A reference tool for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe in 2015.

POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

11 January: Campaign groups Justice 4 Leon and the Faruk Ali Justice Campaign march together through Luton to show a ‘united front’, demanding justice for Leon Briggs and Faruk Ali. (Luton on Sunday, 11 January 2014)

17 January: The family of Mark Grainger, who was shot dead by police in Culcheth, near Leigh in 2012, call for a public inquiry into his death after charges against the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy, are dropped. The CPS refused to reveal secret evidence at his trial under health and safety laws. (Bolton News, 17 January 2015)

18 January: It is reported that police have refused to release a tape (pending ongoing investigations) which is alleged to contain racist comments made by police officers who allegedly assaulted autism sufferer Faruk Ali in Luton. (Luton on Sunday, 18 January 2015)

22 January: Ministry of Justice figures reveal that prison suicides in England and Wales have risen to the highest level for seven years, with 82 prisoners taking their own lives last year. (Guardian, 22 January 2015)

22 January: Metropolitan police officer Warren Luke is cleared of actual bodily harm after kicking and hitting a black mother in a hospital, leaving her with more than 40 injuries, needing plastic surgery and unable to work for a year. (Guardian, 22 January 2015)

22 January: An IPCC investigation is launched into the death of Tobias Terpilowski-Gill, 26, who fell from a balcony in Kilburn in December after being handcuffed by the police. (Brent & Kilburn Times, 22 January 2015)

26 January: The family of Julian Cole, a 21-year-old athlete, who blame excessive police force for leaving him with a broken neck after he was detained in Bedford, have condemned the lack of progress made by the IPCC. They claim that they are no clearer as to what happened 20 months after the incident. (Guardian, 26 January 2015)

30 January: Anthony Long, the ex-police officer accused of the murder of Azelle Rodney during a police operation in April 2005, appears in court and pleads not guilty. (BBC News, 30 January 2015)

30 January: HM Inspector of Constabulary publishes a report: Integrity matters: An inspection of arrangements to ensure integrity and to provide the capability to tackle corruption in policing. Download the report here.

30 January: The Police Federation calls for all uniformed police officers to be provided with Tasers to provide protection from terrorists. (Guardian, 30 January 2015)

1 February: Campaigners from the Justice Alliance call for a three-day event celebrating the Magna Carta to be boycotted because the government has ‘decimated legal aid’. (Guardian, 1 February 2015)

2 February: The inquest into the death of Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah begins in Beaconsfield, eight years after his death following a stop and search by police in High Wycombe. (Slough Observer, 2 February 2015)

2 February: The inquest into the death of 18-year-old Shanice Paris Goff hears that police officers acted aggressively when they arrived at her boyfriend’s Woolwich flat. They had been seeking Goff who had been on the run for eight months after she was released on licence and the licence was revoked. (News Shopper, 2 February 2015)

2 February: The Independent Police Complaints Commission publishes a report: Police complaints: Statistics for England and Wales 2013/14 and 2012/13. Download the statistics here.

4 February: An inquest jury at Worcestershire Coroners’ Court concludes that failings at HMP Hewell contributed to the death of Paul Malicus Coley, a 44-year-old father of five, in December 2013. (Garden Court Chambers, 4 February 2015)

4 February: Mohammed Naved Bashir launches a civil action against West Yorkshire Police who admit to his wrongful arrest and imprisonment in December 2014. (Yorkshire Post, 4 February 2015)

6 February: A report by the Victims’ Commissioner, which comments on how victims of crime should not be ignored, omits any reference to the experiences of those whose family members have died in custody. (Huffington Post, 6 February 2015)

9 February: An MPs’ report that examines antisemitism in Britain recommends that social media users who persistently spread racial hatred online should be given ‘internet asbos’ blocking them from sites such as Facebook and Twitter. (Guardian, 9 February 2015)

9 February: It is revealed that Home Secretary Theresa May is to order an inquiry into the collapse of the country’s biggest ever police corruption trial which fell apart at an estimated cost of £30m in 2011. (Channel 4 News, 9 February 2015)

11 February: The family of a man whose neck was found to be broken after he was arrested by police call for the officers involved to be suspended. Julian Cole, 21, was left in a vegetative state following his arrest outside a nightclub in Bedford in May 2013. (Guardian, 11 February 2015)

11 February: INQUEST publishes a report, Deaths in Mental Health Detention: An investigation framework fit for purpose? Download the report here.

12 February: Four police officers appear at Bristol crown court charged with misconduct and accused of wilful neglect in public office following the murder of Bijan Ebrahmi who had requested police help hours before his death in July 2013. (Bristol Post, 12 February 2015)

13 February: The Metropolitan police is warned it risks breaching the European Convention on Human Rights by refusing to police a second planned protest in central London next month. (Enfield Guardian, 13 February 2015)

13 February: A former commissioner for the Commission for Racial Equality, Mohammed Amran, vows to fight on after the IPCC finds that West Yorkshire police did not seek to undermine his credibility as a witness during the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. The police had suggested ‘discreet inquiries’ were conducted into his background. (Telegraph & Argus, 13 February 2015)

14 February: Johsua Bonehill-Paine, who has recently called for an anti-Semitic rally in Stamford Hill, is banned from the whole of London after being arrested in connection with a string of anti-Semitic messages sent to an MP. (East London Times, 15 February 2015)

16 February: It is revealed that six police officers and seven police staff will face disciplinary proceedings in relation to Bijan Ebrahimi’s death in 2013. Bijan Ebrahimi was murdered in Bristol after being harassed and victimised. (Bristol Post, 16 February 2015)

18 February: The Chief Inspector of Prisons calls for a review of the lessons learned from the opening of the G4S-run Oakwood prison before any more ‘supersized’ jails are opened. (Guardian, 18 February 2015)

20 February: Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) publishes its latest Newsletter. Download the January/February issue here (pdf file, 2.1mb).

20 February: The High Court rules that the Lord Chancellor’s guidance on legal aid for inquests contains material errors and the threshold is set too high. (Bindman’s, 20 February 2015)

22 February: An IPCC spokesman says that an investigation into the death of Adrian McDonald, who died after being Tasered by the police in Huddersfield in 2014, is still some way off completion. (Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 22 February 2015) 

24 February: The Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes new research, Preventing Deaths in Detention of Adults with Mental Health Conditions. Download the reports here.

24 February: Channel 4 News reports on the death of  a vulnerable teenager, 15 -year-old Alex Kelly who took his own life in Cookham Wood young offenders Institution, and a coroner’s report which is highly critical of the care he received. (Channel 4 News, 23 February 2015)

24 February: Bedfordshire police announces that flowers left in tribute to Leon Briggs, who died in Luton police custody, are to be removed from Luton police station station as they pose a ‘security risk’. (Luton on Sunday, 24 February 2015)

25 February: The Court of Appeal quashes the convictions of two men who were convicted under the doctrine of joint enterpise. (JENGbA press release, 25 February 2015)

25 February: The inquest into the death of Chang Somers (aka Valan Anthony Pitts) hears that his body was found months after he went missing after requests from family and friends that he be sectioned. Police are also being investigated for how they dealt with missing person reports from his family (Plymouth Herald, 24 February 2015)

26 February: Bish Sharif, a 42 year old Asian man, expresses his anger after being dragged from a cafe in Redcar and wrongly detained under anti-terrorism powers for thirty minutes by Cleveland Police. (Northern Echo, 26 February 2015)

27 February: The Home Affairs Committee publishes Gangs and youth crime. Download the report here. (pdf file, 369kb)

1 March: A report by INQUEST reveals that 65 children and young adults have died in detention during the last four years, an average of one a month. Download the report, Stolen Lives and Missed opportunities: The deaths of young adults and children in prison, here.

3 March: An inquest into the death of Habib Ullah  returns a verdict of death by ‘misadventure’, but Thames Valley police says there will be further action against officers involved. (Slough & South Bucks Observer, 3 March 2015)

5 March: The Met. police issues an appeal for witnesses who may have seen two men close to where 50-year-old Londoner Kester David was found murdered in July 2010 in suspicious circumstances. The IPCC is currently investigating how the case was originally investigated and whether crucial evidence was missed. (ITV News, 5 March 2015)

6 March: Civil Rights Defenders, acting on behalf of eleven Roma in Sweden, have filed a lawsuit against the government on the basis that a police register of Roma maintained by the regional Skåne police in southern Sweden is a violation of human rights and constitutes ethnic discrimination. (The Local, 6 March 2015)

10 March: An inquest is told that 37-year-old Jubel Miah died three days after being stopped and searched by police in Camden who thought that he had swallowed drugs in June 2014. (Hampstead & Highgate Express, 10 March 2015)

10 March: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman publishes a report Learning from PPO Investigations: Self-inflicted deaths of prisoners – 2013/14. Download the report here.

11 March: HM Inspector of Constabulary publishes new report The welfare of vulnerable people in police custody. Download the report here.

12 March: The Home Secretary announces a public inquiry to be headed by a senior judge, Lord Justice Pitchford, to examine claims that undercover police officers spied on family campaigns, including that of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. (Guardian, 12 March 2015)

19 March: The inquest into the death of 37-year-old Jubel Miah finds that he died from cardiac arrest following a search for drugs by two Camden police officers in June 2014. (Camden New Journal, 19 March 2015)

24 March: HM Inspectorate of Constabulary states that police forces have made too little progress on improving their use of stop and search powers, with too many officers lacking any understanding of their impact on the lives of young black people. (Guardian, 24 March 2015)

24 March: HM Inspectorate of Constabulary publishes: Stop and search powers 2: are the police using them effectively and fairly? Download the report here (pdf file, 600kb)

25 March: The Independent Police Complaints Commission publishes its investigation into the death of Mark Duggan in August 2011. Download the report and other documents here.

25 March: A former undercover police officer, who spied on family-led campaigns in the 90s, reveals that he also spied on MPs such as Diane Abbott, the late Bernie Grant, Peter Hain, Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone. (Guardian, 25 March 2015)

25 March: The mother of Mark Duggan, who was shot fatally by police in Tottenham in 2011, describes a report from the Independent Police Complaints Commission clearing the officers of any wrongdoing as ‘another slap in the face’ for her family. (Guardian, 25 March 2015)

25 March: The Central London County Court orders that the Met Police pay £8,200 in damages and £400,000 in legal costs after ‘unreasonably’ using a taser on Daniel Sylvester, who had unlawfully been stopped three times in nine months by police. (BBC News, 25 March 2015)

25 March: The Court of Appeal dismisses an appeal by the Law Society and others against the government’s proposals to cut criminal legal aid. (Law Gazette, 25 March 2015)

26 March:  A two-day inquest into death in police custody of Sharmila Ullah concludes Bloxwich police are not to blame despite possible ‘individual failings’ in regards to observations whilst she was in custody. (Express and Star, 26 March 2015)

26 March: A mother organises a march in memory of her son, Aston Mclean Williams, who was killed in a collision with a police car last year. Berkshire Coroner’s Office refuses to release his body as investigations continue. (Reading Chronicle, 26 March 2015)

30 March: Black police officer, Paul Bailey, brands as ‘immoral and unethical’ his bosses at Greater Manchester Police who, after initially accepting the ruling of an employment tribunal that he had been racially discriminated against during his employment, are now appealing the decision. (Manchester Evening News, 30 March 2015)

31 March: HM Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland calls for a clear code of practice for stop and searches after an investigation found no guidance and a lack of data, and that there is no clear link between stop and searches and a reduction in crime. (BBC News, 31 March 2015)

3 April: A coroner refuses to grant police officers anonymity at the forthcoming inquest into the shooting death of Dean Joseph in Canonbury, London in September 2014. (Islington Tribune, 3 April 2015)

7 April: The inquest into the death of Kingsley Burrell commences in Birmingham. Burrell died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in March 2011 after being detained under the Mental Health Act. (Birmingham Mail, 8 April 2015)

7 April: The inquest into the death of Kingsley Burrell, who died following contact with the police in Birmingham in 2011, hears how his four-year-old son told his family ‘a naughty black policeman hit daddy in the back of the ambulance’. (Voice, 7 April 2015)

9 April: Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens is being investigated by the IPCC over allegations of a cover-up of police corruption in the Stephen Lawrence murder probe in the 1990s, it is revealed. (Channel 4 News, 9 April 2015)

10 April: Relatives of Birmingham prisoner Adnan Rafiq – who predicted his own death in 2013 in a letter to jail staff – speak of their grief after an official report finds more could have been done to help him before he was fatally assaulted by another inmate. (Birmingham Mail, 10 April 2015)

10 April: In Spain, eleven people are arrested and face charges of being part of an Islamist plot to bomb a Jewish bookshop in Barcelona and other Jewish targets in the Catalonia region. (Reuters, 10 April 2015)

19 April: The criminal justice system makes it too hard for families whose loved ones have died in police custody to get answers, according to a letter written by the home secretary to the families of Sean Rigg and Olaseni Lewis. (Guardian, 19 April 2015)

20 April: A tribute to Sean Rigg, who died in police custody in 2008, is painted on shop shutters in Atlantic Road, Brixton. Street artists have been painting on the shutters of businesses threatened with eviction to highlight their plight. (Brixton Buzz, 20 April 2015)

22 April: The Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association campaign (Jengba) publishes its latest newsletter. Download it here (pdf file, 1.5mb)

27 April: A Labour government would look again at the law of Joint Enterprise, Ed Miliband writes in a letter to a constituent. (The Justice Gap, 27 April 2015)

2 May: More than 3,000 police officers are being investigated for alleged assault – with black and Asian people significantly more likely than white people to complain of police brutality, according to an Independent investigation. (Independent, 2 May 2015)

3 May: Hundreds of people march through Brixton, south London, to protest at police brutality and racism, and to show solidarity with the people of Baltimore, US. (Brixton Buzz, 3 May 2015)

4 May: Restraint was a ‘key’ factor in Kingsley Burrell’s death in 2011, a pathologist tells the jury at his inquest. Mr Burrell died following contact with four police officers and six NHS staff in Birmingham. (Voice, 5 May 2015)

5 May: Friends of Sheku Bayoh, who died in Scotland on 3 May hours after being arrested, demand answers over how police handled the incident. (Daily Record, 5 May 2015)

8 May: A mental health trust and the Metropolitan Police are accused of trying to cover up alleged racism towards patients during a night in 2012 when 48 officers – some in riot gear – were deployed to deal with disturbances at Bethlem Royal Hospital, in a ward of vulnerable adults. (Independent, 8 May 2015)

12 May: The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announces that five Thames Valley police officers, who were involved in the death of Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah in 2008, will have disciplinary hearings in public. (Slough & Bucks Express, 12 May 2015)

11 May: Two Met policemen are sacked for a ‘gratuitous’ assault, in 2009, on Iranian and Pakistani car chase suspects after the men claimed they were kicked in the head and told they would go ‘one-to-one’ with a dog. (WN.com, 11 May 2015)

13 May: The French human rights ombudsman says he will investigate the police after a video is released purporting to show officers in Calais using violence against migrants as they attempt to board lorries headed for the UK. (Independent, 13 May 2015)

13 May: The president of the National Black Police Association accuses Cleveland Police of ‘watering down’ a damning report probing institutional racism in the force. (Darlington and Stockton Times, 13 May 2015)

15 May: An inquest jury finds that Kingsley Burrell, who was detained under the Mental Health Act in Birmingham in 2011, died as a result of neglect by police officers and ambulance staff who forcibly restrained him and left him handcuffed for hours on a hospital floor. (Guardian, 15 May 2015)

17 May: A report claims that a police chief tried to mobilise his force’s top anti-terrorism officer and senior criminal justice figures in an attempt to undermine damning research into the extensive use of stop and search in Scotland. (Sunday Herald, 17 May 2015)

18 May: Two police officers are cleared of charges in their involvement in the deaths of Zyed Benna (17) and Bouna Traoré (15), who died in 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, France, after they were chased by police officers, hid in an electricity substation, and were hit by tens of thousands of volts of electricity. (Le Monde, 18 May 2015)

20 May: Tesfa Hughes, a 26-year-old man from Leeds, dies in a traffic accident after being pursued by police car on Wednesday 20 May. The case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 20 May 2015)

20 May: A HMIP inspection of Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre carried out in February 2015 finds ‘several serious incidents of unacceptable staff behaviour’ including ‘poor application of restraint … and racism’. (Download the report here)

21 May: Jeremiah Duggan, who was found on a German motorway in 2003, did not kill himself, a coroner rules. He also says that Duggan’s revelations to members of a far-right organisation he was a British Jew ‘may have had a bearing on his death’. (BBC News, 21 May 2015)

22 May: The European Court of Human Rights condemns France for a lack of remedy for degrading detention conditions in its overseas territory of New Caledonia. (Statewatch News Online, 22 May 2015)

 24 May: The family of Kingsley Burrell, who died after being arrested and then left for hours handcuffed on a hospital floor in Birmingham in 2011, urges Theresa May to launch an independent public inquiry into deaths in custody. (Guardian, 24 May 2015)

25 May: After a two-year investigation, the IPCC announces that Humberside police officers could face criminal prosecution for allegedly spying on the family of Christopher Alder, who died in police custody in 1998. (Hull Daily Mail, 25 May 2015)

25 May: An internal Greater Manchester Police memo shows how senior police officers ordered intelligence to be gathered on supporters of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence days before a public inquiry into his murder visited Manchester in 1998. (Manchester Evening News, 25 May 2015)

27 May: The mother of Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody in Fife earlier this month, accuses lawyers of ‘shameful’ behaviour after she received a legal threat demanding the removal of a post on a website set up to demand answers over her son’s death. (Herald Scotland, 27 May 2015)

27 May: Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCSPI) and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) publish a: Joint inspection of the provision of charging decisions, May 2015. (Download the report here.)

28 May: An investigation into evidence given to the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry by a former Metropolitan Police chief is expanded to include other senior officers. (Voice, 28 May 2015)

28 May: Amnesty International calls for an investigation into claims on BBC1’s Panorama programme that agents inside Ulster loyalist and republican terror groups were able to kill and target victims with impunity during the Northern Ireland Troubles. (Guardian, 28 May 2015)

29 May: No criminal action will be taken against police involved in the death of Seni Lewis, restrained by officers in a London psychiatric hospital in 2010, the CPS states. (BBC News, 29 May 2015)

29 May: Four police officers and a community support officer appear in court to face charges of misconduct in public office; the community support officer also faces a charge of perverting the course of justice in relation to the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi in Bristol in July 2013. (Western Daily Press, 29 May 2015)

1 June: The Equality and Diversity Forum (EDF) Research Network publishes a collection of essays: Beyond 2015: Shaping the future of Equality, Human Rights and Social Justice. (Download the essays here.)

3 June: Avon and Somerset Constabulary offers an ‘unreserved apology’ to Tajudeen Taiwo and his family for a failure to protect them after ‘appalling racist treatment’. Taiwo’s head was split open in a racist attack in 2012; but when the police arrived they threatened him with a taser, arrested and detained him for 35 hours and charged him with possession of an offensive weapon and threats to kill. (Weston Mercury, 3 June 2015)

3 June: The decision not to charge any police officers with the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on a London tube in 2005 is to be challenged in the European court of human rights. (Guardian, 3 June 2015)

4 June: Five police officers accused of gross misconduct following the death of Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah in High Wycombe in 2008 altered their statements on a ‘breathtaking scale’, a hearing hears. (Slough & Bucks Express, 4 June 2015)

4 June: The IPCC refuses to identify two retired police officers who are being investigated in connection with allegations that they spied on the family of Stephen Lawrence. Three people were named last year by the Ellison Review (Richard Walton, Bob Lambert and Colin Black). (Guardian, 4 June 2015)

6 June: A taxi driver in West Yorkshire, who was seriously assaulted in a racist attack by a passenger, criticises the police for allegedly taking an hour-and-a-half to reach the scene of the attack after he contacted them. (Daily Mirror, 6 June 2015)

7 June: Mark Duggan’s family, relatives of other black men killed in custody, and one of the UK’s most senior black lawyers call for a public inquiry into policing in Britain. (Guardian, 7 June 2015)

7 June: Hundreds of people attend the funeral of Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody in Kirkcaldy last month. The funeral procession stops at Kirkcaldy police station, where a two minute silence is held. (BBC News, 7 June 2015)

10 June: A Metropolitan police firearms officer shot dead Azelle Rodney in 2005 by firing a rapid volley of eight shots from close range, including two that struck him in the top of his head, a jury hears. The ex-officer denies the charges. (Guardian, 10 June 2015)

10 June: A panel of more than twenty judges at the European court of human rights (ECHR) hears arguments that Metropolitan police officers should be prosecuted for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. (Guardian, 10 June 2015)

11 June: Protracted delays to an IPCC probe into the death of Leon Briggs in Luton are branded ‘unacceptable’. (Luton Today, 11 June 2015)

13 June: Istiak Yusuf dies in a police cell in Luton after being arrested. Although the police say he ‘became ill’, his family tell the Luton News that the 25-year-old had no known medical conditions at the time of the incident. (Luton News, 14 June 2015)

14 June: A 26-year-old black woman is awarded £37,000 damages (with no apology) by the Met police after being forcibly strip-searched by five police officers at Chelsea police station in March 2011. (Guardian, 11 June 2015)

15 June: Five police officers who changed their accounts of a stop and search carried out on Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah in High Wycombe in 2008, who later died, are cleared of misconduct by a disciplinary panel. (Slough & South Bucks Express, 15 June 2015)

15 June: Private company G4S could lose the contract for Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre where children suffered racist abuse at the hands of staff, the government says. (Independent, 15 June 2015)

19 June: The Independent Police Complaints Commission will consider whether the ethnicity or the mental health of a 33-year-old prisoner injured in a cell influenced the actions of six officers involved in his restraint, resulting in the severing of three of the man’s fingertips. (BBC News, 19 June 2015)

22 June: The Daily Mirror reports on allegations from Duwayne Brooks that the police are still withholding information on him that has been collected by police spies since the 1993 murder of Brooks’ best friend Stephen Lawrence. (Daily Mirror, 22 June 2015)

24 June: Anthony Long, 58, a former armed police officer tells the Old Bailey he was ‘absolutely convinced’ that Azelle Rodney was about to shoot when he fired eight shots in rapid succession, two of which hit Rodney in the head.  (Guardian, 24 June 2015)

24 June: Figures, issued by the Youth Justice Board (covering young offender institutions, secure detention centres and secure training centres in England and Wales), and analysed by the Guardian, reveal a ‘shocking increase in the proportion of ethnic minority children and young people being held in the youth justice system’. (Guardian, 24 June 2015)

24 June: In an unprecedented judgement, the Court of Appeals in Paris finds the French state guilty of the use of discriminatory stops and identity checks in the cases of five black and Arab complainants. The Court rules that the French state must pay the complainants €1,500 each. A petition calling for the end of ethnic profiling has garnered 11,000 signatures. (Le Monde, 24 June 2015)

25 June: The National Debate Advisory Group publishes a report for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary: Reshaping policing for the public: a discussion paper from the advisory group on the national debate on policing in austerity. Download it here.

26 June: Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) publishes the latest edition of its newsletter. Download it here (pdf file, 1mb).

29 June: Under the Freedom of Information Act the Metropolitan Police releases a redacted copy of the Special Demonstration Squad Tradecraft Manual. Download it here. (pdf file, 3.3mb)

30 June: The man accused of the 1998 murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar will stand trial in February 2016. Ronnie Coulter, 47, from Wishaw, denies killing 32-year-old Mr Chhokar in in Overtown, North Lanarkshire while acting with two other men. (Glasgow Evening Times, 30 June 2015)

1 July: The Citizen Safety Law (dubbed the ‘gagging law’) comes into effect in Spain. Protesting in front of Congress or regional assemblies now carries fines of up to €600,000. Judges will be bypassed by police officers engaged in public order duties who have the power to impose immediate sanctions. Stopping a housing eviction will now be deemed unlawful as police power to sanction extends to those who ‘obstruct any authority, public employee or official corporation in the exercise of administrative or judicial agreements or resolutions’. (El Pais in English, 1 July 2015)

1 July: The Ministry of Justice publishes the Harris Review: Changing Prisons, Saving Lives: Report of the Independent Review into Self-inflicted Deaths in Custody of 18-24 year olds. Download it here.

2 July: The German lawyers for the family of Jeremiah Duggan, the British Jewish student who died in Wiesbaden in 2003, and Green Party members of the Bundestag, speak at a press conference in Berlin. A letter has been written to the interior minister of Hesse demanding a far-reaching investigation into Jeremiah’s death including a thorough examination of the dangerous recruiting practice of the LaRouche cult. See the press release, by Justice for Jeremiah, here.

26 June: A judge in Northern Ireland describes the state collusion in the 1989 murder of solicitor Pat Finucane and the obstruction of investigations as ‘abominations’ but rejects a challenge to the refusal of a public inquiry. (UK Human Rights Blog, 7 July 2015)

3 July: Former police marksman Anthony Long is cleared of murdering Azelle Rodney who he shot six times and killed in north London in 2005. (Guardian, 3 July 2015)

4 July: A silent protest is held in The Hague in memory of Mitch Henriquez, a 42-year-old tourist from Aruba who died in hospital on 28 June following his violent arrest the previous day at a music festival in Zuiderpark in the Netherlands. Henriquez’ death led to four nights of rioting in the Schilderswijk district, a temporary curfew and hundreds of arrests. Preliminary findings from a post mortem indicated that Henriquez died of asphyxiation after being held in a chokehold and pinned down by five white police officers. (France 24, 4 July 2015)

6 July: The IPCC calls on Sussex police to launch legal proceedings against an officer in relation to events in 2013 when a man in Brighton, Firas Albaja, was pepper-sprayed, wrongfully arrested and denied treatment. Sussex police decide not to refer the case to the CPS, stating it is ‘not in the public interest’. (Argus, 6 July 2015)   

8 July: The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announces that police officer Paul White is to be charged with perjury over evidence he gave during an inquest into the death in police custody of Sean Rigg in Brixton after the bereaved family challenged the CPS decision not to prosecute. (Guardian, 8 July 2015)

9 July: Greater Manchester police release statistics showing  that twenty-one police officers have been sacked for misconduct by the force over the last two years for reasons including posting racist messages on Facebook. (Manchester Evening News, 9 July 2015)

11 July: A public inquiry into Bedfordshire Police is set to be held in the coming weeks, focusing on an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation into the alleged assault of autistic man Faruk Ali by two police officers in 2014. (Luton on Sunday, 11 July 2015)

11 July: The Metropolitan police issue a ‘sincere and unreserved apology’ for staging a police terror training exercise in which one of the ‘terrorists’ was wearing a Cuban flag T-shirt. (Morning Star, 11 July 2015)

13 July: The daughter of Philmore Mills, who died while in police custody in 2011 in Slough, speaks of her frustration that a police misconduct hearing will remain behind closed doors. (Slough Observer, 13 July 2015)

13 July: A 14-year-old Muslim boy is shot and badly injured by a police officer with a flash-ball gun after exiting a mosque in Argenteuil, France. The boy was shot in error, and, after falling to the floor, was not aided by police officers but instead by passers-by who took him to hospital. (Islam & Info, 14 July 2015)

16 July: Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen, calls for undercover officers who infiltrated political campaigns and spied on her family to be identified. (Guardian, 16 July 2015)

16 July: The Met police suspends Sergeant Paul White, who is facing perjury charges in connection with his evidence given to inquest into Sean Rigg’s death, after sustained pressure from Rigg’s family. (Guardian, 16 July 2015)

16 July: The London Campaign Against Police and State Violence publishes a briefing paper on objections to Operation Shield. Download it here (pdf file, 242kb).

