A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe.
Violence and harassment
8 July: A 20-year-old and two teenagers are charged with ABH and racially aggravated bodily harm after an attack on a taxi driver on 8 April at Wokingham station which left him with a fractured ankle. (Wokingham Paper, 13 July 2016)
8 July: A black Muslim man is hospitalised after being attacked by a group of white men in Munich. The man had intervened upon hearing the group racially abuse a group of Somali people, and is later brutally attacked by the men on his way home. (The Local, 13 July 2016)
10 July: Fifteen volunteers are evacuated from the Greek island of Leros after a group of fifty local men attack refugees and aid workers with shovels and sticks and threaten aid workers with further violence if they do not leave immediately. The police are accused of siding with the attackers. (Al Jazeera, 10 July 2016)
10 July: Yohan Senez, a Socialist Party councillor who runs the office of the mayor of Denain, an impoverished former mining town in northern France, is charged with complicity in arson on racial grounds after allegedly ordering municipal employees to set fire to a Roma grocery in March 2016. (Telegraph, 10 July 2016)
12 July: Bristol police release an image of a man wanted in connection with an unprovoked racist attack on a man walking his dog on 4 June. The victim was racially abused and then punched unconscious in Stoke Park Lodge. (Bristol Post, 12 July 2016)
12 July: Seven teenagers are charged with acting in a racially aggravated manner after an attack on Mohammed Khalid, the owner of the Caspian takeaway in Methil, Kirkcaldy, the day after the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris. (The Courier, 20 July 2016)
13 July: The Crown Prosecution Service publishes its Hate Crime Report: 2014/2015 and 2015/16. Download it here (pdf file, 1.7mb)
20 July: Two men are jailed and two women given suspended sentences after they tied bacon to the door handles of the Totterdown mosque in Bristol and racially abused worshippers in January. The four admitted religiously aggravated offences. (Bristol Post, 20 July 2016)
Policing and criminal justice
9 July: The family of Kingsley Burrell mark the anniversary of his death in a secure mental health unit in Birmingham after he called the police for help in 2011, and call on the CPS to bring charges against those involved. (BBC News, 9 July 2016)
11 July: According to the Bar Council and Criminal Bar Association, David Lammy’s review into racial bias and BAME representation in the criminal justice system could be hampered by ‘evidential shortcomings’. (Law Gazette, 11 July 2016)
14 July: PC Christopher Schofield is given a written warning after turning a ’blind eye’ to the racist rant by a colleague, PC Paul Cocker, as they raided a business on Manchester’s Curry Mile. Cocker retired before new rules came into force which would have forced him to attend the disciplinary hearing. He was recorded as saying: ‘You know what I want to do? Bomb the whole lot from f***ing Upper Lloyd Street to Upper Brook Street.’ (Manchester Evening News, 14 July 2016)
13 July: Mzee Mohammed, 18, dies after being detained by police in Liverpool near a shopping centre. A video of his detention shows him lying on the ground being treated by paramedics with his hands cuffed behind his back. (Liverpool Echo, 15 July 2016)
15 July: Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Panel asks the Independent Police Complaints Commission to investigate comments about Travellers made by the police and crime commissioner for the area, Jason Ablewhite, on social media in November 2009. (Ely Standard, 15 July 2016)
18 July: A disciplinary hearing begins into the conduct of three Met police officers, who are alleged to have abused and tasered black fireman Edric Kennedy-Macfoy in September 2011 in a racially motivated incident. (Guardian, 18 July 2016)
19 July: Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man, dies in police custody in the northern Parisian suburb of Val-d’Oise. The police claim that Traoré ‘fell ill’ and died of a cardiac arrest, but his brother who witnessed his arrest and those close to him claim that police officers chased and then beat him up before taking him to the police station. His death sparks protests that continue through the night, with cars and bins set on fire and protesters calling the police ‘murderers’. (BFMTV, 20 July 2016)
19 July: The Guardian reports on concerns that the Met police might be targeting young people from BAME communities as gang members because 90 per cent of those on the Met’s gangs database come from a BAME community. (Guardian, 19 July 2016)
Education
12 July: Figures released by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) indicate that over half of the 3,994 people referred to the government’s counter-extremism scheme Prevent were under 18 years of age, and a third of referrals of young people came from teachers. (Guardian, 12 July 2016)
13 July: Rights Watch UK launches a report on Prevent in schools, which finds that Muslim children fear speaking out because of the risk of being reported under Prevent, and that clothing or speech have led to children being wrongly identified as radicalised. Download the report, Preventing Education? Human rights and UK counter-terrorism policy in schools, here (pdf file, 562kb). (Guardian, 13 July 2016)
13 July: Steve Glasspool, business manager at Crofton School, in Stubbington, Hampshire, resigns after racist emails he sent about potential teachers are revealed. (The News, 13 July 2016)
Asylum and migration
7 July: A report by the National Audit Office into the Serco-run Yarl’s Wood removal centre in Bedford, examining contracts and management arrangements, finds that staff are not adequately trained. G4S, which runs healthcare at the centre, is also criticised. (Bedford Today, 9 July 2016)
