Calendar of Racism and Resistance (29 January – 11 February 2021)

Calendar of Racism and Resistance (29 January – 11 February 2021)

February 11 2021 News

Written by: IRR News Team


 

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

ASYLUM AND MIGRATION

Asylum and migrant rights

27 January: NHS leaders warn the post-Brexit immigration system will result in a huge shortfall of care staff, with the NHS Confederation appealing for ministers to show ‘flexibility and pragmatism’ to enable migrant care workers to support the system. (Independent, 27 January 2021) 

28 January: In a case brought by the Syrian and Palestinian survivors, the UN Human Rights Committee finds Italy guilty of breaking international law by delaying a rescue mission for a sinking ship in 2013, resulting in 200 people drowning. (Guardian, 28 January 2021)

2 February: The Danish parliament votes to convene a court of impeachment to try former immigration minister Inger Støjberg over a 2016 order aimed at separating asylum-seeking couples where one partner was under 16. (Guardian, 2 February 2021)

31 January: In Belgium, 150 undocumented migrants begin an occupation of the Beguinage Church in central Brussels to demand legal status, the first of several occupations planned across the city. (InfoMigrants, 3 February 2021)

The exterior of The Church of St. John the Baptist at the Béguinage, Brussels.
The Beguinage Church in central Brussels. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Charles Lecompte.
Borders and internal controls

26 January: A Privacy International report on The UK’s privatised migration surveillance regime reveals the vast array of surveillance and data tools used to enforce hostile environment policies and the billions spent on them. (Privacy International, 26 January 2021)

28 January: The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) publishes its submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism for its report on ‘Race, Borders and Digital Technologies. BVMN examines the ‘role of technology in illegal push-backs from Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina’, including drones and thermal imaging cameras. (Borderviolence, 28 January 2021) 

1 February: A new report by Legal Centre Lesvos draws on the testimony of over 50 survivors of collective expulsions perpetrated by the Greek authorities in the Aegean. (Legal Centre Lesvos, 1 February 2021) f

1 February: The European parliament president describes as ‘astonishing’ the Croatian authorities’ intervention to abort a mission by Italian MEPs who sought to check allegations of police violence against migrants at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Balkan Insight, 1 February 2021)

5 February: Corporate Europe Observatory publishes Lobbying Fortress Europe, an investigation into the privileged access to Europe’s border agency Frontex for defence, surveillance and biometrics industries. Read the report here.

9 February: The Hungarian government is openly violating a European Court of Justice ruling forbidding pushbacks to Serbia, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee warns. The website of the Hungarian police records 2,824 refugees pushed back to Serbia in January alone.  (Deutsche Welle, 9 January 2021)

Reception and detention

21 January: The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) records that the Greek government has agreed to pay compensation to an Ethiopian asylum seeker for the ‘inhuman and degrading’ conditions she endured in the Samos hotspot while heavily pregnant. (Refugee Law Clinic Berlin, 29 January 2021) 

28 January: In Italy, mayors from border towns with France, including Ventimiglia, Vallecrosia and Camporosso express astonishment at an interior ministry plan to build a migrant transit centre in one of their towns, which they just learned about, and all but Ventimiglia refuse to host the centre. (InfoMigrants, 1 February 2021) 

29 January: As a fire breaks out at the troubled Napier barracks, where 400 asylum seekers are housed and 120 have Covid, and home secretary Priti Patel comes under mounting pressure to close it down, she blames the asylum seekers, saying the incident is ‘deeply offensive to taxpayers’. (Guardian, 29 January 2021)  

29 January: Migrant victims of modern slavery housed by Home Office contractors in London reveal being forced to move accommodation over the winter lockdown with no explanation and little or no notice. (Guardian, 29 January 2021) 

30 January:  Lyster and Safi barracks detainees in Malta lodge formal complaints at the European Asylum Support Office alleging physical torture, including electrocution, solitary confinement and denial of medical care. (Times of Malta, 30 January 2021) 

31 January: As asylum seekers at Napier barracks are left with no access to electricity, heating or drinking water, charities bringing warm blankets and food are turned away by police who say the site is a ‘crime scene’. Kent police say 14 people have been arrested in relation to the fire there, and one man charged. (Guardian, 31 January 2021)

