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

15 August: As Finland and Estonia bring in visa restrictions for Russians, the German Chancellor says he will not follow their lead as this ‘is not the war of the Russian people’ but ‘Putin’s war’ and some leaving Russia are refugees. (Deutsche Welle, 15 August 2022)

17 August: The High Court grants part of the foreign secretary’s application to withhold documents relating to the Rwanda deal, ahead of the main hearing in September, but orders disclosure of some documents, after hearing concerns by a Foreign Office official over political conditions in Rwanda and the safety of refugees. (Sky News, 17 August 2022; Guardian, 17 August 2022)

Borders and internal controls

17 August: Privacy International lodges complaints with the Information Commissioner and the Forensic Science Regulator over the Home Office’s use of GPS ankle tags on people subject to immigration control. (Privacy International, 17 August 2022)

BREAKING: Last night with @privacyint @BIDdetention we shone a light on Lunar House—where @ukhomeoffice is forcing migrants to wear 24/7 GPS anklets that enable intrusive surveillance.

GPS tracking is unnecessary & dehumanising: we need #DignityNotData. #EndTheHostileEnvironment pic.twitter.com/rEZgQCr8Mf

— Migrants Organise (@migrantsorg) June 14, 2022

18 August: The Danish Foreign Ministry announces the opening of a new office in  Kigali, Rwanda, as part of its plan to reduce the number of asylum applicants in Denmark. (Bloomberg, 18 August 2022)

19 August: The Lithuanian interior minister says a surveillance system now covers over half the border with Belarus, with the help of €70 million in EU funding. A full surveillance system and tall fences topped with razor wire will cover nearly the whole border. (LRT News, 19 August 2022) 

20 August: The Danish government reveals it is in talks with the Rwandan authorities about setting up a scheme to transfer asylum seekers there, following the UK’s offshoring model. (Independent, 20 August 2022)

25 August: An analysis of Home Office statistics on arrivals shows that Afghans were among the top nationalities using small boats to reach the UK in the second quarter of this year owing to the restrictions on resettlement visas, while over 100,000 visas were granted to Ukrainians. (Migration Observatory, 25 August 2022)

29 August: It is revealed that the Home Office has commissioned private companies, Aeolian Offshore and CWind, at £2.5m this year to charter and crew boats to pick up people trying to cross the Channel because of tension with the Royal Navy over this role. (Guardian, 29 August)

Reception and detention

16 August: A recently initiated campaign calls for opposition against Home Office plans to reuse Campsfield, a closed detention centre near Oxford, as an immigration removal centre. (Statewatch, 16 August 2022)

18 August: Police begin clearing the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens, Greece, which houses 670 people, and use tear gas and a flash grenade against refugees and activists protesting at the camp’s closure. (InfoMigrants, 19 August 2022)

19 August: The Dutch Refugee Council announces a legal action against the Netherlands for its ‘inhumane’ failure to provide adequate asylum reception facilities, forcing many asylum seekers to camp on the roadside. (Euronews, 19 August 2022)  

19 August: A hotel in Wickford, Essex is to be discontinued as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers in October following a local backlash.  (Echo, 19 August 2022)

20 August: In Ireland, asylum seekers are moved out of the North Road Accommodation Centre in Finglas, Dublin, amidst concerns for their safety after several ‘incidents directed at residents’. (RTE, 20 August 2022)

23 August: The refugees minister has called for the doubling of payments for hosts sponsoring Ukrainian refugees due to the soaring costs of living, fearing a rise in homelessness if sponsors do not extend their arrangements. (ITV News, 23 August, 2022)

25 August: An investigation is launched after a baby dies in a sports hall used as an emergency centre at Ter Apel asylum centre in north-east Netherlands. Doctors Without Borders say conditions are ‘inhuman and must be improved immediately’. (Guardian, 25 August 2022)

25 August: For several days, residents of Albergen, Netherlands, chanting ‘No to asylum seekers’ and ‘Go away’, protest against a plan to house 300 asylum seekers in a local hotel. (Guardian, 25 August 2022)

26 August: 150 refugees are temporarily transferred from Ter Apel asylum centre in the Netherlands to a sports hall in Apeldoorn. In Tubergen, as local protests escalate, a hotel owner is taken to court after attempting to back out of an agreement to sell the hotel to the government to accommodate 300 refugees. (Dutch News, 26 August 2022)

