A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe.

ASYLUM AND MIGRATION

Asylum and migrant rights

13 January: Prime minister Boris Johnson rejects the demand for the ‘No recourse to public funds’ rule to be suspended during the pandemic, wrongly telling a Commons committee that all migrants barred from state support are in the UK illegally. (Independent, 14 January 2021)

13 January: The Home Office policy which allows asylum seekers to work only in ‘shortage occupations’ is ruled unlawful for the second time in a month, this time for failing to advertise or use the discretion to make exceptions. (Free Movement, 20 January 2021)

14 January: In France, Laye Fodé Traoré, a young Guinean apprentice baker in Besançon, receives his residency permit following a widely publicised hunger strike by his boss Stéphane Revacley. (InfoMigrants, 14 January 2021)

15 January: Migrant NHS staff who have contracted Covid-19 while caring for patients express anger at their continuing precarious immigration status, as the second reading of a private member’s bill which would give them indefinite leave to remain is cancelled despite widespread public support. (Guardian, 15 January 2021)

Borders and internal controls

12 January: A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) says the Home Office ignored its recommendations on monitoring the impact of ‘hostile environment’ measures, which could have averted some of the harms suffered by the Windrush generation. (Independent, 13 January 2021)

15 January: According to a study by the Economist Statistics Centre of Excellence, as many as 1.3 million people born abroad left the UK in just over a year, as the burden of job losses during the pandemic fell hardest on them. (Al Jazeera, 15 January 2021)

15 January: In Portugal, the government announces that the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), implicated in the violent death of Ukrainian Ihor Homenyuk in March 2020, will be disbanded and its responsibilities transferred to other border forces. (Expresso, 15 January 2021).

15 January: Activists in Italy begin a relay hunger strike due to continue through February to protest the pushbacks (‘informal readmissions’) of displaced people through Italy, Slovenia and Croatia to Bosnia. (InfoMigrants, 19 January 2021)

16 January: It is revealed that the Home Office is requiring asylum seekers and visa applicants to make journeys of up to 85 miles to attend video-link appointments, putting their health at risk during the pandemic. (Independent, 16 January 2021)

18 January: A Rome court rules that Italy’s readmission agreement with Slovenia breaches international, EU and domestic law, and an asylum seeker denied access to the asylum procedure and pushed back to Slovenia and thence to Croatia and Bosnia has the right to re-enter Italy immediately. (ASGI, 22 January 2021)

22 January:  In a landmark ruling, Serbia’s constitutional court holds that border police push-backs to Bulgaria constitute illegal deportations. (Deutsche Welle, 22 January 2021)

24 January: Max Hill QC, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, says the Home Office is undermining the CPS’ independence by criticising it for applying the law, in dropping charges against Nigerians wrongly accused of attempting to hijack an oil tanker, and against Albanians accused of illegal entry. (Independent, 24 January 2021)

Reception and detention

14 January: It emerges that a third former military site, in Coltishall, Norfolk, has been used since April 2020 as a temporary asylum seekers’ camp, with allegations of poor conditions, poor food and lack of information about their claims sparking mental health crises among residents. (Guardian, 14 January 2021)

15 January: As Harmondsworth immigration removal centre (IRC) near Heathrow experiences a Covid-19 outbreak, following outbreaks at Morton Hall and Brook House IRCs, campaigners call for the release of all immigration detainees. (Guardian, 15 January 2021)

16 January: Terrified asylum seekers sleeping up to 28 to a room at Napier barracks, Kent, are locked in as Covid-19 breaks out there, and a letter from private manager Clearsprings bans them from leaving on pain of arrest. (Independent, 19 January 2021)

21 January: Immigration minister Chris Philp blames asylum seekers for the Covid-19 outbreak at Napier barracks, saying ‘a number of individuals refused tests and have been either refusing to self-isolate or follow social distancing rules, despite repeated requests to do so’. Refugee rights groups saying they have been warning the Home Office for months of the dangers posed by the cramped conditions. (Independent, 21 January 2021)

22 January: It is revealed that the Greek migration and asylum ministry has awarded a multi-million-euro contract to house asylum seekers, funded by the EU, to an NGO that appeared from nowhere, with no experience in humanitarian work, whose two stakeholders work in cosmetics and driving. (Solomon, 22 January 2021)