31 January: As a leaked Red Cross report says military barracks can never be appropriate for survivors of violence and torture, and refers to waits of 20 days in pain for medical help, raw food leading to food poisoning, death threats and racial abuse by right-wing protesters, internal Home Office documents reveal they were chosen since providing better accommodation would ‘undermine public confidence in the asylum system’. (Independent, 31 January 2021) 

30 January: In Cyprus, an internal police investigation is launched into allegations, made public by anti-racist group KEERFA, that police stormed migrants’ cells at the Paranesti pre-removal centre and beat them with batons after a protest at being held beyond the legal limit of 18 months. (Ekathimerini, 30 January 2021) 

1 February: Riot police attend, allegedly as a precaution, as asylum seekers at the Pournara reception centre, Cyprus stage a protest against conditions there and demand to leave to seek asylum elsewhere. (Cyprus Mail, 1 February 2021)

1 February: A strict quarantine is imposed at the Herkulesstraße refugee shelter in Cologne, Germany, as workers and then residents test positive for a new more contagious Covid variant.(Kölner Wochenspiegel, 1 February 2021)

2 February: As former immigration minister Caroline Nokes calls on the Home Office to stop segregating asylum seekers into a ghetto, government disclosures reveal that Clearsprings, the private contractor running Napier barracks, will earn £1 billion for its ten-year government contracts to house asylum seekers. (Guardian, 2 February; Guardian, 3 February 2021) 

3 February: Video footage shows police carrying an asylum seeker into Napier barracks by force after he tried to leave, and Kent police reveal that the man was arrested and taken into police custody after attempting to leave again. (Guardian, 3 February 2021)

3 February: The High Court orders the immediate transfer of a man from Napier barracks into hotel accommodation, the second such order in two days. (Guardian, 3 February; Guardian, 5 February 2021)

4 February: A data mapping project by After Exploitation and Women for Refugee Women reveals that more than 2,000 people identified as likely trafficking victims were placed in detention in 21 months. (Independent, 4 February 2021) 

6 February: Figures obtained by the Children’s Commissioner reveal that 80 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were illegally detained for longer than 24 hours, one for 65 hours, after completing the dangerous journey from northern France. (Independent, 6 February 2021) 

7 February: In Greece, residents of the island of Chios block roads with a 2km long motorcade to protest a planned 1500-bed closed migrant centre to replace the current overcrowded VIAL camp. (Ekathimerini, 7 February 2021) 

8 February:  As the Spanish authorities start the transfer of 9,000 people in the Canary Islands from overcrowded reception centres to freezing and muddy tent-camps, refusing to transfer all but a few to the mainland, protests erupt and self-harm incidents multiply. (El Pais, 8 February 2021)

10 February: The Home Office abandons plans for ‘prison-style’ accommodation for 200 asylum seekers in pre-fab huts at Yarl’s Wood, the day before lawyers were to launch a legal challenge, as Bedford MP Mohammad Yasin says housing vulnerable people in ‘hostile, inappropriate and unsafe accommodation in the middle of a pandemic’ was ‘a terrible idea’. (Independent, 10 February 2021)

Criminalising solidarity

29 January: The Court of Appeal quashes the convictions of the Stansted 15, saying they should not have been charged under counter-terrorism legislation for blocking a deportation charter flight in 2017, and there was ‘no case to answer’ on the charge. (Guardian, 29 January 2021)

Deportation

25 January: A new JCWI report warns that thousands of key workers from the EU in the care, construction, manufacturing and agriculture sectors are at risk of losing their legal status and of removal from the UK. (JCWI, 25 January 2021)

26 January: Charities helping homeless and vulnerable EU citizens express concern that from 1 January the Home Office has offered voluntary return and up to £2,000 for EU citizens to leave the UK, having pledged to promote the EU settlement scheme. (Guardian, 26 January 2021)

28 January: In Austria, many children who have spent their formative years in the country are deported to Georgia and Armenia on a charter flight. In Vienna, classmates and teachers of two deported sisters, aged 12 and 5, born in the country, stage protests. (Metropole; Süddeutsche, 28 January 2021)

POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

23 January: Plans to reduce the number of women in the criminal justice system include creating 500 new UK prison places for women, prison charities point out. (Guardian, 23 January 2021)