Deportations

17 August: Bulgarian MEPs ask the European Commission to intervene to stop the extradition of Russian citizens from the EU to Russia, citing the recent court ruling to return Russian national Alexei Alchin. (Euractiv, 17 August 2022)

18 August: The UK signs a deal with Pakistan to increase and speed up deportations of Pakistani nationals, with a clause allowing for the deportation of people violating immigration laws. (Times (£), 18 August 2022)

25 August: A survey by Bail for Immigration Detainees of immigration detainees held in prisons awaiting deportation reveals that 70 per cent have no legal representation for their appeal, and nearly 90 per cent have had difficulties accessing justice. (BID, 25 August 2022)

25 August: It is revealed that the Home Office is preparing a new deportation flight to Rwanda. Recent asylum seekers, whose claims have been deemed inadmissible, have been notified of their impending deportation for the continued processing of their claims in Rwanda. (Guardian, 25 August 2022)

30 August: A charity warns that refugees in Germany who have fled the war in Ukraine but do not hold a Ukrainian passport could face deportation as from 1 September under a new regulation. (PROASYL, 30 August 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 our coverage below. 

19 August: Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss is accused of withholding publication of the Foreign Office’s annual human rights report because of being likely to contain criticism of Rwanda’s human rights abuses. (Guardian, 19 August 2022)

19 August: In France, 14 MPs from Les Républicains are accused of stigmatisation after submitting a draft law implying low-income families are fraudulently using a ‘return to school allowance’ and suggesting a voucher system instead. (Guardian, 19 August 2022)

22 August: Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, is accused of ‘shameful electioneering’ and ‘clickbait voyeurism’ after posting a video, filmed by a bystander, of a Ukrainian woman, her image blurred, being raped by an asylum seeker arrested in Piacenza. (Al Jazeera, 22 August 2022)

22 August: Trialling the new government policy on gangs and gun crime, the Danish prime minister says that its more punitive approach would target foreign nationals carrying out dangerous offences, since people with foreign nationality are over-represented in statistics related to violent crime. (The Local, 22 August 2022)

23 August: After YouTube removes wRealu24, a Polish far-right TV station, from its platform, Confederation Party MPs accuse YouTube of ‘Orwellian totalitarianism’ and ‘corporate media censorship’. Complaints against the removed TV station included spreading antisemitism, Russian propaganda and negativity about Ukrainians.(Notes from Poland, 23 August 2022)

24 August: In Poland, Jaroslaw Kaczyński, chair of the ruling Law and Justice party, makes rhetorical speeches attacking trans people whom he describes as ‘abnormal’, also launching personal attacks on Anna Grodzka, Poland’s first transgender MP. (Guardian, 24 August 2022)

25 August: An Acta Publica report, ‘Out of the brown crowd’  finds that nearly 300 candidates for Swedish county, municipal and parliamentary  over the last five years have expressed racist or neo-Nazi views, most linked to the Sweden Democrats.(The Local, 25 August 2022)

25 August: In Denmark, a government-appointed commission headed by Social Democrat Christina Krzyrisiak Hansen makes nine recommendations related to ethnic minority children including a ban on young girls wearing the hijab in schools, that groups at preschool level should ‘reflect the population’ and courses on Danish ways of raising children for ‘selected minority ethnic parents’. (The Local, 25 August 2022)

26 August: In the run up to the Swedish general election, dominated by issues of crime, gang violence and immigration, the centre-right parties indicate that cooperation with the far-right Sweden Democrats, surging in the polls, is a possibility. (Barrons, 26 August 2022)

ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT

With anti-migrant, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as information relating to the incel movement.

16 August: The Frontnacht music festival for identitarians and Flemish nationalists set to take places in Ypres, Belgium, is cancelled by city authorities who withdraw a licence after warnings that neo-Nazi acts were to be included.(Vice, 16 August 2022)

17 August: Anti-fascists prevent the far-right Patriotic Alternative and anti-LGBT activists disrupt a Drag Queen Story Hour event at the Millennium Library, Norwich. (Norwich Radical, 20 August 2022)

19 August: German right-wing conspiracy theorist Oliver Janich is arrested in the Philippines on an outstanding arrest warrant in Germany for inciting violence against politicians. (Vice, 18 August 2022).  

