A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.
ASYLUM | MIGRATION | BORDERS | CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
23 January: The high court finds that the Home Office operated a secret policy affecting the rights of 1,500 asylum seekers who are confirmed victims of trafficking and modern slavery by deliberately ignoring a court ruling to grant them leave to remain whilst their asylum claims are pending. (Free Movement, 24 January 2024, Observer, 27 January 2024)
24 January: The Home Office withdraws a policy denying support to trafficking victims with a criminal conviction prior to a court hearing, and issues new guidance requiring the risk of re-trafficking to be considered before support can be withdrawn. (Guardian, 24 January 2024)
26 January: Measures making up forty percent of France’s new immigration law, including re-criminalising ‘illegal stay’, differential access to social benefits and tougher family reunion criteria, are rejected as unconstitutional by the constitutional court. (Breaking Latest News, 26 January 2024)
27 January: An Observer investigation reveals that four Rwandans have been granted asylum in the UK over well-founded fears of persecution in the past four months, as ministers push through a bill declaring the country safe. (Observer, 27 January 2024)
29 January: Albania’s constitutional court rules lawful an agreement with Italy to host and process migrants and refugees found and rescued at sea by Italian ships. (Balkan Insight, 29 January 2024)
30 January: Research by Human Rights Watch highlights the ‘brutal immorality’ of authorities in Marseille, France, where migrant children suffering from undetected pregnancies or infectious diseases are made homeless due to faulty age assessments, which are overturned in 75 per cent of appeals. (Human Rights Watch, 30 January 2024)
31 January: The director-general of the Home Office’s migration and border group informs a select committee that 33,085 people who arrived ‘irregularly’ in the UK are on bail and will not have their claims looked at while attempts are made to remove them, as home secretary James Cleverly insists that the 94,062 outstanding claims are not a backlog but a ‘queue.’ (Guardian, 31 January 2024)
Borders and internal controls
23 January: Secondary legislation coming into force on 13 February increases maximum penalties for landlords renting to ‘irregular’ migrants from £3,000 to £20,000, and for employers hiring unauthorised employees from £20,000 to £60,000. (Electronic Immigration Network, 26 January 2024)
28 January: In The deadly consequences of the new deal to stop the boats, Alarmphone finds that the agreement between the UK and France has led directly to a doubling of drownings in the Channel, as increased police attacks on dinghies as they launch creates panic. Six people died in 2022, at least 13 died in 2023, and five more died in January 2024. (Alarmphone, 29 January 2024)
https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1752402111264862375
30 January: The retrial begins of teenager Ibrahima Bah on charges of facilitation of illegal entry and manslaughter, for steering a dinghy which collapsed in the Channel on 14 December 2022, leading to the deaths of four passengers. Bah says he was assaulted and threatened with death to force him to steer the boat. The jury in his first trial could not decide. (Calais Migrant Solidarity, 25 January 2024, Kent Live, 29 January 2024)
30 January: The home secretary and French interior minister agree to expedite aerial surveillance plans to stop and disrupt small boats crossing the Channel, and pledge closer cooperation with the so-called Calais group – UK, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. (Sky News, 30 January 2024)
1 February: A 25-year-old Cameroonian files a complaint to the UN against Spain for the deaths in 2014 of at least 15 migrants when police fired rubber bullets and tear-gas at 200 migrants trying to swim round breakwaters to enter the Spanish territory of Ceuta from Morocco. (Guardian, 1 February 2024)
Reception and detention
25 January: Asylum seekers and people from the local community protest outside a Walthamstow hotel as 400 asylum seeker residents are told by the government’s housing contractor, Clearsprings Ready Homes, that they will be evicted within days. (Open Democracy, 25 January 2024)
31 January: An FOI response reveals that protests outside Stradley Park Hotel, Llanelli from July to October 2023, which forced a U-turn in Home Office plans to house 240 refugees there, cost over £1m to police. (BBC Wales, 31 January 2024)
2 February: As MPs from the home affairs committee tell the illegal migration minister of ‘serious concerns’ about claustrophobic conditions on the Bibby Stockholm following a visit, the home secretary asks parliament for an extra £2.6bn to cover an overspend on asylum accommodation. (Morning Star, 2 February 2024)
3 February: Migrants held at the Ponte Galeria pre-removal centre in Rome, Italy riot after a 22-year-old Guinean held there for several months commits suicide. In another pre-removal centre in north-east Italy, a protest is held after a migrant fell from a roof, sustaining critical injuries. (InfoMigrants, 5 February 2024)
Deportations
25 January: Letters sent in error by Home Office enforcement teams, advising asylum seekers of removal to Rwanda, trigger suffering and impact mental health, while providing no indication of when or if a decision will be made on applicants’ claims. (Guardian, 26 January 2024)
