ELECTORAL POLITICS | GOVERNMENT POLICY
12 June: More European parliamentary (EP) election results show a breakthrough for S.O.S. Romania, which wins two seats. In Spain and Portugal, the far-right vote declines from previously national elections, though more EP seats are secured by Vox (+2, 6 total) and Chega (+2, 2 total). In Greece, the far-right Greek Solution secures one of its best results ever at 9.3 per cent, with 17.28 per cent in the northern region of Pella. (El Pais, 14 June 2024; Euractiv, 12 June 2024; AA, 10 June 2024; Ekathimerini, 17 June 2024)
13 June: Protests against the far-right National Rally’s European parliament gains and Macron’s decision to call a general election erupt across France, with police using tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters who had set up barricades in Paris and Bordeaux. Buildings associated with the far Right are attacked. (Freedom News, June 2024)
14 June: Italian anti-fascist Ilaria Salis is freed from house arrest in Hungary after being elected to the European parliament and thereby gaining immunity from charges relating to an alleged attack on neo-Nazis. (Guardian, 13 June 2024)
15 June: As a left-wing electoral coalition forms to isolate the far-right National Rally at the French general election, demonstrations against the far Right continue, with the CGT trades union claiming that 640,000 participated in 182 rallies. (Le Monde, 15 June 2024)
16 June. In Brussels, Belgium, thousands demonstrate against the surge in support for the far Right in national and European elections. (Brussels Times, 16 June 2024)
16 June: Labour directs party activists to campaign in 13 seats where it fears losing Muslim voters in the general election over its position on Gaza. The Muslim Vote organisation endorses a list of alternative candidates based on support for Palestine and action against Islamophobia. (Guardian, 16 June 2024)
16 June: Grant StClair-Armstrong, standing as a Reform UK candidate in the general election, resigns after being exposed for previously urging people to vote for the British National Party. (Guardian, 16 June 2024)
17 June: The European Roma Rights Centre warns that László Toroczkai, recently elected in Hungary as MEP for the far-right Our Homeland Movement (6 per cent), is a virulent anti-Roma racist whose party propagates a national version of the great replacement theory on the grounds that Hungary must ‘not become a Gypsy country’. (ERRC, 17 June 2024)
19 June: Media reports suggest that Labour party lawyers attempted to gag Black barrister Martin Forde, commissioned to carry out an independent inquiry into the party’s culture, by sending him a legal letter questioning his professional conduct after he gave an interview warning of a ‘hierarchy of racism’ in the party. (Independent, 19 June 2024)
19 June: In Germany, the CDU (Conservatives) call for welfare payments to Ukrainian refugees to be cut, as well as for them to be processed through the asylum system, arguing that the current situation is ‘difficult to communicate’. (Guardian, 19 June 2024)
20 June: On World Refugee Day, the Conservative Party releases an ‘anti-migration election advertisement’ attacking ‘Labour’s approach to illegal immigration’. The video shows a red carpet being rolled out on a beach and is captioned ‘Don’t wake up to this on 5th July’. (Middle East Eye, 21 June 2024)
20 June: Finnish president Alexander Stubb and other politicians call on the government to introduce a well-resourced anti-racism campaign after two suspected racially motivated attacks in the northern city of Oulu. (Xinhuanet, 20 June 2024)
21 June: Outgoing Secretary-General of the Council of Europe Marija Pejcinovic Buric warns that the rise of extreme nationalistic, populist and anti-rights movements are pulling Europe towards a ‘wild state’. (Brussels Times, 21 June 2024)
21 June: The leaders of Germany’s 16 states agree to limit cash payments to asylum seekers to 50 euros per month, while introducing uniformity in the state benefits payment card for asylum seekers. However, three states committed to a higher graduated cash payment say they will not be bound by decision. (Info Migrants, 21 June 2024)
21 June: French far-right leader Jordan Bardella says that if the National Rally wins the general elections, it will abolish birthright by citizenship and restrict the Schengen area to EU citizens. (Euractiv, 21 June 2024)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
11 June: Anti-fascists in Lisbon, Portugal, accuse police of assaulting them during a protest to commemorate Alcindo Monteiro, a Cape Verdean man murdered by neo-Nazis in 1995, while allowing the neo-Nazi 1143 group to demonstrate with impunity, performing Nazi salutes and assaulting members of the anti-fascist rally. (X, 11 June 2024)
https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1800479921162047523