19 August: An investigation reveals that the notorious Slovakian racist and antisemitic conspiracy theorist Daniel Bombic, who uses the pseudonym Danny Kollár and is now subject to a European arrest warrant, has been living in the UK for more than a decade. (Bellingcat, 19 August 2022)

21 August: The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism publishes the ‘Irish far-Right hate and extremist groups’, identifying 12 anti-immigrant, white nationalist and  anti-LGBTQ+, specifically anti-trans, groups, including The National Party, the Irish Freedom Party and Anti-Corruption Ireland. (GPAHE, press release, 21 August 2022)

22 August: On the anniversary of the 1992 neo-Nazi pogrom against Vietnamese and Roma in the Lichtenhagen district of Rostock, Germany, victims and researchers deride the lack of political or judicial consequences for thirty years, pointing also to ‘the hollowness of remembrance’. (Deutsche Welle, August 2022)

27 August 2022:  A 1,300-strong protest is held in Leipzig, Germany after an arson attack on a residence for refugees, happening during the week commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Rostock-Lichtenhagen pogroms, when thousands cheered on neo-Nazis who set a reception centre for refugees alight. (Deutsche Welle, 27 August 2022; InfoMigrants, 27 August 2022; Leipziger Volkszeitung, 29 August 2022)

POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

17 August: Liberty FOI requests reveal that Black and Asian people were 2.6 and 1.9 times more likely, respectively, to receive fines for breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules in England and Wales than white people.  (Guardian, 17 August 2022)

18 August: Big Brother Watch research finds that stop and searches in central London in the summers of 2020 and 2021 increased by more than a fifth on weekends when protests (particularly related to BLM) took place, suggesting the powers were being stretched to their limits. (Guardian, 18 August 2022)

21 August: The Metropolitan police takes legal action against former senior officer Parm Sandhu, claiming her allegations of racism and sexism break a confidentiality agreement she signed on leaving the force. (Guardian, 21 August 2022)

22 August: The family of Oladeji Omishore, who died on 4 June after ‘falling’ into the Thames from Chelsea Bridge, tells the Guardian that the Metropolitan police’s ‘excessive and unnecessary force’ which included the deceased being tasered a number of times, contributed to his death. The video footage they saw revealed a man frightened and in need of help not restraint. The IOPC is investigating. (Guardian, 22 August 2022; Inquest, 23 August 2022)

Our beloved Oladeji, fondly called Deji, died tragically following @metpoliceuk contact on Chelsea Bridge on 4th June 2022. The police did not tell us about this contact or their use of Taser, until we saw the video on social media, while he lay dying in hospital. A thread🪡 1/8)

— Justice for Oladeji Omishore (@justicefordeji) August 3, 2022

24 August:  The IOPC announces that as a result of an investigation into a Sikh man’s complaint of racial discrimination (his religious head covering was forcibly removed in the Perry Barr custody suite, Birmingham,) a West Midlands police sergeant will face a gross misconduct hearing. Six other officers are cleared.(IOPC, 24 August 2022)

25 August: The IOPC says it will not carry out its own inquiry into the Metropolitan police’s treatment of the athlete Ricardo dos Santos who was pulled over in his car by seven armed officers earlier this month. (Guardian, 25 August 2022).

25 August:  Claims that racial bias affected an investigation into student nurse Owami Davies’ disappearance does disservice to officers’ work, says the Metropolitan police. A police appeal had featured pictures of a different woman and officers had come into contact with the nurse, who has now been found, days after she went missing, but failed to make the connection. (Guardian, 25 August 2022)

27 August: An investigation is launched into the death of a 37-year-old Syrian man in Hengelo, Overijssel, Netherlands. Video footage shows officers pulling him out of a car, apparently unconscious, before one officer pins him to the ground by putting a knee to his chest. (Dutch News, 27 August 2022)

29 August: The Society of Editors criticises secretive anti-corruption guidance issued by the College of Policing which instructs police officers to inform their bosses if they know any news reporters, a measure normally linked to criminals or extremists. (Guardian, 29 August 2022)