25 January: The head of the European Court of Human Rights, Síofra O’Leary warns that the UK would be in breach of international law if it ignored emergency orders from the court to stop removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda. (Guardian, 25 January 2024)
27 January: A coalition of 265 charities issues a statement calling on peers to reject the Safety of Rwanda bill as it reaches its second reading in the House of Lords. (Statewatch, 29 January 2024)
28 January: Immigration detention centre contractor Mitie hires ‘use of force’ instructors to work alongside the prison service’s anti-riot National Tactical Resource group to force asylum seekers on to Rwanda flights and deal with protesters. (Mirror, 28 January 2024)
Citizenship
2 February: Germany’s upper house passes a ‘naturalisation reform’ allowing people to become German citizens without forsaking their original citizenship and to apply after five rather than eight years’ residence, or three years for applicants demonstrating ‘special integration’ through outstanding performance at school, work or civic engagement. (Al Jazeera, 2 February 2024)
ELECTORAL POLITICS | GOVERNMENT POLICY
As anti-migrant, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI rhetoric in electoral campaigning are increasingly interlinked, we reflect this in the coverage below which also includes information on the influence of the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
25 January: UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi criticises the UK’s ‘stop the boats’ policy, saying pressures over immigration issues are fuelled by politicians ‘manipulating it often through a whole set of fake news’. (BBC, 25 January 2024)
27 January: The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office responds to the ICJ ruling in South Africa vs Israel by restating its view that ‘Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as a genocide’ and ‘South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative’. The UK pauses funding to UNRWA in Gaza after Israel claims that 12 staff participated in the 7 October attack. (Gov.uk, 27 January 2024; Sky News, 27 January 2024).
27 January: The Italian government says a ban on protests in support of Gaza on International Holocaust Remembrance Day is necessary to avoid anti-Israeli or antisemitic incidents. (ANSA, 27 January 2024)
28 January: Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Italy and Switzerland follow the UK and the US and suspend funding to UNRWA. Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg and Norway continue their support. The EU says it will ‘review’ its support and presses for an independent audit. (Al Jazeera, 28 January 2024, Al Jazeera, 29 January 2024, Euronews, 28 January 2024)
28 January: As nationwide protests against the AfD continue, In the second round of the district election in Saale-Orla, Thuringia, Germany, AfD candidate Uwe Thrum wins 47.7% of the vote but is narrowly beaten by the Christian Democrat candidate. (Guardian, 28 January 2024, Guardian, 3 February 2024)
29 January: In the first round of the Finnish presidential election, Finns party candidate Jussi Halla-aho comes third with 19 per cent of the vote, so will not progress to the second round. (Al Jazeera, 29 January 2024)
29 January: The high court rules that Laurence Fox, founder of the Reclaim Party, libelled Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal by calling them paedophiles during a social media exchange about Black History Month, and rejects Fox’s counterclaim for being called racist without ruling on whether it is ‘substantially true’. Fox says he will appeal and launches a libel action against Mukhtar Ali Yassin who also called him a racist. (Irish Independent, 29 January 2024, Standard, 1 February 2024 )
29 January: Labour MP Kate Osamor has the whip suspended for a comment she made on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day that listed Gaza amongst other genocides. She apologises ‘for any offence caused’. (Guardian, 29 January 2024)
29 January: African Union president Moussa Faki rebukes Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni at the Africa summit in Rome, attended by leaders of 45 African nations to agree the Mattei plan to increase Italian influence and European cooperation in Africa in return for curbing illegal migration, telling her ‘We are not beggars’. (Guardian, 29 January 2024)
1 February: The Labour Party hires community outreach volunteers and plans to send shadow ministers to India in an attempt to reconnect with British Indian voters, whose support for the party has slumped. (Guardian, 1 February 2024)
1 February: Senior members of the far-right Sweden Democrats visit Israel and meet Amichai Chikli, the Israeli minister for Social Equality and Diaspora Affairs. While the Swedish Democrats had no prior relationship with Israel due to the Nazi connections of their founders, party leader Jimmie Åkesson states that the party shares many of the core values of Likud and Israel. (European Interest, 1 February 2024)
2 February: Over 800 civil servants across Britain, Europe and the US, the majority from foreign ministries, sign a letter attacking government complicity in Israel’s war in Gaza. Signatures were printed in the New York Times and anonymised in case jobs are threatened. (Morning Star, 2 February 2024)
3 February: Former home secretary Suella Braverman accuses churches of ‘facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims’ after Abdul Ezedi, whose asylum claim was based on his conversion to Christianity, is named as the suspect in a chemical attack on a refugee mother and two children in south-west London. (Sky News, 6 February 2024)