23 January: Asylum seekers held at Napier and Penally barracks and other temporary camps, and NGOs working with them, claim Home Office contractors repeatedly threaten them that hunger strikes, protests or speaking out about their conditions could jeopardise their asylum claims. (Observer, 23 January 2021)

25 January: A teenage Sudanese asylum seeker who had fled Darfur and been enslaved in Libya on his journey to the UK was unlawfully and unfairly assessed as an adult by Wirral council and placed in adult accommodation for three months, a court rules. (Guardian, 25 January 2021)

Deportation

14 January: In a ruling against practice in the Netherlands, the European Court of Justice rules that unaccompanied minors cannot be sent back to their country of origin if reception facilities are not adequate. (Deutsche Welle, 14 January 2021)

18 January: Amnesty International criticises the German interior ministry after it announces that Syrians convicted of serious crimes can be deported for the first time since 2012. (Deutsche Welle, 18 January 2021)

26 January: The Migrants Rights Network reveals that dozens of highly skilled Commonwealth migrants live in conditions of destitution and face deportation despite a legal ruling in April 2019 that the Home Office was unlawfully misusing immigration rules in similar cases. (Guardian, 26 January 2021)

POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

For more information on policing and civil liberties issues follow @NETPOL @BigBrotherWatch @COVIDStateWatch and @libertyhq.

13 January: The inquest of 39-year-old father-of-two Leon Briggs opens, over seven years after his death in police custody in November 2013. (Guardian, 13 January 2021)

13 January: The House of Lords amends the Covert Human Intelligence Sources bill to prevent authorising child spies to commit crimes if there is a risk of ‘any foreseeable harm’, and to prevent any authorisation of murder, torture or sexual violence. (Just for Kids Law; Guardian, 13 January 2021)

13 January: In Belgium, three people are arrested for suspected arson at a Brussels police station, and a police task force is set up to identify other offenders, following the protest against the death in custody of Ibrahima Barrie during which over 100 people were detained and water cannon and plastic bullets were deployed. (Brussels Times, 14 January 2021)

15 January: The daughter of a black couple who claim they were racially profiled after officers stopped them for ‘driving a vehicle on a road’ says she has ‘no words’ after Suffolk Police are ‘cleared of any wrongdoing’. (Daily Mail, 15 January 2021)

15 January: In France, a police disciplinary board reportedly recommends a mere reprimand for two officers who allegedly sexually assaulted a young black man with a truncheon during a stop and search in 2017, leaving him permanently disabled from his injuries. The officers will face criminal trial. (Guardian, 15 January 2021)

17 January: In France, tens of thousands of people take to the streets, again, across the country to protest the proposed security bill that would make it an offence to film and post videos police officers and the increased use of drones and pedestrian cameras. (Al Jazeera, 17 January 2021)

18 January: Figures released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct reveal that of 641 officers in England and Wales committing gross misconduct between 2015-2020, just 8.4 percent were fired following internal disciplinary action. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

18 January: The Met police announces a six-month pilot recording the ethnicity of people stopped in cars, to assess the proportionality of stops to ethnicity and reduce the alleged targeting of people for ‘driving while black’. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

18 January: A BBC Panorama documentary on black deaths in custody makes disturbing new allegations about police misconduct in the aftermath of the deaths in custody of Kevin Clarke and Sheku Bayoh. Watch the documentary here. (BBC News; Scottish Sun, 18 January 2021)

19 January: The four justice chief inspectors warn that urgent action is needed to tackle an ‘unprecedented backlog’ of crown court cases in England and Wales that carries ‘severe implications’ for victims and accused. (Guardian, 19 January 2021)

19 January: In Brussels, Belgium, an unnamed 30-year-old Algerian man dies in police custody, the second African to die in custody in ten days. Police oversight body Committee P opens an investigation. (Brussels Times; Brussels Times, 20  January 2021)

20 January: South Wales police give Cardiff Black Lives Matter activist Bianca Ali a £500 fixed penalty for allegedly organising protests over the death of Mohamud Hassan following police custody, and continue investigations into others. (Wales Online, 20 January 2021)