26 January: The Racial Justice Network and Yorkshire Resists publish their report on the Biometric Services Gateway, showing that the mobile fingerprinting app, which allows police to conduct instant identity and immigration status checks, is used disproportionately against Roma, south Asian and Black people in Yorkshire. (RJN/ Yorkshire Resists, 26 January 2021)

27 January: In the first class-action discrimination case based on colour brought in France, six NGOs launch proceedings against the government for systemic discrimination in police ID checks. (Deutsche Welle, 27 January 2021)

28 January: Press photographer Andy Aitchison is arrested at his home, his memory card and phone seized and he is held in custody for 7 hours after taking and sharing photographs of a protest at Napier barracks, before being bailed on conditions preventing him from returning to the site. (Guardian, 30 January 2021)

2 February: Government figures reveal that more than half of young people in police custody are BME, and a record number are black. The number of BME minors who received a caution or sentence has also risen and the figure for black children is now double what it was in 2010. (Socialist Worker, 2 February 2021)

2 February: The trial begins in Portugal of three police officers accused of the murder of Ukrainian Ihor Homenyuk at Lisbon airport’s immigration holding centre in October 2020. (Publico, 2 February 2021)

3 February: A thousand young black men are removed from the Metropolitan Police gangs matrix following a review which found that 38 percent of those listed on the database posed little or no risk of committing violence. (Guardian, 3 February 2021)

3 February: In France, a Conseil d’Etat judge dismisses an urgent complaint by two journalists refused entry to the security perimeters during a police-driven expulsion of displaced people in Dunkerque and Calais on 29 and 30 December 2020, ruling that the interference with press freedom was not excessive. (L’Obs, 3 February 2021; Are You Syrious, 4 February 2021) 

3 February: The Belgian interior minister announces to parliament proposed reforms of police disciplinary procedures following revelations of racist insults by Brussels officers. (Brussels Times, 3 February 2021) 

3 February: Reporters without Borders warns that Greece’s new guidelines for policing protest threaten press freedom by consigning reporters to specified areas during demonstrations, where information is provided through police liaison officers. (Reporters without Borders, 3 February 2021)

3 February: A Prisons Inspectorate report on children in custody discloses a grim picture of violence and long lock-up, with 4 out of 10 children claiming to have been bullied by staff, and BME and Roma children suffering disproportionately. (The Justice Gap; Justice Inspectorate, 3 February 2021) 

5 February: Charges are dropped against press photographer Andy Aitchison and his memory card and phone are returned, following intervention by the National Union of Journalists, who call for an enquiry into Kent Police over Aitchison’s arrest. (Press Gazette, 5 February 2021)

8 February: In a briefing, Amnesty International accuses the French government of using ‘illegal tactics’, including arbitrary detention, to suppress protests against the Global Security Bill, with hundreds of people arrested on vague charges such as contempt against public officials. (Amnesty International, 8 February 2021)

9 February: A senior independent investigator tells the family of Mohamud Hassan that 52 police officers came into contact with the 24-year-old during the short time he spent in police custody on 9 January. (Guardian, 9 February 2021)

https://twitter.com/IRR_News/status/1359068151967846400?s=20

10 February: The Guardian learns that a criminal investigation has been launched into two Metropolitan police officers who allegedly filmed and shared CCTV evidence of the fatal shooting of 32-year-old black Briton Craig Small, in July 2019. Craig’s mother Carol Campbell says laughter can be heard in the background of the recording, and that the uploading of the video to social media has compounded her trauma. (Guardian, 10 February 2021)

Counter-extremism

31 January: FOI requests by the Observer reveal that 624 children under the age of 6 were referred to Prevent between 2016 and 2019, and 1,405 children in the 6-9 age group, and that police attended the home of a 4-year-old Muslim boy at 10.30pm following his referral over a game of Fortnite. (Observer, 31 January 2021)

ELECTORAL AND PARTY POLITICS

30 January: In France, Marine Le Pen, at a record high in the polls, calls for a new law to ban ‘totalitarian and murderous’ ‘Islamist ideologies’ including wearing the hijab in all public places. (Al Jazeera, 30 January 2021)

31 January: Democratic Unionist MP Gregory Campbell posts on Facebook that a BBC Songs of Praise edition featuring Black people is ‘the BBC at its BLM worst’, sparking criticism and calls for removal of the whip. (Guardian, 8 February 2021)

