Calendar of Racism and Resistance ( 18 March – 1 April 2025)

Calendar of Racism and Resistance ( 18 March – 1 April 2025)

April 3 2025 News

Written by: IRR News Team


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.

19 March: As research shows 13 percent of young men aged between 18 and 24 vote for Reform UK, compared to just 6 percent of women, an alliance of 30 Labour MPs, many in Red Wall constituencies, form a new group aimed at steering young men away from ‘toxic influencers’ and the ‘manosphere’. (Guardian, 19 March 2025)

19 March: International human rights bodies criticise the ‘draconian’ draft Security Bill 1236 currently going through the Italian parliament, which advocates criminal sanctions for those who protest in migrant reception centres and prisons, including through disobedience of arbitrary orders and hunger strikes. (New Federalist, 19 March 2025) 

25 March: The German parliament sits for the first time with the far-right AfD party as the main opposition group, holding 152 of the 630 seats. (Guardian, 25 March 2025)

26 March:  As backbench Labour MPs accuse the government of making ‘devastating’ health and disability benefit cuts, its own impact assessment shows that over 370,000 people who currently claim Personal Independence Payments will lose them; 3.2 million households will be worse off; 150,000 people will lose access to carer’s allowance; and 250,000 people will be pushed into poverty. (Guardian, 26 March 2025)

27 March: The home secretary, citing protests near mosques and synagogues, announces an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill allowing police to impose conditions on demonstrations where the effect of the protest is to intimidate people attending a place of worship. (Guardian, 27 March 2025)

28 March: After the Sentencing Council rejects the justice secretary’s request to change its guidance for judges on obtaining pre-sentence reports for groups including ethnic and religious minorities, aimed at tackling bias (dubbed ‘two-tier’ justice by the shadow justice secretary), the prime minister says the government would ‘consider what to do as a result’ and that ‘all options are on the table’. (Guardian, 28 March 2025)

30 March: Home secretary Yvette Cooper says that she is ‘reviewing’ the right to family life, protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, for undocumented migrants—an issue pressed by the hard Right. (Guardian, 30 March 2025)

31 March: As the Ministry of Justice announces emergency legislation to make Sentencing Council guidelines unlawful, the SC suspends the guidelines hours before they were due to come into force. Former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke leads a government review on the Sentencing Council’s powers. (Guardian, 31 March 2025)

31 March: At the opening of the Organised Immigration Crime Summit attended by representatives from more than 40 countries, the prime minister claims that asylum seekers are responsible for pressures and cuts to public services. (National, 31 March 2025)

31 March: Keir Starmer refuses to rule out following the EU in deporting failed asylum seekers to ‘return hubs’ outside the bloc, in Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia or Serbia, as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni issues a decree to expand the asylum detention centres in Albania to include housing for refused asylum seekers. (The I paper, 31 March 2025) 

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.

19 March: A Czech court fines a couple and sentences them to six months in prison with a 14-month probationary period for waving a Nazi flag during a celebration of the anniversary of the US liberation of Plzeň. (Romea, 19 March 2025)

20 March: Igor Mižák stands trial at the Brno Municipal Court, Czech Republic, for allegedly operating the neo-Nazi website White Media, which targets politicians, activists, and Roma individuals by leaking their personal data. The site also spreads hate speech against immigrants, Muslims, and other minority groups, but due to US restrictions on evidence use, the case only addresses hacking charges. (Romea, 20 March 2025)

20 March: Far-right Polish presidential candidate Grzegorz Braun is under police investigation for vandalising an LGBT+ exhibition in Opole, spray-painting ‘Stop the propaganda of perversion’ on display boards. In response, the city cancels his campaign event and is seeking 35,000 zloty in damages. (Notes From Poland, 20 March 2025)

21 March. Far-right prisoner Tommy Robinson is refused permission to launch a legal challenge against his segregated prison conditions as officials say there is evidence that he is at risk from other prisoners. (Guardian, 21 March 2025)

21 March: Hundreds of people rally in West Belfast in support of MLA Gerry Carroll after threatening far-right graffiti targeting him appears on a wall in Andersonstown. (Belfast Media, 21 March 2025)

22 March: In Amsterdam, Netherlands, around 10,000 people join an anti-racist, anti-fascist rally organised by the Comité 21 Maart on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. (Netherlands Times, 22 March 2025)

22 March: In Paris and other French cities, at least 62,000 people rally against the far Right’s impact on immigration policy, the Trump administration and in support of Palestine. (Straits Times, 22 March 2025)

22 March: Police arrest around 100 as a neo-Nazi march in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, Germany, is blocked by thousands of counter-protesters. The far-right rally, planned under the slogan ‘For Law and Order’, is forced to end early after facing 15 counter-demonstrations along its route. (DW, 22 March 2025)