20 January: A report by HM Prisons Inspectorate says the government’s lack of any coherent national strategy and its failure to provide adequate resources means young adult prisoners’ needs are not met. (HM Prisons Inspectorate, 20 January 2021)

21 January: A Devon and Cornwall police sergeant is charged with a criminal offence for allegedly sending a grossly offensive meme of George Floyd to colleagues in a WhatsApp group five days after Floyd’s death in May 2020. He has been suspended since June. (Guardian, 21 January 2021)

22 January: In Belgium, Brussels police say they will review disciplinary procedures after the media publish a film made by two officers while driving on patrol in Anderlecht in 2018 yelling racist and homophobic abuse at people and saying ‘it stinks here’. (Brussels Times, 22 January 2021)

24 January: A senior officer cleared of misconduct in relation to Kevin Clarke’s death in police custody in 2018 is to face fresh disciplinary proceedings when it is revealed that the family and the IOPC were not informed of previous summary proceedings and could not participate. (Observer, 24 January 2021)

25 January: The ‘Colston Four’, charged with criminal damage over the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol in June 2020, appear in front of magistrates and opt for jury trial. Police arrest two men and a woman protesting outside court. (Guardian; Avon and Somerset Police, 25 January 2021)

NATIONAL SECURITY

26 January: The government appoints William Shawcross, a former head of the Charity Commission who has been accused of anti-Islam views, as independent reviewer of the controversial Prevent strategy. (Middle East Eye, 26 January 2021)

ELECTORAL AND PARTY POLITICS

14 January: In Belgium, Melikan Kucam, a councillor for the New Flemish Alliance in Mechelen, who sought payments from Christian Syrian asylum seekers applying for a humanitarian visa, is found guilty of human trafficking. (EU Observer, 14 January 2021)

15 January: The entire Dutch cabinet resigns over a child benefits scandal involving around 26,000 families wrongly accused of fraud, at least 11,000 of whom were scrutinised due to ethnic origin or dual nationality. Twenty families launch a legal action for criminal negligence, racial discrimination and violation of children’s rights. (Guardian; Dutch News, 15 January 2021)

15 January: An annual survey of UK charities indicates that politicians are becoming increasingly hostile towards those which campaign on social justice issues such as racism and poverty. (Guardian, 15 January 2021)

15 January: The partner of the former Norwegian minister of justice (Progress party) receives a 20-month prison sentence after being found guilty of faked attacks on her home and car, which she blamed on an anti-racist theatre group. (Guardian, 15 January 2021)

17 January: It is revealed that at least 14 Conservative MPs, including ministers Michael Gove, Nadine Dorries and James Cleverly, joined Parler, the social media platform forced offline a week earlier for hosting threats of violence and racist slurs. (Observer, 17 January 2021)

25 January:  In Portugal, far-right presidential candidate Andre Ventura (Chega), who vowed to ‘crush the left’, scored 12 percent of the vote, emerging in third place, only narrowly behind the Socialists (12.9 percent). (Guardian, 25 January 2021)

26 January: In evidence to the digital, culture, media and sport select committees of MPs, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham confirms that the Conservative party acted illegally when it collected data on the ethnic backgrounds of 10 million voters before the 2019 general election. (Guardian, 26 January 2021)

BREAKING: Elizabeth Denham, @ICOnews information commissioner, has confirmed the @Conservatives broke the law by racially profiling 10m voters in 2019. https://t.co/T3JKGj8Ows

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) January 26, 2021

ANTI-FASCISM AND FAR RIGHT

19 January: An investigation reveals that the QAnon conspiracy movement in Germany has become the largest grouping outside the English-speaking world. (Deutsche Welle, 19 January 2021)

20 January:   In the run-up to the Portuguese presidential elections, anti-fascists mobilise in  Coimbra in the largest protest so far against far-right Chega (Enough) candidate André Ventura who at previous rallies has called for the ‘reconquest’ of Portugal and described his followers as the ‘Portuguese Popular Army’. (Expresso, 18, Expresso, 19 January; Expresso, 20 January 2021)