5 February: A poll commissioned by the Labour Muslim Network reveals that, because of Labour’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war, only 60 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2019 would do so now in a general election. (Guardian, 5 February 2024)
5 February: The Labour Party faces criticism after it emerges that some campaigners were excluded from a private race equality act launch event during which the party unveiled plans to extend equal pay rights to Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers to put them on a protective par with women. (Sky News, 5 February 2024, Guardian, 4 February 2024)
5 February: The executive authority in Nicaragua issues a memorandum to start proceedings to take Germany, UK, Netherlands and Canada to the ICJ for complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza by providing weapons and other means. (Al Mayadeen, 5 February 2024)
5 February: The SNP asks the government’s ethics watchdog to investigate prime minister Rishi Sunak’s ‘depraved’ £1,000 wager with talk-show host Piers Morgan that he would deport asylum seekers to Rwanda before the general election, which it describes as ‘shameful and grotesque’, and which Sunak repudiates the next day. (Herald, 5 February 2024, Morning Star, 6 February 2024)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
With anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
26 January: In Innsbruck, Vienna and Salzburg, Austria, thousands take to the streets to protest far-right identitarian movement founder Martin Sellner’s attendance at a meeting in Germany to discuss mass deportations. (Guardian, 26 January 2024)
26 January: The Scottish court of appeal upholds the decision to extradite to France holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard, who has been on the run since 2022. (Guardian, 26 January 2024)
27 January: Police in Telford arrest four people for anti-social behaviour before a protest organised by Tommy Robinson. (Shropshire Star, 27 January 2024)
30 January: Italy summons the Hungarian ambassador after its citizen, Ilaria Salis, is brought to court in Budapest with her hands and feet shackled and attached to prison guards by a leash. Salis is accused, alongside others, of membership of a left-wing organisation and violent acts during a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi commemoration in February 2023. (Guardian, 30 January 2024; Sued Tyrol News, 31 January 2024)
1 February: In France, fascist and neo-Nazi groups join farmer protests against rising taxes and regulations. Various groups call for people to ‘join the revolt’ and regain control of France. (Memri, 1 February 2024)
2 February: Hans-Georg Maaßen, chief of Germany’s domestic security agency between 2012 and 2018, is being investigated for far-right extremism. Maaßen is accused of believing in far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories and of being sympathetic to the Reichsbürger movement, whose members were arrested for a suspected failed coup in 2022. (BBC News, 2 February 2024)
2 February: Three pro-Palestinian antifascists who attempted to attend a demonstration against the far-right AfD in Berlin, Germany, say they were shunned, pushed around and discriminated against by other demonstrators because they wanted to raise Palestinian flags and protest the AfD’s aggressive stance on Palestine. (Al Jazeera, 2 February 2024)
5 February: Anti-fascists rally outside parliament protesting a meeting organised by disgraced MP Andrew Bridgen and addressed by AfD MEP Christine Anderson, after the Speaker refused Hope not Hate’s request to ban the meeting. (Left Foot Forward, 6 February 2024)
5 February: After multiple protest camps are set up around the perimeter of RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, the planned site of accommodation for 2,000 asylum seekers, police report that masked men have forced protesters to leave and burned ‘Dambusters’ flags, in incidents including assaults between 30 January and 4 February. (Sky News, 5 February 2024)
POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
23 January: Liberty, Friends, Families & Travellers and Romany Gypsy complainant Wendy Smith launch a judicial review at the high court against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act’s ‘discriminatory’ powers to fine, arrest, imprison and seize the homes of Gypsies and Travellers living on roadside camps. (Friends, Families & Traveller Newsletter, 5 February 2024)
25 January: In France, a police officer is sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for a November 2022 assault on a young Libyan man at an administrative detention centre in Toulouse-Cornebarrieu, during which the officer pushed his thumbs into the detainee’s eye sockets while he was immobilised. (Streetpress, 25 January 2024)
26 January: In an out-of-court agreement with Bedfordshire police, the family of Julian Cole, who was paralysed after contact with officers outside a nightclub in 2013, are awarded a settlement of £1.2 million. (BBC News, 26 January 2024)
27 January: Research by Big Brother Watch finds that the Southern Co-op chain’s use of facial recognition cameras to tackle shoplifting disproportionately targets people in poorer areas. (Guardian, 27 January 2024)