19 July: Police in London are criticised for including activists from the city’s Occupy protests with al Qaida in a presentation being given to prepare nursery and primary school staff for potential terrorist attacks on the UK. (Guardian, 19 July 2015)

19 July: The Met launches an investigation into allegations that its officers used a ‘secret’ Facebook group to air racist views about Gypsies and Travellers. (Independent, 19 July 2015)

22 July: Family and friends of Jean Charles De Menezes gather at Stockwell tube station, ten years after he was shot dead on the tube by armed police. (Huffington Post, 22 July 2015)

23 July: The IPCC publishes its annual report on deaths during or following police contact in 2014/15. Download it here.

23 July: The IPCC delays again its report into how Julian Cole’s neck was broken after contact with six police officers in the street more than two years ago. (Guardian, 23 July 2015)

25 July: New medical evidence suggests that Sheku Bayoh, the Sierra Leonean man killed in police custody in Kirkcaldy earlier this year, may have died from asphyxiation after being held face down by at least four officers, his family’s lawyer says. (Guardian, 25 July 2015)

26 July: Newly disclosed documents reveal that a secret Scotland Yard review of an undercover unit at the heart of the controversy over long-term infiltration of political groups concluded that the squad had been shut down because it broke official rules. (Guardian, 26 July 2015)

30 July: A 17-year-old boy, Jack Susianta, dies after falling into a canal in east London after being chased by police officers, who were seeking him after his parents raised concerns for his welfare. (Guardian, 30 July 2015)

27 July: A retired Metropolitan police sergeant, who won a series of racial discrimination claims against the force, is cleared of racially and sexually abusing a teenager 29 years ago. The judge at Southwark Crown Court said that the allegations may have been a part of a conspiracy against the retired sergeant. (Channel 4 News, 27 July 2015)

31 July: A court is told that Nicola Short, one of the police officers involved in the death of Sheku Bayoh in May 2015, is ‘not fit for trial [on breaching data protection laws] due to a complicated medical state following on from an incident in Kirkcaldy.’ (Daily Record, 1 August 2015)

4 August: On the fourth anniversary of his death, the mother of Mark Duggan calls for an urgent public inquiry into events that led to the shooting. Sign the petition calling for a public inquiry into Mark Duggan’s death here. (Guardian, 4 August 2015)

6 August: The family of Aston McLean Williams mark the year since his death after being knocked over by a police vehicle in Reading. His family are still waiting to bury him a year on as the IPCC continues its investigation. (Reading Chronicle, 6 August 2015)

6 August: Five children of Cherry Groce, whose shooting by a police officer led to the 1985 Brixton uprisings, are to sue the Metropolitan police for the damage caused to them after she was paralysed in the raid almost 30 years ago. (Guardian, 6 August 2015)

7 August: Analysis of new figures finds that black people are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police in England and Wales; in 36 (out of 39) forces black people are targeted more than white people. (Independent, 7 August 2015)

17 August: A man who has been subjected to a fourteen-month campaign of racial harassment is given a conditional discharge and is ordered to pay £350 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after those involved made counter-allegations. (Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council, 17 August 2015) 

18 August: Northamptonshire police agree to strip officers of stop and search rights if it is suspected they have abused powers. (Guardian, 17 August 2015)

18 August: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) publishes its Bereaved Families Survey 2013-15. Download it here.

20 August: The Lord Chancellor publishes revised guidance on civil legal aid funding in inquest cases. View it here.

25 August: Two police officers, PCs Christopher Thomas and Christopher Pitts, are to face a misconduct hearing following an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into their conduct following an incident in which an autistic man, Faruk Ali, suffered serious injuries after being stopped by the two officers outside his Luton home in February 2014. (Dunstable Today, 25 August 2015)

25 August: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an announced thematic inspection of the Close Supervision Centre System. Download it here.

26 August: The family of Leon Briggs, who died in the custody of Luton police in November 2013, is again told that the investigation and report into his death has been delayed. (Luton News, 26 August 2015)

30 August: The Daily Record reports on the numerous injuries sustained by Sheku Bayoh during his arrest by up to nine police officers in Fife in May 2015. It is also revealed that the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner has commissioned reports on a condition known as ‘excited delirium’. (Daily Record, 30 August 2015)

2 September: The Independent Police Complaints Commission publishes IPCC guidelines for handling allegations of discrimination. Download the guidelines here (pdf file, 736kb).

3 September: The Independent Police Complaints Commission expands its investigation into the actions of six police officers after a Romanian man lost the tips of three fingers while in the custody of Colchester police earlier this year. (Daily Gazette, 3 September 2015)

3 September: The Guardian reveals that police in Brent have sent a letter to young people demanding their attendance at a local community meeting and suggesting if they fail to attend that its sends a ‘clear message that you intend to continue with your criminal lifestyle.’ (Guardian, 3 September 2015)

6 September: Hundreds march through Kirkcaldy to demand justice for Sheku Bayoh, who died after being arrested by police in May 2015. (Scotland Against Criminalising Communities, 7 September 2015)

8 September: Sergeant Paul White appears at Westminster magistrates court charged with perjury following an investigation into his evidence to the inquest into the death of Sean Rigg who died at Brixton police station in August 2008. (Guardian, 8 September 2015)

9 September: The Home Office begins a consultation into ‘Police powers’. The consultation closes on 31 October 2015. View details about the consultation here.

10 September: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman publishes its Annual Report 2014-15. Download it here (pdf file, 4.4mb)

10 September: The Croydon Advertiser reveals that Devon and Cornwall police will investigate the death of Olaseni Lewis who died after being restrained in 2010 at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. The new investigation will examine whether corporate or gross negligence manslaughter charges should be brought against the Met police or South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. (Croydon Advertiser, 10 September 2015)

11 September: An inquest is told how Adil Habib became ‘limp’ and later died in 2014 after being restrained with pain compliance techniques by four prison officers who suspected him of smuggling drugs into Pentonville prison. (Islington Tribune, 11 September 2015)

11 September: Two out of three London councils (Lambeth and Haringey) trialling Operation Shield, aimed at young people involved in gangs, have refused to carry on with the scheme after community partners rejected it, it is reported. (Guardian, 11 September 2015)

15 September: The father of 24-year-old Nathanial Brophy, who suffered serious injuries after being shot by armed police in Brixton on 21 August during a seven-hour standoff, speaks out about the injuries his son suffered and asks why the police had to shoot him three times. (Guardian, 15 September 2015)

15 September: Luton councillors pass a unanimous vote of no confidence in the Independent Police Complaints Commission for its failure to complete its investigation into the death of Leon Briggs at Luton police station in November 2013. (Luton on Sunday, 19 September 2015)

23 September: Solicitor Daniel Machover writes about the new proposals to reform the Independent Police Complaints Commission. (Law Gazette, 23 September 2015)

24 September: The Independent Police Complaints Commission publishes its investigatory report into the shooting of Dean Joseph. Download the report here.

28 September: On the thirtieth anniversary of the shooting of Cherry Groce, her family launch a petition to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe: ‘30 years on and still no justice for the death of Cherry Groce’. Sign the petition here.

28 September: The European Court of Human Rights condemns Belgium for a police officer’s assault of two brothers stopped for identity checks in Brussels in 2003 and 2004, and orders the Belgian authorities to pay €5,000 to both brothers for what the Court deemed to be an attack on their human dignity. (Le Matin, 28 September 2015)

29 September: Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association publishes the latest edition of its newsletter. Download the July-Sept, issue no. 35 here (pdf file, 1.9mb)

29 September: A senior magistrate who pulled £40 from his own pocket to contribute towards the court fine for a destitute asylum seeker resigns his position, after being suspended by authorities for his actions. (Guardian, 29 September 2015)

30 September: On a trip to Jamaica, David Cameron announces that £25 million in foreign aid will be used to build a prison on the island in order to repatriate (without their consent) Jamaican prisoners held in British jails. (Guardian, 30 September 2015)

2 October: Police whistleblower Peter Francis reveals that personally collected information on Jeremy Corbyn and two other MPs when he worked undercover infilitrating anti-racist groups in the 1990s. (Guardian, 2 October 2015)

2 October: Basil Khan and Omar Mohidin are awarded compensation for an incident in London in 2007, when they were teenagers, during which they were racially abused and humiliated by police officers, and in one case subjected to a ‘sustained assault’. (Asian Image, 2 October 2015)

7 October: The Home Office says that there is nothing it can do to intervene in speeding up the investigation into the death of Leon Briggs, as the two year anniversary of his death nears. (Luton on Sunday, 7 October 2015)

7 October: The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) publishes statistics on the handling of police complaints, Download the statistics here.

8 October: Two Met police officers, PCs George Cooper and Stephen Newbury, are sacked following a disciplinary hearing after racist text messages were found on their phones during an investigation into the Plebgate affair. (BBC News, 8 October 2015)

8 October: After viewing phone and CCTV footage of Sheku Bayoh’s dying moments after being restrained by police officers in Kirkcaldy earlier this year, his family call for the footage to be released. (The Courier, 8 October 2015)

8 October: At least 140 people are granted ‘core participant’ status at the recently commenced Pitchford Inquiry into undercover policing, including the families of Ricky Reel, Cherry Groce, Jean Charles de Menezes and Stephen Lawrence. (Guardian, 8 October 2015)

9 October: A 40-year-old black war veteran tells the Andover Advertiser that he was the victim of a racially motivated asault by police officers in Andover police station in September. (Andover Advertiser, 9 October 2015)

12 October: Freedom of Information requests reveal that there have been 240 complaints of racial discrimination against the Metropolitan police over a one-year period but not one has been upheld. (Guardian, 12 October 2015)

12 October: The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announces an investigation into allegations of racial abuse and misuse of police computers by two Sussex police officers, including a senior officer who has been suspended, following an incident while the men were off duty. (Eastbourne Herald, 12 October 2015)

12 October: An inquest into the death of Tobias Terpilowski-Gill is told he fell from a balcony in Kilburn while handcuffed after he was denied urgent mental health care. (KIlburn Times, 12 October 2015)

13 October: According to Freedom of Information requests made by the BBC, black people are three times more likely to be tasered than white people. (BBC News, 13 October 2015)

13 October: The Jamaican security minister disputes David Cameron’s recent announcement, made on a visit to the country, that a prisoner transfer agreement has been signed to allow Jamaicans convicted in the UK to be sent home to serve their sentence in a prison funded by the British government. (Guardian, 13 October 2015)

14 October: INQUEST publishes the latest edition of its E-Newsletter. View the newsletter here.

15 October: The Ministry of Justice publishes: ‘Use of language interpreter and translation services in courts and tribunals statistics: 2013 to 30 June 2015’. Download the statistics here.

15 October: BBC News airs claims that PC Alan Paton, a police officer involved in the death of Sheku Bayoh, has a history of violence, including against his own parents, and ‘hates black people’. (BBC News, 15 October 2015)

15 October: The Ministry of Justice is carrying out a consultation on ‘Expectations for police custody’. The consultation closes on 11 December 2015. View the consultation documents here.

15 October: The Ministry of Justice launches a ‘Review of coroner services’. The review closes on 10 December 2015. View details about the review here.

16 October: The National Crime Agency launches an investigation into the Metropolitan police, especially the conduct of the former detective sergeant John Davidson, after allegations arose that the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, stabbed to death by a racist gang in London in 1993, were shielded by police corruption. (Guardian, 16 October 2015)

19 October: The Independent Police Complaints Commission finds that body-worn cameras are not ‘fit for purpose’ after examining footage following the shooting of Nathan Brophy in Brixton in August. The cameras are currently on trial in ten London boroughs. (BBC News, 19 October 2015)

21 October: The government announces the terms of reference for the independent review into deaths and serious incidents in police custody and the chair of the inquiry, Dame Elish Angiolini (former Lord Advocate of Scotland).

22 October: Commonweal Housing publishes a report: Justice after release: housing options for miscarriage of justice victims, a call to action. Download the report here (pdf file, 474kb).

22 October: Following a highly critical inquest verdict, the Crown Prosecution Service announces that it is to reconsider bringing charges against the officers involved in the death of Kingsley Burrell in Birmingham in 2011, an option it previously rejected. (Birmingham Mail, 22 October 2015)

25 October: The Daily Record reveals that Police Scotland contacted the Sierra Leone Embassy in London to repatriate Sheku Bayoh’s body just two days after his death in an altercation with police. Alarmed embassy officials contacted Bayoh’s family in Scotland, who prevented the planned repatriation. (Daily Record, 25 October 2015)

27 October: A legal challenge to the doctrine of joint enterprise begins at the Supreme Court. (Justice Gap, October 2015)

27 October: The Court of Appeal rules that the family of Mark Duggan can appeal an earlier High Court ruling over the inquest verdict of lawful killing. (Guardian, 27 October 2015

29 October: The Ministry of Justice releases statistics on deaths, assaults and injuries in detention, which are at their highest for a decade. Download the statistics here. (Guardian, 29 October 2015)

31 October: The United Families and Friends campaign holds its seventeenth annual march to remember those that have died in police, prison, immigration and psychiatric detention. (Russia Today, 1 November 2015)

2 November: PC Jonathan Williams is sacked from Essex Police after being found guilty of gross misconduct in sending racist and homophobic text messages. (Essex Chronicle, 2 November 2015)

3 November: JUSTICE publishes a report: Freedom from Suspicion: building a surveillance framework for a digital age. Download the report here (pdf file, 803kb)

4 November: The family of Leon Briggs hold a vigil outside Luton police station on the second anniversary of his death, the day after hearing that the force has reneged on a promise to allow a plaque to commemorate him, citing ‘potential legal implications’. (Luton Today, 3 November 2015)

5 November: Ropinder Singh calls for an inquiry into a protest outside the Indian High Commission after he was arrested and allegedly had his turban grabbed and thrown to the ground; fifteen others were also arrested at the Sikh Lives Matter demonstration in October. (Ilford Recorder, 5 November 2015)

6 November: HM Inspector of Prisons finds that court cells are ‘squalid and dangerous’ and covered in sexist and racist graffiti following an inspection of 90 courts. (BBC News, 6 November 2015)

12 November: An inquest jury records a critical narrative verdict into the death of Mohamoud Ahmed, who died at the G4S-run Parc prison in February 2014. He died from ‘sudden unexpected death from epilepsy’ (SUDEP) after the prison failed to take him to a number of hospital appointments. (INQUEST press release, 13 November 2015)

14 November: A police officer was eating a pot noodle when she rejected a call for help from Bijan Ebrahimi, shortly before he was beaten to death by neighbours in Bristol in 2013, a court hears. (Bristol Post, 14 November 2015)

16 November: Cornelius Thomas, 39, who was tasered four times by police officers outside his home in Birmingham in 2011, will receive ‘substantial’ undisclosed damages after West Midlands police settle a claim out of court. (Mirror, 16 November 2015)

17 November: The case against the three police officers involved in the death of 33-year-old Amadou Koumé, who died after being apprehended by the police and placed in a police van on 6 March 2015 in the 10^th arrondissement in Paris, is dropped. (Paris Luttes, 17 November 2015)

18 November: HM Inspectorate of Prisons publishes a thematic report: Behaviour management and restraint of children in custody: A review of the early implementation of MMPR. Download the report here.

19 November: A coroner accuses the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) of ‘almost holding the coroner’s service in contempt’ after finding that the IPCC report into the death of Istiak Ahmed in Luton police custody in June 2015 has not yet been completed, thus delaying the inquest. (Luton on Sunday, 19 November 2015)

20 November: The House of Commons Justice Committee recommends the scrapping of the criminal courts charge in its report: Criminal courts charge. Second Report of Session 2015–16. Download it here.

23 November: The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies publishes a report from a conference held earlier this year: Challenging state and corporate impunity: is accountability possible? Download the report here (pdf file, 134kb).

24 November: Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon tells the family of Sheku Bayoh, who died after contact with police in Fife earlier this year, that she will give ‘serious consideration’ to holding a public inquiry into his death. (Guardian, 24 November 2015)

26 November 2015: The trial of four police officers charged with misconduct as a result of their (in)action following allegations made by Bijan Ebrahimi, who was murdered in 2013 after being racially abused and accused of being a paedophile by his neighbours, is played recordings of his calls for help and CCTV of himbeing told to ‘shut up’ by police officers. (Bristol Evening Post, 26 November 2015)

26 November: The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on ‘Race and the criminal justice system: 2014’. View the statistics here.

26 November: The Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service publish a report: NOMS annual offender equalities report: 2014 to 2015. Download the report here.

27 November: Janet Alder is told that the Crown Prosecution Service will not prosecute any of the police officers involved in surveillance of her during her campaign for justice following her brother’s death in a Hull police station in 1998. (Yorkshire Post, 27 November 2015)

1 December 2015: A National Preventive Mechanism report: Monitoring places of detention, Sixth Annual Report of the United Kingdom’s National Preventive Mechanism 1 April 2014 – 31 March 2015 reveals over-use of solitary confinement, often masked by confusing terminology used to describe it. Download the report here (pdf file, 942kb).

1 December: An independent review finds that Thames Valley Police needs to improve how it records data on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. (BBC News, 1 December 2015)

3 December: Justice Secretary Michael Gove announces that the criminal courts charge which has resulted in over 100 magistrates resigning has been dropped. (Guardian, 3 December 2015)

3 December: Babacar Guèye, a 27-year-old Senegalese man, dies after being shot five times by a police officer in Rennes in north-west France. Guèye attempted to self-harm with a bread knife before his friend intervened and was injured. His friend then called the police, who allege that Guèye was shot in self-defence after confronting them with the bread knife. (Mediapart, 9 December 2015)

4 December: The Runnymede Trust publishes a report: Justice, Resistance and Solidarity: Race and Policing in England and Wales. Download the report here.

8 December: A HM Inspectorate of Prisons inspection into Maidstone Prison, which is used to house mainly foreign nationals, finds little promotion of equality, legal support or education. The report makes 55 recommendations and can be downloaded here. (Kent Online, 8 December 2015)

8 December: A police officer is dismissed from Thames Valley Police after he is found to have sexually assaulted three women, made homophobic comments and sent a racist text message. (Windsor Express, 8 December 2015)

9 December: Black people in Greater Manchester are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white people, new Ministry of Justice figures show. (Manchester Evening News, 9 December 2015)

11 December: Jermaine Baker, 28, is shot dead by police in Wood Green during a ‘pre-planned operation’. The police officer involved in the shooting is suspended from duty days later. (Daily Mirror, 14 December 2015 and Guardian, 14 December 2015)

13 December: Campaigners complain to St Andrews University over its continued employment of Bob Lambert, an ex-police officer-turned-academic who has been exposed as a police spy who spied on family campaigns and activist groups. (Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, 14 December 2015)

15 December: An investigation by HM Inspector of Prisons into children in custody finds that a disproportionate number of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children are being held in secure training centres and youth offender institutions (YOI). There has also been an increase in the number of Muslim boys held in YOIs. Download the report here. (Evening Standard, 15 December 2015)

16 December: INQUEST publishes its Skills and Support Toolkit (for the families of those killed in state custody), view the toolkit here.

17 December: The Ministry of Justice publishes the ‘Government response to the Harris Review’ on the deaths of children in custody. Download it here.

17 December: The Home Office publishes details on a new consultation: ‘Independent Police Complaints Commission reform consultation’. The consultation closes on 28 January 2016. View details here.

17 December: The Home Office publishes a report by Sheila Drew Smith: An independent review of the governance arrangements of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Download the report here.

ASYLUM AND MIGRATION

3 January: Rashida Manjoo, the UN’s rapporteur on violence against women, censures the UK government for preventing her from inspecting Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in April last year. (Guardian, 3 January 2015)

6 January: The Home Office is criticised by campaigners after new figures reveal that twenty migrants have been held in detention centres for at least two years. (Independent, 5 January 2015)

7 January: An inquest in Manchester hears that Tahir Mehmood, 43, died whilst being detained at Pennine House a few days before he was to return to his family in Pakistan. (Manchester Evening News, 7 January 2015)

7 January: The funeral of 5-year-old Andrea Gada, a hit and run victim, is delayed after her family from Zimbabwe are denied visas to attend. (BBC News, 7 January 2015)

8 January: Figures reveal that more than 600 children, the majority under 12 years old, have been held in detention under immigration rules in the four years since the government claimed to have ended the practice. (Independent, 8 January 2015)

14 January: A report by Women for Refugee Women reveals that female detainees at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre are routinely humiliated by male staff who monitor them when they are using the toilet, are showering or are naked in their rooms,. (Guardian, 14 January 2015)

15 January: The Independent recounts the story behind the death of Pawel Koseda, a homeless Polish migrant, who was found dead impaled on the railings of a church in Kensington in October 2014. (Independent, 15 January 2015)

18 January: Police will exercise tighter controls over those with unpaid bills attempting to travel overseas, potentially banning people from going on holiday, it is revealed. (Akashic Times, 18 January 2015)

18 January: Newly formed prison visitors group VOID (Visitors of International Detainees),working with foreign national prisoners at HMP Bristol, appeals for donations. For details of how to donate, see here.

21 January: An academic study of media coverage of asylum and immigration issues finds that over the last ten years the UK press ‘appears to have been complicit in the narrowing of a discussion that is now characterised by an increasingly negative tone’. (New Statesman, 21 January 2015)

21 January: A recently constructed metal fence in Calais, built to deter immigrants, blows over for the second time in weeks due to high winds. (Folkestone Herald, 21 January 2015)

22 January: More than 45,000 people sign a petition calling for the family of Andrea Gada, a girl from East Sussex who died in December 2014, to be allowed into the UK from Zimbabwe to attend her funeral. (BBC News, 22 January 2015)

23 January: The Trades Union Congress launches guides in thirteen languages to tackle migrant worker exploitation. View the guides here.

23 January: A leaked report reveals that more than 19,000 people were apprehended during ‘Mos Maiorum’, the Europe-wide joint police and border guard operation that took place over two weeks in October 2014. (Statewatch, 23 January 2015)

23 January: The Court of Appeal rules that foreign nationals who pose a threat to national security cannot be deported to Algeria because of potential breaches to their human rights, particularly if they were to be held in ‘garde a vue’ detention. (UK Human Rights Blog, 2 February 2015)

26 January: Liverpool Council forces the Home Office to delay plans to force ‘failed’ asylum seekers to travel to Liverpool in order to lodge further submissions for their asylum claims. (Liverpool Echo, 26 January 2015)

26 January: Nearly three years after the outsourcing of courtroom interpreting to a single contractor, Capita, the service is still falling short of its key performance target, government figures reveal. (Law Society Gazette, 26 January 2015)

29 January: Asylum seekers being moved out of the Red Road flats in Glasgow earlier this month have not been found permanent homes. (STV, 29 January 2015)

29 January: The Migrants’ Rights Network and the University of Manchester Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity publish a joint report: Migrant Voters in the 2015 General Election. Download the report here (pdf file, 2.4mb).

30 January: The Court of Appeal upholds the deportation of end-stage kidney disease patients reliant on dialysis to stay alive, in the knowledge that they face death within weeks of deportation. (BAILII, 30 January 2015)

31 January: Firefighters are called to Brook House immigration removal centre after one of the rooms is set on fire. One person is treated for smoke inhalation. (Crawley News, 1 February 2015)

1 February: Activists make use of a Daily Mail offer with P&O ferries to travel to Calais for £1 to support asylum seekers. (Guardian, 3 February 2015)

1 February: The Guardian reveals that Vince Cable, the business secretary, has been engaged in an ongoing battle with the Office for National Statistics over its references to a target to cut annual net migration, which is not government policy but a Conservative party goal. (Guardian, 1 February 2015)

2 February: Channel 4 is forced to cut short Immigration Street after angry protests by residents. More than 1,000 people signed a petition against the programme, arguing that it could ignite ‘racially-motivated violence’. (Independent, 2 February 2015)

3 February: A HM Inspector of Prisons report into Campsfield House Removal Centre in Oxfordshire finds that three children have been detained at the centre in 2012 and 2013 despite a commitment to end the practice, with one child being detained for 62 days ‘by mistake’. (Corporate Watch, 3 February 2015)

3 February: HM Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre, 11 – 21 August 2014. Download the report here.

3 February: Luqmani Thompson & Partners Solicitors publishes: Operation Nexus: Briefing Paper. Download it here.

3 February: Ferguson campaigners from the US join campaigners at the London offices of G4S in protest over the death of Jimmy Mubenga. (Guardian, 3 February 2015)

4 February: The Bradford Telegraph & Argus reports on the case of Rizwana Siddique who has been denied a visa to visit her husband, Haq Nawaz Rasool, who is in hospital on life support after a vicious robbery at his takeaway. (Bradford Telegraph & Argus, 4 February 2015)

6 February: Visas are granted to the Zimbabwean relatives of Andrea Gada, a five-year-old girl who died after a car accident, who had been barred from entering the UK for her funeral. (BBC News, 6 February 2015)

6 February: A coroner records a verdict of accidental death regarding 32-year-old Hikmet Komur, a Turkish man who in July 2013 was found frozen to death in the undercarriage of an aircraft at Heathrow which had recently arrived from Istanbul. (Mirror, 6 February 2015)

8 February: Home secretary Theresa May announces an independent review of the welfare of migrants held in detention centres or set for escort, including prior to deportation. (Guardian, 8 February 2015)

9 February: A report is published by The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations criticising how mental health issues are dealt with in immigration removal centres. (Guardian, 9 February 2015)

10 February: It is announced that ex-MI5 officer David Bolt is to be the next Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. (Guardian, 10 February 2015)

11 February: The EU is criticised for not committing to rescue operations such as the Italian Mare Nostrumafter nearly 300 migrants have died or gone missing off the coast of Lampedusa. (Amnesty International, 11 February 2015)

10-17 February: The deaths of three migrants in immigration detention centres or prisons in Greece are reported. On 10 February, Sayed Mehdi Akbari, an Afghan migrant held in the Amygdaleza detention centre, died in hospital after falling suddenly ill; on 13 February, Muhammad Nadim, a Pakistani migrant, committed suicide in the Amydaleza detention centre; and, on 14 February, a Yemeni man committed suicide in the Aliens Directorate of Thessaloniki. After visiting Amygdaleza on 13 February, the Deputy Interior Minister Yannis Panousis pledged to shut the centre down. (Asylum Information Database, 19 February 2015)

17 February: An award of £224 million compensation to a Home Office contractor, Raytheon Systems Ltd, over the cancellation of the e-Borders contract, is set aside after a court rules that it was ‘tainted by serious irregularity’. (Guardian, 17 February 2015) 

17 February: In medieval England one person in every hundred was an immigrant, new research by the universities of York and Sheffield shows. (BBC News, 17 February 2015)

18 February: The funeral of a five-year-old girl, Andrea Gada, who died after she was hit by a car, takes place following delays caused by the Home Office refusing to grant visas to her Zimbabwean relatives. (BBC News, 18 February 2015)

19 February: Councillors agree to defer the potential expansion of Campfield House immigration removal centre, which would more than double the number of detainees it could hold, after a last minute recommendation from planning officers. (Oxford Mail, 19 February 2015)

21 February: It is reported that the Afghanistani minister for refugees and repatriation has called on European countries to halt deportations to Afghanistan, particularly of women and children. (Kabul Blogs,  21 February 2015)

23 February: A couple in Northern Ireland, wrongly arrested and accused of holding a ‘sham marriage’ moments before their wedding ceremony in 2010, are awarded more than £21,000 in compensation. (BBC News, 23 February 2015)

24 February: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills publishes BIS Research Paper No. 217: The impacts of migrant workers on UK businesses. Download it here.