20 January: Outgoing US president Donald Trump pardons the far-right former Breitbart News editor Steve Bannon, facing fraud charges in relation to a Build The Wall fundraiser. (Guardian, 20 January 2021)

20 January: Facebook launches an investigation of the takeover of the page of Land for Sale UK by far-right Trump supporters who renamed it ‘Supporters of free speech against Big Tech Fascism’. (Guardian, 20 January 2021)

21 January: In the latest move in the Belgian investigation into the extreme-right organisation Schild & Vrieden, the public prosecutor files for the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of Dries Van Langenhove (Vlaams Belang), who could face charges related to breaches of hate speech and firearms laws. (Brussels Times, 21 January 2021)

26 January: An Independent analysis shows how far-right groups and celebrities including Britain First and Tommy Robinson have lost hundreds of thousands of online followers after bans by social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and the shutdown of Parler. (Independent, 26 January 2021)

HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION

12 January: The government has paid £2.4 million to the Saudi military over the past four years to ‘help it comply with humanitarian law’, amid accusations of indiscriminate bombing and killing of Yemeni civilians, a parliamentary question reveals. (Guardian, 12 January 2021)

15 January: The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals that the UK’s College of Policing has provided police training to at least 76 countries including 12 listed by the Foreign Office for human rights abuses, including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Hong Kong and Egypt. (The Canary, 15 January 2021)

15 January: The Telegraph reports that a new law to be announced next week will criminalise travellers who set up unauthorised camp on private land. Intentional trespass will be punished with 3 months in prison or a £2,500 fine, or both. (Telegraph £, 15 January; Somerset Live, 16 January 2021)

17 January: A survey by the Campaign Against Antisemitism finds almost half of British Jews avoid showing visible signs of their Judaism in public because of fear of antisemitism. (Observer, 17 January 2021)

18 January: In France, lawyers, NGOs and religious bodies from 13 countries submit a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council against France’s failure to tackle ‘systemic discrimination’ against its Muslim population and condemning the ‘breadth of state abuse against Muslims’ entrenched by governments since 1989. (Al Jazeera, 18 January 2021)

18 January: Former EHRC chair David Isaac warns that the independence of the regulator is being undermined by political pressure to support the government’s agenda to pit the advancement of ethnic minorities’ rights against those of the white working class. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

18 January: In Nordland county Norway, Sámi reindeer herders appeal against a ruling allowing a proposed wind power project which breaks licensing agreements stipulating the construction must not interfere with reindeer migration paths. They say indigenous rights are unprotected. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

19 January: The European Court of Human Rights rules that Switzerland violated the European Convention (A8 right to private life) when it imposed in 2014 a heavy fine on a Roma woman for begging, placing her in temporary detention for five days when she could not pay. (Al Jazeera, 19 January 2021)

19 January: A week after foreign secretary Dominic Raab says China’s treatment of Uighurs amounts to torture and curbs imports of Chinese goods produced with forced labour, the government defeats an amendment to the Trade Bill curbing trade with countries committing genocide. (Guardian, 12 January; Guardian, 19 January 2021)

25 January: As the World Economic Forum meets online from Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam urges governments to tackle global inequalities deepened by the pandemic, with three billion having no access to healthcare and three-quarters of workers no social protection, while billionaires’ wealth grew by nearly $4 trillion in nine months. (Al Jazeera, 25 January 2021)

26 January: Officials are given weeks to slash the overseas aid budget by 50 to 70 percent, raising fears that lives will be lost. (Guardian, 26 January 2021)

27 January: Two dozen top footballers and managers mark Holocaust Memorial Day with an anti-racist video made by the National Holocaust Centre and Jewish News about the dangers of failing to confront racism, which was shown at the weekend’s FA cup matches. (Guardian, 24 January 2021)

EMPLOYMENT AND EXPLOITATION

14 January: Legal proceedings are launched on behalf of three Polish victims of trafficking and modern slavery against Biffa Waste Services and employment agency Smart Solution, for failure to prevent forced labour within its workforce. (Guardian, 14 January 2021)

16 January: Kizu Stanford, a Lloyds Bank clerk, is sacked from his job for physically intervening to stop a violent racist attack on a 16-year-old girl on a bus in West Bromwich and eject the attacker from the bus, in October 2020. The largest trade union for Lloyds Bank staff, BTU, launches a campaign to get him reinstated. (Express & Star, 16 January 2021)