12 June: In the face of inaction, the European Roma Rights Centre calls for a comprehensive investigation into racist posters that were put up on the door of the town hall in Mondragone, Italy, in March, which stated ‘No more Roma in Mondragone for a better country’ and ‘Mondragone is fascist’. (ERRC, 12 June 2024)
12 June: After a 12-year old boy is seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in a shopping mall in Oulu, Finland, Sebastian Lämsä, a former key member of a banned Nordic Resistance Movement, is arrested at the scene. (YLE, 13 June 2024)
12 June: Four ultra-right activists, including the son of a former National Rally elected official, are arrested in connection with a homophobic incident in Paris, France, which is linked to the European election results. (Le Parisien, 12 June 2024)
13 June: A former key member of the banned neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement is suspected of targeting two children in a knife attack, seriously injuring a 12-year-old child at a shopping centre in Oulu, northern Finland. (YLE, 14 June 2024)
14 June: Following an anti-fascist demonstration in Lyon, France, neo-Nazis parade through the Old City, chanting ‘Islam out of Europe’ and ‘France is Ours’ and committing racist acts. (Contre Attaque, 14 June 2024)
14 June: The United States designate the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement as a terrorist organisation. The group, founded in Sweden in 1997, has active branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland. (Guardian, 14 June 2024)
15 June: Following an anti-fascist demonstration in Angers, France, ten neo-Nazis armed with gas engines and belts attack a free concert venue. One of the attackers is identified as Côme Jullien de Pommerol from the dissolved group Alvarium, which in 2023 led a violent attack on a march in memory of Nahel Merzouk, shot dead by police during a traffic stop. (, 16 June 2024)Libération, 16 June 2024)
16 June: In Italy, members of the youth wing of Prime minister Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party are filmed making fascist gestures and yelling ‘Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil. We are really fascists’. (Telegraph, 16 June 2024)
17 June: In Toulon, France, an anti-fascist demonstrator in a wheelchair who was protesting the election results is targeted by a man who intimidates him before making Nazi salutes at the crowd. (Street Press, 12 June 2024)
20 June: In Ireland, the homes of three men are searched as part of an investigation into alleged harassment of an elected official, following two incidents in which masked men with anti-immigrant banners protested outside the home of the Taoiseach’s. (RTE, 20 June 2024)
20 June: In Rome, Italy, four students belonging to left-wing groups are attacked by members of the neo-Fascist CasaPound movement. (WantedinRome, 20 June 2024)
21 June: In France, Hervé Breuil, a candidate for the far-right National Rally, is hospitalised after four masked assailants attack him while he was campaigning in Saint Étienne. (Guardian, 21 June 2024)
21 June: A 15-year-old child is charged with attempted manslaughter following a racially motivated stabbing on an ‘Asian immigrant’ in the same shopping mall in Oulu, Finland, as a previous knife attack on a 12-year-old child who the media describe as from a ‘foreign background’. The knife used by the boy was decorated with swastikas and he wore a shirt with Nazi-themed text. (YTE, 21 June 2024)
21 June: Black paramedic Divine Kinkela tells France TV that she has been subjected to daily racial insults, including monkey cries, from her pro-National Rally neighbours ever since the European elections saw big gains for the far Right. (Huffington Post, 21 June 2024)
POLICING| PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
13 June: Youth Justice Legal Centre updates its legal guide on rap and drill music being used as evidence at criminal trials. (YJLC, 13 June 2024)
13 June: Home Office statistics reveal that in the year ending 31 March 2024, 170 persons were stopped and searched by the Met under section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a decrease of 43 per cent compared to year before, with 18 arrests made. (Gov.uk, 13 June 2024)
14 June: After Croydon Borough Commander says a Met police officer found guilty of assault during the wrongful arrest for fare evasion of Jocelyn Agyemang will not be dismissed, twelve community groups write to the Met Commissioner condemning the decision. (Inside Croydon, 14 June 2024)
16 June: Al Jazeera publishes footage of Manchester police violently breaking up a pro-Palestine rally in the city. (Al Jazeera, 16 June 2024)
18 June: A CPS review upholds a decision not to bring criminal charges against four police officers involved in the initial six weeks of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation. (CPS, 18 June 2024)
