-year-old man is convicted of racially aggravated assault for attacking a 60-year-old Asian man outside the victim’s shop on 25 January 2021. Bolton Crown Court sentences him to five years and four months in prison. (The Bolton News, 14 April 2023) 

16 April: Ayr Sheriff Court subjects a 42-year-old man to a community payback order with 12 months of social work supervision for making racially aggravated threats in Boswell Park on 6 August 2022.  (Ayr Advertiser, 16 April 2023)

18 April: The Metropolitan police launch an investigation into online racist abuse targeting 21-year-old Arsenal FC player Bukayo Saka after he missed a penalty on 16 April. (Mirror, 18 April 2023)

18 April: A 23-year-old man from Liverpool is arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offence for racially abusing a Forest Green Rovers player at a football match. (Punchline, 20 April 2023) 

19 April: A teenage boy is racially abused, punched in the face and kicked while on the ground by an unidentified attacker in Scarborough. (BBC News, 19 April 2023)

23 April: North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court fines a 36-year-old man £200 and orders him to pay £85 in costs and an £80 victim surcharge for making racist comments about other passengers to staff at Northumberland Park Metro Station on 5 December 2022. (Chronicle Live, 23 April 2023)

24 April: A 60-year-old man is arrested and charged with racially abusing a female driver during a road rage incident in Glasgow on 16 April. (Glasgow Live, 24 April 2023)

The calendar was compiled with the help of Graeme Atkinson, Sophie Chauhan, Margaret McAdam, Louis Ordish, Kimia Talebi and Joseph Maggs. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association, Stopwatch and The Week in Work, 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.


The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

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