17 January: Cáritas reports that in the rural south of Portugal exploitation of immigrants has increased, with salaries often withheld, leading to destitution. (Observador, 17 January 2021)

19 January: TUC analysis shows that BME workers have suffered the brunt of job cuts during the pandemic, with the employment rate dropping 26 times more than that for white workers. (Guardian, 19 January 2021)

20 January: Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) publishes a report on cleaners’ experiences of labour abuses including pay violations, lack of access to social security, and sexual harassment. (FLEX, 20 January 2021)

21 January: Six in ten psychiatrists from an ethnic minority background have experienced racism at work, a survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists reports. The College calls for all mental health staff to undergo mandatory unconscious bias training. (Asian Image, 21 January 2021)

HEALTH AND POLICY

13 January: The government announces reforms to the Mental Health Act to tackle the disproportionate sectioning of Black people, who are more than four times more likely to be detained under the Act than white people, and over 10 times more likely to be subject to a community treatment order. (Guardian, 13 January 2021)

18 January: The Platform for Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) urges European governments to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines for homeless, marginalised and undocumented people. (PICUM, 18 January 2021)

18 January: In Greece, concerns are expressed that over 50,000 members of the Roma, homeless and migrant communities will not receive the Covid-19 vaccine as they do not have a social security number (AMKA) which gives access to the public health system. (Ekathimerini, 18 January 2021)

18 January: Emerging evidence indicates that nearly one-third of hospitalised Covid-19 patients are readmitted to hospital within five months, with BME patients at higher risk of ‘long Covid’. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

18 January: World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns that the world is on the brink of ‘catastrophic moral failure’ as he reveals that only 25 people have been vaccinated in the entire African continent, while rich countries hoard vaccine and bypass Covax, the global vaccine-sharing fund. (Guardian, 18 January 2021)

21 January: The Council of Europe’s Bioethics Committee calls on European governments to  remove barriers to vaccination and health care for low-income migrant workers and those with insecure immigration status, and to ensure a clear separation of health provision from immigration control. (Council of Europe, 21 January 2021)

22 January: The Guardian reports that foreign NHS staff are at risk of being refused Covid-19 vaccination because internal guidelines from NHS Digital do not allow anyone without an NHS number to be vaccinated. (Guardian, 22 January 2021)

25 January: Following experts’ calls for communities at high risk of Covid to be prioritised for vaccination, BME celebrities appear in a video to counter anti-vaccine propaganda, as distrust of the NHS leads to a high rate of ‘vaccine scepticism’ in BME communities who are most adversely affected by the virus. (Guardian, 18 January; Guardian, 25 January 2021)

HOUSING

19 January: Housing secretary Robert Jenrick announces a new construction regulator with powers to prosecute companies making dangerous building materials and to ban their use, as Grenfell United campaigners say the announcement ‘doesn’t fix what’s out there already’, pointing to the lack of a plan to remove dangerous materials from homes. (Guardian, 19 January 2021)

EDUCATION

12 January: The parents of a 12-year-old Muslim girl sent home from school every day in December for wearing a skirt deemed ‘too long’ and told to come back in a shorter skirt face legal action for her ‘unauthorised absence’. (Guardian, 12 January 2021)

15 January: The Canary highlights how 30 academic institutions and 39 police forces have been tied together since 2015 with a £10 million fund from the College of Policing, raising concerns over academic independence and the value of research. (The Canary, 15 January 2021)

20 January: Edexcel, the examination board which dropped Courtney Pine, the only Black composer on its A-level music course, admits it was wrong to do so and says it will reinstate his work and the jazz category which was also dropped. (Guardian, 20 January 2021)

25 January: A report by London Metropolitan University’s Centre for Equity and Inclusion finds that universities are failing to recognise and take decisive action on Islamophobia. (TRT World, 25 January 2021)

26 January: The mother of a schoolgirl who was repeatedly sent home because of her afro hairstyle condemns barrister Jon Holbrook’s tweet which read ‘The Equality Act undermines school discipline by empowering the stroppy teenager of colour’. (Guardian, 26 January 2021)