3 February: The Labour party is accused by its left wing of pandering to nativism after a leaked strategy document proposes that the party rebrands itself through renewing its focus on ‘British values’, making more use of displays of patriotism and the Union Jack. (Guardian, 3 February 2021)

5 February: After the prime minister refuses to condemn equalities minister Kemi Badenoch’s tweets denigrating a HuffPost journalist who asked her questions, a letter by Downing Street adviser Samuel Kasumu is leaked suggesting Badenoch may have broken the ministerial code by her action, and its former race unit head Lord Woolley calls for her resignation. (Evening Standard, 29 January; Guardian, 1 February; Guardian, 5 February 2021)

9 February: Following the revelation by Downing Street adviser Samuel Kasumu that he sought to resign over ‘unbearable tension over race’ and the Conservatives’ ‘politics steeped in division’, prominent Tory black activist Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones warns that the party is becoming a ‘no-go area’ for Black people. (Guardian, 5 February; Guardian, 9 February 2021) 

5 February: Charities that support politically or culturally contentious causes should expect their charitable status to come under regulatory scrutiny, says Tina Stowell, the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission, adding that ‘party politics‘ is too narrow a definition of the limits of charity political activity. (Guardian, 5 February 2021)

7 February: Lord Walney, the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, announces a review into the far-right and far-left extremes of the political spectrum. Unite Against Fascism and Extinction Rebellion are cited as examples of ‘progressive extremism’, while the ‘defund and divest programme of BLM is called ‘hardline’ and ‘absolutist’. (Telegraph (£); Guardian, 7 February 2021)

9 February: In the Netherlands, an investigation by EW magazine links several parliamentary candidates of the extreme-right Forum voor Democratie, including its leader, to a WhatsApp chat group spreading racist and homophobic comments. (Dutch News, 9 February 2021)

ANTI-FASCISM AND FAR RIGHT

28 January:  Neo-nazi Stephan Ernst is jailed for life in Germany after being convicted of the 2019 murder of the Christian Democrat pro-immigrant politician Walter Lübcke. Co-defendant Markus Hartmann is acquitted of acting as an accessory, with this and his suspended sentence for illegal gun possession criticised. (Guardian; Deutsche Welle, 28 January 2021) 

28 January: Following an ‘anti-migrant action’ at a Pyrenees border crossing between France and Spain, the French interior minister announces an investigation into Génération Identitaire for incitement to racial hatred. (InfoMigrants, 28 January 2021)

2 February:  Data released by Germany’s intelligence agency reveals that 1,203 far-right extremists, including 528 Reichsbürger supporters, have firearms licences, and that 24 incidents of far-right crimes in the proximity of asylum hostels, largely involving the use of firearms, were recorded in 2019. (Deutsche Welle, 2 February 2021)

8 February: A teenager associated with the neo-nazi groups Fascist Forge and Feuerkrieg Division becomes the youngest person in the UK to be convicted of terrorist offences, which occurred when he was 13. He is sentenced to a 2-year rehabilitation order. (Guardian, 8 February 2021)

HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION

31 January: Following the UN’s international maritime court definitive rejection of the UK’s claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, it is revealed that less than £12,000 of a £40 million Foreign Office fund to compensate forcibly evicted Chagossians. (Guardian, 28 January, Observer, 31 January 2021) 

2 February: The Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation publishes The impact of Covid-19 on the lives of Latin American migrants, focussing on the intersecting crises of lack of healthcare and housing, rising unemployment and increasing food poverty facing the Latin American community in London. Download the report here. 

4 February: Research by African women’s rights group Forward and Huddersfield University finds that policies introduced to protect women and girls against female genital mutilation (FGM) are eroding trust and alienating African diaspora communities by racial profiling, stigmatisation and criminalisation. (Guardian, 4 February 2021) 

4 February: Campaigners in Africa call for a waiver of patents on vaccines to fight Covid-19 and for an end to ‘vaccine nationalism’ by rich countries as the continent’s fatality rate rises above the global average. (Guardian, 4 February 2021)

8 February: Flintshire Council in North Wales is accused of discrimination for hiring a private security firm to monitor residents of a Travellers’ site and stop them leaving, after a number tested positive for Covid-19. (Guardian, 8 February 2021)

