A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe.
Violence & harassment
30 July: A black man is beaten by up to twelve men in a racially motivated attack in Newquay. (Cornish Guardian, 8 August 2016)
5 August: Following the murder of Father Jacques Hamel, French mosques across the country are vandalised. Pork lardons are emptied into the letter box of one mosque near Nancy, which then receives an envelope in the post containing white powder. (The Local, 5 August 2016)
8 August: The Met police release CCTV footage of a (yet to be identified) potential witness to the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence. (Guardian, 8 August 2016)
11 August: A man is jailed for eight months for assaulting two sisters and their children, after smashing a car windscreen and racially abusing them in an attack in Derry earlier this year. (Belfast Telegraph, 11 August 2016)
13 August: A Turkish woman is abused and punched in the face by man in his 40s in Bournemouth. (BBC News, 14 August 2016)
14 August: Riot police are called after local teenagers clash with three families of North African descent on a beach near the Corsican village of Sisco, leaving five people injured and three cars burnt out. The next day, hundreds of Corsicans gather in nearby Bastia and attempt to march into a housing estate with a high population of people of North African origin. (BBC News, 14 August 2016)
16 August: A woman who admits racially aggravated criminal damage and racially aggravated harassment against two Turkish women at a community centre in Colchester in June, is given a 12-month community order, fined £50 and told to pay £245 compensation plus £170 court costs. (Daily Gazette, 17 August 2016)
Policing & criminal justice
29 July: A scrutiny panel adjourns the hearing into a complaint of alleged racially motivated conduct by Surrey’s policing & crime commissioner, so as to seek advice from the Independent Police Complaints Commission. (Farnham Herald, 8 August 2016)
6 August: The family of Mark Duggan and supporters mark the fifth anniversary of his death in Tottenham with a march and demonstration. (This is Local London, 6 August 2016)
7 August: Greater Manchester Police (GMP) apologise after posting a photo of two men wearing Nazi SS uniforms on the GMP traffic Twitter account. (Guardian, 8 August 2016)
11 August: In Scotland, the Police Investigations & Review Commissioner submits a report into the death of Sheku Bayoh, during an arrest in May 2015, to the Crown Office, which will now decide on any action. (Herald, 11 August 2016)
10 August: The Youth Justice Board (YJB) highlights the overrepresentation of BAME children in the youth justice system, which ‘increases at the point of sentencing’. (Children & Young People Now, 10 August 2016)
12 August: British Transport police refer a complaint, from a black man about the use of a spit hood during an arrest at London Bridge earlier this month, to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. (Guardian, 12 August 2016)
15 August: Dalian Atkinson, an ex-Aston Villa football player, dies an hour a half after being tasered by police outside his father’s home in Telford in the early hours of the morning after police were called. (Shropshire Star, 15 August 2016)
Asylum & migration
30 July: 28-year old Iranian refugee Reza Hassani is found dead in the fields of Karaca Dağ, eastern Turkey, apparently after being beaten up and ‘pushed back’ by Bulgarians into Turkey. (Bordermonitoring Bulgaria, 30 July 2016).
31 July: A petition starts to award the freedom of the city of Leicester to 7-year-old Ahmad Sadoor, the Afghan boy who saved fifteen lives by sending a text asking for help after beginning to suffocate in the back of a lorry earlier this year. (Leicester Mercury, 31 July 2016)
5 August: The city authorities of Rostock, Germany, stop construction plans for a new asylum home for families after local police express concern about racist violence and repeated far-right protests in the borough. (The Local, 5 August 2016)
5 August: A High Court judge rules that asylum seekers cannot be returned to Hungary under the Dublin III regulation because of the risk of breaches of their human rights there, including chain refoulement, since the adoption of new asylum laws in August 2015. (bailii, 5 August 2016)
7 August: The day after police blocked a demonstration in solidarity with migrants camping at rue Stalingrad, Paris, organisers are summoned by police, detained for eight hours and charged with ‘organising an illegal demonstration’ for allegedly trying to march having obtained permission for a ‘static demonstration’. (Le Parisien, 7 August 2016)
7 August: Questions are raised about Turkey being a ‘safe country’ for refugees after the brutal killing of Wisam Sankari, a gay Syrian refugee, in a homophobic attack in Istanbul on 25 July. In June, a Greek appeals board considered Turkey safe enough for gay Syrians to be deported to Turkey under the EU-Turkey migration deal. (Guardian, 7 August 2016)
8 August: A Catholic church in Regensburg, Bavaria, is accused of ‘starving out’ four Roma refugee families after it filed charges of trespass against the Roma sheltering in the St Emmeram community centre and the police arrived in force. (Deutsche Welle, 8 August 2016)
8 August: The Italian interior minister says the Italy-France border town Ventimiglia ‘will not be our Calais’ after 200 migrants, who broke through police barriers and made their way into France on 4 August, were sent back to Italy by French authorities over the weekend. (The Local, 8 August 2016)