24 March: A boxing tournament in Olomouc, Czech Republic, on 22 March served as a cover for an international neo-Nazi gathering, activists say. Organised by The Nationalists and led by far-right extremist Erik Lamprecht, the event attracted participants from Austria, Germany, and Hungary, and reportedly facilitated networking among groups linked to antisemitism and racial violence. Police report no illegal activity. (Romea.cz, 24 March 2025)

26 March: Horst Schmitt, a far-right German activist, is elected to Opel’s Rüsselsheim works council via the Christian Trade Union Metall list, raising concerns over extremist influence in the workplace. Schmitt has ties to the AfD-linked group Zentrum. (Munich Eye, 26 March 2025)

28 March: An ultranationalist NVS (Nationalist student movement) march and a far-right  ‘Generation Remigration’ rally take place in Ghent, with the far Right calling for forced deportation of non-natives from Belgium. A counter-rally takes place. (Brussels Times, 28 March 2025)

30 March: Far-right extremist groups in Sweden are increasingly targeting vulnerable boys as young as 10, using online propaganda, bodybuilding, and fight clubs to recruit them, it is reported. Since the inauguration of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s two fascist-style salutes, more children are using the Nazi salute in school, and the number of active far-right groups is the highest since 2008. (Observer, 30 March 2025) 

POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

21 March: After the CPS drops charges under the Communications Act against Black student Jamila A for using the N-word in a tweet, police and prosecutors are accused of misusing hate speech laws intended to protect minorities and ‘unfairly and inappropriately criminalising black language speakers’. (Guardian, 21 March 2005)

24 March: The inquest into the death of Oladeji Omishore, who was repeatedly tasered by police before falling off Chelsea Bridge and drowning in June 2022, finds that failures by the  Met’s control room to pass on concerns about his mental health contributed to his death. Family lawyers criticise the coroner for not allowing the jury to consider the police’s use of ‘excessive force’. (Inquest, 25 March 2025)

24 March: The IOPC announces that the two officers who arrested Oladeji Omishore will not face disciplinary or criminal proceedings, and that its investigation into the officers’ failure to cooperate as witnesses would result in them undergoing a ‘reflective practice review process’. (BBC News, 24 March 2022)

25 March: Speaking at the Society of Editors’ Media Freedom Conference, College of Policing chief executive Sir Andy Marsh says that claims of ‘two-tier policing’ are ‘almost impossible to defend against’ in a world where ‘public opinion is binary’, adding that tensions between communities and local forces are an ‘existential threat’ to policing. (The Herald, 25 March 2025)

27 March: After more than 20 police officers, some armed with tasers, break down the door and force their way into the Westminster Friends’ Meeting House, Quakers in Britain issue a statement condemning the violation of a place of worship, the first in living memory. Six women from Youth Demand attending an open meeting about climate change and Gaza in a hired room are arrested. (Quakers in Britain, 28 March 2025)

30 March: Actor Reece Richards condemns the police watchdog for refusing to consider race in its investigation of Met officers who pepper-sprayed and arrested him. Despite Richards’ claims of racial profiling, the IOPC found no evidence of discrimination, focusing only on excessive force. His lawyer argues that the watchdog’s failure to hold officers accountable allows institutional racism in the Met to persist. (Guardian, 30 March 2025)

31 March: Research by the Irish Network Against Racism into the policing of people of  African descent and Brazilians finds evidence of widespread discriminatory policing and racial profiling, including traumatic stop-and-search incidents, strip searches, wrongful arrests, and property damage, with long-lasting psychological effects and ongoing impacts on employment, study and family life. (INAR, 31 March 2025)

31 March: Drag artists, friends and fans protest outside New Scotland Yard against the Met police’s ‘institutional homophobia’ leading to delays and failures in investigating the suspicious death of drag artist Steven Grygelko, AKA Heklina, in April 2023. (Guardian, 31 March 2025)

NATIONAL SECURITY AND ANTI-TERRORISM

26 March: 200 German police launch nationwide raids against the ‘Brigade N-hamedu’, a group that opposes the government in Eritrea and is accused by the German state, which classifies it as a domestic terrorist organisation, of violent riots at an Eritrean cultural event in Giessen. No arrests are made. (Deutsche Welle, 26 March 2025)

28 March: The head of the government’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent, Michael Stewart, resigns after a damning government review of the programme’s failures in relation to the Southport attacks by Axel Rudakubana. (Guardian, 28 March 2025) 

ASYLUM |  MIGRATION | BORDERS | CITIZENSHIP

Asylum and migrant rights

20 March: 61-year-old Samuel Jarrett-Coker is granted the right to remain under the Windrush scheme after 50 years of attempts to regularise his immigration status whilst facing uncertainty, anguish and the threat of homelessness or deportation. (Guardian, 20 March 2025)