7 July: A 10-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drowns in a pond while trying to wash himself in Horgos, Serbia, near a makeshift tent encampment. (BBC News, 9 July 2016)
9 July: The Observer reveals that not a single child has been brought to the UK from Europe since David Cameron promised two months ago that he would do more to help refugee children. (Observer, 9 July 2016)
10 July: Residents in Penhill Road, Sidcup hold a demonstration against asylum seekers being housed in their street. The demonstration is condemned as ‘vile’ and ‘hateful’ by others. The twenty people housed at the property are later moved. (News Shopper, 13 July 2016, This Is Local London, 14 July 2016)
11 July: The number of refugees and asylum seekers using the British Red Cross’ destitution services increases by 16 per cent in the first six months of 2016. Download the report here (pdf file, 4.8mb). (EIN, 11 July 2016)
12 July: France is severely condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in a series of cases revealing the detention of children and torture survivors in their immigration detention centres. (Le Monde, 13 July 2016)
13 July: The mayor of Calais, Natasha Bouchart, announces that the destruction of what remains of the old Calais camp has been approved by the interior minister. (Independent, 13 July 2016)
13 July: As the European Commission reports that only 3,000 refugees (including virtually no unaccompanied children) have been relocated to other member states from Greece and Italy in the ten months since the scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees was devised, it is reported that child refugees in Athens are resorting to prostitution to stay alive. (European Commission, 13 July 2016, News Deeply, 14 July 2016)
13 July: Human Rights Watch condemns the Hungarian government’s push-back policy at the border with Serbia, as well as cruel and violent treatment of refugees and migrants. Those attempting to enter Hungary irregularly, including women and children, are driven back through the three-layer razor wire fence into Serbia by officials, soldiers and a local authority civil militia who beat them with batons and fists, set dogs on them and use sprays that cause burning sensations to the eyes as well as plastic handcuffs causing further injuries. (HRW, 13 July 2016)
15 July: The Home Office reveals that staff at Yarl’s Wood have been investigated over six alleged sexual assaults at the centre between 2013 and 2015. (Bedford Today, 15 July 2016)
20 July: An unnamed woman wins £2,000 and an apology from the Home Office after an immigration officer at Belfast City Airport stopped her as she dropped off her mother-in-law at the airport because she ‘looked foreign’. The woman who wasn’t even travelling had to wait while the officer checked her immigration status. (Belfast Telegraph, 20 July 2016)
Far Right
2 July: Former far-right nationalist Nigel Bromage claims that far-right activists in Birmingham have secret plans to target and recruit teachers in the Midlands area and others with ‘influence’ following the Brexit vote.(Birmingham Mail, 2 July 2016)
10 July: The Liverpool Echo reveals that Joe Chiffers, a Liverpool lawyer, is facing disciplinary action from his law firm after his role as former leader of the far-right British Resistance was revealed. (Liverpool Echo, 9 July 2016)
20 July: Dutch police begin an investigation into the Soldiers of Odin (a Finnish Group with other branches) after they claim on their Facebook group to having detained an asylum seeker who they believed to have committed an assault in Winschoten. (Reuters, 20 July 2016)
20 July: Bedfordshire police launch a second bid at the High Court to prevent Britain First from entering Luton’s Bury Park and banning them from every mosque in England and Wales for three years. (Dunstable Today, 20 July 2016)
Housing
12 July: Hundreds of racist comments made by members of the public on a Croydon Council plan for housing Travellers in South Croydon have been removed. (This is Local London, 12 July 2016)
Employment
9 July: Five Spanish migrant workers of Gambian and Senegalese origin are crushed to death when a concrete wall collapses at the Hawkeswood Metal recycling centre, near Birmingham, where there have been three serious safety incidents in recent years. The dead men are named as Bangaly Dukureh, Alimano Jammeh, Saibo Sillah, Ousman Jabbie and Mohammed Jagana. (Guardian, 9 July 2016)
13 July: The EU Advocate-General rules that the 2009 dismissal of design engineer Asma Bougnaoui from IT consultancy Micropole, because her headscarf embarrassed some of the company’s clients, amounted to unlawful discrimination. The Advocate-General’s opinion is generally followed by the European Court of Justice. (Guardian, 13 July 2016)
20 July: Nikki Alexander is found guilty of misconduct by the Scottish Social Services Council after it finds she called a toddler in her care a ‘bomber’ and a ‘terrorist’ while working at the Busy Bees nursery in Edinburgh. (BBC News, 20 July 2016)
National Security
16 July: In response to the terrorist massacre of at least 84 people at the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, President Hollande announces a three-month extension of the state of emergency and a strengthening of Operation Sentinelle in which 10,000 soldiers patrol French streets. (Guardian, 16 July 2016)
Media
19 July: The press regulator IPSO receives over 800 complaints after former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie queries the presence of a hijab-wearing Muslim newscaster, Fatima Manji, fronting Channel 4 News’ coverage of the Bastille Day massacre. (BBC News, 19 July 2016)
Thank you for the first two topics in particular covering, under the Education section of above, extremely interesting reported features for my, all British since May 2005 but with my originally Filipino wife/mother of our two sons born in Wales/never having resided/visited anywhere else other than England where I had been born in 1949, family.