25 February: A Bangladeshi asylum seeker who shared his story with the Glasgow Evening Times finds out he is now facing deportation, and the manager of a night shelter where he has been staying accuses the authorities of targeting anyone for speaking out. (Glasgow Evening Times, 23 February 2015)

25 February: It is announced that the proportion of female staff at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre will rise from 40 per cent to 60 per cent following reports that male staff have harassed female detainees. (BBC News, 25 February 2015)

3 March: Serco suspends two staff members from Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre after the showing of a Channel 4 film, made undercover, on the treatment of detainees which revealed what the shadow home secretary called the ‘state-sanctioned abuse of women’. (Channel 4 News, 3 March 2015)

4 March: About a dozen female detainees at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre protest after the showing of the Channel 4 documentary uncovering abuse by staff. (BBC News, 4 March 2015)

4 March: Covert filming by a detainee on behalf of Corporate Watch in Harmondsworth immigration removal centre shows a member of staff admitting that conditions are ‘sh*t’ and that detainees are not allowed to show what goes on inside the centre because the government ‘don’t want the bad publicity that would entail’. (Independent, 4 March 2015)

9 March: Detainees inside Harmondsworth immigration removal centre launch a hunger strike after a weekend of protests against conditions and demand an end to ‘indefinite deprivation of liberty and human rights’. (Channel 4 News, 9 March 2015)

11 March: The UK is quietly ejecting Syrian refugees back to the EU countries they first arrived in, and is making it progressively harder for Syrians to enter the UK legally, lawyers say. (Guardian, 11 March 2015)

11 March: Italy calls for at least three migrant facilities to be set up outside of the EU in countries such as Niger, Tunisia and Sudan in order to assess the legitimacy of asylum claims by migrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean. (Algarve Daily News, 12 March 2015)

12 March: The Home Office withdraws proposals to expand Campsfield House immigration removal centres in Oxfordshire. (Oxford Mail, 12 March 2015)

12 March: The Italian interior minister proposes offshore processing of asylum claims in north Africa. (Irin News, 17 March 2015)

16 March: Twenty-three asylum seekers are having to live in a single house provided by G4S in Leeds. (24 dash, 16 March 2015)

17 March: A 45-year old Iraqi man dies during his deportation on a flight that had not yet taken off from the Stockholm Arlanda airport in Sweden. The man allegedly resisted his deportation, was escorted onto the flight by five security personnel, and was handcuffed with a body-belt placed around his waist. He lost consciousness soon after and died before reaching hospital. (Fria Tidningen, 18 March 2015)

17 March: Imposing exit checks on every passenger going in and out of UK from ports will create tailbacks for five miles on busiest days, operators warn. (Guardian, 17 March 2015)

17 March: The UK government’s tied visa system whereby domestic workers cannot remain in the UK if they change employers, is turning them into ‘modern-day slaves’, according to academic research. (Guardian, 17 March 2015)

19 March: A Tamil asylum seeker who alleges he suffered extensive torture before escaping to the UK wins a last minute reprieve just a few hours before he is due to be deported. (Channel 4 News, 19 March 2015)

22 March: It is revealed that from 30 March asylum seekers anywhere in England, Scotland or Wales will have to travel to Liverpool to put forward further submissions on asylum or human rights applications in person, despite facing legal challenges over the move. (Herald, 22 March 2015)

23 March: The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee publishes: The work of the Immigration Directorates: Calais. Download the report here (pdf file, 621kb)

23 March: Around 100 migrant workers are rehoused after being found to be living in ‘grossly unsuitable and unsafe premises’ in Flintshire. (BBC News, 23 March 2015)

24 March: Conditions inside Harmondsworth immigration removal centre are ‘depressing’ and ‘dirty’, according to a new Independent Monitoring Board report, which reveals that one vulnerable asylum-seeker sewed his mouth together in protest at being held there for nine months. (Independent, 24 March 2015)

24 March: Aviva Stahl reports on hunger strikes, by hundreds of people detained for immigration purposes in the US and UK, that are taking place demanding change to a system described as ‘abusive and inhumane’. (Vice, 24 March 2015)

25 March: Speaking to the Dorset Echo, detainees at The Verne immigration removal centre say that bullying is rife and that frustration is leading detainees to self-harm. One person says, ‘I would rather be looking for water in the desert than be in here.’ (Dorset Echo, 25 March 2015)

25 March: The Supreme Court dismisses the appeal of Minh Quang Pham, who was born in Vietnam, against the removal of his British citizenship, which has rendered him stateless. (Bureau for Investigative Journalism, 25 March 2015)

26 March: Shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, says Labour intends to introduce new time limits on the detention of people in the asylum and immigration system in a move that would bring Britain into line with most other western countries by banning indefinite detention. (Guardian, 26 March 2015)

26 March: A coroner records an accidental death verdict on two Albanian men (Artur Doda, 24 and Leonard Isufaj, 27), who died after jumping from a passenger ferry near Felixstowe as they were being deported from Harwich in February 2014. (Guardian, 26 March 2015)

26 March: Over 120 Spanish migrants’ and human rights organisations sign open letter protesting a new law authorising summary returns from Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco. See the letter here.

27 March: Doctors of the World UK publishes a report, Experiences of Pregnant Migrant Women receiving Ante/Peri and Postnatal Care in the UK: A Doctors of the World Report on the Experiences of attendees at their London Drop-In Clinic. Download the report here.

31 March: A report by Barnardo’s (which runs Cedars – the ‘child-friendly’ immigration detention centre in Sussex) finds that children are being separated from their families as a way of dealing with non-compliant behaviour. (Children & Young People Now, 31 March 2015) Download the reporthere.

31 March: A High Court judge rules that a 36-year-old Nigerian woman known only as GB can bring a case against the Home Office arguing that she was owed a ‘non-delegable’ duty of care by the Home Office if negligence by (privately employed) medical staff could be established. The woman claims severe psychosis was triggered by anti-malaria drugs given to her by staff employed by Serco at Yarl’s Wood detention centre.  (Bedford Today, 31 March 2015)

2 April: BBC News reports on the homeless asylum seekers who ‘live’ on London’s buses. (BBC News Magazine, 2 April 2015)

2 April: Oumar Dansoko, 25, a Guinean man who had been denied asylum, sets fire to himself in the Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (Fedasil) in Brussels, Belgium. He dies of his injuries the following day. On the same day, Benamar Lamri, 42, a Moroccan asylum seeker, dies after hanging himself in the closed Merksplas centre. (Le Soir, 3 April 2015)

4 April: Prosecutors launch an arson investigation after a proposed reception centre for asylum seekers in Tröglitz, Saxony Anhalt, was set on fire weeks before it was due to open. The National Democratic Party of Germany have been demonstrating against the new centre for weeks and when they demonstrated outside the mayor’s home, Markus Nierth resigned, citing fears for the safety of his family. (The Local, 4 April 2015)

6 April: A health surcharge of £200 for migrants, £150 for students comes into effect, with charges for NHS non-emergency hospital treatment for those without indefinite leave to remain who have not paid a levy.  (Smith Stone Walters, 23 March 2015)

8 April: The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at Colnbrook IRC publishes its Annual Report for 2014, highlighting concerns about the night-time transfers of detainees and the impact of indefinite detention. (IMB, 8 April 2015)

9 April: Kidlington parish council’s policy-making Policy and Finance Committee votes that Campsfield House immigration removal centre should close, stating ‘We are concerned about the impact on the detainees of prolonged detention’. (Campaign to Close Campsfield, 10 April 2015)

15 April: A UNHCR spokesman calls on the EU to step up its rescue operations, after a boat capsizes near Libya with 400 migrants feared dead. (BBC News, 15 April 2015)

15 April: Campaigners who have fought for two years to help a bisexual man stay in Leeds call a court’s decision to send him back to Jamaica a ‘death sentence’. (Radio Aire, 15 April 2015)

16 April: Three asylum seekers who fled Syria and arrived in the UK in 2013 are told by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) that they can now appeal against their convictions for arriving without passports, as they had been wrongly advised to plead guilty. (BBC News, 16 April 2015)

20 April: As the UN Human Rights Commissioner calls on the EU to take a ‘more sophisticated, more courageous and less callous’ approach to migration, condemning the ‘continuing failure of governance and monumental failure of compassion’ which caused the latest boat tragedy in which over 800 migrants drown in the Mediterranean, the government ignores calls to back moves to restore search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean. (UN Human Rights, Independent, 20 April 2015).

21 April: A charter flight which was due to depart with dozens of Afghan asylum-seekers facing removal from Britain is cancelled on the orders of an appeal court judge, following warnings that 80 per cent of the country is not safe to send people back to. (Guardian, 22 April 2015)

21 April: Brighton beach is covered in 200 body bags as Amnesty International volunteers raise awareness of the mounting death toll in the Mediterranean sea and the UK’s ‘shameful’ response. (Independent, 22 April 2015)

21 April: An emergency motion before the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) condemns the Home Office for reportedly refusing to allow religious and refugee representatives into Dungavel immigration removal centre amid reports of detainees on hunger strike. (Guardian, 21 April 2015)

22 April: Sun columnist Katie Hopkins unintentionally raises over £30,000 for search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, organised by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), after a JustGiving page is created in outraged response to her article stating that she would ‘use gunships to stop migrants’. (Civil Society, 22 April 2015)

22 April: Dozens of detainees go on hunger strike at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre to call for the release of Bhavisha Ben Patel, whose husband Pinakin Patel died there on Monday. (Independent, 22 April 2015)

22 April: According to a specialist barrister, the work done by migrants in UK detention centres is open to challenge in the courts, on the basis that it is a hybrid of prison labour and sub-zero hours exploitation. (Corporate Watch, 22 April 2015)

22 April: The Home Office is ordered to arrange for a deported migrant family to be returned to Britain from Nigeria – in a landmark ruling that threatens to undermine the government’s ‘deport first, appeal later’ policy. (Independent, 22 April 2015)

23 April: Migrants, NGOs and civil society groups including Amnesty International and Flemish Refugee Action hold a funeral march in Brussels, ending outside European Council building, to protest EU policies leading to record number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), more than 1,750 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2015, over thirty times the number in the same period last year. An EU ten-point Action Plan announced to deal with the crisis is widely denounced as focused on stopping smuggling instead of saving lives. (France 24, 21 April 2015; Times of Malta, 23 April 2015)

23 April: Fourteen migrants, mostly from Somalia and Afghanistan, die after they are hit by a train near Veles in Macedonia. Migrants use the railway to navigate through the country at night, reportedly the route through the Balkans now being considered safer than the voyage across the Mediterranean. (Novinite.com, 24 April 2015)

24 April: UN Human Rights Commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, who likened the comments made in Katie Hopkins’s column for the Sun to those made by the Nazis and Rwandan press before the 1994 genocide, calls on European countries to take a firmer line on racism and xenophobia in the press. (BBC News, 24 April 2015)

25 April: ‘Migrant lives matter’ protests are held on Ramsgate and Whitstable beaches and the London office of the EU, against its response to mass drownings in the Mediterranean. (Stand up to Racism and Fascism)

25 April: A guard is suspended following an alleged ‘revenge’ assault on two women inside Yarl’s Wood, in what is the latest in a series of incidents at the Bedfordshire immigration removal centre. (Guardian, 25 April 2015)

26 April: Detainees at Dungavel immigration removal centre are being paid just £1 an hour to do back-breaking work, it is revealed. A total of 52,858 hours were worked between October 2012 and October 2013,  at a cost of £52,858 to private firm GEO rather than around £280,000  had it been paying the minimum wage of £6.50 an hour to over-21s. (Daily Record, 26 April 2015)

27 April: A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Home Office reveals that while there were 39 incidents of detainees self-harming at Brook House immigration removal centre in 2010, there were 64 such incidents in 2014. (Crawley News, 27 April 2015)

28 April: As an EU Foreign Affairs representative goes to the UN to seek a mandate for military strikes against people-smugglers’ boats (Migrants at Sea, 29 April 2015), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon condemns the proposal. (Financial Times, 30 April 2015)

30 April: A custody officer at Yarl’s Wood IRC is suspended after leaving a woman with bruising after detainees were forcibly dispersed for attempting to stop a woman’s deportation. (Bedford Today, 30 April 2015)

5 May: A nightclub owner in Bavaria, Germany is condemned by refugee organisations for banning entry to all ‘refugees’. The Bavarian Refugee Council spokesperson, Matthias Weinzierl, said, ‘You can’t recognise [asylum seekers] by their clothes, you can only recognise them by the colour of their skin, and that’s simple racism.’ (The Local, 5 May 2015)

7 May: Two Syrian asylum seekers who were jailed for arriving in the UK without passports in 2013, successfully appeal against their convictions after it emerged they were wrongly advised to plead guilty. (BBC News, 7 May 2015)

8 May: The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) calls for a review into the practice of indefinite detention at Dungavel immigration removal centre. (Scottish Legal News, 8 May 2015)

11 May: Home secretary Theresa May says that the UK government refuses to take part in an EU quota system to relocate asylum seekers who make it across the Mediterranean or to resettle refugees from outside Europe. (Guardian, 11 May 2015)

12 May: In Padua, the Northern League launches a petition against a woman who had allowed six migrants to live in a property she was renting free of charge. Three thousand people immediately sign the petition with NL mayor Massimo Bitonci commenting that ‘there is no guarantee that they are not terrorists’ and that the ‘hosting of illegal immigrants in private homes is the wrong choice’. (The Local, 12 May 2015)

18 May: Migrants who have permission to be in the UK are avoiding seeking vital medical treatment for fear of being arrested, Doctors of the World warns. (Independent, 18 May 2015)

18 May: EU defence and foreign ministers agree a military mission to destroy boats used by people smugglers in the Mediterranean, which ECRE says will cause more deaths: ‘the solution to smuggling is to create safe legal channels for migration’. Italian coastguard urge the EU to focus on search and rescue. (Guardian, 18 May 2015)

18 May: Prosecutors in Hanover, Germany investigate a police officer for the abuse of at least two refugees from Afghanistan and Morocco, choking one refugee and dragging him with his feet shackled across his cell, and force-feeding the other man rotten pork. The police officer sent messages to friends bragging of the abuse. (The Local, 18 May 2015)

19 May: Failings at Morton Hall immigration removal centre may have played a part in Rubel Ahmed’s death in 2014, an inquest jury finds. (Lincolnshire Echo, 19 May 2015)

19 May: No Borders migrant solidarity protesters perform a bodybag die-in at the exit gates of the Eurostar in London St Pancras station, to highlight the deaths of 20,000 refugees. (Guardian, 19 May 2015)

20 May: Hundreds of people from across the country sign up to take part in a demonstration organised by Women for Refugee Women on 6 June, calling for an end to detention at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.  (Bedford Today, 20 May 2015)

20 May: Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzi accuses the rest of Europe of trying to ignore the Mediterranean migrant crisis, after several states rule out quotas for taking in asylum seekers. (BBC News, 20 May 2015)

21 May: David Cameron announces that the Immigration Bill in next week’s Queen’s Speech will include proposals to confiscate the wages of undocumented workers and create a new criminal offence of ‘illegal working’. (Independent, 21 May 2015)

27 May: A HMIP report on Tinsley House immigration removal centre says that escort arrangements for families are ‘unacceptable’. (Children & Young People Now, 27 May 2015)

27 May: The European Commission presents proposals for the distribution of 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum seekers among member states over two years. The UK is among the states who object. (ECRE Weekly Bulletin 29 May 2015)

30 May: Around 400 protesters demonstrate at Dungavel immigration removal centre for an end to the detention of immigrants. (BBC News, 30 May 2015)

31 May: Asylum seekers in Scotland say they have been abandoned by private property firm Orchard & Shipman, paid £60 million to house them, with complaints including no proper heating and a front door not fixed for two weeks after it was broken in a burglary. (Daily Record, 31 May 2015)

June 2015: Statewatch publishes a briefing: Coercive measures or expulsion: fingerprinting migrants. Download the briefing here (pdf file, 306kb)

2 June: An early day motion is put forward suggesting the government explores ‘alternatives to detention with a view to achieving the closure of Dungavel House and other immigration removal centres’. (See the EDM here.)

3 June: Legal aid cuts in immigration cases have created a climate of confusion and mistrust in detention centres, according to research by Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. (Law Society Gazette, 3 June 2015)

4 June: 68 people, including two pregnant women and fifteen children, are detained by the Border Force after being found in four lorries at the port of Harwich. Four Polish men are arrested. Fifteen of the stowaways were deported within days. (BBC News, 6, 8 June 2015)

6 June: The largest protest staged against Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre takes place, with campaigners denouncing it as an ‘abomination’ that should be closed immediately. (Guardian, 6 June 2015)

6 June: A 400-strong group of protesters rally outside Dungavel immigration removal centre calling for an end to the detention of immigrants. (Daily Record, 6 June 2015)

9 June: Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre is holding vulnerable women for too long in conditions that are causing them serious distress and are not suitable for those with mental health problems, according to an Independent Monitoring Board report. (Guardian, 9 June 2015)

9 June: An early day motion is published on ‘Refugees crossing the Mediterranean and Mare Nostrum’. See the EDM here.

9 June: Four men deny involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle 35 people into the UK, which resulted in the death of 40-year-old Meet Singh Kapoor, an Afghan Sikh, who was found dead when the lorry was opened in Tilbury Docks in August 2014.  (Guardian, 9 June 2015)

10 June: The European parliament passes a resolution calling on the European Commission to assess the situation in Hungary and to report back to parliament and the Council by September 2015. Prime Minister Orban’s recent statements regarding the reintroduction of the death penalty and the ‘highly misleading, biased and unbalanced nature of the recent National Consultation on Migration’ were cited as causes of concern. Posters have gone up across Hungary telling refugees to respect Hungarian culture, follow the laws and not take jobs away from nationals. (European Parliament News, 10 June 2015)

12 June: The detained fast-track appeals system, under which thousands of asylum seekers are locked up each year, is declared unlawful by the high court but allowed to continue so as to give the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary the opportunity to appeal against the decision. (Guardian, 12 June 2015)

12 June: In Newcastle, an Albanian man with a brain tumour who was arrested on 4 June in an intensive care ward, on suspicion of an immigration offence, and according to his lawyer taken to a police cell still wearing hospital gown and slippers, is returned to hospital. (North East Chronicle, 12 June 2015)

12 June: The Italian government’s dispersal programme for the Mediterranean boat people leads to an angry reaction from mayors in northern Italy. Northern League Veneto mayor Lucaz Zaia told a rally that the sight of  African migrants would have a ‘devastating effect’ on the tourism industry, and called on  officials across his region to begin clearing all reception centres and other housing occupied by migrants near tourist areas. (Observer, 13 June 2015)

13 June: Friends of Majid Ali, a Pakistani student in Scotland seeking asylum who was deported on 9 June, fear he may have been killed. (Global Voices Online, 13 June 2015)

13 June: Human rights organisations are increasingly concerned at what they believe are secret deals being drawn up between Eritrea and European Union nations, which may involve the regime being given money or having sanctions lifted in return for imposing tougher border controls. (Guardian, 13 June 2015)

15 June: A 28-year-old South African man takes his own life in a detention centre in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He was detained, awaiting deportation to France, under the Dublin Regulation. (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, 15 June 2015)

15 June: Potentially damaging reports into the running of Harmondsworth and Colnsbrook immigration removal centres, requested by Corporate Watch, must be released by the Home Office within weeks, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) says. (Guardian, 15 June 2015)

15 June: A dossier detailing allegations of sexual abuse and mistreatment at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre is published. (Guardian, 15 June 2015)

17 June: The Hungarian government orders the closure of its border with Serbia and the construction of a four-metre-high fence along the 175 km frontier. (Guardian, 17 June 2015)

18 June: War, violence and persecution left one in every 122 humans on the planet a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum at the end of last year, according to a UN report that warns the world is failing the victims of an ‘age of unprecedented mass displacement’.

18 June: The body of a 24-year-old man is found on the roof of a building in Richmond, west London after apparently falling from a plane arriving from South Africa; while another 24-year-old man is found in the undercarriage of the plane and taken to hospital where he remains in a critical condition. (Guardian, 22 June 2015)

20 June: To mark International Refugee Day, UNITED for Intercultural Action publishes an updated List of deaths of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants due to the restrictive policies of Fortress Europe, a new website and an interactive map.

21 June: Immigration officers carrying out an immigration raid in Walworth, south London, are met with fierce resistance from campaigners and local people who stop a Home Office van leaving the area until police reinforcements arrive. (Rabble, 21 June 2015)

23 June: Hungary’s far-right government, which is building a 13-foot fence on its southern border to stop refugees entering from Serbia, announces it will not accept the return of asylum seekers under the Dublin regulation (under which EU member states return asylum seekers to the first EU country they entered). After the EU summit, on 29 June, it retracts the threat. (Telegraph, 30 June 2015)

23 June: Proposals to detain and expel more undocumented migrants contained in France’s new immigration law are condemned by the Immigration Detention Observatory. These measures traduce the government’s assurances of ‘strict respect for the rights of those forced onto paths of exile’, it argues, contributing to the further  growth of  immigration detention already running at  50,000 people annually (in metropolitan France and its overseas territories). (OEE, 23 June 2015)

24 June: The Supreme Court hears that pupils denied a university place due to their immigration status ‘should get loans’ and that providing these loans would benefit the whole of society. (Guardian, 24 June 2015)

24 June: Two foreign national prisoners facing deportation win appeals against Home Office rules to remove them from the UK as quickly as possible, arguing the out-of-country appeals violate their human rights on several grounds. (Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 24 June 2015)

24 June: The case of an Indian woman, Rhada Patel, who was awarded £125,000 for being harassed by immigration officers at Heathrow, is to be reheard by the Court of Appeal after three judges overturn the award.(Asian Image, 24 June 2015)

24 June: UK doctors should refuse to check the immigration status of patients who come to them seeking healthcare, the British Medical Association (BMA) says, after delegates at the BMA’s annual representative meeting in Liverpool pass a motion stating, ‘NHS staff do not have any role in policing immigration.’ (British Medical Journal (subscription only), 24 June 2015)

26 June: The EU Council fails to agree a mandatory resettlement package for Mediterranean ‘boat people’, with the UK opting out and Brussels agreeing to exempt Hungary and Bulgaria from the scheme, as the Council’s focus on prevention of travel and speedy returns attracts criticism. (Budapest Beacon 26 June 2015; ECRE Press release 30 June 2015)

26 June: The Court of Appeal orders the home secretary, Theresa May, to suspend the fast-track immigration appeals system under which thousands are locked up each year. (Guardian, 26 June 2015)

30 June: British guidance that Eritrea is a safe country for asylum seekers to return to after leaving ‘illegally’ is ‘marred by serious methodological concerns’, a government-appointed watchdog says in a scathing report that comes as record numbers of Eritreans flee their country. (Guardian, 30 June 2015)

1 July: John Grayson examines the increased use of tagging for asylum seekers recently bailed from removal centres such as Yarl’s Wood. (Open Democracy, 1 July 2015)

2 July: The inquest commences into the death of 55-year-old Karlis Pavasars, a Latvian migrant worker who died after being caught in an industrial shredder at Mid UK Recycling in July 2013. (Lincolnshire Echo, 1 July 2015)

2 July: 100 asylum seekers are set to be released from detention and a further 800 to have their cases reviewed after the fast-track system was ruled unlawful and suspended. (Guardian, 2 July 2015)

3 July: Hundreds of torture survivors may sue the government for unlawful detention after a landmark test case in the High Court. The Home Office conceded that it acted unlawfully by failing to identify vulnerable asylum seekers not ‘suitable’ for the Detained Fast Track system, and so failed to use a rule that should prevent survivors of torture and other vulnerable asylum seekers from being locked up. (Guardian, 3 July 2015)

3 July: Every group in the Catalonian Parliament, except for Citizens and the Popular Party, votes in favour of a resolution calling for the closure of immigration detention centres as soon as possible. (Diagonal periódico, 3 July 2015)

6 July: Paddy Power will be asked to respond to complaints made to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) about a campaign which involved sending a truck to Calais with the slogan: ‘Immigrants, jump in the back! (But only if you’re good at sport)’. (Marketing Magazine, 6 July 2015)

7 July: A migrant is found dead in the Channel Tunnel after an apparent attempt to get to the UK. (Independent, 7 July 2015)

7 July: A report by the UK’s Chief Inspector of Prisons highlights concerns about the detention of vulnerable asylum seekers at Dungavel immigration removal centre (IRC) in Lanarkshire. (BBC News, 7 July 2015)

7 July: Two former interpreters who worked for UK forces in Afghanistan lose a High Court case against the government for alleged discrimination. The men argued they should be given the same rights as Iraqi interpreters, who were allowed to settle in Britain. (BBC News, 7 July 2015)

7 July: The European Court of Human Rights rules that Belgium was guilty of inhuman treatment of asylum seeking families by evicting them from accommodation centres and leaving them in extreme poverty. (ECtHR, 7 July 2015)

13 July: Three people originally from Afghanistan and Pakistan experience burns from electric shocks – with one person left seriously injured – while attempting to enter the Channel Tunnel entrance near Calais. (RFI, 14 July 2015)

15 July: Staff at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre who confiscated a legal self-help guide on resisting deportation are ordered by the Home Office to return copies to detainees. (Guardian, 15 July 2015)

15 July: A spokesman for the Czech interior ministry says that the government will oppose the reallocation of migrants within the EU unless it can have a say in selecting those refugees ‘from countries in which we will be able to send our own people’. (Prague Daily Monitor, 15 July 2015)

17 July: HM Inspectorate of Prisons and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary publishes a joint inspection: Report on an announced inspection of Border Force customs custody suites in England and Scotland, 2 – 13 February 2015. Download it here.