21 March: The Greek Council of State rules that Turkey is not a safe country for asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia, and annuls the joint ministerial declaration that says it is. (ELENA weekly legal bulletin, 28 March 2025)

24 March: A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, into the management of fee waiver applications finds inconsistent and prolonged processing times (especially for in-country applicants), inconsistent quality assurance, siloed work, serious miscommunications and data protection concerns. (EIN, 24 March 2025)

24 March: Adam, a Sudanese refugee pushed back to Libya in 2021 after Italian authorities transmitted the coordinates of the rescue ship he was on to enable the cargo ship Vos Triton to intercept it, arrives in Rome with a visa after an Italian court ruled that the transmission made Italy complicit in Libya’s unlawful acts. (Sarita Libre, 25 March 2025) 

25 March: 67-year-old Raymond Lee, a victim of the Windrush scandal who was denied compensation, is to have his case reconsidered following a landmark judicial review ruling that the home secretary at the time misunderstood how immigration law applied, as with others whose claims were refused. (Guardian, 25 March 2025)

Borders and internal controls

25 March: The ECtHR rules that Greece violated the right to life of a minor who was fatally shot during a coastguard interception of a migrant boat in August 2015, and authorities failed to provide a thorough, independent investigation of the boy’s death. (ELENA weekly legal update, 28 March 2025)

26 March: Poland suspends the right to claim asylum at its border with Belarus, prompting criticism from human rights and refugee activists who say that the suspension will exacerbate dire conditions at the border. (EuroNews, 28 March 2025)

27 March: The Cranston Inquiry hears of a litany of failings that led to the drowning of at least 27 people in the Channel in November 2021. Issues include poor communications, understaffing at the Dover coastguard, and a failure of Home Office intelligence sharing, as impact statements from bereaved families express belief that stereotyping those on the dinghy as ‘foreigners’ led to delays in their rescue. (Guardian, 27 March 2025) 

Reception and detention

19 March: Following years of controversy over poor conditions at the Napier Barracks asylum accommodation in Kent, including a mass Covid outbreak, decrepit facilities and far-right protests, plans to close the centre in September 2025 are revealed in a document shown to a home affairs committee investigation into asylum accommodation. (Guardian, 19 March 2025)

20 March: A report by Women for Refugee Women on the immigration detention of women highlights that most of those held are survivors of gender-based violence, yet face observation by male staff in intimate situations. 85 percent of women detainees report feeling anxiety and depression, 85 percent feel dehumanised, 80 percent believe they are not valued, 75 percent feel hopeless, and 65 percent experience suicidal thoughts. (EIN, 20 March 2025) 

23 March: An Observer investigation uncovers claims by women and girls of sexual violence at mixed Home Office asylum hotels and hostels by staff and male residents, including from a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly groomed and raped and a woman who disclosed she was trafficked for sexual exploitation. The Home Office refuses to comply with a freedom of information request to supply basic data on reports of sexual violence in asylum accommodation. (Observer, 23 March 2025)

25 March: As the Home Office cancels an asylum accommodation contract with Stay Belvedere Hotels, which manages 51 hotels and the Napier barracks in Folkestone, following concerns over performance and behaviour, and hands the contract to Bibby Stockholm barge manager Corporate Travel Management, a document from the Treasury’s new Office for Value for Money reveals the record profits made by companies contracted to find migrant hotels. (Guardian, 25 March 2025) 

28 March: A fire breaks out at the Phoenix Hotel, in Essex, causing the asylum seekers housed there to be evacuated to alternative accommodation. (BBC, 29 March 2025) 

Deportations

19 March: As immigration enforcement escalates under the government’s Plan for Change, officers conduct a dawn operation at a construction site in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, arresting 35 Romanian men and a 16-year-old boy, who are returned to their home country or placed on strict immigration bail. (Belfast Live, 23 March 2025)

20 March: A French academic in the space sector invited to a conference in Houston is denied entry to the US and deported after being subjected to a ‘random check’ where his phone conversations and computer were examined. Comments made about the Trump administration’s research policy were deemed ‘hatred towards Trump’ and ‘terrorism’, though charges are later dropped. (Politico, 20 March 2025)

22 March: European countries including the UK, Denmark, Finland and Germany join Canada in issuing advisories on travel to the USA, where these countries’ citizens have been detained on arrival and deported for political activity or issues such as a gender in their passport which is non-binary or different from their birth gender. (NPR, 22 March 2025) 

31 March: An application from Elzbieta Olszewska, an 80-year-old Polish woman, to live permanently in the UK and be cared for by her only child, a Polish-UK dual national, is refused with no right to appeal, as the Home Office says that her online application should have been made on paper, leaving her without legal status and threatened with deportation. (Guardian, 31 March 2025)

1 April: In Berlin, Germany, deportation orders are sent to four young foreign residents (two from Ireland, the others from US and Poland) for pro-Palestine activism, in a move that is described as paralleling Trump’s use of deportation orders to suppress social movements. (+972 Magazine, 1 April 2025, Irish Independent, 1 April 2025)

Crimes of solidarity 

25 March: The Italian government admits to a parliamentary committee that it spied on migrant activists, including rescue ship Mediterranea Saving Humans’ mission chief, the shipowner, Refugees in Libya activist David Yambio and the ship chaplain, Father Mattia Ferrari. (Info Migrants, 28 March 2025)

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. 