20 June: The National Black Police Association withdraws support for the National Police Chiefs’ Council race action plan for England and Wales, saying that police leaders have allowed a ‘toxic’ environment to destroy or blight the careers of Black and Asian officers. (Guardian, 20 June 2024)
21 June: Scotland’s Lord Advocate rules that it is in the public interest to hold a fatal accident inquiry into the death of asylum seeker Badreddin Abdalla Adam Bosh, who was shot dead by police after stabbing six people at a hotel in Glasgow in 2020. (National, 21 June 2024)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS | CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
16 June: Duncan Lewis solicitors challenge the Lord Chancellor at the High Court over legal aid fees for ‘controlled work’ on immigration and asylum, which are so low that thousands of vulnerable people, including minors and victims of torture and trafficking, are without access to legal aid. (Guardian, 16 June 2024)
25 June: In media interviews with the Sun, the leader of the Labour party and shadow paymaster general Jon Ashworth state that people from the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh, are not being removed and that Labour, instead of engaging in ‘expensive gimmicks’ like the Rwanda scheme would ‘stop people coming here in the first place’ as well as make sure ‘more planes’ go off. (Middle East Eye, 26 June 2024)
Borders and internal controls
18 June: An investigation by the NGO Border Forensics finds that on 24 June 2022, Moroccan border forces used ‘unlawful force’ at the Melilla border fence with Spain, pushing asylum seekers, at least 27 of whom died, into a ‘death trap’. (Guardian, 18 June 2024)
19 June: Amnesty International research reveals that the Egyptian authorities have used EU-funded security forces in a campaign of mass arrests targeting Black individuals in Cairo, Giza and Aswan, leading to the forced return of around 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024, all of whom were denied the possibility of claiming asylum. (Guardian, 19 June 2024)
24 June: A media investigation that unearths redacted documents and minutes from the EU’s border agency Frontex reveals the frustrations of its fundamental rights officer, who links the underreporting of potential human rights violations to ‘fear of repercussions’. (EU Observer, 24 June 2024)
Reception and detention
12 June: Since April, an unknown number of asylum seekers have been detained to be sent to Rwanda, 79 of whom lawyers confirm have been released on bail. (BBC, 12 June 2024)
17 June: Local residents stage a demonstration against a proposed site to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Gravesend, Kent. (BBC News, 17 June 2024)
Citizenship
19 June: Following legal action brought by Windrush victim Trevor Donald, a judge rules that former home secretary Suella Braverman’s decision to abandon two key reform commitments from the Windrush Lessons Learned review is unlawful and should be quashed. (Guardian, 19 June 2024)
HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION
20 June: Independent UN Experts warn that the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, and calls on states, arms manufacturers and financial institutions invested in arms companies to respect an arms embargo on Israel. (OHCR, 20 June 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.
11 June: An investigation by ARD magazine programme Panorama finds that the German Ministry of Education considered sanctions, including cancelling funding, against hundreds of academics who signed an open letter protesting the police eviction of a pro-Palestinian occupation at Berlin’s Free University. (Digit Site 36, 11 June 2024)
12 June: Students from SOAS and UCL, supported by staff and alumni, demonstrate in London and call on their universities to reinstate students who have been suspended, without transparency or due process, for taking part in pro-Palestine protests. (Middle East Monitor, 13 June 2024)
12 June: A three-year DfE-funded study on bullying in schools reveals that 26 per cent of secondary school pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds ‘agree that bullying takes place related to race or ethnicity’. (Diversity Role Models, 12 June 2024)
17 June: A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on ‘hardship’ amongst primary school pupils shows that the issue of pupils going without essentials has significantly worsened over the last two years. Schools have cut back on enrichment activities to create new jobs ‘specifically to respond to…hardship’, while 38 per cent of staff say they ‘provide for pupils and families out of their own pocket’. (TES, 17 June 2024)
17 June: The LSE evicts a pro-Palestine occupation after a court approves an interim possession order. The encampment was also in support of Palestinian student Amena al-Ashkar, who was denied a visa to study for his doctorate. (Middle East Eye,17 June 2024)