27 January: In Milan, Italy, police use batons to disperse pro-Palestine demonstrators who defy an official ban on protests in support of Gaza on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Demonstrations also take place in Rome and other cities. (ANSA, 27 January 2024; Al Jazeera, 28 January 2024)
28 January: On the 25th anniversary of the death of Jay Abatan following a suspected racist killing outside a Brighton nightclub in 1999, the Guardian claims that the Sussex police officers that mishandled the investigation went on holiday, dined and partied with the suspects after the attack. The family calls for a public inquiry. (Guardian, 28 January 2024)
29 January: At City of London Magistrates’ Court, Met police officer Jonathan Marsh is found guilty of common assault against Rasike Attanayake, who had called 999 to report a crime only to be treated as a suspect, arrested and punched in the head. (Standard, 29 January 2024)
30 January: According to the Home Office, 115 police officers and 43 staff in England and Wales were found guilty of crimes, the most common being sexual offences, in the year to April 2023, up 70 per cent on the previous year. 393 findings of gross misconduct and 435 findings of misconduct were issued, leading to 352 dismissals. (Guardian, 30 January 2024)
2 February: An inquest into the 2021 death of Mouayed Bashir following police restraint in Newport, Wales returns a narrative verdict, finding that the death was caused by cocaine intoxication, contributed to by acute behavioural disturbance (ABD). The police’s lack of knowledge of danger signs for ABD, that can be exacerbated by restraint and can lead to cardiac arrest, is criticised. (Inquest, 2 February 2024; Guardian, 2 February 2024)
Mouayed Bashir, 29, died after being restrained by police at his home in Wales in 2021
The inquest into his death opened today.
Mouayed was in mental health crisis. The inquest jury saw harrowing footage of the incident, as described here.@JMouayedhttps://t.co/LFRUHppu9L
— INQUEST (@INQUEST_ORG) January 15, 2024
2 February: A police misconduct panel rules that PC Adam Brown would have been sacked from West Yorkshire police if he had not resigned for a comment made at a first aid training session in which he said, with reference to a resuscitation dummy, ‘Can I have the black one so I can stamp on its head’. (Yorkshire Live, 2 February 2024)
2 February: A private member’s bill to amend the joint enterprise law to stop innocent people being jailed, brought following years of campaigning by Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA), begins its second reading in the Commons. (Guardian, 1 February 2024, Hansard, 2 February 2024)
5 February: Having lost faith in the Met Commissioner and senior leaders to carry out reforms, the National Black Police Association calls on ethnic minorities to boycott police recruitment, citing a ‘racist and vexatious’ misconduct hearing against Charles Ehikioya, chair of Met BPA. (Guardian, 5 February 2024)
5 February: Official data suggests that between April and December 2023, the Met lost over 250 authorised firearms officers (one in ten) compared to only 22 in the year leading up to March 2023. The Times attributes this to the number of disciplinary procedures and the charge of murder against the officer who shot dead Chris Kaba. (LBC, 5 February 2024)
5 February: The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research publishes a report which finds that four people die in custody or state settings every week in Scotland, a total of 244 people in 2023. (SCCJR, 5 February 2024)
6 February: A vigil is held outside Capital House in Edinburgh to mark the restart of the Sheku Bayoh Public Inquiry, a historic inquiry into the circumstances leading to Sheku Bayoh’s death in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 2015. (Twitter, 6 February 2024)
ANTI-TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY
26 January: Terrorism charges against Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign founder Mick Napier, in relation to comments made about the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, are dropped at the Glasgow sheriff xourt, which refuses the prosecutor’s request to continue repressive bail conditions, including a ban on attending any protest anywhere in Scotland. (SPSC, 26 January 2024)
1 February: A suspected explosive device is found and destroyed by a bomb squad outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. (Guardian, 1 February 2024)
EDUCATION
28 January: Following an ‘exposé’ in the Sunday Times, Russell Group universities deny that British students are being ‘squeezed out’ by international applicants accepted with lower entry requirements. International students often apply for foundation year programmes which have a different admission process, they explain. (Guardian, 28 January 2024)
29 January: The French Constitutional Council deems unconstitutional sections of the new immigration law that would have charged international students a ‘return deposit’ to cover potential ‘removal costs’; compelled overseas students to annually demonstrate ‘the real and serious nature of their studies’; and introduced higher university registration fees for non-EU students. (THS, 29 January 2024)
31 January: An evidence review by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) finds that ‘gaps in the retention and promotion rates between teachers of colour and their peers has widened, despite more people from ethnic backgrounds applying for teacher training’. (TES, 31 January 2024)