17 July: Thousands of asylum seekers with children will have to live on £73.90 a week from August as a result of cuts of up to 30 per cent in their support payments, the Home Office announces, with ministers claiming that families with children in particular receive ‘significantly more cash than is necessary’. (Guardian, 17 July 2015)

17 July: A Doctors Without Borders rescue boat carrying around 700 migrants is prevented from landing in Sicily, with the Italian authorities citing a ‘lack of capacity in the Italian (migrant) reception system’, and is forced to continue travelling to the southern tip of Italy. (The Local, 18 July 2015)

20 July: Home secretary Theresa May failed to protect three suspected victims of trafficking who were locked up in an immigration detention centre, a high court judge rules. (Guardian, 20 July 2015)

22 July: Immigration officers conducting a raid in east London have the tyres of their van slashed and are pelted with eggs. (Wharf, 27 July 2015)

23 July: The Children’s Society finds that the removal of legal aid for most immigration cases means that thousands of children, including those in local authority care, are at risk of being sexually abused or exploited because their immigration status cannot be resolved. (Family Law Week, 23 July 2015)

24 July: The body of a teenage migrant is discovered on a train at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Folkestone. (Kent News, 24 July 2015)

24 July: The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee publishes a report: The work of the Immigration Directorates: Calais: Government Response to the Committee’s Eighteenth Report of Session 2014–15. Download it here (pdf file, 380kb)

24 July: The government’s system for monitoring companies it pays to run migrant detention centres is called into question after a year-long Freedom of Information battle wins disclosure of confidential ‘self-audits’. The documents reveal how contractors are paid according to their own monthly performance reports. (Corporate Watch, 24 July 2015)

24 July: The House of Lords European Union Committee publishes: The United Kingdom opt-in to the proposed Council Decision on the relocation of migrants within the EU. Download it here (pdf file, 239kb)

27 July: The Home Office announces it will cease funding Refugee Action’s voluntary returns programme ‘Choices’ at the end of 2015, and will directly deliver a service by itself and curtail its scope so that non-vulnerable irregular migrants will no longer be eligible. (Read a briefing by Refugee Action here)

28 July: One of four men accused of attempting to smuggle thirty-five immigrants into the UK in a shipping container last year, in which one man, Meet Singh Kapoor, died, is found not guilty. One of the men has already been found guilty, and the jury has yet to decide on two other men. (BBC News, 28 July 2015)

28 July: Phil Miller of Corporate Watch reports on the deportation of men with strong family ties to the UK via ‘ghost flights’, leaving pregnant partners and young children behind. (Open Democracy, 28 July 2015)

28 July: A Sudanese man dies as he tries to enter the Channel Tunnel in Calais. According to the French police, he was ‘probably crushed by a truck’. (BBC News, 29 July 2015)

29 July: Government hopes of quickly restarting the detention of asylum seekers under its fast-track process are dealt a serious blow by the loss of a court of appeal challenge brought by the justice secretary, Michael Gove. (Guardian, 29 July 2015)

30 July: Kent County Council calls on the Home Office for help after revealing it faces a £5.5 million funding shortfall as a result of the increasing numbers of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. (Children & Young People Now, 31 July 2015)

30 July: Work begins on high-security fencing supplied by the UK government around train platforms near terminals in Calais to stop asylum seekers attempting to reach the UK. (BBC News, 31 July 2015)

2 August: The Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) is given permission to challenge a procedure rule which allows tribunals to withhold material from appellants. ILPA claims the rule is ultra viresand incompatible with the rule of law. (Law Gazette, 2 August 2015)

2 August: In a local referendum, the residents of Gabčíkovo, south of Bratislava, Slovakia, overwhelmingly reject an Austrian plan to outsource the accommodation of asylum seekers to a former university building in the town while their claims are processed in Austria. The vote is not binding on the government. (Asylum Information Database, 3 August 2015)

2 August: A rally in Folkestone, to show support for migrants in Calais, is attacked and disrupted by the EDL and Britain First. (Morning Star, 3 August 2015)

4 August: An official consultation paper released by the Home Office proposes that, as of 1 July 2016, refused asylum seekers and their families will be denied financial support. (Guardian, 4 August 2015)

4 August: The new Immigration Bill contains further proposals to punish landlords who fail to check the immigration status of tenants, on top of measures in the 2014 Immigration Act. Landlords face fines, up to five years in prison or further sanctions under the Proceeds of Crime Act. (Guardian, 4 August 2015)

7 August: An unnamed 30-year-old man from Uganda is found dead at the Verne Immigration removal centre on Portland, Dorset. (Dorset Echo, 7 August 2015)

8 August: Hundreds of campaigners hold a ‘Shut down Yarl’s Wood’ demonstration outside the removal centre in Bedford. (Right to Remain, 11 August 2015)

8 August: Freedom of Information Requests made by The Economist reveal that a recent pilot scheme in the Midlands to make landlords check the immigration status of tenants has only issued seven landlords with notices and that it had probably encouraged discrimination as properties were more likely to be made available to Britons rather than non-Britons. (Economist, 8 August 2015)

11 August: HM Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of The Verne Immigration Removal Centre, 2 – 13 March 2015. Download it here.

12 August: Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre is branded a ‘national concern’ in an HMIP inspection report which emphasised that women are being detained in contravention of government policy. Download the report here. (Western Daily Express, 12 August 2015)

16 August: Figures obtained by the Express & Star show Haringey and Croydon councils have been using companies to house asylum seekers in the West Midlands, rather than finding accommodation in the capital. (Express and Star, 16 August 2015)

16 August: The Herald reports that asylum seekers in Scotland will have to wait even longer to have their cases heard as the number of cases being heard at Scotland’s only immigration court has been reduced. (Herald Scotland, 16 August 2015)

18 August: UK Visas and Immigration publishes guidance on: ‘Handling complaints in immigration removal centres’. Download it here.

24 August: Sudanese man Abdul Rahman Haroun appears in Canterbury Crown Court, charged under the Malicious Damages Act 1861, having been arrested on 4 August after walking the length of Eurotunnel to the UK and being arrested. (Guardian, 24 August 2015)

25 August: It is revealed that the government’s new Immigration Bill will include powers to remove the trading licences of late-night takeaways, pubs and off-licences which employ undocumented workers, as well as making it easier to prosecute owners and managers. (Guardian, 25 August 2015)

25 August: Many people are removed from a charter deportation flight to Afghanistan after days of legal challenges. An earlier ruling found that it was only safe to return to three provinces – Kabul, Bamiyan and Panjshir, and too dangerous to return asylum seekers to all other parts of Afghanistan. (Guardian, 26 August 2015)

27 August: Women detained at the Serco-run Yarl’s Wood removal centre in Bedford speak to the Bedford Times and Citizen about the conditions and lack of healthcare at the centre. (Bedford Times and Citizen, 27 August 2015)

27 August: Human rights organisations have criticised new guidance on Eritrea after the number of Eritrean’s granted refugee status falls; the group has serious concerns about the guidance report which is based on one commissioned for the Danish government. (Guardian, 27 August 2015)

28 August: Hornsey and Wood Green MP, Catherine West, writes to the home secretary to complain after she is refused permission by the Ministry of Justice to visit Yarl’s’ Wood immigration removal centre. (Ham & High, 28 August 2015)

28 August: The Children’s Society publishes Not just a temporary fix: The search for durable solutions for separated migrant children. Download the report here.

30 August: Campaigners travelling back from Calais after providing assistance to refugees are stopped in Dover, questioned and allegedly threatened by border officials. (RS21, 30 August 2015)

31 August: 20,000 people protest outside Westbanhof train station in Vienna after 71 refugees were found suffocated to death in an abandoned truck. (The Local, 31 August 2015)

2 September: Czech authorities pull around 200 refugees trying to reach Germany off a train in southern Moravia and mark them with numbers on their forearms before taking them to detention centres where a spokesperson said they will interrogate them and ‘then they will decide what to do with them’. (Britské Listy, 3 September 2015)

2 September: After the bodies of 71 refugees are discovered in the back of a lorry on an Austrian motorway between Neusiedl and Parndorf, a Hungarian government spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, tells state television, ‘the migrants brought the tragedy on themselves’. (Guardian, 2 September 2015)

2 September: It is reported that a man who survived a journey stowed away in the undercarriage of a plane, from Johannesburg to Heathrow, has been released from hospital and detained at Harmondsworth. The police have reported that two men were travelling together when one of them fell to his death as the plane approached Heathrow. (BBC News, 27 August 2015; 2 September 2015)

3 September: The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants finds that a trial in the Midlands to make landlords check the immigration status of prospective tenants has resulted in ‘increased racial profiling’. (BBC News, 3 September 2015)

4 September: Croydon Council threatens the Home Office with legal action after losing £4million from its budget to deal with young asylum seekers. (Croydon Advertiser, 4 September 2015)

4 September: One person is seriously injured attempting to escape a fire at an accommodation centre for asylum seekers in Hippenheim, Hesse, in Germany. The police are unable to confirm or rule out the possibility of an arson attack, of which there have been a spate in recent weeks. (Die Welt, 4 September 2015)

8 September: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of the short-term holding facility at Heathrow Airport Terminal 3. Download the report here.

8 September: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of the short-term holding facility at Heathrow Airport Terminal 4. Download the report here.

8 September: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of the short-term holding facility at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. Download the report here.

8 September: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes a Report on an unannounced inspection of the short-term holding facility at London City Airport. Download the report here.

9 September: The Children’s Commissioner finds that at last 15,000 children have been separated from a parent because of income rules which affect some non-EU migrants. (BBC News, 9 September 2015)

9 September: The Children’s Commissioner publishes a report Family Friendly? The impact on children of the Family Migration Rules: A review of the financial requirements. Download the report here.

10 September: Two Swedes launch a charity, Refugee Air, to enable refugees to board planes and claim asylum which current sanctions on carriers make it impossible to do. (Guardian, 10 September 2015)

12 September: Thousands march across the UK in demonstrations and rallies in support of refugees and asylum seekers. (Right to Remain and Independent, 12, 13 September 2105)

14 September: Theresa May loses two asylum cases at the High Court. In one, compensation is awarded for unlawful detention and in the other the High Court orders that a woman who was deported should be allowed to return to the UK to attend an appeal hearing. (Guardian, 14 September 2015)

15 September: A recently published government document, ‘Syrian refugees: what you can do to help’, advises members of the public to contact Naccom, a charity which says the government was not in touch with them before the guidance was published and nor do they have the infrastructure to cope. (Guardian, 15 September 2015)

15 September: As Hungary’s emergency law suspending fundamental rights to deal with what President Orban calls the ‘Muslim invasion’ comes into effect, hundreds of Hungarian lawyers sign a statement describing the law as unlawful and unjust, and calling on judges and prosecutors to keep their oath by referring cases to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. (Hungarian Spectrum, 15 September 2015)

16 September: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman publishes its Investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman [Christine Case] in March 2014 at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. Download the report here (pdf file, 113kb).

17 September: Atterbell Maplanka, a Zimbabwean father of four, is released from Colnbrook immigration removal centre, having been held for nine days after immigration officers refused to believe his passport was his (Maplanka had lost weight since the photo was taken). (The Argus, 19 September 2015)

19 September: 22-year-old Husham Alzubair, a Sudanese migrant, is buried in Birmingham by his brother three weeks after dying  at Calais whilst attempting to reach the UK. (Birmingham Daily Mail, 19 September 2015)

21 September: Police use CS spray on Syrian refugees in Calais, causing many to fall to the ground, with one man appearing to lose consciousness. (Guardian, 22 September 2015)

22 September: A former detention custody officer, Mark Blake, is sentenced to 15 months imprisonment suspended for two years, plus 100 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to misconduct in a public office for selling stories about the immigration removal centre he worked in. (Press Gazette, 22 September 2015)

24 September: A young man, believed to be of African origin, is knocked over and killed by a freight train in Calais. (Guardian, 24 September 2015)

24 September: Beyond Borders Tyneside protest at a Home Office regional centre in Newcastle following dawn raids on families in the area. (Chronicle Live, 24 September 2015)

26 September: A young Eritrean man is picked up from the street in Calais by a group of racists who take him 20 km away, beat, pepper spray and rob him. (Calais Migrant Solidarity, 27 September 2015)

26 September: A 27-year-old woman and mother of three from the Philippines falls to her death from the fifth floor of an apartment complex in Nicosia (Cyprus), in an attempt to flee police immigration checks. (In-Cyprus, 26 September 2015)

29 September: A 20-year-old Iraqi man is crushed to death by pallets in a lorry he had stowed away in with two family members at Calais. (Guardian, 29 September 2015)

29 September: Dozens of Nigerian care workers face deportation by charter flight after being arrested in simultaneous immigration raids on 7 and 8 September across London, with 34 people being arrested, many of whom who worked for the Mears Group which provides care for the elderly and disabled. (Guardian, 28 September 2015)

30 September: An Eritrean man in his 20s is run over and killed by a freight train at the Channel Tunnel. (Guardian, 30 September 2015)

30 September: Louise Graham, British Airways cabin crew on the flight on which Jimmy Mubenga died during a deportation in October 2014, begins a civil action against G4S for the mental breakdown she suffered, allegedly as a result of the violence she witnessed. (Guardian, 30 September 2015)

2 October: A two-month study by researchers from the University of Birmingham, working with Doctors of the World, finds ‘diabolical’ conditions in the ‘Jungle’ camp at Calais. Cramped makeshift tents are plagued by rats, water sources contaminated by faeces and inhabitants are suffering from tuberculosis, scabies and post-traumatic stress. (Guardian, 2 October 2015)

6 October: The Home Office offers a formal apology and will pay compensation to a pregnant asylum seeker who was unlawfully arrested and detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre. (Guardian, 6 October 2015)

6 October: A senior EU legal adviser backs the UK government in a court battle with the European Commission over the UK’s ‘right to reside’ test for EU migrants, stating that unequal treatment is justified. (BBC News, 6 October 2015)

6 October: Home secretary Theresa May is strongly criticised by business and campaign groups after giving a speech saying ‘high’ migration makes a ‘cohesive society’ impossible. (Guardian, 6 October 2015)

7 October: Two Iranian men who walked through the Channel tunnel from Calais to reach Britain are remanded in custody after appearing in court charged with obstructing trains. (Guardian, 7 October 2015)

7 October: A marketing stunt by the bookmaker Paddy Power that mocked migrants in Calais will be censured by advertising watchdogs for causing offence ‘merely to attract attention’. (Guardian, 7 October 2015)

7 October: Secret proposals leaked to journalists indicate that Brussels will threaten to withdraw aid, trade deals and visa arrangements if countries such as Niger and Eritrea refuse to accept people who European states are attempting to deport. (Independent, 7 October 2015)

7 October: Leaked EU plans reveal proposals to deport thousands of failed asylum seekers by threatening countries refusing to take back their migrants with withdrawals of aid, trade deals and visa arrangements. The documents show that Frontex will be assisting in the deportations. (Independent, 7 October 2015)

9 October: The detention of a 42-year-old Sudanese woman is branded ‘unreasonable and truly disgraceful’ by a High Court judge. The woman, a torture survivor, was held at Yarl’s Wood removal centre for 37 days. (Independent, 9 October 2015)

11 October: It is reported that councils in the UK were sent draft guidance in advance of Theresa May’s speech on immigration to warn them not to provide Syrian asylum seekers with ‘luxury’ goods such as fridges, cookers, TVs or DVD players. (Observer, 11 October 2015)

12 October: An Afghani man, Vahid Vazirir, confirms that the Taliban has killed his 16-year-old brother in Afghanistan. The two brothers were deported, against humanitarian organisations’ advice, from Denmark earlier this year after living there for five years. Vahid is now in hiding in Iran. (The Local, 12 October 2015)

12 October: The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) warns that new proposals in the Immigration Bill requiring landlords to evict tenants without proof of regular immigration status could breach human rights laws. (Guardian, 12 October 2015)

12 October: The Law Gazette reveals that immigration appeal hearings are being delayed until next summer because of a high volume of cases. (Law Gazette, 12 October 2015)

12 October: Over 350 QCs, barristers, solicitors and law professors sign a statement calling for ‘an urgent, humane and effective governmental response to the refugee crisis’.

13 October: The Immigration Bill, which will cut asylum support, remove appeal rights and further criminalise and marginalise undocumented migrants, has its second reading in House of Commons. (BBC News 13 October 2015)

13 October: The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees publishes issue no.16 of its newsletter, Federation. Download it here (pdf file, 1,.9mb).

13 October: The Home Office wins a case at the Court of Appeal over the rights of appeal of foreign prisoners facing deportation from the UK; the court ruled that two men facing deportation would not have their human rights breached if they were to be deported before their appeal rights were exhausted. (Guardian, 13 October 2015)

14 October: A Syrian migrant in her early thirties dies after being run over by a car on the A16 motorway to Calais. Her death brings the total number of deaths of migrants attempting to cross to the UK from Calais since June of this year to sixteen. (La Voix du Nord, 15 October 2015)

14 October: New guidance issued by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services states that social workers should give asylum seeking children the ‘benefit of the doubt’ when assessing their age. (Children & Young People Now. 14 October 2015)

14 October: UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says Europe’s leaders have descended into ‘xenophobia’ over refugees, and compares language of ‘swarms’ with rebuff of Jews in 1938. (Guardian, 14 October 2015)

15 October: The Welsh Refugee Council and British Red Cross criticise plans to cut support for asylum seekers saying cuts could drive people into destitution. (BBC News, 15 October 2015)

15 October: A High Court judge quashes the decision to refuse a 45-year-old Asian woman a passport, criticising as ‘grotesque’ and ‘untenable’ the Home Office’s objections to her claim to British citizenship. (Asian Image, 15 October 2015)

15 October: The Home Office announces the closure of Dover immigration removal centre, Free Movement, 23 October 2015)

16 October: A ‘warning shot’ by a Bulgarian border guard kills an Afghani migrant aged between 20 and 30 in the city of Sredets, Bulgaria. He had entered the country with a group of 50 men who are all currently held in custody. (BBC, 16 October 2015)

16 October: On the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Frontex agency, around 300 people stage a protest at London St Pancras station to highlight the deaths of refugees and the politics of Fortress Europe. (Open Democracy, 19 October 2015)

16 October: Failed asylum seekers fear deportation on chartered private jets as it removes them from the public eye, making it impossible for anyone to witness possible violence against them. Deportations are highly contested due to both their alleged high costs, reaching £14 million in just 18 months, and the locations to which people are forcibly returned. (Guardian, 16 October 2015)

17 October: A 34-year-old Hungarian man is arrested without any charges during a peaceful protest. The Home Office is targeting the political activist as part of an operation designed to arrest and deport criminals from other parts of the EU living in the UK. Daniel Gardonyi has lived in the UK for 7 years and is now facing deportation threats from the Home Office. (Guardian, 17 October 2015)

18 October: 84 bishops release a private letter they wrote in September urging the prime minister to accept more refugees, accusing him of ignoring their offers of help to house and provide for up to 50,000 refugees. (Observer 18 October 2015)

19 October: The Hope Project publishes: Destitute and asylum-seeking women in the West Midlands: Immigration issues and charity support related to housing and subsidy. Download the report here (pdf file, 2.8mb).

20 October: At a Pegida rally in Germany, attended by tens of thousands of people, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon describes the movement as ‘the salvation of Europe’ and says ‘current immigration is an invasion’. (Independent, 20 October 2015)

21 October: Checks on the immigration status of tenants, which could lead to ‘potentially discriminatory behaviour’ according to the Government’s own review, will be rolled out nationally, ministers announce. (Independent, 21 October 2015)

20 October: An inquest records a verdict that 34-year-old Pinakin Patel, who was detained with his wife when they came with visas for a holiday, died of natural causes after suffering a heart attack at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in February 2015. The centre had not implemented a Home Office emergency strategy ordered after an earlier death. (Bedfordshire on Sunday, 20 October 2015)

21 October: Caroline Lucas MP tables an early day motion (EDM) on ‘Family reunification for refugees’. View the EDM here.

22 October:  The Swedish government, supported by the opposition, announces  tough new measures against asylum seekers on the day  that two people are stabbed to death in a racist attack at the Kronan School. (see below)

28 October: The National Audit Office announces an investigation into Yarl’s Wood removal centre.

28 October: Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner announces that Austria will build a fence along its border with Slovenia, in order to ensure an ‘orderly, controlled entry’ into the country. (The Local, 28 October 2015)

29 October: The inquest into the death of immigration detainee Alois Dvorzac in February 2013 records a highly critical verdict. The 84-year-old dementia sufferer died handcuffed in hospital after suffering a heart attack in Harmondsworth removal centre. Download the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report on the deathhere (pdf file, 160kb) (Open Democracy, 29 October 2015)

30 October: The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee publishes: The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q2 2015). Download the report here (pdf file, 683kb).

November: Right to Remain launches a crowdfunding appeal for a toolkit to ‘help people to understand and navigate the complex legal system, find support and solidarity, overcome the barriers to justice, fight for their rights and secure the right to remain’. Support the appeal here.

3 November: People detained on a British RAF base in Cyprus issue emotional appeals to be released and allowed to seek asylum. (Independent, 3 November 2015)

3 November: The Hungarian parliament votes to reject the EU refugee quota (Budapest Business Journal, 4 November 2015, cited by Statewatch)

4 November: Over 200 Roma migrants sleep outside Malmö town hall in protest over their eviction from a camp on the outskirts of the Swedish town. The local council has said that it will create a winter shelter with space for 40 of the most vulnerable people. (The Local, 4 November 2015) 

6 November: Two campaigners from the London2Calais group, who have been travelling to Calais to assist refugees, reveal that Kent police used anti-terrorism laws to detain and question them. (Independent, 6 November 2015)

6 November: The Court of Appeal rules that the Home Office acted unlawfully by detaining a 16-year-old Iranian asylum seeker; the ruling sets guidelines on the limits of power to detain children. (EIN, 6 November 2015)

9 November: EU interior ministers agree a package of coercive measures to ‘slow down and control’ refugee arrivals, including intensification of hotspots, accelerated procedures, detention and forced fingerprinting. (European Council, 9 November 2015)

9 November: The Law Centres Network publishes a report: Put yourself in our shoes: considering children’s best interests in the asylum system. Download the report here.

11 November: In eastern Slovakia, soldiers start work on a 1.8 metre-high barbed wire fence in the Veliki Obrež and Rigonce municipalities close to the border with Croatia. (Balkan Insight, 11 November 2015)

12 November: Increasing numbers of North Korean asylum seekers are being refused asylum in Britain, with 17 of 23 applications rejected in 2014, finds an investigation by the New Statesman. (New Statesman, 12 November 2015)

12 November: The Supreme Court refuses the government permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s July ruling that the Detained Fast Track asylum appeal process was ‘systemically unfair’. (Detention Action, 12 November 2015)

13 November: A 29-year-old Afghan asylum seeker dies after being hit by a train in Cherbourg, north west of France. His death is the twenty-first death in France on the border with Britain since the beginning of the year. (Passeurs d’hospitalités, 17 November 2015)

13 November: HM Inspectorate of Prisons publishes a report: People in prison: Immigration detainees: A findings paper. Download the report here.

14 November: In response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Polish European Affairs Minister states that Poland will only fulfil its quota of refugees under the European relocation plan if ‘we have security guarantees’. (Reuters, 14 November 2015)

14 November: A man dies in custody while awaiting removal at Dublin Airport, after being refused permission to enter. (Irish Times, 16 November 2015)

16 November: The Hungarian parliament passes a bill challenging the EU’s mandatory refugee relocation programme, a day after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told parliament that migrants will spread terrorism across Europe. After the Paris attacks, he stated that ‘Brussels cannot challenge the right of member states to defend themselves’. The prime minister of Slovakia made similar comments. (Reuters, 16 November 2015)

17 November: The organisation Independent Age warns that unless both migration policy and funding for adult social care are changed, the UK ‘could see a shortfall of 200,000 care workers’ by 2020. (Politics Home, 17 November 2015)

18 November: The Supreme Court dismisses an appeal against the rule requiring those seeking to join partners in the UK to be competent in English. (Guardian, 18 November 2015)

18 November: About 50 students walk out of classes at City and Islington College in solidarity with international students, migrants and refugees. (Islington Gazette, 19 November 2015)

19 November: The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration publishes a report: An Inspection of Settlement Casework, February – July 2015. Download the report here (pdf file, 554kb)

19 November: The bodies of two people believed to be migrants are found in a wooden crate at an industrial unit in Staffordshire; the crate entered the UK by ferry on 8 October. (Birmingham Mail, 19 November 2015)

19 November: The Nigerian Embassy in London claims that the Home Office is trying to deport an estimated 29,000 Nigerians in the UK illegally, with pressure being applied to the embassy to help remove sick people and those with immigration appeals outstanding. (Guardian, 19 November 2015)

19 November: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons publishes a report: Detainees under escort: Inspection of escort and removals to Nigeria and Ghana. Download the report here.

19 November: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons publishes a report: Detainees under escort: Inspection of escort and removals to Pakistan. Download the report here.

20 November: A Protestant community centre in Brandenburg, Germany, is subjected to an arson attack following a march held by the National Democratic Party of Germany under the slogan of ‘No to asylum, yes to Jüteborg’. The community centre offers services to migrants, including hosting weekly meetings. The attack comes after reports that insurance companies are increasingly likely to refuse to insure buildings that house migrants due to the high numbers of xenophobic attacks across Germany. (Migazin, 23 November 2015)

23 November: Thousands of migrants block a train line and some sew their mouths shut in protest after Macedonia begins building a barrier around its southern border with Greece. (Guardian, 23 November 2015)

25 November: Activists glue themselves to the gate of Colnbrook immigration removal centre in an attempt to stop a bus carrying people to be deported on a flight to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. (Guardian, 25 November 2015)

25 November: The Court of Appeal rules that the residence test rule for legal aid, which excludes all those recently arrived or in the UK unlawfully or outside the UK from legal aid, is lawful, reversing a High Court decision which said that all those affected by UK law should have access to the courts. (Free Movement, 26 November 2015)

26 November: Open Democracy publishes allegations that G4S housed a transgender asylum seeker in a shared room in a house in Sheffield with a man. G4S denies the allegations. (Open Democracy, 26 November 2015)

26 November: UK Visas and Immigration publishes ‘Data on UK Visas and Immigration asylum activities’. View the data here.