Having been threatened that our sons could be “removed from our home” (by one of the local General Practitioners I subsequently reported to the GMC after attempt to “section” by completion wrongfully of “Form 4” when he claimed examination that had never happened) for simply reporting the perceptions of our elder son then just five years of age (even having received at Primary school during his first year a “Hate” Christmas card with “squashed fly” reference after being attacked on “to/from school” mini bus contracted by Powys County Council before several students given changed seating of siblings alongside each other that autumn term in 2007), we now have “Victim Support” intending to represent our younger son, now aged 10 years and frequently attacked since 2010 on the “switched” to/from Primary school (six miles more distant from our home than the “designated” Primary where his elder brother attacked by three boys by December 2009) after (via elder) younger brother threatened he would be “punched to the ground” if he had gone to such “Church in Wales” (Controlled by “Powys”) school three miles from our home.
The “PREVENTING EDUCATION?” HUMAN RIGHTS AND UK COUNTER-TERRORISM POLICY IN SCHOOLS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY enabled my request for first meeting with the “recently” elected Police & Crime Commissioner, after meeting his predecessor on four occasions in context of at least eight criminal damage with intent to endanger human life attacks on our home (including gunshot blasted external surface of kitchen door that two police officers simply walked away from without comment) plus “road raged” cars, since June 2002 when we occupied our newly built village location home in Mid Wales – having placed us by 2004, according to independent researchers from Swansea University, in the “top quartile” of attacked families in Wales.
I attended an “Equalities” discussion group in Llandrindod Wells (well organised by Powys County Council in December 2015) and, with my younger son the only child present as I wanted him to know HIS concerns would be continued to be “heard”, even the assembled adults seemed generally surprised that a boy (then nine years old) had heard his “Headteacher” ask “Is he dead?” after falling from climbing/bar type equipment in play area of his present school in September 2015 – such equipment then being replaced at seemingly a total cost over £8,000 AFTER MY SON’S “SOFT TISSUE HEAD INJURY”.
I have continued to suggest “teaching/support” schools’ staff “inappropriate” tactics could be responsible for cultivating “negative” attitudes in children “groomed to fail” when such as teachers allegedly the “right” people to make observations under (potentially career boosting for some “professionals”), plus “used” presumably at local authority “Monitoring” and even “Equalities” Officers’ levels to career advantage/development of some, under the Channel/Prevent “system”. Hopefully my son, still aged 10 years, has at least gained (albeit negative) “useful” experience for his future CV – possibly additional to his elder brother attacked by at least 75 people from possibly at least 25 families (as hard to know in closely knit community with “common to Wales” names) and one “attacker” (even having jostled myself near bus stop where I have been confronted by other parents) stated “My dad works for Powys and knows everyone”, being one of the three boys at our locked driveway gate on 1.8.2010 after the shouted by another boy “We will attack your house and family” – two self-styled “very nice men” plain clothes officers turned up on 22.8.10 with unsigned letter dated 11.8.10 referring to myself as a “persistent complainer” – to which I responded that I did not speak Welsh but “complainant” more usually used in English language and why “no signature” and where had letter been for previous 11 days?
As I repeatedly tell my wife, “We are the lucky ones” only having to deal with “racism, anti-Roman Catholic feelings and opposition to my lack of networking”, according to “Core Assessments” completed, in June 2009, after MY complaints about Children’s Services’ tactics including impersonation of the Powys’ “Schools Effectiveness” officer to gain access to our home (without ID/appointment), but gaining “satisfied” opinion (according to “Core Assessment” subsequent social worker), in August 2008.
As I repeatedly tell the “politicians” who claim “children are the future”, our children may be “Too young to vote but not to count”!