9 February: Campaigners accuse ministers of putting profit over Yemeni lives as figures reveal that the UK sold £1.4 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia in the three months after restrictions on arms sales were lifted in July. (Guardian, 9 February 2021)

EMPLOYMENT AND EXPLOITATION

8 February: Social care workers on minimum wage and insecure contracts say they are having to take holiday when they go off sick with Covid as employers pay no sick pay. (Guardian, 8 February 2021)

HEALTH AND HOMELESSNESS

26 January: NHS England agrees to collect data on the ethnicity of those given a Covid vaccine, 7 weeks after vaccinations began. (Health Service Journal, 26 January 2021)

28 January: The largest ever study on BME health impact finds inequality in groups where the average health of some is equivalent to being 20 years older than their age, with other studies reporting poor experiences at GPs and insufficient support from local services, further impacting quality of life. (Guardian; Guardian, 28 January 2021) 

29 January: The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses accuses detained ‘illegal immigrants’ of ‘purposely self-harming’ and instructs its members to refuse hospital admission. Ascribing ulterior motives is unfair and mental health services must be delivered without discrimination, says the Mental Health Commissioner. (Times of Malta, 29 January 2021)

1 February:  In Rome, Italian charities report winter deaths of 12 rough sleepers linked to the public health emergency, including a 46-year-old Nigerian man. 40,000 people sign a petition organised by Nonna Roma, demanding metro stations be kept open overnight. (Guardian, 1 February 2021)

5 February: A rare post-viral disease is hospitalising up to 100 children a week, doctors say, and three-quarters of the worst affected children are BME. (Guardian, 5 February 2021) 

7 February: Following Liverpool doctors’ setting up a pop-up Covid clinic staffed by BME medical students in a Toxteth community centre to deal with the racial divide in vaccination, the East London mosque in Whitechapel, London opens a pop-up clinic to vaccinate hundreds of Muslim pensioners. (Guardian, 4 February; Guardian, 8 February 2021) 

8 February: As ministers state that undocumented migrants are eligible for free vaccination without fear of deportation, JCWI research shows that the hostile environment and NHS data sharing with the Home Office means a majority of migrants and refugees are wary of accessing healthcare and thus reluctant to be vaccinated. (BBC News; Guardian, 8 February 2021) 

HOUSING

9 February: The former UK sales manager for Arconic, the firm that made the combustible cladding used on Grenfell Tower, admits to the Grenfell inquiry that she knew the cladding could burn but did not tell customers, as the fire-resistant version was more expensive. Other executives of the French company are refusing to attend the inquiry. (Guardian, 9 February 2021)

EDUCATION

28 January: Greek students demonstrate against the government proposal to create a new police force for universities, with powers to arrest and charge ‘troublemakers’. (Al Jazeera, 28 January 2021)

3 February: In Greece, parents of schoolchildren in Ippios, Lesvos, occupy a road leading to the school to prevent refugee children reaching the school. (athina984, 3 February 2021) 

5 February: Channel 4 reveals that overseas students who have become destitute during the pandemic because of the lack of part-time jobs and in arrears with their fees, are being threatened with expulsion from their courses. (Channel 4, 5 February 2021)

5 February: Forty MPs and peers call on Huddersfield University to close its police masters course at the Royal Academy of Policing in Bahrain after allegations that political dissidents are tortured in the same building. (Guardian, 5 February 2021)

MEDIA, CULTURE, SPORT

27 January: Over one-third of BME cricketers have experienced racism in the county game, a new survey by the Professional Cricketers Association reveals. (Mail Online, 27 January 2021)

29 January: The Guardian reports that almost 70 tributes to slave traders and colonialists across the UK have been removed or renamed. (Guardian, 29 January 2021)

The statue of Edward Colston in Bristol being thrown into the river by protesters.
BLM protesters throwing the statue of Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour last June. Credit: Keir Gravil. Source: Flickr.