27 November: Italian MEP Barbara Spinelli tables a question to the European Commission on the compatibility of ‘hotspots’ with EU law, alleging illegal practices in Lampedusa deny refugees any real opportunity to claim asylum. (Statewatch, 8 December 2015)

28 November: Macedonian police fire stun grenades and tear gas at protestors when a Moroccan man who climbed on to a train at the border with Greece was electrocuted and badly burned, during protests at Macedonia’s policy of turning away everyone except Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis. (Al Jazeera, 28 November 2015)

29 November: Refugees sheltering in Malmö’s 2013 Eurovision venue beg to leave, describing the conditions as ‘inhuman’ and prison-like. A policeman from Stockholm sent to monitor the hall, where around 1,000 migrants have been accommodated, admits that he had trouble breathing, saying that the health services had withdrawn the two nurses there because of the bad conditions. (The Local, 29 November 2015)

30 November: Asylum seekers expelled by Norway to Russia are being sent back to Norway in violation of a bilateral agreement between the two countries. Norway last week announced that it would be sending asylum seekers with Russian residency permits back to Russia without processing their asylum requests. (The Local, 30 November 2015)

30 November: Turkish police arrest 1,300 refugees from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan near the border with Greece, the day after a summit where the government promised to curb the flow of refugees to Greece in exchange for financial aid from the EU. (Guardian, 30 November 2015)

1 December: The Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration publishes updated guidance on the ‘Right to rent immigration checks: landlords’ code of practice’. View the guidance here.

1 December: Over 20 MEPs table a question to the European Council about relocation of refugees from hotspots. Only 86 have been relocated from Italy so far, and 30 from Greece. (Statewatch, 8 December 2015)

2 December: Children & Young People Now reveals that despite a letter sent by the government to local councils asking them to take more asylum-seeking children in order to relieve the pressure on Kent County Council, only 42 children have been transferred from Kent. (Children and Young People Now, 2 December 2015)

2 December: An inquest is told how 22-year-old Sudanese man Husham Osman Alzubair died from head injuries after his body was found in the UK on a freight train which had come from France. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. (Birmingham Mail, 2 December 2015)

2 December: The Immigration Bill has its first reading in the House of Lords after passing its Commons stages. The second Lords reading is on 22 December. (Parliament website)

3 December: A man, believed to be Moroccan, dies in the Greek town of Idomeni, on the Greek-Macedonian border, during clashes with the police. The man is thought to have been electrocuted after accidentally touching overhead railway cables while trying to climb on top of a train carriage. (Independent, 3 December 2015)

3 December: The National Audit Office publishes a report: E-borders and successor programmes. Download it here.

3 December: In an Information Tribunal appeal by the Home Office against an Information Commissioner decision, it is revealed that companies running immigration removal centres face a £10,000 fine if an incident of deliberate self-harm by a detainee results in death. (Corporate Watch, 3 December 2015) 

3 December: The unprecedented decision by Theresa May to refuse British citizenship to the wife and children of a supporter of Osama bin Laden, in order to deter ‘potential extremists’, is ruled unlawful by the High Court. (Guardian, 3 December 2015)

7 December: Cameroonian man Charly Kouasseu is denied a visa to attend the funeral of his newborn son in the UK, because he was arrested nine years ago for travelling with false papers. (BBC News, 7 December 2015)

7 December: A Brussels court condemns Belgium’s federal agency for the reception of asylum seekers for turning away a 17-year-old Afghan refugee, leaving him homeless. (European Database on Asylum Law, 7 December 2015)

8 December: The Swedish government confirms plans to introduce regular ID checks on buses, trains and ferries at the start of the new year in order to ‘reduce the number of asylum seekers’. Sweden’s Council on Legislation criticises the proposed rules, likening them to ‘state of emergency laws’. The law is also criticised by the Swedish Red Cross which says the checks could ‘effectively prevent the exercise of the right to seek asylum’. (The Local, 9 December 2015 and Red Cross, 8 December 2015)

9 December: After Macedonia closes its border with Greece, stranding thousands of asylum seekers with no shelter, food or clean water, Greek police begin their evacuation by bus to Athens, where according to police people will be accommodated before being returned to their home countries. (Trust.org, 9 December 2015)

10 December: New guidelines by the Lord Advocate in Scotland state that refugees who break immigration rules to enter the Scotland should, as ‘far as possible’, be protected from prosecution. (STV, 10 December 2015)

10 December: The European Commission adopts infringement decisions against Greece, Croatia and Italy for their failure to ensure effective fingerprinting of asylum seekers, and sends formal notice to Hungary on the incompatibility of its new asylum legislation with EU law. (European Commission, 10 December 2015)

13 December: Denmark passes a law to confiscate jewellery and valuables with a value of over €300 from refugees, with the Justice and Immigration Minister, Sören Pind, stating that ‘the revenue … obtained can be used to meet the costs of the refugees’. (Daily Sabah, 13 December 2015)

14 December: Belgian minister Theo Francken is condemned by human rights group Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH) for sending letters to Afghans, including children, saying their asylum claims would not be accepted. (European Liberties Platform, 14 December 2015)

14 December: A legal challenge begins over the rights of children at Calais. The case involves four Syrian children seeking reunification with their families in the UK. (Guardian, 13 December 2015)

14 December: The leader of Croydon Council criticises the Home Office as ‘chaotic’ and ‘incompetent’ after Home Office officials admit to mistakenly offering money which is £1.3 million short of the funds required to look after unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the area. (Croydon Advertiser, 14 December 2015)

14 December: Two migrants’ rights activists are found not guilty of almost all charges against them at two separate French courts after they were charged with inciting riots and violence following protests in France. (Calais Migrant Solidarity, 14 December 2015)

15 December: The Northern Refugee Centre, which has helped refugees and asylum seekers for over thirty years, is facing closure as a result of a funding shortfall. (Independent, 15 December 2015)

VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

2 January: Swedish anti-racism campaigners stage a solidarity rally in central Stockholm after three arson attacks on mosques. (BBC News, 27 December 2014)

4 January: An elderly Ghanaian man living in West Belfast says he is leaving the area after his house is paint-bombed in what the police are treating as a hate crime. (Guardian, 4 January 2015)

6 January: BBC News reports on concern by the Chinese community that racism against their community isn’t being taken seriously enough. (BBC News, 6 January 2015)

7 January: Two men hand themselves in to Chelmsford police station following an incident in which a family was racially abused on a late-night train from London to Essex in December. (Essex Chronicle, 7 January 2015)

9 January: Four Jewish people (Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada) are killed in a kosher delicatessen in Paris after being taken hostage by Amedy Coulibaly, a gunman claiming to be acting on behalf of Isis. (Channel 4 News, 9 January 2015)

12 January: The French Council of the Muslim Faith reports that over fifty Islamophobic attacks have taken place around France in the week following the Charlie Hebdo killings. These attacks range from grenades thrown at mosques and arson attacks, to pigs heads left outside Muslim institutions. (Libération, 12 January 2015)

12 January: Eight Muslim-owned shops and restaurants in Birmingham are attacked using hammers and guns on the nights of 10 and and 12 January, in two separate incidents. The police say they are unsure of the motive for the attacks. (Independent, 15 January 2015)

13 January: Khaled Idris Bahray, an Eritrean asylum seeker, is found dead with a stab wound in Dresden, Germany. His body is found the morning after a 25,000-person strong anti-immigrant rally in Dresden, and three days after graffiti was found in their flat saying ‘We’ll get you all’. (Guardian, 15 January 2015)

14 January: A Chinese woman and her baby narrowly escape injury in an attempted petrol bombing during a spate of racist attacks in Belfast. (UTV, 14 January 2015)

14 January Mohamed El Makouli, a 47-year-old Moroccan man, dies after being stabbed seventeen times by his neighbour who broke into his home in the village of Beaucet, near Avignon, in the early hours of the morning, shouting ‘I am your god, I am your Islam’. (Independent, 16 January 2015)

15 January: A 26-year-old man in Hull is jailed for ten months after racially abusing two people and smashing up a car. (Hull Daily Mail, 15 January 2015)

15 January: A 25-year-old man is arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following a knife attack in Mold, North Wales in which he reportedly shouted ‘White power’, before attacking an Asian man and leaving him with ‘serious but not life-threatening injuries’. (Daily Post, 15 January 2015)

19 January: John Reid, who in 2010 was given a five-year custodial sentence for his part in the culpable homicide of Chinese takeaway delivery driver Simon San, in Edinburgh, is returned to prison after breaking the conditions of his early release. (Daily Record, 19 January 2015)

19 January:  Information gained from Freedom of Information requests reveals that there were 46 racially motivated assaults in schools in Glasgow last year, more than double the number than the previous year. (Glasgow Evening Times, 19 January 2015)

21 January: More than 200 residents attend an anti-racism demonstration in Mold, to show solidarity with Sarandev Bhambra, a man who was left with ‘serious life-changing injuries’ after being attacked by a man shouting ‘white power’. (News North Wales, 22 January 2015)

21 January: Ronnie Coulter, 46, is formally indicted for the 1998 murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar in Overtown, North Lanarkshire. (BBC News, 21 January 2015)

22 January: North Somerset Council reveals that of 157 letters of objection it has received about the proposed building of a local mosque, 97 per cent have been ignored after being considered to be racist. (Cheddar Valley Gazette, 22 January 2015)  

22 January: The 26-year old compatriot and roommate of Khaled Idris Bahray, an Eritrean asylum seeker found dead outside his asylum reception centre on 12 January in Dresden, has confessed to his murder, according to the police. (Taz.de, 23 January 2015)

26 January: Four teenagers plead guilty to the racially aggravated assault of a Jewish man in Gateshead. The teenagers chased the man, threw wood at him and surrounded him, before a friend intervened. Before the attack, one of the teenagers sent a text message saying he was going ‘Jew bashing’. (North East Chronicle, 26 January 2015)  

29 January: Richard Harris, 38, is given a five-year prison sentence for a racially motivated attack on an Asian man in Blackwood, Wales, the day after Lee Rigby’s funeral. Harris, a member of a ‘white pride’ group, almost severed the man’s ear during the attack. (Wales Online, 29 January 2015)

4 February: Dominic Bennett, 18, is sentenced to 45 months’ youth detention for a racist attack in Wrexham, during which he assaulted a Nigerian man with a broken bottle. By the time he was arrested shortly after the attack, Bennett was found with a swastika and the letters ‘SS’ freshly scratched into his own skin. (Wales Online, 4 February 2015)

5 February: The Community Security Trust announces that it has recorded 1,168 antisemitic incidents in 2014, 25 per cent more than in 2013 and the highest number it has ever recorded. (Guardian, 5 February 2015)

7 February: Two hundred police officers are deployed to protect refugees after reports that masked men brandishing burning torches and chanting racist slogans had gathered outside their accommodation in the west German city of Dortmund, North-Rhine Westphalia.  (Deutsche Welle, 7 February 2015)

10 February: Hundreds of people protest in Malmö and Stockholm following the release of a video showing a security guard violently restraining a nine-year-old Muslim boy in a train station in Malmö. The boy and his twelve-year-old friend, both asylum seekers awaiting the results of their applications, have now been reported missing. (Sveriges Radio, 11 February 2015)

14 February: Dan Uza, a Jewish man guarding a bat mitzvah party at the main synagogue on Krystalgade Copenhagen is gunned down by Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein. Hussein had just carried out a gun attack on  a cultural centre where the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks was discussing Islam and free speech, killing the  film director Finn Nørgaard in that attack. (Independent, 15 February 2015)

20 February: A woman’s hair is allegedly set on fire in a racist attack, ‘simply because she is not white’, according to a friend who witnessed what happened, at a McDonald’s restaurant in Kent. (Independent, 22 February 2015) 

23 February: Richard Barklie, 50, a director of an international human rights organisation and a former Royal Ulster Constabulary officer, admits he was present when a black French man was prevented from entering a train on the Paris underground amid racist chanting by Chelsea football fans earlier in the month, but denies that he was involved. (Independent, 23 January 2015) 

25 February: Four white teenagers in Liverpool are sentenced for a cumulative total of nearly twenty-five years for a racist attack in May last year. The teenagers beat a black family with a baseball bat, a stick and pieces of wood with nails protruding out in the attack, which left one family member with a nail embedded in his head. (Liverpool Echo, 25 February 2015)

25 February: Liam Perkins, a 21-year old man from Redditch, is jailed for two-and-a-half-years following a racially motivated attack on a taxi driver and for punching another man with a knuckle duster. (Redditch & Alcester Advertiser, 25 February 2015)

26 February: Gary Leid pleads guilty to the racially motivated attack and stabbing of Jie Yu at a restaurant in Edinburgh last October. Leid’s brother was also previously jailed for killing a Chinese takeaway driver. (Herald Scotland, 26 February 2015)

1 March: A study by academics from seven universities finds that the government’s rhetoric on immigration is alienating migrant communities and causing ‘new forms of racism’ to emerge across the country. (Independent, 1 March 2015)

9 March: The trial has begun of 44-year-old Lee Dent charged with the murder of 17-year-old Alex Peguero Sosa at a taxi rank in Plymouth in July 2014. The court is told that Sosa was stabbed in the neck with a bottle after taking exception to comments about his hair. (Guardian, 9 March 2015)

11 March: John Kavanagh, 31, is given an 11-year prison sentence for a ‘chilling’ racist attack on a black woman in Liverpool last year, during which he ‘slashed’ her face with a knife. (BBC News, 11 March 2015)

11 March: A former Indian restaurant in Oldham is set on fire and ‘EDL’ is spray-painted on the building. (Oldham Leader, 11 March 2015)

12 March: Andrew Jefferson, 52, is convicted of attempted murder, with sentencing deferred until 22 April. Jefferson stabbed shopkeeper Hilmi Uludag in the throat last October, in London, after shouting ‘you f*****g foreigners, coming to the UK to poison the British people’. (Independent, 12 March 2015)

21 March: 16-year-old Tyler Gane suffers serious injuries after he is slashed across the chest by an unknown assailant who asked his twin brother where they were from as they walked home from a party in Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire (Western Daily Press, 23 March 2015)

23 March: Lee Dent is found guilty of the racist murder of Plymouth FC youth footballer Alex Peguero Sosa in July last year. (North Devon Journal, 23 March 2015)

24 March: Two men, Gary Reid, 19, and James Hogg, 24, are sentenced to seven years and eight years and three months respectively, after admitting the attempted murder of Chinese takeaway owner, Jie Yu, in Edinburgh in October 2014. (Reid, who admitted his actions were racially motivated, is the brother of a man jailed for the murder of another Chinese takeaway owner in Edinburgh.) (BBC News, 24 March 2015)

25 March: Police investigate threatening messages sent to anti-Ukip protesters who recently forced the party leader, Nigel Farage, to flee his local pub. It is also reported that Britain First claims to have found the home addresses of some of the protesters and threatened to give them a ‘taste of their own medicine’. (Guardian, 25 March 2015)

29 March: Police launch an investigation after video footage emerges of a Sikh man being punched and kicked in Birmingham city centre as a crowd watches. (Birmingham Mail, 30 March 2015)

31 March: A 57-year-old woman is questioned by police after racially abusing and then attacking an elderly Polish couple on a bus in Belfast city centre. A Sinn Fein councillor who intervened was also attacked, as was the bus driver. (Belfast Telegraph, 1 April 2015)

31 March: 35-year-old Michael O’Leary is cleared of attempted murder but convicted of two counts of unlawful wounding and robbery after attacking shop worker, Samsul Islam, in Archway, whom he told ‘I’d love to kill a Muslim’. (Islington Gazette, 1 April 2015)

1 April: Stuart Morrison, 44, admits assaulting a 14-year-old boy and two teachers at a school in Aberdeen over a £10 debt. He was heard to say ’Somebody should do something about the Polish.’ (BBC News, 1 April 2015)

1 April: Mark Suthers, 47, is sentenced to two years in prison (suspended for two years) after racially abusing and then threatening to kill a Ghanaian nurse at a care home in Bridlington. (Hull Daily Mail, 1 April 2015)

8 April: Police in York are seeking a gang of five men who attacked a Spanish couple on holiday, the man suffered a broken jaw and chipped teeth and the woman was repeatedly pushed to the floor. (BBC News, 8 April 2015)

8 April: Police in Northern Ireland report that racially motivated crimes have increased 43 per cent in in eight months in the Belfast area. (BBC News, 8 April 2015)

9 April: Thomas Pigford, 24, is jailed for 16 months after admitting racially aggravated ABH after breaking the arm of Jasdeep Lall, a barman at a club in Southampton. (Daily Echo, 9 April 2015)

12 April: Four severed pigs’ heads are found on the doorstep of a community centre in Birmingham which is reportedly being used as a mosque. The incident comes a day after the windows of the building were smashed. (Birmingham Mail, 13 April 2015)

12 April: Two men are arrested in the Isle of Wight on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, after a 19-year-old man is stabbed in an attack described by the police as racially motivated. (Isle of Wight County Press, 13 April 2015)

13 April: The Polish consul in Northern Ireland warns that there has been a ‘massive’ increase in the number of attacks on people from Poland, suggesting there were up to 40 per cent more attacks over the last year. (UTV, 13 April 2015)

14 April: A college student is called a ‘n****r’ by a group of customers in a McDonald’s in Essex and later beaten unconscious in an attack which leaves him with teeth missing and injuries to his face and ear. (Epping Forest Guardian, 22 April 2015)

14 April: Fire breaks out at the Sultan Ahmet Mosque in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region. CCTV footage shows the arsonist entering the prayer hall, pouring gasoline on the carpet and setting it on fire. (Australian Muslim Times, 16 April 2015)

15 April: Figures obtained by the Press Association reveal that British Transport Police recorded a total of 1,468 allegations of racially or religiously aggravated offences in 2014 – a rise of more than 100 compared to the 1,364 in 2013 and a slightly larger jump from the 1,351 in 2012. (Scotsman, 15 April 2015)

16 April: Research from Kick It Out reveals that Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli has been sent more than 4,000 racist messages through social media this season. (Kick it Out, 16 April 2015)

24 April: Scores of people attend an anti-racism rally in Derry to protest against an attack on an Egyptian man in the city centre. (Derry Journal, 24 April 2015)

27 April: Police in Hounslow begin a survey on hate crime after figures show there were 367 racist and religious hate crimes recorded across the borough during the last year, with 29 cases of Islamophobia, 28 of homophobia and two anti-Semitic crimes. (Get West London, 27 April 2015)

27 April: A 22-year-old man in Stoke is given a nineteen-month prison sentence for threatening to murder a taxi driver with a five-inch knife. During the incident, in 2013, the man racially abused the driver, took his car keys and demanded his takings. (Stoke Sentinel, 27 April 2015) 

28 April: The president of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Ion Diaconu, condemns the ‘trivialisation of hate speech’ in France and the exclusion of the Roma minority from mainstream French society, stating that the Roma face violence from individuals and the police. (Liberation, 28 April 2015)

4 May: Police in Northern Ireland launch a review into how they tackle hate crimes after a surge in reported attacks on BAME communities, with figures indicating there are more than two incidents every day. The vast majority of racially-motivated hate crimes over the past twelve months took place in Belfast. (Belfast Live, 5 May 2015)

6 May: Four people are arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning to attack mosques and hotels accommodating asylum seekers. (Independent, 6 May 2015)

8 May: The Municipal Court of Budapest upholds the life sentences of three men for a racially-motivated killing spree in 2008-9 which left six Roma people – including a child – dead and five others seriously injured. A fourth man’s thirteen year sentence was also confirmed. (Hungary Today, 6 May 2015)

12 May: Two men from eastern Europe are badly hurt in a racist attack in Belfast. One man suffers facial injuries and the other is treated for a cut on his hand. (UTV, 12 May 2015)

14 May: A man in South Yorkshire is given a fourteen-month prison sentence for an incident last year during which he racially abused an elderly woman, saying she ‘shouldn’t be in this country’, and then assaulted her carer. (Star, 14 May 2015)

16 May: The municipality of Wattrelos in France will build a two-metre high wall along the border of the town of Mouscron in order to prevent Roma travellers from entering the town. (Radio Télévision Belge Francophone, 16 May 2015)

25 May: A man who racially abused and threatened to kill a shopkeeper in Skegness in 2014 whilst brandishing a knife, is given a twelve-month prison sentence. (Skegness Standard, 25 May 2015)

27 May: A sheltered housing complex in Kirkcaldy, occupied by around thirty Chinese households of whom most are elderly, is targeted for the second time in a week in an arson attack, with residents fearing the incidents may be racially motivated. (Courier, 27 May 2015)

7 June: Police investigate an attack after a group of women reportedly rip off a Muslim woman’s hijab as she is on her way to collect her children from a south London Islamic school, tearing chunks of hair out as they do so. (Independent, 7 June 2015)

11 June: CCTV images are released of a racist attack in a pub in Liverpool in May during which a cleaner, a black male, had his mop taken from him by two white men who beat him with it and punched and kicked him to the floor whilst racially abusing him. (Click Liverpool, 11 June 2015)

11 June: A 24-year-old man is remanded in custody after appearing court charged with causing religiously aggravated harassment alarm and distress after four pigs heads were left outside a community centre in Solihull on 12 April. (Birmingham Evening Mail, 11 June 2015)

18 June: Police appeal for witnesses to a racist attack in which two brothers suffered serious injuries. The attack at a pub during Chelsea FC’s victory parade resulted in a 40-year-old man suffering a triple jaw fracture after being punched and kicked in the head. His brother, who confronted the assailants, was also punched and kicked to the ground. (Evening Standard, 18 June 2015)

18 June: Residents of Inverbervie, Scotland contact their local newspaper after racist material is left around the town; this follows an earlier incident where stickers and a flag were also removed. The racist material promotes ’white racial loyalty without compromise’. (Mearns Leader, 18 June 2015)

21 June: The Anthony Walker Foundation highlights recent incidents of hate crime in the Liverpool area; in a racist attack, a man was assaulted with a hammer outside a takeaway, and in another a disabled man was forced to eat a maggot and excrement sandwich by two teenagers. (Liverpool Echo, 21 June 2015)

21 June: An unnamed 18-year-old Muslim man is racially abused and attacked as he leaves a mosque in Coventry. In the hours before the attack the mosque was targeted by people throwing stones and shouting racist abuse. (Coventry Telegraph, 22 June 2015)

25 June: Ahead of a far-right demonstration proposed in Golders Green, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor says far-right activists turn up at his home in the area, tell him that London will soon be ‘Jew-free’, perform a Nazi salute and hand him the message ‘Jew go home’. (Jewish Chronicle, 25 June 2015)

2 July: The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) publishes a report documenting a 23.5 per cent rise in Islamophobic attacks after the killings of the Charlie Hebdo staff and hostages in a Jewish grocery store in Paris. (CCIF, 2 July 2015)

3 July: A man who assaulted a taxi driver during a racially aggravated robbery in Liverpool last year is jailed for more than five years. The man was with two others who racially abused the taxi driver, punched him repeatedly and forced him to hand over £230 whilst he was ‘begging for mercy’. (Liverpool Echo, 3 July 2015)

7 July: A physically disabled deaf man is assaulted and subjected to racist abuse outside a supermarket in Bishop Auckland. (Daily Mirror, 15 July 2015)

17 July: Nearly 100 refugees are evacuated from Quinto di Treviso, Italy, after two days of protests that saw local residents and members of the far-right Casa Pound storm the refugees’ accommodation and set fire to their furniture and belongings in the street. A bus carrying 19 refugees to accommodation on the outskirts of Rome is also attacked with rocks and chairs by protesters including Casa Pound members, who form a roadblock to prevent it from entering the town. (The Local, 17 July 2015)

18 July: A 14-year-old boy is held on suspicion of racially-aggravated assault after a man is struck on the head with a metal bar in Wallasey. Around fifteen teenagers were reportedly throwing objects and racially abusing a family. (Liverpool Echo, 24 July 2015)

19 July: The mother of racist murder victim Anthony Walker speaks of her anguish after his killer applies to have his sentence cut. (Liverpool Echo, 19 July 2015)

22 July: A former policeman is among a group of Chelsea fans banned from football matches for five years for racially abusing and pushing a black commuter off a Paris Metro train earlier this year. (Voice, 22 July 2015)

23 July: Three men are convicted of carrying out a violent racist attack on a man from Dubai in Edinburgh last year during which they repeatedly punched and kicked the man to his head, attacked him with a baton and bottle, and left him with life-threatening injuries. (BBC News, 23 July 2015)

26 July: A white supremacist, Richard John Harris, who nearly severed an Asian man’s ear from his scalp in a racist attack following the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013, has an application to have his five-year prison sentence reduced rejected by judges. (Wales Online, 24 July 2015)

27 July: Rainer Wendt, head of the German Police Union, wants a ban on demonstrations within a kilometre of refugee accommodation centres, saying that ‘people who flee persecution have the right not to look into the faces of those throwing stones’. In Dresden, a mob attacked a refugee tent city with stones over the weekend, even attacking Red Cross workers. And a refugee family had to flee their apartment in Brandenburg an der Havel after it was set on fire. (The Local, 27 July 2015)

28 July: Andrew Jefferson, 53, is given a life sentence and ordered to serve a minimum of ten years for stabbing Hilmi Uludag – a worker at an off licence in London – in a racist attack in October last year which severed the nerves in his face and left him needing stitches on his throat. (Ham & High, 28 July 2015)

30 July: The Community Security Trust publish the Antisemitic Incidents Report, January–June 2015. Download the report here.