1 February: An Ofsted and Care Quality Commission report finds that alternative provision is being used ‘inappropriately’ and that AP placements rose above 67,000 in January 2023. The 13 per cent rise in one year is related to the number of students with special needs placed in AP as a ‘stopgap’, ‘unofficial’ exclusions, and high rates, since the pandemic, of permanent exclusions from some academies. (TES, 1 February 2024)
2 February: The School Attendance Bill passes its second reading in parliament unopposed. Proposed measures criminalising parents for failing to comply with a ‘school attendance order’, which faced criticism from racial justice organisations for the potential ‘active harm’ caused by racialised stereotypes, are scrapped. (TES, 2 February 2024)
4 February: A petition is launched to support anthropology professor Ghassan Hage, who is said to be subjected to a ‘vicious smear campaign’ in Germany by journalists and pro-Israel activists for condemning war crimes committed by the Israeli army and settlers, leading him to terminate his relationship with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. (Change.org, 4 February 2024)
HOUSING | POVERTY | WELFARE
25 January: The Housing Ombudsman says that a royal commission to ‘create a long-term plan for social housing’ and ‘re-establish the link between housing and health’ is needed after a new report finds that some landlords did not understand their obligations to vulnerable people under the equality, human rights and care acts. (Inside Housing, 23 January 2024)
30 January: A government consultation opens as 17 housing sector bodies say the new ‘unserious’ British Homes for British Workers social housing allocations policy amounts to ‘scapegoating’. A five-year ban on social housing applications for those who have unspent convictions or subject to civil sanctions due to anti-social behaviour is also announced. (Inside Housing, 30 January 2024)
30 January: Haringey Welcome and the Museum of Homelessness launch a fundraiser to help refugees avoid homelessness due to eviction from Home Office accommodation after their asylum applications are approved, by securing their first private accommodation. (Haringey Community Press, 30 January 2024)
31 January: Figures compiled by the London mayor’s office reveal a 23 percent year-on-year rise in rough sleeping, with a record 4,389 people counted in the fourth quarter of 2023. One-fifth of those helped inside in the cold weather initiative were refugees forced out of asylum accommodation. (Guardian, 31 January 2024)
1 February: Social media analysis concludes that the government’s British Home for British People policy came after far-right fixation with social housing being given to ‘foreigners’ which, in anonymous social media account replete with crusader images, was seen as more evidence of the ‘great replacement’. (Peter’s Substack, 1 February 2024)
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
1 February: A new report from the Centre for Mental Health (CMH) finds that racism not only causes poor mental health, but also stops people from accessing services and impedes their recovery. (Independent, 1 February 2024; Centre for Mental Health, 31 January 2024)
4 February: The government’s patient safety commissioner warns that pervasive medical misogyny and racial bias is negatively affecting outcomes for patients, with examples including neonatal assessment tools and pulse oximeters that work less well for darker skin tones, and heart valves, mesh implants and replacement hip joints that were not designed with female patients in mind. (Guardian, 4 February 2024)
EMPLOYMENT | EXPLOITATION | INDUSTRIAL ACTION
26 January: The Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit announces a test case for modern slavery against the Home Office and Defra’s seasonal workers scheme, launching a civil claim for damages on behalf of a teenaged Indonesian fruit picker who they argue was effectively the victim of debt bondage. (Guardian, 26 January 2024)
2 February: Research by Aalborg University shows ‘mafia methods’ and shocking levels of exploitation of migrant workers in the Danish construction industry, where the number of migrant workers, largely from Poland, Romania and Lithuania, has increased from 8,782 to 25,014 full-time employees, with 5,848 workers from outside the EU. (Morning Star, 2 February 2024)
5 February: A memorial service is held by the Cockle Pickers’ Memorial on Morecambe Sands to remember the 23 Chinese cockle pickers who died twenty years ago. Their death led to the establishment of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, to regulate labour exploitation. (Lancaster Guardian, 6 February 2024, Observer, 4 February 2024)
5 February: In a landmark ruling, an employment tribunal says that academic David Miller was unfairly dismissed by the University of Bristol for holding ‘anti-Zionist beliefs’, which qualify as a ‘philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic pursuant to section 10 Equality Act 2010’. (Guardian, 5 February 2024)
6 February: A UK care company, Gloriavd Health Care, whose workers serve NHS patients, is accused of charging thousands of pounds for arranging work and visas for migrant workers from southern Africa, giving the workers less work than they had expected, housing them in squalid conditions and threatening them with possible deportation if they complained. (Guardian, 6 February 2024)
CULTURE | MEDIA | SPORT
While we cannot cover all incidents of racist abuse on sportspersons or their responses, we provide a summary of the most important incidents. For more information follow Kick it Out.