3 February: German TV show Die letzte Instanz apologises after criticism for featuring an all-white panel of guests to discuss racism. (Unilad, 3 February 2021)

4 February: Culture secretary Oliver Dowden, questioned over the threats to press freedom exemplified by the arrest of press photographer Andy Aitchison and the public denigration of Huffpost journalist Nadine White, points to the newly established National Committee for the Safety of Journalists and its forthcoming action plan. (Press Gazette, 5 February 2021) 

7 February: The Church of England is accused of aiding an online backlash by releasing a statement critical of a trainee priest after he tweeted ‘the cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism…’. Jarel Robinson-Brown received death threats and was subject to an 18,000 strong online petition to remove him from his position at a London church. (Guardian, 7 February 2021)

8 February: More than a dozen current and former national newspaper editors sign Open Democracy’s open letter calling for protection of freedom of information and an urgent investigation of ministers’ unprecedented rate of rejection of freedom of information requests. (Open Democracy, 8 February 2021)

9 February: In a case causing concern for Polish Holocaust research, a court in Warsaw, Poland, orders two prominent historians to apologise for ‘violating the honour’ of wartime mayor Edward Malinowski, after writing in an academic study of the Holocaust that he gave up Jews to the Nazis. (Guardian, 9 February 2021) 

9 February: The Professional Footballers Association launches a five-year initiative to bring more British Asian players into professional football. (Joe, 9 February 2021)

10 February: A former employee of R&S Records files a discrimination and unlawful dismissal claim alleging that the record label was dismissive of black artists. (Guardian, 10 February 2021)

Football racism

6 February: Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton football clubs and Liverpool and Manchester mayors, release a joint statement condemning racism suffered by players, officials and supporters. (Guardian, 6 February 2021)

7 February: The Football Association declares ‘enough is enough’ after players endure a spate of racial abuse on social media after matches, including, in the past fortnight, Manchester United Women’s Lauren James, James’ brother Reece (Chelsea), Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Romaine Sawyers (West Bromwich), Mark Little (Bristol Rovers) and Alex Jankewitz (Southampton). Culture secretary Oliver Dowden promises a crackdown. (Guardian, 31 January; Guardian, 7 February 2021)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

28 January: The 15-year-old boy who racially attacked a Singaporean student on Oxford Street, London in February 2020, is sentenced to an 18-month youth rehabilitation order, including a ten-week curfew, and must also pay the victim £600 in compensation. (Evening Standard, 28 January, 2021) 

28 January: A new report by Pantene finds that over 90 percent of Black people with Afro hair in the UK have faced microaggressions, abuse or insults, and the self-esteem or mental health of over half has been affected. (Bazaar, 1 February 2021)

30 January: A 49-year-old-man is arrested on suspicion of racially abusing West Bromwich Albion footballer Romaine Sawyers on social media on 26 January. (BBC News, 30 January 2021)

1 February: In Gran Canaria, Spain, vigilante groups stage protests outside several new asylum shelter locations, attacking some residents when they venture out. The prosecutor’s office investigates potential hate crimes by members of a WhatsApp chat group. (El Pais, 1 February 2021)

2 February: Greater Manchester police appeal for information on three white teenagers who allegedly racially abused and assaulted a 19-year-old man in Bolton on 8 January, causing head and facial injuries requiring hospitalisation (Greater Manchester Police, 2 February 2021)

3 February: Former footballer Ian Wright expresses disappointed after the Irish teenager who sent him racist abuse on Instagram avoids a criminal conviction. (Guardian, 3 February; BBC Sport, 4 February 2021)

4 February: A 39-year-old man is charged with racially aggravated harassment after he allegedly racially abused the same man on two separate occasions in Leamington earlier in the week. (Kenilworth Weekly News, 4 February 2021) 

5 February: A 15-year-old receives hospital treatment after being racially attacked and injured on a street in Sheffield. (The Star, 5 February 2021) 

5 February: Police Scotland investigate reports that three Glasgow Rocks basketball players have been subjected to vile racist abuse and harassment since moving to the city last month, including a car’s tyres being slashed and its windscreen smashed with a hammer. (Daily Record, 5 February 2021)

5 February: A family living in council housing in Sheffield say they are trying to move to a safer home following racially aggravated harassment from neighbours, including repeated damage to their car, stones thrown at their home, verbal abuse and physical attacks, which is severely impacting on their mental health. (The Star, 5 February 2021) 

6 February: A 43-year-old is fined and ordered to pay compensation after he pleads guilty to smashing windows at Eglwyswrw, Pembrokeshire in March 2020 in a racially aggravated incident. (Tivyside Advertiser, 6 February 2021) 

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

Headline image: A fire breaks out at asylum accommodation Napier Barracks on January 29 2021. Credit Care4Calais

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

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