31 July: A trial date is set for December for John Keller, who faces charges of racially aggravated assault causing ABH following an attack on a disabled man waiting for a bus in Bishop Auckland in July. (Northern Echo, 1 August 2015)

1 August: A woman is hit over the head with a rod and racially abused by two white men in a racist attack in Wembley. (Brent & Kilburn Times, 7 August 2015)

6 August: Police issue photos and an appeal for witnesses after an elderly man was pushed over and racially abused while he was travelling on a train from Birmingham to Euston in May. (London24, 6 August 2015)

6 August: Pastor James McConnell appears in court charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network after making an anti-Islamic sermon between May 17 and 22. (Newtownabbey Today, 5 August 2015)

6 August: After being declared unfit to stand trial, pensioner Harvey Cole is placed under supervision after a jury find that he assaulted a taxi driver in a racially aggravated manner by attempting to strangle him as they drove to Cardiff. (He has a previous conviction for a similar offence.) (Wales Online, 6 August 2015)

7 August: Michael O’Leary, 36, loses an appeal against a sentence of eight years after admitting assault and wounding for attacking a shopkeeper saying he ‘wanted to kill a Muslim’. The judge ruled that the sentence was justified because of the serious and racial nature of the offences. (Ham & High, 7 August 2015)

8 August: Police figures show that over 2,500 racist attacks were recorded in 2014, with every part of the Black Country seeing an increase in incidents. (Express & Star, 8 August 2015)

8 August: A black teenager is left with permanent nerve damage to his face after he is racially abused and set upon in Greenwich by a group of white people armed with knives and bottles, one of whom smashes a bottle in his face. (Voice, 20 August 2015)

10 August: A 14-year-old boy who stabbed supply teacher Vincent Uzomah in Bradford in June, then bragged about the racially motivated attack on Facebook, is given an 11-year sentence, of which six could be served in custody. (BBC News, 10 August 2015)

12 August: A job centre manager is among six people given prison sentences for attacking members of a march in support of Palestine in Cardiff last year. The attackers shouted for the marchers to go ‘Go back to your own country’. (South Wales Evening Post, 12 August 2015)

12 August: A woman in a supermarket car park in High Wycombe is racially abused by three people, one of whom chokes her in a headlock and another spits in her face. (Get Bucks, 12 August 2015)

14 August: A Muslim nurse is viciously beaten in a racist daylight street attack by a group of teenagers who mock his beard. (Mirror, 19 August 2015)

15 August: In Sweden, two refugee centres are targeted for attempted arson on the same night. In Arboga, asylum seekers are evacuated from a centre after police receive a tip-off and flammable liquid is found nearby. Passers-by manage to extinguish a fire at an accommodation for twenty unaccompanied refugee children in Värnamo, the target of the second arson attack. (The Local, 15 August 2015)

16 August: A man suffering from schizophrenia turns himself in to the police after throwing a flammable liquid at the Muslim centre in the Nordvest district of Copenhagen while forty people, including children, were inside the building. Superficial damage is caused to the building and no one is hurt. (The Local, 17 August 2015)

16 August: An Asian man is racially abused and assaulted in Leicester whilst waiting at a bus stop with his family, in an unprovoked attack leaving him with a fractured rib. (ITV News, 24 August 2015)

17 August: Police in Northern Ireland are investigating the burning of flags and symbols on loyalist and nationalist bonfires. (BBC News, 17 August 2015)

18 August: Koren McCairn, 52, who racially abused, punched and tasered a shopkeeper in Kent in May, is given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years. (Kent Online, 18 August 2015)

20 August: An 81-year-old Muslim man, Mushin Ahmed, who sustained life-threatening injuries following an assault as he was on his way to prayers in Rotherham dies in hospital. (5 Pillars, 21 August 2015)

20 August: Two nurses are suspended for 18 months for offending staff and patients with racist, sexist and offensive behaviour at Prestwich Hospital. (Prestwich Guide, 20 August 2015)

20 August: Two Muslim men are shot by an air rifle, on two separate days in the same week, whilst attending a local mosque. Both men, one of whom is shot in the back of the head and the other in the neck, require hospital treatment. (Lancashire Telegraph, 20 August 2015)

27 August: The Police Service of Northern Ireland publishes its latest ‘Hate motivation statistics’. View and download them here.

29 August: Lancashire taxi driver Kamran Hussain needs 15 stitches in his left cheek after being racially abused and then attacked by two men in his taxi in Nelson. (Pendle Today, 3 September 2015)

1 September: A 17-year-old Asian boy suffers facial injuries after being racially abused by three teenagers who then launched an unprovoked attack on him as he walked down a Holyhead street. (Daily Post, 3 September 2015)

2 September: New research by Nottingham Trent University finds that inadequate training for police officers on hate crime leaves officers unprepared to deal with incidents. (Law Gazette, 2 September 2015)

5 September: Moshe Fuerst, 17, is left with serious injuries including a fractured skull after being attacked by a gang of four as he waited at a Manchester Metro station with three Orthodox Jewish friends. (Manchester Evening News, 9 September 2015)

7 September: The Metropolitan police state that racially motivated crime against Muslims in the London area has increased by 70 per cent in the last year. (Guardian, 7 September 2014)

11 September: Zack Davies, 26, is sentenced to serve a minimum of 14 years for the attempted murder of dentist Dr Sarandev Bhambra in Mold earlier this year in ‘revenge’ for the murder of Lee Rigby. (Wales Online, 11 September 2015)

16 September: A 19-year-old man is given a thirteen month prison sentence for a ‘vicious’racially aggravated assault in Northumberland in February which left two shopkeepers in need of hospital treatment. (Chronicle, 16 September 2015)

19 September: Two students from Asia suffer facial injuries and one suffers a broken jaw in a racially motivated attack near their halls of residence at Sunderland University. One of the students had only been in the country a few days. (Sunderland Echo, 17 September 2015)

19 September: Jamaican-born Annmarie Jones tells reporters how she feared she and her children were going to die after a racially motivated arson attack on her home in Stoke earlier this year. (Stoke Sentinel, 19 September 2015)

20 September: The offices of the left-wing Die Linke party are attacked in the Saxonian town of Freital in Germany, notorious for neo-Nazi activity. No injuries are reported. (The Local, 21 September 2015)

23 September: A woman in Hull says she is afraid to leave her house after being hit in the face with a baseball bat by a woman who had reportedly been sending her racist text messages. (Hull Daily Mail, 23 September 2015)

25 September: 19-year-old Liam Lyburd is sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of eight years after being found guilty of possessing various weapons with an intent to endanger life. (BBC News, 25 September 2015)

29 September: Two men are jailed after pleading guilty to racially aggravated charges after abusing, punching and kicking a restaurant worker as he used a cashpoint in Stoke on Trent. Aaron Dawkins is sentenced to 18 months and Christopher Jones to 18 weeks. (Stoke Sentinel, 29 September 2015)

5 October: A 29-year-old man, found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent and racially aggravated common assault after biting part of a security guard’s finger off in London in April, is given a 7-year prison sentence. (London 24, 8 October 2015)

6 October: A construction site in Dragør, south of Copenhagen, destined to become accommodation for 25 refugees, is damaged in an arson attack. Mayor of Dragør Eik Bidstrup states that the attack was politically motivated. (The Local, 6 October 2015)

9 October: Ryan Swindells is jailed for three years after pleading guilty to assault and affray after an unprovoked racist attack on two Iraqi-Kurdish men in Orford, Warrington. One of the victims suffered head injuries and a fractured collar bone after being kicked unconscious by Swindells and four others. Two others are also sentenced in connection with the attack.  (Warrington Guardian, 15 October 2015)

9 October: In the latest of many paramilitary attacks on refugees arriving at Europe’s borders, five armed commandos, wearing hoods and masks, without insignia, appear on a speedboat in international waters off the Greek islands of Lesbos and attack four dinghies carrying about 200 refugees, among them women and children. They smash the engines, forcing the boats to float adrift at sea for eight hours. (Huffington Post, 15 October 2015)

12 October: In the worst incident of violence in the Netherlands since the refugee crisis began, men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas, setting off fireworks and ripping down fences, attempt to storm a sports hall in the Woerden, near Utrecht. The sports hall temporarily housed some 150 refugees, including 51 children. No one is hurt in the incident and several local people help intercept and detain the gang. The Prime Minister condemns the incident, and later visits the centre. (Dutch News, 12 October 2015)

13 October: David Cameron announces changes to the recording of hate crimes; anti-Muslim hate crimes are to be recorded separately and should be treated as seriously as anti-Semitic crimes. (Guardian, 13 October 2015)

13 October: New hate crime statistics from the Home Office reveal an 18 per cent increase in reported crimes. Download the statistics on ‘Hate crime, England and Wales, 2014 to 2015′ here. (BBC News, 13 October 2015)

14 October: A fireman in the western German town of Altena is one of two men arrested and charged with arson after setting fire to an attic of a house, forcing the seven Syrians living there, including a pregnant woman, to flee for their lives. The prosecution is criticised by the Green party lawmaker for failing to catalogue it as a hate crime (on the grounds that there was no far-right connection), and for not bringing an attempted murder charge. (NBC News, 14 October 2015)

14 October: New research finds that the Gurkha community in Catterick Garrison do not report race hate incidents as they have no relationship with the police and do not recognise racial abuse as a criminal offence because it is so persistent. (Darlington & Stockton Times, 14 October 2015)

18 October: Henriette Reker is elected mayor of Cologne, the day after she was stabbed in the neck and seriously wounded by an assailant. The attacker is known to have been angry about Germany’s immigration policy. She is said to be making a good recovery. (BBC News, 18 October 2015)

20 October: A refugee accommodation centre near Munkedal in western Sweden has been subjected to an arson attack, the fourth in just over a week. Accommodation centres in Onsala, Ljungby and Arlöv have also been attacked, with suspected xenophobic motives. The Umeå municipality announced that it would not be disclosing the location of a new refugee accommodation centre for fear of similar attacks. (The Local, 20 October 2015)

20 October: A 14-year-old boy is convicted of racially abusing a teenager of ‘mixed-race heritage’ with ‘severe learning difficulties’ whom he stabbed in the leg with a screwdriver in south London on 5 August. (Sutton Guardian, 20 October 2015)

21 October: Writer and poet Siana Bangura speaks of an incident on a train to Liverpool in October when she was called a ‘black n****r b***h’ and physically attacked by a white man, but one one onlooker told her to stop making a scene and to ‘calm down’. (Voice, 21 October 2015)

23 October: Gary Scott is jailed for 18 months for assault and affray, and Steven Rayon and Christopher Johnson both receive suspended prison sentences after they admit attacking two Polish men in Wrexham, leaving one man unconscious with a broken jaw. (Shropshire Star, 23 October 2015)

24 October: Two pigs’ heads with racist slogans are left outside a church in west Belfast. (BBC News, 24 October 2015)

28 October: A Muslim woman in her forties is racially abused, punched and kicked in the head by two women on a bus in south London. (Independent, 2 November 2015)

1 November: A final interview with the father of Surjit Singh Chhokar, who was murdered in a racist attack in 1998 in Scotland, is published, days after his death. (Daily Record, 1 November 2015)

2 November: Tell Mama publishes a report: We fear for our lives: offline and online experiences of anti-Muslim hostility. Download the report here (pdf file 4.5mb).

4 November: Ionut Scurtu, 35, is jailed for three years and three months for racially aggravated GBH, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon after he racially abused and then beat (with a metal bar) a 53-year-old man who was trying to help his daughter whose car had broken down in Queensbury. (GetWestLondon, 4 November 2015)

5 November: Shaun Franey, 33, is jailed for six years after racially abusing Iranian taxi driver Hossain Habiloudeshiri and slashing his face with a knife in Kensington, Liverpool. (Liverpool Echo, 5 November 2015)

5 November: Nurse William Malcolm faces a Nursing & Midwifery Council misconduct panel after making a KKK hood out of a napkin and asking a colleague to take a picture of himself stood next to the only black nurse at a staff Christmas party. He is found guilty of misconduct after his fitness to practice is impaired. (Sunderland Echo, 5 November 2015)

5 November: Kashif Samuels, 25, is jailed for 16-weeks after pleading guilty to religiously and racially aggravated harassment after racially abusing a Turkish pensioner whose walking frame he then threw off a bus in London. (Guardian, 5 November 2015)

6 November: Samuel Smith, 25, is jailed for 20-weeks after pleading guilty to racially aggravated battery of a restaurant manager in Bradford, whom he racially abused and pushed to the ground. (Telegraph & Argus, 6 November 2015)

11 November: New research by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) finds that the majority of British Muslims have witnessed, abuse or discrimination aimed at other Muslims. (Guardian, 11 November 2015)

12 November: Three people push fireworks through the letterbox of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Rhyl, North Wales. They are held in custody on suspicion of racially motivated arson. (Daily Post, 12 November 2015)

14 November: The Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France (CCIF) issues a statement following the attacks in Paris: ‘The CCIF condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks perpetrated on the night of the 13 November 2015 in Paris. We give our full solidarity to the victims and condolences to their families. Nothing could even justify such acts. We refuse to give in to fear despite the unheard of nature of the tragedy. On the contrary, these attacks should reinforce our determination to live together. In the face of this ordeal, we must remain united and together in solidarity. This is the best response that we would be able to provide against attempts to divide.’ Read it in French here.

15 November: A Muslim couple in Scotland are seriously injured after about fifteen people attack them whilst racially abusing them and repeatedly referring to the Paris terrorist attacks. (STV, 16 November 2015)

16 November: The High Court hears that in June, in Northern Ireland, a 29-year-old man racially abused an Indian man, cut his face by throwing a bottle at him, and tried to smash through his door with a hammer.(Belfast Live, 16 November 2015)

17 November: A cultural centre in Scotland used by Muslims is targeted in a firebomb attack, with police saying that the possibility of it being a hate crime is ‘one line of inquiry’. (Glasgow Evening Times, 17 November 2015)

17 November: A Muslim family’s home in Ballymena is targeted in a petrol bomb attack, which the police say they are treating as a ‘religious hate crime’. (Belfast Telegraph, 17 November 2015)

18 November: Police appeal for witnesses to an incident on 25 October, in Exmouth, when a man was racially abused and assaulted, leaving him with a broken nose and fractured ribs. (Western Morning News, 18 November 2015)

20 November: A man is given a two-year prison sentence for a racist attack in Wakefield which left a Libyan asylum seeker needing hospital treatment. (Yorkshire Post, 20 November 2015)

20 November: Police in Scotland reveal that in the seven days after the Paris attacks, sixty-four racially or religiously aggravated hate crimes were reported. In 2014-15, there were seventy-one charges related to Islamophobic hate crime. (Buzz Feed News, 20 November 2015)

24 November: Two men beat a Turkish teenager in Cheltenham with golf clubs in a ‘brutal’ assault while calling him a ‘terrorist’, and then attack his uncle when he tries to intervene. (Gloucestershire Echo, 24 November 2015)

25 November: The chair of the Leeds Muslim Community Safety Forum tells a conference that a man in Armley asked a butcher for all his pigs’ heads and feet, in order to desecrate ‘as many mosques as possible’. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 25 November 2015)

26 November: The Police Service of Northern Ireland publishes: Incidents and Crimes with a Hate Motivation Recorded by the Police in Northern Ireland: Quarterly Update to 30 September 2014. Download the report here (pdf file, 612kb)

26 November: It is reported that Austria has seen a nearly 60 per cent rise in racist and xenophobic crimes, with 1,201 complaints between January and September 2015, compared to 750 over the same period last year. The police intelligence agency say that there have been significant increases in incitement and neo-Nazi activity. (The Local, 26 November 2015)

27 November: In Belfast, a mother from India and her two children escape injury after their car is set alight in what is being treated as a deliberate attack. (Belfast Live, 27 November 2015) 

27 November: A man is filmed attempting to set fire to Finsbury Park mosque before fleeing on a moped. (BBC News, 28 November 2015)

28 November: Two women, who racially abused and urinated in front of a Muslim family in August as they prayed in a park in Plymouth, are given suspended sentences. (Western Daily Press, 28 November 2015)

30 November: Police investigate after posters ‘intended to incite racial hatred’ are plastered on lampposts in Charlwood, where asylum seekers from countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are being accommodated. (Surrey Mirror, 30 November 2015)

3 December 2015: Brian Hughes is jailed for five years and given a five-year licence for attacking a 20-year-old student in a Stoke pub after telling him ‘You are going to know who Lee Rigby was’. (Stoke Sentinel, 3 December 2015)

3 December: A Muslim man is thrown off a National Express coach in Bristol after a passenger says she feels ‘uncomfortable’ travelling with him. (Bristol Post, 7 December 2015)

4 December: Six men are given twenty-one month prison sentences, suspended for two years, for a serious racist attack in Castleford last September. The men used a bottle and traffic cone in the attack, and one had a Whatsapp message on his phone which read ‘Kicked f** out of a n****r’. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 4 December 2015)

4 December: A third victim, described as a ‘teacher of immigrant origin’, dies six weeks after he sustained critical injuries when a neo-Nazi sympathiser armed with a knife went on the rampage at Kronan school in Trollhatten, western Sweden on 22 October. (Yahoo News, 4 December 2015) 

7 December: Die Zeit finds that only four of 222 cases of the most serious violent attacks against refugee accommodation centres, between 1 January to 30 November 2015, secured criminal convictions, after spending eight weeks examining the police and public prosecutor’s responses. An additional eight cases are pending. Unsolved arson attacks are now a widespread and dangerous phenomenon, the reporters conclude. (Die Zeit, 7 December 2015)

10 December: The organisation Participation and the Practice of Rights says that the housing authority in Belfast is ‘failing to accurately record the seriousness and levels of racist attacks on refugee families’ and recording racist harassment as ‘nuisance’. (Belfast Live, 10 December 2015)

10 December: A 37-year-old woman in Liverpool is given a fourteen-week prison sentence for a six-year campaign of harassment against a woman of ‘east Asian heritage’ and her child. The woman assaulted the child, and racially abused the mother on several occasions. (Liverpool Echo, 10 December 2015) 

10 December: Latifa Ibn Zlaten, the (headscarf-wearing) mother of a French soldier murdered by Mohammed Merha in a terrorist attack in France, is booed and heckled in the French parliament after being invited to speak about her son at a conference organised by the Socialist Group. (Independent, 10 December 2015)

11 December: Two men are charged with arson for setting fire to a hotel scheduled to house asylum seekers in the Lindås Municipality in Hordaland, Norway. It is believed that others were involved in the arson attack. (The Local, 11 December 2015)

14 December: Connor Williams, 18, is jailed for 20 months after admitting charges of robbery and racially aggravated assault after attacking a petrol station worker in Flintshire in the early hours of 14 December 2014. (Daily Post, 14 December 2015)

14 December: The trial of Pastor James McConnell, 78, begins for making ‘grossly offensive’ remarks about Islam in a sermon at a Belfast church in May 2014. (BBC News, 14 December 2015)

17 December: At least 14 people are arrested after a protest outside the Geldermalsen town hall in the Netherlands against plans to build a centre to house 1,500 asylum seekers in the town. It is reported that the 2,000-strong protest became violent, with protesters tearing down fences, throwing bottles and stones, firing fireworks at the hall and shouting anti-immigration slogans. A member of the council received a death threat just before the council meeting, stating that his whole family would die if he ‘voted in favour of the refugee centre’. (BBC News, 17 December 2015)

EMPLOYMENT and DISCRIMINATION

2 January: Prospective minicab drivers in Bradford face stringent English language tests in order to test their conversational skills after local council officials proposed tougher tests. (Guardian, 2 January 2015)

2 January: Employment agency owner and motivational speaker Mike Waterton denies sending a message gloating about his holiday in Cancun to 150 Polish workers, who have been left jobless and allegedly owed money in wages, after his agency collapses. (Independent, 2 January 2015)

6 January: Mayor of London Boris Johnson criticises what he describes as the ‘multi-culty Balkanisation’ of Britain, asserting that some NHS staff are unable to make themselves understood in English. (Guardian, 6 January 2015)

23 January: The TUC launches a guide for migrant workers, written in thirteen languages, about workplace exploitation. (TUC, 23 January 2015)

5 March: An inquest hears how Slovakian migrant worker, Rene Tkacik, 44, was crushed to death by wet concrete as he worked on the Crossrail project in London. The inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death but also found that other factors contributed to his death including the ‘lack of clarity about the exclusion zone’ and unclear working guidelines. (Evening Standard, 11 March 2015)

10 March: According to figures from the Labour Party, the number of people from minority ethnic backgrounds, aged 16-24, that have been unemployed for more than a year has risen by 50 per cent since the Coalition came to power. (Guardian, 10 March 2015)

10 April: A black police officer wins a case of racial discrimination against Wiltshire Police after it emerges he was sidelined for promotion ‘due to the colour of his skin’. (Swindon Advertiser, 10 April 2015)

15 April: A National Labour Force survey reveals that British Muslim women are 71 per cent more likely than white Christian women to be unemployed due to workplace discrimination. (Independent, 15 April 2015)

16 April: A Channel 4 documentary shows how migrant workers in Spain, employed to pick salad for companies whose produce ends up on the shelves of British supermarkets, are routinely mistreated, cheated out of wages and exposed to pesticides. (Channel 4 News, 16 April 2015)

17 April: A new TUC report shows that the number of black and Asian workers in low-paid jobs increased by 12.7 per cent between 2011 and 2014. (USI, 17 April 2015)

18 May: A group of Irish Travellers who were refused entry to a north London Wetherspoon pub in 2011 were discriminated against, a court rules, leading their lawyer to say a ‘bastion of “acceptable racism” has come crashing down’. (This is local London, 18 May 2015)

22 June: The Appeal Court says BAME workers claiming discrimination in workplace assessments must prove they have suffered personally as a result. (CIPD Weblog, 13 July 2015)

30 July: An employment tribunal finds Gillingham FC and its chairman Paul Scally guilty of the racial victimisation of a black player, Mark McCammon, in 2011. The club and Scally are fined £75,000 each, but say they will appeal the decision. (BBC News, 30 July 2015)

17 August: A former employee of fast food giant McDonald’s accuses the company of intentionally discriminating against black members of staff, after being told that the shifts available for black employees were limited. (Voice, 17 August 2015)

28 August: The Northern Echo reveals that Cleveland Police is facing claims of racial discrimination from three BAME officers at employment tribunals where claims have been lodged. (Northern Echo, 27 August 2015)

14 September: Research by Strathclyde University finds that a third of BME people in Scotland have experienced discrimination in the last five years, with 60 per cent not reporting it. (BBC News, 14 September 2015)

October 2015: The Institut Montaigne in France publishes a report by Marie-Anne Valfort: Religious discrimination in access to employment: a reality. Download the report here (pdf file, 3.5mb)

12 October: Alistair Carmichael MP tables an early day motion on ‘Caste discrimination’, read the EDM here.

30 October: The Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes a report: Is Britain Fairer? The state of equality and human rights 2015. Download the report here (pdf file, 4.1mb)

17 November: Independent Age and the International Longevity Centre – UK (ILC-UK) publish a report: Moved to care: the impact of migration on the adult social care workforce. Download the report here.

23 November: The Swiss cantonal parliament of Ticino decides to back a ban on wearing the burqa in public, supported in a 2013 referendum by around two-thirds of voters in the Italian-speaking canton. Publicly wearing the burqa in the canton is now punishable by a fine of up to 10,000 francs. (The Local, 24 November 2015)

24 November: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign launches a discrimination case against the Co-operative Bank after its bank account was closed by the bank, which cited their ‘risk appetite’ for the closure. Another twenty organisations have also faced similar action. (Middle East Monitor, 24 November 2015)

25 November: PC Nadeem Saddique, a firearms officer, wins his job back after an employment tribunal finds that Cleveland Police racially discriminated against him, bullied and harassed him. (Guardian, 25 November 2015)

7 December: Keith Vaz, MP, tables an early day motion (EDM) on the: ‘50th Anniversary of the Introduction of the Race Relations Act 1965’. View the EDM here.

7 December: Roma Rights publishes: Nothing About Us Without Us? Roma Participation in Policy Making and Knowledge Production. Download it here.

8 December: The Runnymede Trust publishes a report: How Far Have We Come? Lessons from the 1965 Race Relations Act. Download the report here.

SPORT

1 January: The Football Association rejects claims made by Wigan chairman Dave Whelan that he was misquoted by the Guardian regarding offensive remarks about Jewish people.  (Guardian, 1 January 2015)

24 February: Members of Cardiff City’s board boycotts a Championship game with Wigan in protest at what they allege is a ‘club owned and managed by racists’. (BBC News, 24 February 2015)

10 March: Offers of support flood in for Jimmy Thorunka, an athlete from Sierra Leone who was arrested by police after living on the street since the 2014 Commonwealth Games, after his plight was highlighted in theGuardian. (Guardian, 10 March 2015)

24 March: Queens Park Rangers’ director of football, Les Ferdinand, states that covert racism is rife in the game and preventing people from BAME communities from getting senior jobs in management. (Sky Sports News, 24 March 2015)

30 March: Black footballer John Barnes is critical of the lack of management opportunities for black managers. (Independent, 30 March 2015)

27 April: Speaking at the Raise Your Game conference in London, Kick it Out chair Lord Ouseley challenges football clubs to change their recruiting practices to ensure they give  equal opportunities to people from all communities. (Sky Sports, 28 April 2015)

6 May: In the 1990s, the Football Association tried to impose an unofficial quota on the number of black footballers an England manager could play, according to a new book about racism within the sport. (Guardian, 6 May 2015)

12 May: As FIFA announces that match observers will monitor discrimination at ‘high risk’ football matches at the 2018 World Cup, Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré calls for ‘radical sanctions’, saying that racist abuse can ‘break’ players. (BBC News, 12 May 2015)

5 June: The Football League introduces new measures to increase the number of BAME managers in a move that has been endorsed by Dan Rooney, the architect of the rule that bears his name in the US. (Guardian, 5 June 2015)

June 2015: Kick it Out is carrying out a Grassroots Consultation to understand the needs of grassroots football. Take part in the consultation here.

7 July: Tennis player Nick Kyrgios, who appeared to stop trying during his defeat at Wimbledon, says former Australian Olympic swimmer Dawn Fraser is a ‘blatant racist’ after she proclaimed he and another player should ‘go back to where their parents came from’. Fraser later apologised. (BBC News, 7 July 2015)

13 July: After it emerges that Raheem Sterling will move to Manchester City from Liverpool FC, the England International is targeted with ‘vile online abuse’ from Liverpool fans which include racist abuse and deaths threats to him and his daughter. (Independent, 13 July 2015)

13 August: Kick it Out releases an updated version of its phone app, with the ability to attach video, photo and audio evidence to complaints, that allows the reporting of discrimination across all levels of the game. View details of how to download the app here.

October: Kick it Out launches a consultation on the role played by grassroots football in local communities. Take part in the survey here.