23 January: The Telegraph, citing unnamed sources, claims that Jewish BBC staff have filed complaints about antisemitism in BBC coverage about the ‘Israel-Hamas’ conflict, Gary Lineker’s social media use and antisemitism in the workplace. (Telegraph, 23 January 2024)
30 January: After the Austrian literary organisations Literaturfest Salzburg and Literaturhaus NÖ cancel the residency of Lana Bastašić, the Bosnian-Serbian novelist thanks them for ‘uninviting’ her as she would not want to be part of an ‘institution which not only cancels artists, but seems to think silence and censorship is the right answer to genocide’. (Literary Hub, 30 January 2024)
30 January: A report by the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) finds that sexual harassment and abuse is widespread in the music industry, while issues are intensified for women facing intersectional barriers like racial discrimination. (Independent, 30 January 2024)
31 January: Senior BBC insiders say that the BBC director-general has held ‘listening meetings’ with staff, including senior presenters, to address internal disquiet over coverage of the war in Gaza revealing bias against Palestinians, such as use of ‘dehumanising language’ and missing stories reported by other networks. (Deadline, 31 January 2024)
3 February: Following the eighth national march for Palestine, the Telegraph says the police are under renewed scrutiny to arrest people for displaying ‘multiple banners displaying antisemitic tropes’, such as those that claim the ‘BBC is an arm of the Zionist propaganda machine’. (Telegraph, 3 February 2024)
5 February: The BBC reportedly sacks a senior scheduler for offensive messages about Israel and Zionism on her Facebook account. The Campaign Against Antisemitism says it will report Dawn Queva to the police. (Daily Express, 5 February 2024).
5 February: Douglas Murray, hosting a ‘Standing for Israel’ fundraiser organised by the charity Technion UK, is forced to relocate to a secret venue after Apollo Theatre staff in London refuse to work the event following action by Culture Workers Against Genocide. Jewish News claims staff received threatening emails. (Middle East Eye, 5 February 2024; Jewish News, 5 February 2024)
6 February: The Barbican backs out of hosting a lecture series organised by the London Review of Books after discovering that a talk by Pankaj Mishra was titled ‘The Shoah after Gaza’. Mishra comments that the Barbican’s decision highlights how a ‘pervasive sense of fear and panic’ is shutting down debate in public spaces. (Guardian, 6 February 2024)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
25 January: After the Federal Criminal Police Office reports 2,249 antisemitic crimes in Germany since 7 October 2023, the government commissioner for combating antisemitism calls for tougher sentencing of antisemitic incidents. (Deutsche Welle, 25 January 2024)
25 January: The French interior ministry and the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) record 1,676 antisemitic acts in 2023 compared to 436 in 2022. Nearly 60% involved physical violence, threatening words or menacing gestures and more than 12% took place in schools, according to CRIF, who say it’s the worst year on record. (Le Monde, 25 January 2024)
29 January: A 34-year-old man is arrested in connection with a racially aggravated attack on a kosher shop in Golders Green, north-west London, with video circulating on social media appearing to show a man brandishing a large knife. (Independent, 29 January 2024)
The calendar was compiled by Sophie Chauhan with the help of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam, Louis Ordish and Anne-Ysore Onana-Ateba. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.