9 August: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons recommends a time limit on immigration detention after inspecting Colnbrook detention centre in west London and finding that, though some progress had been made, much remains to be done around the use of force. Download the report here. (EIN, 9 August 2016)
11 August: The Chief Inspector of Prisons publishes an inspection report on the (since closed) Cedars detention centre for children and families. Download the report here. (Guardian, 11 August 2016)
12 August: A Calais court rules against the closure of shops and restaurants which serve the migrant community. (Calais Migrant Solidarity, 12 August 2016)
13 August: Charities and human rights groups report that the risk of sexual attack for children and women in Greek refugee camps is so high they are ‘too afraid to leave tents after dark’. (Guardian, 13 August 2016)
13 August: Two people are suspended from Orchard & Shipman Housing, contracted to provide housing for asylum seekers in Glasgow, after allegations over the way asylum seekers are treated. (Evening Times, 13 August 2016)
16 August: Berlin authorities cancel contracts with a company operating shelters for asylum seekers after leaked emails show senior managers ‘joking’ about investing a €5,000 donation from BMW in ‘a small guillotine for [migrant] children’ and a ‘large-volume crematorium’. One of the managers stood for a far-right party in local elections in 2008. (Guardian, 16 August 2016)
16 August: Security workers in an asylum centre in Burbach, Germany are accused of rightwing agitation on social media. It is the same centre at which security staff repeatedly abused refugees in 2014. (Deutsche Welle, 15 August 2016)
16 August: Two Danish politicians face charges of violating Denmark’s immigration laws for housing two African refugees and buying them a ferry ticket to Norway in September 2015. (The Local, 16 August 2016)
16 August: According to Positive Action in Housing, children of destitute asylum-seeker and migrant families in Scotland are being taken in to care as the only option available for providing them with accommodation. (The National, 16 August 2016)
Far-right
6 August: At an English Defence League demonstration in Nottingham, which is outnumbered by anti-fascist protestors; five people are arrested. (Nottingham Evening Post, 8 August 2016)
15 August: Adam Walker, leader of the British National Party, is arrested on allegations of electoral fraud in local elections in Pendle in May. (Morning Star, 15 August 2016)
16 August: A Socialist mayor in the Corsican village of Sisco joins the centre-right mayors of Villeneuve-Loubet and Cannes on the Riviera in banning women from wearing burkinis on the beach, citing reasons of violating secular principles, of ‘false’ religious affiliation and claiming that it is unhygienic to swim fully clothed. (Guardian, 15 August 2016)
11 August: Britain First is banned from Luton and all mosques in England and Wales following a High Court case brought by Bedfordshire police. (IB Times, 16 August 2016)
Discrimination
4 August: A local authority takes the owners of a halal supermarket in the Paris suburb of Colombes to court, arguing that they have a contractual obligation to act as a ‘general food store’, and the failure to sell alcohol and pork amounts to a breach of the lease. (Telegraph, 4 August 2016)
8 August: Centre-right think-tank Policy Exchange publishes a paper calling for the introduction of a population register. Author David Goodhart wants everyone to have a ‘unique person number’ to allay fears that the country is turning into an ‘economic transit camp’. (Guardian, 8 August 2016)
17 August: New research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission finds ‘systemic unfairness’ against Britain’s BAME communities and warns that unless action is taken social divisions will widen and racial tensions will increase. Download it here. (Guardian, 18 August 2016)
Employment
12 August: A tribunal rules that Jean Michel Tchamba was unfairly dismissed and racially discriminated against by the Whittington hospital, London after he was told ‘to go work in the community’ after raising concerns about bullying, harassment and racial discrimination. (Camden New Journal, 12 August 2016)
17 August: Uber drivers and campaign groups protest at a discriminatory rule due to start in October from Transport for London which requires drivers from certain countries, where English is not the first language, to pass a written English test (Guardian, 17 August 2016)
Sport
11 August: Howard Gayle, the first black player for Liverpool FC, declines an MBE for his work with youngsters, saying his ‘ancestors would be turning in their graves after how Empire and Colonialism had enslaved them’. (BBC News, 11 August 2016)
Education
Media
8 August: Research from the European Broadcasting Union finds that countries with popular, well-funded public service media have less rightwing extremism and corruption and more press freedom. (Guardian, 8 August 2016)
Party politics
8 August: Ukip leadership candidate, Lisa Duffy, calls for a ban on the veil in public buildings, shopping centres and on public transport. (This is Local London, 8 August 2016)
Anti-racism
2 August: The European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF) commemorates International Remembrance Day of the Roma Holocaust with a minute’s silence in front of the Holocaust memorial stone in Strasbourg. (ERTF, 2 August 2016)