11 December: A two-match ban faced by Somerset cricketer Craig Overton for telling another player to ‘go back to your own f*****g country’ is criticised by anti-racism campaigner Lord Herman Ouseley as ‘outrageous’ and too lenient. (Guardian, 11 December 2015)

EDUCATION

3 February: Guidance on school exclusions is withdrawn, after being introduced without consultation or warning, following legal action by children’s groups who were concerned that more children would face expulsion.  (Guardian, 3 February 2015)

1 March: The Communities Empowerment Network publishes a new report: Mapping the Exclusion Process: Inequality, Justice and the Business of Education. Download it here (pdf file, 561kb)

3 March: The All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees & the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration publish The Report of the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom. Download it here (pdf file, 482kb)

17 March: MPs criticise a ‘worrying lack of coordination’ between inquiries into ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, as series of official investigations conclude claims were groundless. (BBC News, 17 March 2015)

23 March: Cambridge and Oxford Universities are accused of maintaining admissions policies which discriminate against BAME students. (Cambridge News, 25 March 2015)

23 March: Germany’s Constitutional Court reverses its 2003 decision to ban Muslim teachers from wearing the hijab in the classroom, stating that religious symbols can only be banned when they pose ‘not just an abstract but a concrete risk of disruption in schools’. (Guardian, 13 March 2015)

30 March: The Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ conference is told by a Southend teacher that the British Values Agenda being promoted in schools is ‘political posturing’ and that teachers should ‘disengage’ from it. (Guardian, 30 March 2015)

31 March: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggests that three schools in Barnsley, an area with a history of far-right activism, have been singling out BAME pupils ‘in monitoring for signs of radicalisation – while suggesting white children are not at risk due to their skin colour’. (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 31 March 2015)

2 April: The mother of Tianni Stratton begins legal action against Greenwich council for failing to protect her autistic daughter from physical, verbal and racial abuse, whilst she attended Greenacres Primary School in Eltham. (News Shopper, 8 April 2015)

6 April: The Head of the NUT says that classrooms should reflect society at large and calls for more teachers from BAME communities. (Morning Star, 6 April 2015)

8 April: International Roma Day is held across the world to to celebrate Romani culture and raise awareness of the issues facing Romani people. (Travellers Times, 8 April 2015)

10 April: The head teacher of a Nottinghamshire village primary school is banned ‘indefinitely’ from teaching over ‘racist and discriminatory’ behaviour following a professional conduct panel hearing. (BBC News, 10 April 2015)

25 April: In France, public outcry follows the news that a 15-year-old Muslim girl was banned from class for wearing a long black skirt, deemed by the headmaster of a school in the north-eastern town of Charleville-Mezieres a conspicuous sign of religious affiliation. (Guardian, 28 April 2015)

12 May: Reverend Robert West, who stood for the British National Party in the Boston and Skegness parliamentary elections, is banned from teaching after a tribunal finds that in 2013 he told pupils he was ‘allergic to Mohammedans’, that Muslims ‘worship the devil’ and that there was a problem with people being Muslim ‘because we are fighting them’. (Lincolnshire Echo, 12 May 2015)

19 May: A survey of 6,000 schoolchildren finds widespread misconceptions about the number of immigrants and non-white people living in England, as well as negative attitudes towards Muslims and those born overseas. (Guardian, 19 May 2015)

28 May: Parents of children as young as nine react angrily after schools with large Muslim intakes in an east London borough ask pupils to complete surveys designed to provide clues to possible radicalisation. (Guardian, 28 May 2015)

June: The Equality and Diversity Forum publishes How to use the Equality Act 2010: A guide for voluntary and community organisations(revised June 2015). Download it here.

June: The Quakers in Britain produce The Unseen March, a short film to start a public debate about the militarisation of education. Watch it here.

1 June: At a meeting held in the Oxford Union debating chamber, the motion that the ‘the Oxford Union society is institutionally racist’ is proposed and passed unanimously by the students present. (Independent, 1 June 2015)

4 June: Schools are being offered new software that helps teachers spy on pupils’ potentially ‘extremist’ online activity. It alerts teachers if pupils use specific terrorism-related terms or phrases or visit extremist websites on school computers, laptops or tablets. (BBC News, 4 June 2015)

10 June: Schools are being sold software to monitor pupils’ internet activity for ‘extremism-related’ language such as ‘jihadi bride’ and ‘YODO’, short for ‘you only die once’, it emerges. (Guardian, 10 June 2015)

25 June: The Leicester Civil Rights Movement publishes the July 2015 issue of its newsletter. Download issue no.78 of Insaaf  here.

25 June: The Department for Education publishes A compendium of evidence on ethnic minority resilience to the effects of deprivation on attainment: research report. Download the report here (pdf file 1.8mb)

26 June: The Department for Education publishes the Government Response to the Education Select Committee Report: Extremism in schools: the Trojan Horse affair. Download it here.

30 June: The National Audit Office publishes a report on: Funding for disadvantaged pupils. Download it here.

1 July: Legal regulations are introduced setting out new responsibilities for ‘frontline workers’ in public bodies, including schools, to challenge extremism. NUT leader Christine Blower comments: ‘Teachers cannot be turned into spies in the classroom.’ (BBC News, 1 July 2015)

12 July: Students at Oxford University call for a statue of Cecil Rhodes – the colonialist who was a major benefactor at the university and whose estate currently endows one of the world’s most prestigious awards, the Rhodes Scholarship – to be removed. (ITV News, 12 July 2015)

12 July: The scale of British slave ownership is highlighted in scores of official records which have found that thousands of modern-day Britons are related to owners who received huge sums in compensation when the trade was abolished. (Independent, 12 July 2015)

13 July: Foreign students will be banned from working in the UK while they study and will be forced to leave the country as soon as they finish their course under new rules unveiled by home secretary Theresa May. (Independent, 13 July 2015)

21 July: The Guardian publishes a letter from educationalists concerned with the prevent strategy and its impact on children, their families and the teachers that have to implement the policy. (Guardian, 21 July 2015)

29 July: The Supreme Court rules against a blanket rule excluding non-UK citizens from applying for student loan funding for higher education. The ruling could have implications for hundreds of others. (Guardian, 29 July 2015)

September: Claystone, an independent think-tank, publishes: Building Distrust: Ethnic Profiling in Primary Schools: A critical analysis of the Prevent counter-radicalisation model implemented in primary schools. Download the report here (pdf file, 2.2mb).

15 September: The Bernie Grant Archive held at the Bishopsgate Institute Library offers a number of educational courses based on archive materials. (Londonist, 15 September 2015)

22 September: It is reported that a Muslim schoolboy’s parents are taking legal action against his school in north London after he was taken to an ‘inclusion centre’ and questioned about Islamic State following his participation in a classroom discussion about environmental activism. (Guardian, 22 September 2015)

5 October: The National Union of Students launches an independent review into whether it is institutionally racist in response to claims that were made at a meeting of the national executive committee by the black students’ officer. (Manc Union, 8 October 2015)

13 October: It is revealed that a 10-year-old boy attending Parkfield Community School in Saltley, Birmingham was reported to the police over ‘concerning behaviour’; two other pupils at the school were also referred to police. (Birmingham Mail, 13 October 2015)

16 October: The Equality Commission NI publishes: Key inequalities in education, a draft statement. Download it here. (pdf file 993kb)

5 November: The Department for Education publishes new research on Supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. View and download the research here.

6 November: The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills publishes research paper no. 186: Socio-economic, ethnic and gender differences in HE participation. Download the paper here.

18 November: Lagos-based advisory service StudySearch releases new figures that show a 65 per cent drop in African students considering University and Higher Education courses in the UK for the 2015/16 intake, compared to the same period as last year, suggesting this is a result of the UK’s visa rules. (StudySearch, 18 November 2015)

18 November: A pupil at Royton and Crompton School, Oldham, is reported to the police after a teacher spots a picture on his Facebook page of him posing with a gun while on holiday in Pakistan. (Guardian, 18 November 2015)

26 November: Cambridge University removes historian David Starkey from its most recent promotional campaign after pressure from students and teachers citing his ‘profoundly racist’ views. (Voice, 26 November 2015)

30 November: A parent who made a Freedom of Information request about the numbers of children in Greenleaf Primary School in Waltham Forest who had been deemed at risk of radicalisation, has the first names of seven children accidentally released to him. (BBC News, 30 November 2015)

2 December: Camden Safeguarding Children Board is criticised for listing as a specific sign of radicalisation ‘appearing angry at government policies, especially foreign policies’ in a leaflet for parents as part of an anti-extremism drive. (Independent, 2 December 2015)

2 December: NUS Black Students publishes: Preventing PREVENT: A student handbook on countering the PREVENT agenda on campus. Download it here.

3 December: The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills publishes: Higher education: (student support) regulations 2015 – equality analysis. Download the report here.

7 December: It is revealed that a teacher at a school in Rotherham is under police investigation after he reportedly called a pupil a terrorist three days after the Paris attacks. (DOAM, 7 December 2015)

6 December: Imams in Newham, backed by teachers, community organisations and student unions, claim that the measures adopted under the Prevent scheme and the Counter-Terrorism Act result in ‘spying on our young people’ and lead to ‘increasing division and to a breakdown of trust in schools and colleges’. (Guardian, 6 December 2015)

EXTREME-RIGHT POLITICS

4 January: At least 30,000 people attend rallies across Germany, protesting against Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (Pegida). In Dresden, where 18,000 supporters of Pegida have rallied, police link Pegida supporters to a brutal knife and club assault on migrant youths in a Dresden shopping centre on 22 December. The assault was carried out by fifty masked men immediately after a Pegida march. (Independent, 4 January 2015)

9 January: Fifty people are sentenced for their part in violence that broke out during an English Defence League protest in Birmingham in 2013. The sentences total more than 75 years. (BBC News, 9 January 2015)

14 January: According to HOPE not Hate research, support for the extreme Right (from which they exclude Ukip) has wained, though anti-Semitic attacks are on the increase. (Guardian, 14 January 2015)

19 January: Far-right group Britain First restarts its campaign of what it calls ‘Christian Patrols’ in east London, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. (Independent, 19 January 2015)

25 January: Three people are arrested after far-right protesters march through Dover. (Dover Express, 25 January 2015)

26 January: Neo-nazi Golden Dawn, the leaders of which are in prison awaiting trial, win 6.3 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections. It is the third largest political party in the 300-member parliament, with 17 seats. (Bloomburg, 25 January 2015)

27 January: It is reported that a UKIP general election candidate, Donald Grewar, is being investigated by the party over web messages backing far-right groups. (BBC News, 27 January 2015)

29 January: Five of Pegida’s twelve committee members, led by management consultant Kathrin Oertel, resign to form the splinter movement for Direct Democracy in Europe (Direkte Demokratie für Europa). The split in Pegida comes shortly after the publication of a photograph of its leader Lutz Bachmann, posing with a Hitler hairstyle and a toothbrush moustache. (Independent, 29 January 2015)

2 February: Self-described ‘nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights’, Joshua Bonehill, announces a demonstration through Stamford Hill, London in protest at the ‘Jewification’ of the area. (Guardian, 2 February 2015)

5 February: A crowd of some 300 demonstrators delay by more than an hour a speech by Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, to the Oxford Union. (Guardian, 5 February 2015)

5 February: The Court of Appeal upholds the home secretary’s exclusion of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, founders of Stop Islamization of America, who were prevented from travelling to the UK to address an EDL rally after Lee Rigby’s murder. (BAILII, 5 February 2015)

5 February: German far-right group Pegida announces plans to march in Newcastle in its first UK rally. (Guardian, 5 February 2015)

7 February: Twenty-nine people are arrested as 600 EDL supporters demonstrate in Dudley to protest plans for the construction of a new mosque. (Express & Star, 7 February 2015)

8 February: The FN’s Sophie Montel narrowly loses to the Socialist party candidate in the second round of a legislative by-election in the Doubs department of eastern France. Montel won 32.6 per cent of the vote in the first round the previous week. (Deutsche Welle, 9 February 2015)

9 February: Joshua Bonehill (see above) is found guilty of six counts of malicious communications and given a three-month suspended sentence after propagating false allegations about people, including labelling some of them as ‘paedophiles’. (Western Gazette, 9 February 2015)

11 February: The British National Party is set to lose the right to an election broadcast as it cannot find enough parliamentary candidates, HOPE not Hate claims. (Mirror, 11 February 2015)

16 February: At a rally in Dresden attended by 4,000 people, Pegida announce its attention to field a candidate in the next mayoral election. (The Local, 17 February 2015).

18 February: In Newcastle, around twenty members of the EDL disrupt a meeting planning a march against German group Pegida on 28 February and reportedly shout that anti-fascist women ‘should be sterilised’ as they are made to leave. (North East Chronicle, 18 February 2015)

23 February: It is revealed that a significant proportion of the 6,500 complaints made about a controversial film imagining the early days of a Ukip government were the result of an orchestrated campaign by Britain First. (Guardian, 23 February 2015)

27 February: The New British Union of Fascists issue posters calling for ‘total Aryanism to end the threat of terrorism and anarchy’ and aims to turn the Scottish town Elgin into ‘Citidel 1′ – the UK’s first fascist town. (Daily Record, 27 February 2015) 

28 February: Britain First members travel to Margate in an ‘armoured land rover’, offering to protect Nigel Farage from harassment from the ‘leftwing rabble’. (Huffington Post, 1 March 2015) 

5 March: Markus Nierth, the honorary mayor of Tröglitz, in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany), resigns after neo-Nazis from the National Democratic Party are given permission to demonstrate in front of his home over his support for asylum seekers. (Guardian, 9 March 2015)

5 March: The CPS rules that there is ‘insufficient evidence’ to bring charges against Britain First, whose members entered various Bradford mosques in May 2014 to hand out Bibles and encourage people to convert. (Telegraph & Argus, 5 March 2015)

7 March: Four people are arrested at an EDL rally in Manchester. (Manchester Evening News, 7 March 2015)

16 March: Polish police seize live ammunition and weapons when they arrest thirteen neo-Nazis during coordinated raids across Poland. Connected to Blood & Honour and Combat 18, the neo-Nazis are charged with a variety of offences, such as forming a criminal organisation and conspiring to set fire to the Gdansk mosque. (Gazetta Wyborcza, 16 March 2015)

20 March: Only four people turn up for the first Scottish demonstration by Pegida, which campaigns against what it calls the ‘Islamisation of Europe’. (Edinburgh News, 21 March 2015)

22 March: Britain First asks its supporters to help deliver ‘major Ukip gains’ at the general election, with letters and leaflets produced by the group effectively endorsing the party. (Independent, 21 March 2015)

22 March: About a hundred people attend a ‘white man march’ in Newcastle, organised by National Action, during which an Israeli flag is burned and ‘Nazi salutes’ are given, according to onlookers. Nine people are arrested. (Buzz Feed News, 22 March 2015)

23 March: Dudley Conservative election candidate Afzal Amin quits after allegations that he plotted with the English Defence League in a row over a new mosque, and pledged to act as the group’s ‘unshakeable ally’ in parliament if they were able to help him. (Guardian, 23 March 2015)

29 March: In the second round of French local elections, the Front National wins 22 per cent of the vote, securing 62 council seats. (In 2011, it won just one.) However it failed to take control of any single council. (Associated Press, 31 March 2015)

30 March: Another witness (identified only as 20-year-old Melissa M), in the ongoing NSU trial in Munich has died a sudden death in contested circumstances. Three weeks prior to her death, a special closed session of the NSU investigation committee in Baden Württemberg had been convened to hear her evidence as she felt her life was under threat. While police say she died of a pulmonary embolism, following an earlier motorbike accident, and say no foul play is suspected, a second autopsy has been requested to discount rumours that she might have been poisoned. (Anadolu Agency, 30 March 2015)

30 March: An open letter to the Polish President, signed by fifty Polish NGOs, criticising the police and ABW (internal security agency) for their lax attitude towards a neo-Nazi concert in Gluszyca in south-western Poland on 7 March, has forced the district prosecutor to launch an investigation. Security officers were present at the ‘Night of Terror’ concert where neo-Nazi bands linked to Blood & Honour and Combat 18 from Germany, Hungary and Poland performed, but they failed to intervene. (Gazety Wyborczej, 1 April 2015). The text of the open letter by the Polish NGOs is available here (pdf file, 38kb).

31 March: A member of Britain First is arrested after the group forces its way into a meeting which was being held to discuss a recent cabaret protest against Ukip’s Nigel Farage in Kent. (Independent, 31 March 2015 and Huffington Post, 31 March 2015)

2 April: A press conference announces the launch of Golden Dawn Watch. Modelled on NSU-Watch, it will report daily from the trial of seventy-two Golden Dawn members and supporters which is due to start on 20 April in a special courtroom inside high security Korydallos prison in west Athens. (The Press Project, 3 April 2015)

3 April: The EDL and Britain First have to be kept apart from Muslims holding a demonstration outside Regents park mosque. (Guardian, 3 April 2015)

5 April: Anti-fascist campaigners mobilise against a PEGIDA march in London in overwhelming numbers and outnumber the racists. (Anti-Fascist Network, 6 April 2015)

12 April: The far-right Jobbik party wins a by-election in the rural area of Tapolca, western Hungary. There are now 25 Jobbik MPs in the Hungarian parliament. (Financial Times, 13 April 2015)

18 April: On Holocaust Memorial Day, Jewish group Jewdas and anti-fascist allies counter a far-right march heading to Stamford Hill in London. The group criticises the police for kettling the counter-demonstrators and for facilitating the far-right activists to instead march to a mosque. (Jewish News, 21 April 2015)

19 April: Around twenty anti-fascists trying to confront EDL members in a pub in Solihull are corralled by the police and told they are being held to prevent a breach of the peace. The incident happens during an EDL demo which the group says it is holding to protest at repeated applications for a Muslim cemetery. (Coventry Telegraph, 19 April 2015)

20 April: The trial of 69 members of Golden Dawn, accused of forming a covert army that killed and intimidated immigrants and opponents, started in a specially-built court room inside the high-security Korydallos prison near Athens. Proceedings which are expected to last eighteen months were adjourned until 7 May. (Telegraph, 20 April 2015)

29 April: War veterans announce they are planning to hold a counter demonstration in Dudley in May on the day that the  far-right Britain First comes to protest over plans to build a mosque. (Dudley Express & Star, 29 April 2015

29 April: Ukip candidate Anne Marie Waters is to launch the group Victims of Islamic Cultural Extremism when she interviews ex-EDL leader Tommy Robinson on 11 May, it is revealed. (Braintree & Witham Times, 29 April 2015)

1 May: The mayor of Jönköping, a small town in southern Sweden, managed to thwart the far-right Party of the Swedes’ plans for its annual May Day march (renowned for violence) by booking out all public spaces a year in advance, stating, ‘It’s time to take back this town and show the values that we are proud of.’ (The Local, 2 May 2015)

5 May: The prosecutor of Béziers, a town in southern France, opens an investigation after discovering that the far-right mayor closely affiliated with the Front National, Robert Ménard, keeps a file on students in the municipality thought to be Muslim. (Le Monde, 5 May 2015)

7 May: The trial of dozens of members of far-right Golden Dawn in Greece is adjourned until 12 May after resuming briefly in the country’s largest prison. (Guardian, 7 May 2015)

9 May: At a Britain First demonstration in Dudley, Paul Golding is reported to the police after saying he is prepared to go to prison for burying pigs’ heads on a mosque construction site in the town. (Birmingham Mail, 9 May 2015)

11 May: Mark Colborne, 37, who allegedly plotted a ‘mass cyanide’ attack, denies preparing terrorist acts at the Old Bailey. Colborne compared himself to Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik, and the court is told of ‘his racial hatred for those who are non-Aryans’. (BBC News, 11 May 2015)

14 May: Lincoln Against Racism and Fascism announces that it will hold a counter-demonstration when the EDL marches through the city in July to protest against the building of the city’s first mosque. (Lincolnite, 14 May 2015) 

17 May: Four thousand people march in Stuttgart against PEGIDA. (Deutsche Welle, 17 May 2015)

22 May: A Ukip candidate who was forced to leave the party for ‘anti Semitic slurs’ announces that he will start working with the BNP, stating it is heading ‘in the right direction’. (Liverpool Echo, 22 May 2015)

23 May: Six arrests are made at an EDL demo in Calderdale for offences including breach of the peace, racially aggravated public disorder and indecent exposure. (Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 24 May 2015)

29 May: Two men associated with the EDL are jailed following a ‘very serious and frightening’ mass brawl at a Sheffield city centre pub last year during which one anti-fascist had glass smashed over their head and another was punched and kicked repeatedly. (Sheffield Star, 29 May 2015)

31 May: The Austrian far-right party FPÖ makes significant gains in the state of Styria, winning 27.1 per cent of votes. It is unclear whether the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) can continue to govern. The FPÖ faced criticism during its election campaign for its posters asking if people felt like ‘a stranger in their own country’. (The Local, 1 June 2015)

5 June: In a historic precedent in the Austrian Burgenland region, the Social Democrats form a coalition government with the extreme-right Freedom Party (FPÖ). A protest group on Facebook, ‘No to Red Blue’, is launched. (The Local, 5 June 2015)

7 June: In the first round of voting in the mayoral elections in Dresden, PEGIDA’s candidate Tatjana Festerling, backed by the neo-nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), wins 9.6 per cent of the vote. Festerling withdraws from the second round, urging voters to support the Free Democratic Party in order to block the Social Democrats winning power. (Deutsche Welle, 8 June 2015) 

10 June: Members of National Action film themselves defacing a Jewish monument in a park in Birmingham – draping a swastika flag and ‘hate slogans’ over it. (Birmingham Mail, 10 June 2015)

10 June: The English Defence League plans to stage a protest outside Britain’s biggest water park, Waterworld, over what it has described as the hosting of ‘Muslim-only days’ – despite no such event taking place. (Independent, 10 June 2015)

16 June: Janice Atkinson, MEP for south-east England and ex-UKIP, joines the Europe of Nations and Freedoms Group, a new far-Right parliamentary grouping comprised of the Front National (France), Party of Freedom (Netherlands), Freedom Party (Austria), Vlaams Belang (Belgium) and the Northern League (Italy). (Guardian, 16 June 2015)

19 June: The High Court reduces a sentence faced by EDL member Steven Cooke from two years to 16 months on the basis of ‘his service to his country’ as a war veteran. However the Birmingham Mail reports that the Ministry of Defence has never heard of him and has no record of him serving in the army. Cooke was jailed in January after pleading guilty to violent disorder following an EDL rally in Birmingham in July 2013. (Birmingham Mail, 19 June 2015)

20 June: At least 140 people are arrested at a Stop the Islamisation of Europe rally in Bratislava called to protest EU plans to resettle around 800 asylum-seekers in Slovakia. Marian Kotelba,  the governor of the central Slovakian region of Banská Bystrica told the crowd ‘I wish you a nice, white day … we are happy to save Slovakia’. (AFP, 20 June 2015)

22 June: Two 15-year-old boys are sentenced to 12-month youth detention orders after admitting conspiracy to make explosive substances. The boys were reported to police after white powder was found; police searching their homes then found copies of the Anarchist Cookbook and other materials which showed a hatred of Jews and black people. (Guardian, 22 June 2015)

22 June: An early day motion by Tulip Siddiq, MP, protests the planned ‘Neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green’. Read the EDM here.

26 June: A High Court judge refuses an injunction application by Bedfordshire Police preventing Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen from entering Luton ‘and its surrounding area’ for a year. An interim injunction is handed down which prevents the pair from carrying or displaying banners with the words ‘No More Mosques’ at the event. (Luton on Sunday, 26 June 2015)

26 June: An anti-Islam, anti-immigration rally in Brno, the Czech Republic’s second largest city, called to protest EU plans to resettle refugees in Europe, turns violent, with riot police pelted with bottles. A counter-mobilisation was supported by the far-right Workers Party of Social Justice. (Washington Post, 26 June 2015)

30 June: A neo-Nazi ‘anti-Jewification’ demonstration that was due to take place in Golders Green, north London, on 4 July is moved out of the area following a robust response from the local community and weeks of pressure from Jewish leaders and MPs. (Guardian, 30 June 2015)

1 July: Sharia Watch UK announces plans to put on an exhibition of cartoons depicting Mohammed in London. The exhibition will open in September 2015, and will feature Dutch politician Geert Wilders as a guest speaker. (Independent, 1 July 2015)

4 July: Police escort around 20 neo-Nazi protesters out of Westminster after they stage an ‘anti-Jewification’ protest, but are dwarfed by hundreds of counter-protesters. (Guardian, 4 July 2015)

8 July: Nazi swastika flags, alongside symbols of the pro-slavery American Confederacy, are seen flying close to an Ulster loyalist bonfire in Northern Ireland. (Guardian, 8 July 2015)

11 July: Robert Ewing, who described himself to the police as a neo-nazi, is found guilty of murdering schoolgirl Paige Chivers in Blackpool eight years ago. Ewing had previously joined BNP protests which fuelled speculation that the girl had been sexually abused murdered and murdered by Muslims. (Times, 11 July 2015)

12 July: The Independent reports that such is the extent of xenophobia in the small town of Frietal, just south of Dresden, that 300 asylum seekers are virtual prisoners in their accommodation at the Hotel Leonardo which is now under a round-the-clock police guard and surrounded by a 10ft-high wire fence. Since the ‘No to the Home’ campaign was launched with a petition signed by 2,000 people, there have been constant anti-foreigner protests outside the accommodation, with up to 1,200 Freital residents and neo-nazis gathering outside chanting slogans such as ‘Filth out’ and ‘This is no place to flee to’. (Independent, 12 July 2015)

14 July: The Spanish Supreme Court upholds a Valencian court’s acquittal of sixteen neo-nazis in the Anti-Sistema Front (FAS), ruling illegal the wiretapping which proved the group’s existence, its violent neo-nazi racist ideology and its access to weapons. (Antifeixistes, 15 July 2015)

15 July: The Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobokta describes as ‘absurd’ the arrest of six leftwing demonstrators protesting against an anti-immigration rally in Prague where rightwing demonstrators waved gallows and nooses, calling for them to be used against ‘all traitors of the nation’. Lawyers also criticise the police for failing to arrests those carrying gallows and nooses, claiming that they had not broken the law. (The Conversation, 15 July 2015).