COUNTER-TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY

22 August: Swedish police confirm that a bag containing explosives was found in a park venue for the Stockholm Culture Festival but release no further information about suspects or a possible target. (Euronews, 22 August 2022)

23 August: Documents obtained by Reprieve indicate that, in 2017, UK intelligence facilitated the illegal arrest, torture and detention of British Sikh campaigner Jagtar Singh Johal in India, despite government claims that it has consistently raised concerns about Johal’s detention and ill-treatment. A legal action has been brought against the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the attorney general. (BBC News, 23 August 2022)

27 August: A Spanish court approves the extradition of Kris Kearns, who ran a network of men’s fitness groups for Patriotic Alternative and is wanted in the UK for encouraging violence against non-white people on Telegram and dissemination of terrorist material. (Evening Standard, 27 August 2022)

EMPLOYMENT | EXPLOITATION | INDUSTRIAL ACTION

29 August: Campaigners accuse the Home Office of deliberately not appointing a new anti-slavery commissioner for 4 months to avoid scrutiny while pushing through new legislation. Already between April and June 2022 4,171 referrals of potential trafficking had been recorded. (Guardian, 29 August 2022)

29 August: An Indonesian taskforce is investigating whether seasonal workers are being recruited under possible debt bondage conditions to work for UK farms supplying supermarkets. A representative of the taskforce expressed frustration at lack of cooperation by the UK government. (Guardian, 29 August 2022)

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

28 August: A review of over 126,000 cases on the primary care database finds that Black and Asian people in England wait longer than white people for a cancer diagnosis – which may reduce their odds of survival. (Guardian, 28 August 2022)

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.

20 August: Chelsea Football Club indefinitely bans a season ticket holder who racially abused Tottenham player Hueng-Min Son during a match at Stamford Bridge on 14 August. The perpetrator is subject to an ongoing investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Football Crime Team. (Sky Sports, 20 August 2022)

27 August: It is revealed that Prince Charles has been asked to edit the 40th anniversary edition of The Voice which will include interviews with Doreen Lawrence and Idris Elba. (Guardian, 27 August 2022)

28 August: International, European and Spanish journalists say that Poland’s  extended incommunicado pre-trial detention of  Spanish-Russian journalist Pablo González, arrested for his reporting at the Polish-Ukrainian border and accused of being ‘an agent of Russian intelligence’, is an affront to media freedom and democracy.  (IFJ-EFJ, press release, 28 August 2022)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

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

16 August: A 44-year-old man is found guilty on two counts of racially/religiously aggravated assault committed in Bradford on 1 August, and sentenced to a total of 18 weeks in jail and ordered to pay a £154 victim surcharge. (Telegraph & Argus, 26 August 2022)

18 August: Weymouth magistrates sentence a 27-year-old man, who threatened a guest-house owner in January, to an 11-month community order, 15 rehabilitation activity days and a total of £300 in fines for exposure, racially aggravated harassment and possession of a Class B drug. (Dorset Echo, 22 August 2022)

18 August: A 51-year-old man and a 41-year-old woman from Fareham are arrested and bailed on suspicion of a racially or religiously aggravated assault in July in Whiteley Shopping Centre. (Daily Echo, 18 August 2022)

22 August: A man in his 30s is arrested following an altercation at a shop in Dinnington in which a group of unidentified young people racially abused a man and a vehicle was driven into the shop’s shutters. (Rotherham Advertiser, 24 August 2022)

23 August: A 23-year-old man from London and a 19-year-old man from Dartford are arrested on suspicion of racist and homophobic abuse during a football match between Gillingham and Exeter City. They face a lifetime ban from MEMS Priestfield Stadium if found guilty. (BBC Sport, 24 August 2022)

26 August: A teenage boy and girl receive hospital treatment for head injuries after being assaulted with a weapon during a racially aggravated attack in Castle Park, Bangor. The male perpetrator is yet to be identified. (Belfast Live, 27 August 2022)

30 August: A 57-year-old man is found guilty of racially abusing a fellow bus passenger while travelling from Edinburgh to Galashiels on 24 July last year. Selkirk Sheriff Court orders him to pay a total of £335 in fines. (Border Telegraph, 30 August 2022)

The calendar was compiled with the help of Graeme Atkinson, Sira Thiam, Oscar Herzog Astaburuaga, Donari Yahzid, 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.