MEDIA, CULTURE, SPORT

13 January: New BBC chair Richard Sharp is revealed to have donated tens of thousands of pounds to controversial anti-extremism group Quilliam, which attracts funding from US right-wing and Christian fundamentalists, and which published sensationalist and inaccurate report on ‘Muslim grooming gangs’. (Middle East Eye, 13 January 2021)

17 January: Communities minister Robert Jenrick is criticised by campaigners after announcing that he will protect statues and monuments from ‘baying mobs’ by changing legislation so that they cannot be removed without going through a formal planning process. (Guardian, 17 January 2021)

21 January: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts launches a decolonising committee to broaden the school’s curriculum and slashes audition fees as part of wide-ranging plans to ’create an anti-racist culture’ within the institution. (The Stage, 21 January 2021)

24 January: A local-league football club in Worksop, Nottinghamshire fires its manager after his racist rant aimed towards Priti Patel goes viral on social media. (Metro, 24 January 2021)

25 January: Barbara Blake-Hannah, the UK’s first Black female news presenter, asks Fremantle Media to ‘repair the racist wrong’ done to her in 1968, when she was fired due to racist audience complaints. (Press Gazette, 25 January 2021)

25 January: A Madrid mural celebrating women including Rosa Parks and Nina Simone is to be removed five years after it was painted outside a sports stadium after a campaign led by the far-right Vox party. (Guardian, 25 January 2021)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

12 January: A 25-year-old woman is given a curfew and ordered to pay compensation after she admits to racially aggravated threatening behaviour towards a man in Rotherham, in December 2019.  (Doncaster Free Press, 12 January 2021)

12 January: Staff at a supermarket in Kirkstall, Leeds are attacked and racially abused by four men and a woman. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 January 2021)

14 January: A two-storey building owned by the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association, and being used as a food-bank, is destroyed in a suspected arson attack. The organisation says it has been subject to hostility and Islamophobia for years. (Belfast Telegraph, 16 January 2021)

15 January: A 27-year-old man is sentenced to 22 months in prison after pleading guilty to a violent racially aggravated attack on a student in Liverpool city centre in December 2019, which left the victim partially blind. (North Wales Live, 15 January 2021)

15 January: A 30-year-old man with mental difficulties who pleads guilty to racially abusing supermarket staff and punching a security guard in Shaw, Oldham in January 2020 is given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay compensation. (Oldham Times, 15 January 2021)

18 January: A 32-year-old man is charged with racial breach of the peace, after allegedly shouting racist abuse towards members of the public on 16 January in Renfrew, Scotland. (The Gazette, 18 January 2021)

19 January: Racist abuse is directed at 24-year-old Brentford FC footballer Ivan Toney on social media platform Instagram, and is reported by the club to the police. (Evening Standard, 19 January 2021)

20 January: In Gran Canaria, La Marea publishes details of videos circulating showing men displaying weapons and planning ‘hunts’ of migrants. One shows a boy being threatened with a large machete. The publication leads to a man’s arrest. (La Marea, 20 January 2021)

21 January: A 45-year-old man is charged with assault and racially aggravated public order following an incident outside a mosque in Liverpool in December 2020, during which he shouted racist abuse and made gun actions at worshippers, and assaulted a 41-year-old victim with a bicycle lock. (Merseyside Police, 21 January 2021)

22 January: Avon and Somerset Police renew their appeal for witnesses on the racially aggravated attempted murder of a 21-year-old NHS worker in Bristol in July 2020. The victim was hit by a car and then racially abused, sustaining serious injuries from which he is yet to fully recover. (Avon and Somerset Police, 22 January 2021)

25 January: A group of youths in Tuebrook, Liverpool attack and racially abuse a 26-year-old man, who sustains a broken jaw and nose and is taken to hospital. (Merseyside Police, 26 January 2021)

25 January: A virtual protest at the charging of the ‘Colston Four’ is disrupted as someone scrawls the N-word across the face of a speaker. (Guardian, 25 January 2021)

The calendar was compiled with the help of Tania Bedi, Graeme Atkinson, Kaiisha Kukendra, Inês Silva, Neal Tank and Joseph Maggs.