18 July: Ten arrests are made at a joint demonstration held by twenty rightwing groups in Rotherham, held to protest against the council’s attempts to get further marches banned and restrictions imposed. (Sheffield Star, 18 July 2015)

24 July: Former EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is released from prison just over a week after he was recalled to HMP Peterborough for breaching the terms of his release licence. (Luton on Sunday, 24 July 2015)

25 July: About 120 EDL supporters march through Lincoln. (Lincolnshire Echo, 25 July 2015)

27 July: The car of Michael Richter, chair of Die Linke in Freital on the outskirts of Dresden, is blown up in an explosion outside his house. Freital is the centre of PEGIDA-style protests against asylum seekers and Richter’s pro-refugee work led to him receiving death threats from the far Right. (The Local, 27 July 2015)

28 July: The EDL announces that it will oppose a demonstration organised by the campaign group Folkestone United in August to ‘stand with the Calais migrants’. (Kent Online, 28 July 2015)

28 July: 15,000 people demonstrate in Helsinki against the anti-immigration statements posted on Facebook by the prominent Finns Party MP Olli Immonen and to voice their support for the multicultural society. Immonen had warned against the ‘Islamisation of Finland’, adding that ‘I’m dreaming of a strong, brave nation that will defeat this nightmare called multiculturalism’ and ‘We will fight until the end for our homeland and one true Finnish nation. The victory will be ours.’ The fact that his comments were made close to the anniversary of Breivik’s massacre of 77 people in Oslo was deplored. (Reuters, 28 July 2015)

29 July: English Democrat Steve Uncles, who is standing for the role of Police and Crime Commissioner in Kent, calls for migrants in Calais to be shot with a machine gun. (News Shopper, 4 August 2015)

4 August: Clapton FC fans are attacked with batons, bats and flares by far-right groups as they attend a pre-season friendly at Thamesmead Town. (News Shopper, 4 August 2015)

9 August: The mayor of Liverpool receives a letter from National Action saying that there will be ‘a few n*****s beaten up, a few cars set on fire & a few shops smashed’, leading to the city going ‘up in flames’, if a march the group is organising in the city is banned. (Liverpool Echo, 9 August 2015)

14 August: Members of the group British Voice protest outside a hotel in Wigan because it is accommodating asylum seekers. (Wigan Today, 14 August 2015)

15 August: National Action is forced to cancel its march through Liverpool city centre after being humiliated by counter-protesters. Hundreds of protesters surround suspected members of the white supremacist group inside Lime Street Station, leading them being locked inside a lost baggage facility. Six people are arrested and one man is treated for facial injuries. (Liverpool Echo, 15 August 2015)

15 August: The English Defence League marches in Walsall. Two people are arrested after a car owned by an Asian man is damaged. (Birmingham Mail, 15 August 2015)

21-22 August: Following violence by neo-Nazis linked to the National Democratic Party of Germany, police in the town of Heidenau create a closed security zone around a temporary shelter for 600 asylum seekers set up in an empty hardware store. At least thirty-one police officers are injured, as demonstrators hurl abuse at asylum seekers arriving on buses and bombard police with stones, glass, bottles and firecrackers. (BBC News, 24 August 2015)

22 August: Around forty members of the North West Infidels and Combat 18, attending a demonstration in Manchester, are outnumbered by counter-protesters and escorted out of the city after about an hour. (Manchester Evening News, 22 August 2015)

31 August: Far-right activists from Britain First are criticised for inflaming local tensions over the conversion of a care home into a ‘reception and distribution centre’ for young asylum seekers in Whitstable, Kent. (Canterbury Times, 31 August 2015)

1 September: A petition is launched for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) ex-leader of the EDL, calling for a review of the judicial treatment of Lennon who was recently recalled to prison. (Luton on Sunday, 1 September 2015)

5 September: Five people are arrested in Rotherham following a demonstration by Britain First, including two for assault and one for racially aggravated disorder. (Rotherham Advertiser, 7 September 2015)

12 September: A police officer is injured as the National Front and other far-right groups march through Dover to the docks and clash with anti-fascists; there are no arrests. (Kent Online, 13 September 2015)

26 September: In a weekend of protests against refugee homes in Niederau, Saxony, several towns in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and in Leipzig (all in eastern Germany), 1,000 counter-protesters clashed with far-right activists from the Offensive for Germany. In the western city of Bremen, an attempt was made to set fire to a refugee home, the twenty-second such arson attack this year, according to official statistics. (Al Jazeera, 28 September 2015)

27 September: The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), exploiting fears about refugees, doubles its vote in state elections in Upper Austria to 30.4 per cent, finishing a strong second. (Reuters, 27 September 2015)

28 September: Far-right supporter Kieran Christie, 19, pleads guilty to various charges after lighting flares and racially abusing two men in Glasgow city centre on the day that the Scottish referendum was announced. (Commonspace Scotland, 30 September 2015)

28 September: Five neo-Nazi elected representatives of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDP) joined a parliamentary tour of a refugee hostel in Mecklenburg-Westfalia, despite a previous court injunction stating that the NDP was a threat to ‘peaceful co-existence’ and could not be part of the delegation. After the tour, the NPD put out a statement saying the refugees were living in luxury in conditions that many Germans could only dream about. (Deutsche Welle, 28 September 2015)

3 October: Student online magazine The Tab announces that former EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon will speak at Durham student union later in October, in an event called ‘Leaving EDL’. (Tab, 3 October 2015)

10 October: Far-right groups, including the North West Infidels, hold an anti-refugee demonstration in Preston which is met by a counter demonstration. One person is arrested. (Lancashire Evening Post, 11 October 2015)

11 October: The extreme-right Freedom Party wins a record 31 per cent of the vote in city elections in Vienna, but fails to take the city from the Social Democrats who take 39.5 per cent of the vote. (Guardian, 11 October 2015).

22 October: Far-right sympathiser Anton Lundin Pettersson, 21, fatally stabs teaching assistant Lavin Eskandar and 15-year-old student Ahmed Hassan and critically injuries two more, all chosen for their skin colour, at the Kronan school in the Swedish industrial town of Trollhättan. Police shoot their assailant, who dies in hospital. (Guardian, 23 October 2015)

22 October: Jewish Defence League activists in Paris attack a BuzzFeed journalist in a protest against Agence France Presse’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Guardian, 23 October 2015)

26 October: Four neo-Nazis are arrested in Dortmund, western Germany, after a series of violent attacks. On one day, three men attacked a group of people using a telescopic baton and knife, and the following day six men approached four men, asked their nationalities and on hearing they were not German, attacked them with wooden slats, bats and bottles, and continued to kick them on the ground. (The Local, 27 October 2015)

2 November: An assessment of the activities of Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) in the two years since he left the EDL is published. (Religious Reader, 2 November 2015)

4 November: Nineteen men are charged with violent disorder following a Britain First demonstration in Rotherham in September. (Sheffield Star, 4 November 2015)

4 November: The home secretary bans American Matthew Heimbach, 25, from entering the UK as his presence ‘would not be conducive to the public good’. Heimbach is a neo-Nazi who has made anti-semitic comments and is the president of the Traditional Youth Network. (Guardian, 4 November 2015)

11 November: At least 35,000 nationalists, chanting ‘Poland for the Polish’ and ‘No Islam, no atheists, a Poland for Catholics’, gather in Warsaw for the annual National Independence Day march. Members of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik movement and Italy’s neo-fascist Forza Nuova are present. (Financial Times, 11 November 2015)

15 November: About thirty Scottish Defence League (SDL) supporters, staging an anti-refugee protest in Monkton, are outnumbered by around 200 counter-protesters. (Ayrshire Post, 16 November 2015)

17 November: President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman, speaks at a ‘We Don’t Want Islam in the Czech Republic’ rally in Prague attended by the leader of Pegida in Dresden and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, formerly of the EDL. Hope not Hate launches a petition. (Hope not Hate)

24 November: On Britain First’s Facebook page, some supporters celebrate footage which appears to show the intentional drowning of migrants by the Hellenic Coastguard. Greek authorities deny any intentional drowning. (Huffington Post, 24 November 2015)

28 November: Around 150 EDL supporters march through Scarborough, and are faced by around 70 anti-fascists. Three people are arrested. (Northern Echo, 28 November 2015)

30 November: While speaking at a Pegida rally in Dresden, Germany, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, (aka Tommy Robinson) the ex-leader of the EDL, calls for Europe-wide demonstrations against Islam on 6 February. (HOPE not Hate, 1 December 2015)

30 November: Facebook bans Britain First’s Facebook page under hate speech rules, and then reverses the ban. (Pink News, 30 November 2015)

4 December: The Huffington Post publishes allegations made by ex-EDL leader Tommy Robinson (a.k.a Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) that he was paid by the Quilliam Foundation to quit the far-right group. (Huffington Post, 4 December 2015)

6 December: It is revealed that over 1,200 army recruits failed security checks in 2013 in Switzerland, with most cases related to individuals involved with extreme right-wing organisations. (The Local, 6 December 2015)

15 December: The Huffington Post reports that the EDL have elected a new leader – Ian Crossman, a.k.a Phil Derrin – and then immediately started a crowdfunding page to stop him being jailed in January 2016. (Huffington Post, 15 December 2015)

17 December: Joshua Bonehill-Paine is found guilty of inciting racial hatred after creating and posting anti-Semitic material, and jailed for three years and four months. (Western Gazette, 17 December 2015)

NATIONAL SECURITY

4 June: Cage launches a legal action at the High Court against the Charity Commission for ‘exceeding its role’ in pressuring the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Anita Roddick Foundation to end their funding of the organisation. (Civil Society, 4 June 2015)

11 June: The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation publishes A Question of Trust – Report of the Investigatory Powers Review. Download the report here.

19 June: David Cameron gives a speech in Bratislava saying that parts of some Muslim communities have ‘quietly condoned’ aspects of extremist ideology instead of confronting it. (Independent, 19 June 2015)

25 June: The Home Office publishes statistics on the: Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, quarterly update to December 2014. View and download the statistics here.

16 July: A former MI5 agent claims that the agency was so short on non-white staff that one team leader considered ‘blacking up’ as an option to gain access to Muslim targets. (Huffington Post, 16 July 2015)

23 July: The Independent reports on the plight of a 54-year-old Border officer who lost his job days after returning from a holiday in Pakistan because he was deemed a national security risk. The man known only as ‘C’ has fought an unsuccessful seven-year battle through the courts to find out why he was sacked. (Independent, 23 July 2015)

29 July: Two convicted terrorists were illegally held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods in prison, the supreme court has rules. The men were kept in segregation for almost six months. (Guardian, 29 July 2015)

4 August: Homegrown, a play by the National Youth Theatre about the reasons why young people might join Islamic State, is cancelled just two weeks before it was due to open after alleged ‘external pressures’. (Guardian, 4 August 2015)

17 September: David Anderson Q.C. publishes The Terrorism Acts in 2014: Report of the Independent Reviewer on the operation of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006.  Download it here

16 October: After a 14-year-old Muslim boy who mentioned ‘eco-terrorism’ in a discussion about the environment was taken out of a classroom in a London school and questioned about his ‘affiliation’ with ISIS, Islington Council will lobby the government to change its counter-extremism duty in schools, stating that it is a great concern for free speech, human rights and community cohesion. (Islington Gazette, 16 October 2015)

18 October: David Cameron announces £5 million funding, and further increases in coming years, of anti-extremist projects in communities and online to challenge all forms of extremist ideology. Part of the strategy will be developing stronger ties between industry, police and government. (Guardian, 18 October 2015)

19 October: The government launches a counter-extremism strategy which includes plans to combat what is described as ‘entryist’ infiltration of the public sector, charities and businesses by ‘extremists’. (Guardian, 19 October 2015)

19 October: Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester police, says that the government’s counter-extremism strategy could alienate Muslims and damage free speech and religious freedom. (Guardian, 19 October 2015)

28 October: The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism warns of a global ‘ideological pandemic’ in which over sixty states have passed counter-terrorism laws that ‘stifle legitimate opposition and choke public interest and human rights organisations’. (Statewatch News Online, 17 November 2015)

24 November: French human rights organisations warn that the state of emergency declared after 13 November may lead to the indiscriminate targeting of the Muslim community and people on housing estates in a dragnet approach. A senate oversight committee to monitor anti-terrorist raids is introduced after the media report several disturbing cases. Emergency measures have led to 1,233 searches so far, and 266 people have been placed under house arrest. France has also sought exemption from parts of the European Convention of Human Rights for the duration of the state of emergency. (Human Rights Watch, 24 November 2015)

27 November: The government announces £1 million in funding for five years to pay towards a team of experts who will counter extremism in Commonwealth countries. (Guardian, 27 November 2015)

Housing and health

21 January: Eric Pickles has been illegally discriminating against Gypsies and Travellers by using ministerial powers to personally decide whether they should be allowed to settle on green belt land, the High Court rules. (Travellers’ Times, 21 January 2015)

5 February: The Department of Health announces a pilot scheme, starting later this year, to conduct nationality checks on those registering at GP practices. (Pulse, 5 February 2015)

15 February: It is reported that landlords are preparing to turn away prospective tenants because they have a ‘foreign’ accent, as a consequence of new rules making it an offence to let rooms to undocumented migrants. (Independent, 15 February 2015)

25 April: Thousands protest in Brixton against a lack of affordable homes, closures of long-established local businesses, police racism and gentrification. (Guardian, 26 April 2015)

2 June: The Scottish Parliament’s welfare reform committee receives a series of expert submissions which further evidence the impact of sanctions on single mothers, survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, disabled women and refugees in particular. (Scottish Housing News, 2 June 2015)

10 July: Residents in Kesgrave, Suffolk, block green spaces with wheelie bins and cars amid reports of Travellers arriving in the town. A Gypsy Council spokeswoman calls the blockades ‘pathetic’ and ‘shameful’. (BBC News, 10 July 2015)

14 July: A protest of around 1,500 people takes place in Budapest denouncing the four-metre-high fence being built along the Serbian-Hungarian border, and calling for the government to spend money instead on building more social housing for both migrants and Hungarians. Protests were called in solidarity outside Hungarian embassies around Europe, with protesters constructing a blockade outside the doors of the embassy in London. (Pressenza, 14 July 2015)

31 July: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) publishes a provider handbook on How CQC regulates Health and social care in prisons and young offender institutions, and health care in immigration removal centres. Download it here.

13 August: An online petition to ‘Save 30,000 NHS nurses from deportation – to save our health service’, which was set up by an NHS nurse, garners over 54,000 signatures. (Nursing in Practice, 13 August 2015)

10 December: The High Court grants a landmark injunction to Blackpool Council to stop thirteen named Travellers (and ‘persons unknown’) from setting up any unauthorised camps in the area. (Blackpool Gazette, 10 December 2015)

10 December: A landlord in Sealand, North Wales pleads guilty to twelve charges under the Housing Act after it was found that he was making around £23,000 per month by accommodating over 100 eastern European migrants in a building that was ‘essentially uninhabitable’. (Daily Post, 10 December 2015)

16 December: Harlow councillors go to the High Court to try and make a temporary ban (imposed in May) on Travellers setting up unauthorised encampments permanent. (ITV, 16 December 2015)

7 December: The Department of Health is carrying out a consultation on: ‘Overseas visitors and migrants: extending charges for NHS services’, which proposes extending charges to emergency and primary treatment . View details on the consultation, which closes on 7 March 2016, here.

PARTY POLITICS and GOVERNMENT POLICY

8 January: Ukip councillor Rozanne Duncan is expelled from the party after reportedly saying she has a problem with black people, saying there is ‘something about their faces’. (Independent, 8 January 2015)

12 January: David Cameron backs remarks by culture secretary Sajid Javid that whilst all communities in the UK have a responsibility to help track down terrorists, there is a ‘special burden’ on Muslims. (Guardian, 12 January 2015)

19 January: The Muslim Council of Britain objects to a letter from the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, asking Muslim leaders to ‘explain and demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of British identity’. (Guardian, 19 January 2015)

18 February: A last-ditch challenge to the lord chancellor’s legal aid reforms is thrown out by the High Court. The president of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association describes the decision as ‘worrying’, saying it ‘offers the ideologically driven desire to cut publicly funded criminal legal aid a veneer of respectability’. (Law Society Gazette, 18 February 2015)

21 February: The government is accused by campaigners of prioritising looking tough on immigration above preventing the abuse of foreign workers, prior to a House of Lords debate on the the modern slavery bill. (Guardian, 21 February 2015)

23 February: Human rights activists and lawyers gather in London with an effigy of Chris Grayling and protest against the government backed Global Law summit, highlighting the legal aid cuts and saying the summit is ‘hijacking’ the anniversary of the Magna Carta. (Guardian, 23 February 2015)

23 February: After announcing plans to make immigrants have health insurance for their first five years in Britain as part of Ukip’s health policy, Nigel Farage says this would not lead to ill people being denied treatment as it excludes ‘genuine refugees’. (Guardian, 23 February 2015)

25 February: The Turkish-Islamic Union of Austria says that it will challenge in the constitutional court the government’s  discriminatory ‘Law on Islam’ which bans foreign funding for Islamic organisations and requires any group claiming to represent Austrian Muslims to use a standardised German translation of the Koran. (Reuters, 25 February 2015)

12 March: Ukip leader Nigel Farage says in an interview with former Equality and Human Rights Commission chair, Trevor Phillips, that race and other anti-discrimination legislation should be abolished, arguing that it is no longer needed in the United Kingdom. (Guardian, 12 March 2015)

13 March: The Italian government refers the authorities in Lombardy to the Constitutional Court for its new building regulations (dubbed the ‘anti-mosque law’). (AFP, 13 March 2015)

15 March: The children of new immigrants coming to Britain should not immediately be allowed to attend state schools, Nigel Farage suggests. The comments are made when he is asked about a policy on Ukip’s website saying immigrants and their dependants would need private education for five years after entering the UK. (Guardian, 15 March 2015)

23 March: The Home Office is drawing up a blacklist of ‘extremist’ individuals and organisations with whom the government and public sector should not engage, Theresa May reveals. (Guardian, 23 March 2015) 

1 April: Alan Harris, a Ukip candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, is accused of making racist and homophobic comments on his Facebook page. (Huffington Post, 1 April 2015)

11 April: Two of Ukip’s election candidates are filmed spouting ‘anti-Islamic hate’ at a rally organised by Mothers Against Radical Islam and Sharia (MARIAS), a group which is reportedly closely linked to the English Defence League (EDL). (Mirror, 15 April 2015)

14 April: Labour’s manifesto says that it will shut down the ‘discredited’ Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and replace it following a policy review which will have input from Baroness Doreen Lawrence. (Voice, 15 April 2015)

17 April: An unnamed protester defaces a Ukip immigration poster in Nigel Farage’s target constituency of South Thanet, by adding three welcome mats. (Independent, 17 April 2015)

19 April : The anti-immigration Finns Party (formerly known as True Finns), win 17.6 per cent of the vote in the Finnish general election and now have  34 seats in parliament. It campaigned for Greece to be kicked out of the eurozone. (Guardian, 20 April 2015)

22 April: Migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe should be returned ‘to where they came from’, Ukip leader Nigel Farage claims. (BBC News, 22 April 2015)

24 April: Ukip parliamentary candidate Kim Rose says he does not regret quoting from Hitler’s Mein Kampf at a hustings in Southampton. (BBC News, 24 April 2015)

25 April: Ed Miliband announces that Islamophobia and anti-Semitism would become ‘aggravated crimes’ under a Labour government. (Hertfordshire Mercury, 25 April 2015)

26 April: BNP election candidate Reverend Robert West faces a hearing over comments he reportedly made about Islam while teaching in a Grantham school. (Lincolnshire Echo, 26 April 2015)

27 April: Gulzabeen Afsar, a Conservative local election candidate who said she could never support ‘the Jew’ Ed Miliband, is suspended. (BBC News, 27 April 2015)

29 April: European parliamentarians urge the European Commission to investigate a public consultation on migration launched by Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, which equates migrants with terrorists and recommends internment camps and forced work for immigrants. Orbán has also called for the return of the death penalty, abolished in Hungary in 1989. (Budapest Today, 29 April 2015)

5 May: Ukip suspends election candidate Robert Blay for ‘abhorrent’ abuse about an Asian rival – including racist abuse and threatening to ‘personally put a bullet in him’ should he ever become prime minister. (Huffington Post, 5 May 2015)

11 May: Nigel Farage remains leader of UKIP after the party’s national executive committee rejected his resignation, claiming that UKIP members ‘did not want Nigel to go’, the party says in a statement. (New Statesman, 11 May 2015)

15 May: The UMP mayor of Venelles in southern France, Robert Chardon, is suspended from the party after calling for Islam to be banned, saying that anyone found practicing the religion should be ‘escorted to the border’. A process to expel him from the party has been initiated. (Independent, 17 May 2015)

27 May: The government confirms in the Queen’s speech that plans to repeal the Human Rights Act have been put on hold. (Guardian, 27 May 2015)  

1 June: The anti-immigrant Northern League’s share of the vote surges in regional elections across Italy. It wins 20 per cent of the vote in Tuscany, and increases its share of the vote in Veneto, the region around Venice, to 50.5 per cent. It is no longer considered a regional party, with 12.5 per cent of the national vote. (Telegraph, 1 June 2015)

17 July: The Trades Union Congress publishes a briefing: Trade Union Bill – Overview of Key Changes. Download it here (pdf file, 3.6mb)

17 July: The government establishes an Independent, cross-party Commission on Freedom of Information to ‘review the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to consider whether there is an appropriate public interest balance between transparency, accountability and the need for sensitive information to have robust protection’.

22 July: CAGE, an advocacy group, lodges a formal complaint with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and calls for an investigation into its treatment by the British government. (CAGE, 22 July 2015)

23 July: The High Court rules that the Charity Commission will face a judicial review of its decision to pressure charities not to fund advocacy group Cage. (Civil Society, 23 July 2015)

26 July: The Conservative budget risks making millions of people from BAME communities poorer at a faster rate than their white counterparts, a study by the Runnymede Trust finds. (Guardian, 26 July 2015)

12 August: Last year the Charity Commission opened cases and inquiries into 379 religious charities, of which 153 were Christian and 85 were Muslim, according to newly released figures. (Civil Society, 12 August 2015)

30 September: Campaigners launch Together Against Prevent calling on groups to take a stand against the governments counter extremism measures and the impact it is having on Muslim communities. View the statement here.

5 October: The Conservative Party cancels a joint Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) and Muslim Charities Forum event, without consultation, at its annual party conference following a critical article in the Daily Telegraph that alleged some of the speakers had links to terrorism. (Civil Society, 5 October 2015)

9 October: The Independent Commission on Freedom of Information is calling for evidence on aspects of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The consultation closes on 20 November 2015. View the call for evidence here.

13 October: UKIP loses control of Thanet Council after another UKIP councillor defects to the Democratic Independent Group, four others having previously defected. Thanet Council had been the first council with overall UKIP control. (BBC News, 13 October 2015)

18 October: The right-wing populist and anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party secures a record result in the parliamentary elections and now has 65 out of  200 seats in the lower house. (BBC News, 19 October 2015)

19 October: The academic Matthew Goodwin resigns from a government working group on anti-Muslim hatred, arguing that ‘During a generally unpleasant four years, the basic message appeared to be that the government was simply not that interested in anti-Muslim hatred.’ (Guardian, 19 October 2015)

19 October: The Government publishes its ‘Counter Extremism Strategy’. View and download it here.

22 October: A judicial review over directions given by the Charity Commission over the future funding of advocacy group Cage is withdrawn after all three parties agreed a statement agreeing that the Charity Commission ‘has no power to require trustees to fetter the future exercise of their fiduciary duties under its general power to give advice and guidance’. (Civil Society, 22 October 2015) 

23 October: The Danish People’s Party is fined by Copenhagen City Court for an advertisement in a newspaper in 2013 listing the names of 685 new citizens, stating that one of them was ‘a danger to Denmark’s security. Now he will become a Dane’. Fifteen of those named filed a libel suit against the party, with the Court ruling in their favour. (The Local, 23 October 2015)

25 October: The nationalist, conservative and anti-immigration Law and Justice Party wins 37.6 per cent of the vote and an absolute majority in the Polish general election. During the election campaign, its chairman Jaroslaw Kaczyánski sought to make the refugee crisis an issue, claiming that refugees were bringing ‘cholera to the Greek islands, dysentery to Vienna, various types of parasites’. (Guardian, 26 October 2015) 

4 November: Winston McKenzie, claims he has ‘suffered in silence’ and been the victim of racial discrimination after being marginalised by his fellow UKIP party members. (Croydon Advertiser, 4 October 2015)

16 November: Rugby Borough Councillor Jim Buckley is permanently expelled from the Conservative group after posting a ‘racist and offensive’ tweet about London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan. (Rugby Advertiser, 16 November 2015)

6 December: In the first round of the French regional elections, the FN, with its best result ever, takes the national lead (27.73 per cent of the vote). In six of the thirteen mainland regions, the FN were first, with 40.64 per cent voting for Marine Le Pen in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais Picardie. In Calais, she won 49 per cent, also scoring well in other northern coastal towns where migrants are sleeping rough. (French Ministry of the Interior, 7 December 2015)

Media

13 January: Thirty protestors gather outside the Ayrshire Post in Scotland, accusing the newspaper of xenophobia and racism in a story about begging and homelessness. (Guardian, 15 January 2015)

25 January: A multi-faith rally is held in Birmingham, to show unity in the wake of claims by a Fox News US TV pundit that the city is a ‘no-go zone’ for non-Muslims. (BBC News, 25 January 2015)

7 March: The Romanian Embassy in London expresses ‘ bitterness and disappointment’ to the producers of a Channel Four programme, The Romanians Are Coming, accusing the makers of reinforcing negative stereotypes. (Guardian, 7 March 2015)

13 April: A poster campaign which aims to celebrate immigration, called ‘I am an Immigrant’, is launched. (BBC News, 13 April 2015)

16 April: In a new report, black and Asian authors say they are being shoehorned by a publishing industry which is ‘almost blindingly white’ into writing fiction that conforms to a stereotypical view of their communities. (Guardian, 16 April 2015)

21 July: It is revealed that a short film titled Murderous Injustice, about the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi in Bristol in 2013, will premiere later this year. (Bristol Post, 21 July 2015)

27 July: Ofcom backs a BBC Trust decision not to censure the BBC over using the word ‘p***y’ in an edition of Top Gear after a complaint by the Traveller Movement. (BBC News, 27 July 2015)

30 July: Katie Hopkins is questioned by police over allegations of inciting racial hatred following comments in an article in the Sun about migrants. (Independent, 4 August 2015)

30 July: The Mail on Sunday apologises, saying it ‘intended no disrespect to the Muslim religion’, after publishing a story accusing Muslim youths of vandalising an immigration enforcement van in Shadwell, east London. (Huffington Post, 31 July 2015)

1 August: Campaigning group Sisters Uncut hold a demonstration outside the London offices of the Daily Mail in protest at its stance over the deaths of migrants in Calais. (Morning Star, 3 August 2015)

6 August: It is announced that the BBC is making a film of the shooting of Mark Duggan, provisionally titled Lawful Killing. (Independent, 6 August 2015)

17 August: Over 740 Czech academics and other staff of scientific and research institutions sign an ‘Academics against Fear and Indifference’ petition to face what is described as the increasingly xenophobic atmosphere in Czech society, including the labeling of immigrants as rapists and Muslim as terrorists. (Prague Monitor, 18 August 2015)

21 September: A Fox News programme which described Birmingham as a city ‘where non-Muslims just simply don’t go’ breached broadcasting regulations and should have been corrected sooner, media regulator Ofcom rules. (Guardian, 21 September 2015)

24 September: The Daily Mirror apologises to the Travellers Association following its complaint about a story which suggested a planning application by a Traveller had led a man to take his own life. (Guardian, 24 September 2015)

3 November: MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins criticises police for investigating her for incitement to racial hatred after she called migrants ‘cockroaches’ and said she would use gunships to ‘stop’ them, when it emerges she will not face charges. (Huffington Post, 3 November 2015)

9 November: According to research by the European Journalism Observatory press coverage and sympathy following the death of Alan Kurdi lasted only a week before most papers reverted to their original editorial stance. (Guardian, 9 November 2015)

17 November: Eric Zemmour, a French writer and commentator, faces a backlash after making comments on the RTL Radio station that ‘instead of bombing Raqqa (in Syria), France should bomb Molenbeek (in Brussels)’. (Le Monde, 17 November 2015)

November: A petition is launched demanding that the Daily Mail remove and apologise for a cartoon which depicts migrants as rats, echoing ‘an infamous piece of 1939 Nazi propaganda’. See the petition here.

23 November: An opinion poll by the Sun used to underpin a controversial front-page headline about British Muslims is criticised by professional polling organisations and commentators as ‘dubious’ and ‘open to distortion’. (Guardian, 23 November 2015)

26 November: Cypriot anti-racist group KISA protests at false media stories suggesting refugees in Cyprus are terrorists. (KISA, 26 November 2015)

16 December: The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) calls on the Daily Express to make a front-page apology for a story which claimed that spoken English was dying out in some classrooms. (Press Gazette, 16 December 2015)