21 March: Liberty warns that the High Court’s ‘overarching’ ruling, which grants the University of Cambridge a court injunction preventing any protests related to Israel until the end of July 2025, represents a ‘dangerous precedent’. (THE, 21 March 2025)

25 March: In protest against legislation permitting the wearing of the hijab in secondary schools in northern Cyprus, a trade union representing teachers (Kteos) stages a protest outside the Turkish embassy and its leader calls on the Turkish ambassador to ‘go home’.  (Cyprus Mail, 25 March 2025)

25 March: After anti-racist protests at a Reform UK event, Farage announces plans to stop teachers’ unions from poisoning young minds ‘against everything this country has stood for’. (Guardian, 25 March 2025)

26 March: The University of Sussex announces a legal challenge against a ‘flawed and politically motivated investigation’ by the Office for Students that has fined the university £584,000 for breaching its free speech duties in the case of professor Kathleen Stock, who resigned after protests over her allegedly transphobic views. (THE, 26 March 2025)

27 March: In the latest case of teachers refusing girls wearing religious clothing into school, the Irsen Kucum middle school in Nicosia, Cyprus, turns away a pupil who arrived at the school wearing a hijab, leading the education ministry undersecretary to negotiate with the head. (Cyprus Mail, 1 April 2025)

1 April: Plans by the Trump administration to build a ‘bigger and better’ Trump university, a ‘Harvard of the North’, are accidentally leaked to the Times Higher Education’s Greenland correspondent, who was included on a Signal chat involving the vice-president. (THE, 1 April 2025) 

EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION| INDUSTRIAL ACTION

28 March: Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute finds that migrants in Ireland are more likely to be in work compared to the Irish-born but have lower incomes and suffer greater poverty, in part linked to costly private rental accommodation. (Irish Independent, 28 March 2025)

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.

19 March: A judicial review of the Charity Commission’s powers is launched in the High Court on behalf of Kids Company, with lawyers arguing that the Charity Commission’s  February 2022 report into the collapsed organisation was legally flawed and should be declared unlawful. (Independent, 19 March 2025) 

19 March: Rangers FC condemns a ‘shameful’ banner, reading ‘Keep woke foreign ideologies out. Defend Europe’, displayed by a small group of fans during its Europa League win over Fenerbahce. The club is charged by UEFA, which may impose significant sanctions. Rangers reaffirms its commitment to inclusivity, stating that those responsible are not welcome at the club and will face consequences. (Guardian, 19 March 2025) 

20 March: ​The French Ministry of Education cancels the distribution of a modern illustrated version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ for 10-year-olds, citing concerns over depictions of social media and alcohol. Cartoonist Jul, who illustrated the book, argues that the real issue is the portrayal of Beauty with brown skin and Algerian heritage, suggesting that discomfort with a diverse representation influenced the ministry’s decision. (Euronews, 20 March 2025)

20 March: Former Glamorgan County Cricket Club head coach Grant Bradburn is fined, reprimanded, and required to attend an educational course after making comments with racist and sexist ‘connotations’. Bradburn, who was sacked in December, admits the allegations and apologises. His fine is suspended for a year. (Guardian, 20 March 2025) 

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

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

21 March: At a parole hearing, David Norris, convicted in 2012 of being part of the gang that killed Stephen Lawrence, admits for the first time his involvement in the 1993 attack. Police now consider challenging him to name the whole gang. (Guardian, 21 March 2025)

24 March: A 16-year-old is arrested on suspicion of assaulting Arie Engelberg, the Rabbi of Orleans, France, in an antisemitic motivated attack where the Rabbi was asked if he was Jewish and then punched. (France 24, 24 March 2025)

28 March:  Northern Ireland police are treating as racially motivated an attack on a man in West Belfast who was subjected to racial abuse by a man who followed him to his house, attempted to gain entry and struck him with a metal dog lead before several residents intervened. (Belfast Media, 28 March 2025) 

29 March: The Afghanistan and Central Asian Association, a refugee centre in Bootle, Merseyside, is attacked for the second time in two weeks, with windows smashed and dog faeces smeared on the front door. (Liverpool Echo, 31 March 2025)

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. 

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

The majority of the IRR’s work is free to access. Please consider supporting our research and analysis by making a donation.

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