21 June: As research shows that British universities collectively invest nearly £430 million in companies ‘complicit in Israeli violations of international law’, the PSC calls on universities to stop threatening staff and students protesting against Israeli’s genocide in Gaza. (Morning Star, 21 June 2024)
HOUSING | POVERTY | WELFARE
12 June: An inquest finds that British Transport Police officers left a homeless man to freeze to death outside Euston station in -4°C temperatures in December 2023. Mohammed Akramuzzaman died from an alcohol-related condition and hypothermia, with the coroner concluding that an intervention ‘would have saved his life’. (My London, June 2024)
14 June: On the seventh anniversary of the Grenfell fire, bereaved families join with those impacted by the infected blood scandal and Covid in an anniversary march under Grenfell Tower to demand that recommendations from public inquiries are acted on by the next government. (Guardian, 14 June 2024)
23 June: An analysis of figures obtained by Big Brother Watch reveals that a DWP algorithm used in an automated service has wrongly flagged 200,000 people as ‘high risk’ for fraud, resulting in faulty and costly investigations. (Guardian, 23 June 2024)
EMPLOYMENT | EXPLOITATION | INDUSTRIAL ACTION
20 June: In Lazio, Italy, the employer of undocumented Indian farm labourer Satnam Singh, who died after allegedly being left on the side of the road following a workplace accident in which his arm was severed and his legs crushed, is placed under investigation for criminal negligence and manslaughter. (BBC, 20 June 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.
12 June: Multiple human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, call for the International Olympic Committee to help overturn a rule barring French athletes from displaying any religious symbols, including the wearing of headscarves. (Guardian, 12 June 2024)
12 June: Multiple bands pull out of Download festival due to ties between its official payment partner, Barclays, and Israel. (Guardian, 12 June 2024)
13 June: A study by the Royal Centre School of Speech and Drama and Tara Theatre finds that white workers are paid 20 per cent more than Black and Asian colleagues, criticising institutional racism in the theatre world and poor representation for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. (Independent, 13 June 2024)
17 June: A Dagens Nhyeter reporter warns that media freedom is under threat in Sweden following TV4’s exposé of the far-right Sweden Democrats troll farm promoting ultra-nationalism, far-right and racist memes. The Union of Swedish Journalists says that 39 per cent of reporters’ self-censor to avoid harassment, particularly when it comes to stories involving racism and immigration. (Guardian, 17 June 2024)
17 June: Senior members of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party state that French national football team captain Kylian Mbappe must show ‘restraint’ after he and teammate Marcus Thuram urge people to not vote for ‘extreme’ parties in France’s legislative elections. (Telegraph, 17 June 2024)
18 June: In the lead up to the general election in France, the media is accused of smearing left-wing Popular Front candidates linked to social struggles, as social media accounts of anti-police violence campaigner Amal Bentounsi, whose brother was shot dead by police in 2012, and the anti-racist Lyon activist Raphael Arnault, are minutely trawled for evidence of extremism. (Contre Attaque, 18 June 2024)
20 June: In Germany, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, a lawmaker for the Green party and vice president of the Bundestag, apologises for a post saying ‘This team is truly exceptional. Just imagine if there were only white German players’. Göring-Eckhardt claims that the post was a misworded response to a survey showing that 21 per cent of respondents would prefer to see ‘more whites’ on Germany’s national football team. (DW, 20 June 2024)
21 June: In Cyprus, politicians condemn a lifeguard who posted on Facebook that he banned Pakistanis and ‘Blacks’ from using the beach in Famagusta. (Cyprus|Mail, 21 June 2024)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
See also section on anti-fascism and the far Right for racially motivated attacks carried out by the far Right
14 June: An 8-year-old Ghanaian girl and her father are injured in a racist attack in Grevesmühlen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, carried out by 20 teenagers and young adults who made anti-Black racist comments. (Deutsche Welle, 16 June 2024)
14 June: A 19-year-old student from Brighton who planned a suicide attack on a synagogue is sentenced to eight years in jail by Winchester Crown Court. (SkyNews, 14 June 2024)
20 June: In Paris, France, amidst national outrage, a second demonstration takes place to protest an alleged ‘antisemitic gang rape’ on a 12-year-old Jewish girl on 15 June. Two 13-year-old boys are charged with rape and antisemitic violence. (Le Monde, 20 June 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.