IRR News reveals how alcohol-related racist attacks and far-Right graffiti have increased over the summer months.
During July and August, certain types of racial attacks have become very prevalent, with takeaway workers, those using public transport and those of a ‘Muslim’ appearance being especially vulnerable.
Our research shows that these attacks often take place in the context of late night/alcohol-related incidents (with almost half taking place after 10.30pm and almost a third taking place on Saturdays). The fact that assailants are intoxicated means that incidents often go beyond abuse and have on numerous occasions been brutally violent. The other observable trend in our research into racial harassment reveals an increase of graffiti pledging allegiance to far-Right organisations and parties.
The incidents listed below highlight how there is in fact a real and substantial danger to BME individuals at their places of work and worship (in particular restaurants and mosques); on the streets and on public transport and even in the home. The death of an Indian man, Nachattar Singh Bola, in Scotland, five weeks after being attacked, is indicative of the levels of violence faced by BME communities.
July 2010: Rahima Farooq, student support officer at a school in Leeds, was called a ‘P**i’ by a pupil and told to ‘go back to Bradford’. She alleges that when she complained to the headmaster about the inadequate punishment given to the pupil she was told to leave and escorted off the premises. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 July 2010)
2 July 2010: Indian tourist Nachattar Singh Bola, 36, was visiting relatives in Renfrewshire, Scotland, when he was chased and brutally attacked by a group of teenagers. He was left in a coma and died five weeks later. Dylan Cherrie, 16, and another boy, too young to be named, were charged with attempted murder and now await trial. (The Renfrewshire Gazette, 8 July 2010)
2 July 2010: In Leicester a group of teenagers unleashed a brutal attack on two men walking through the city centre. The men were left needing hospitalisation for head injuries and the windows of a Londis store run by a local Asian man were smashed in. (Leicester Mercury, 7 July 2010)
10 July 2010: A 15-year-old girl was racially assaulted by two other girls while waiting at a bus stop in Boston, Lincolnshire. She suffered scratching and bruising to her face and eyes. (BBC News, 13 July 2010)
10 July 2010: A man was racially abused and assaulted by two men outside a nightclub in Rugby. He was left needing stitches and treatment to his eye. (Coventry Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
13 July 2010: In a racially motivated hoax a suspicious package was left outside the Refugee Council building in Birmingham, prompting a mass evacuation of the area. (Birmingham Mail, 14 July 2010)
17 July 2010: Bulent Al and his wife were sitting with their children in their garden in Ely, Cambridgeshire, when their drunken neighbour, Timothy Buchanan, began racially abusing them and telling them to ‘go back to their country’. He then began threatening them with a baseball bat and bashed their fence in. (Ely Weekly, 11 July 2010).
17 July 2010: The Vicarage subway in Padgate, Cheshire, was covered with racist graffiti swearing allegiance to the English Defence League and British National Party with much of the content being described as ‘too explicit to be published in a family newspaper’. This has been the second incident in the area in recent weeks. (Warrington Guardian, 19 July 2010)
21 July 2010: Brothers Quaram and Asim Majid were leaving a mosque in Colne, Lancashire, with their 14-year-old nephew when they were confronted by drunken Emma Woods. She followed them as they walked home shouting racist abuse such as ‘Get out of our country. This is our town’ and spitting on them. (Burnley Citizen, 23 July 2010)
22 July 2010: A man was racially abused and attacked after a driving dispute in Erdington, Birmingham. (Birmingham Mail, 2 September 2010)
24 July 2010: Three men ransacked the premises of a Kebab house in Ewell, Surrey, and racially abused the staff. (BBC News, 27 July 2010)
25 July 2010: In Saltdean, Sussex, a brick was thrown through the window of the home of the family of released Guantánamo detainee Omar Deghayes, narrowly missing his 17-year-old niece. It is the third time the house has been attacked recently and the police are treating it as racially-motivated. (The Argus, 21 July 2010)
29 July 2010: A man’s car was covered with racist graffiti while left parked in Banbury, Oxfordshire. (Oxford Times, 29 July 2010)
29 July 2010: A Metro inspector was choked by the neck and racially abused when he asked to see two passengers’ tickets at a station in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear. (Shields Gazette, 31 August 2010)
August 2010: Volunteers of the Muslim Youth Project in Stafford collecting funds for the recent floods in Pakistan were subject to racist and Islamaphobic abuse; with some being told ‘it’s time something like this happened’. (Staffordshire Newsletter, 27 August 2010)
August 2010: A Bangladeshi family have been the victims of a campaign of racial harassment and vandalism at their home in Edinburgh, the windows of their house and the father’s taxi were smashed. (Scotsman, 12 August 2010)
1 August 2010: An intoxicated man was caught on video unleashing a tirade of racial abuse against the passengers and driver of a bus in Peckham, London. He called a woman a ‘black c**t’ and asked her for a fight before smashing his way out through the bus doors. (London Daily News, 6 August 2010)
1 August 2010: A group of six young men racially abused and attacked a Romanian couple in Halstead, Essex. The woman was left with serious bruising to her body, three cracked teeth and two black eyes. (Halstead Gazette, 9 August 2010)
2 August 2010: Four men went around Manchester spraying an unknown white powder on black men that left their faces burnt. North Manchester General Hospital and a local police station were quarantined as the victims’ presence prompted fears of a major chemical threat. (Manchester Evening News, 3 August 2010)
7 August 2010: Several buildings in Dalton, Lancashire, were covered with swastikas, pledges of support for Nazism and American groups. (North-West Evening Mail, 9 August 2010)
9 August 2010: While on a bus headed to Chorley, Lancashire, two Venezuelan nationals were subjected to continued racial abuse by two women. When the bus arrived at its destination the women spat and attacked one of the victims while he was trying to get off the bus. (Chorley Citizen, 17 August 2010)
11 August 2010: Two men got on a bus heading to Finsbury Park, London, and began shouting racist anti-immigration abuse at passengers, such as ‘go home Polish, go home Pakistanis’. They then attacked a Polish man by slashing his face with a piece of glass they broke off from a partition on the bus. (Islington Gazette, 19 August 2010)
12 August 2010: A 51-year-old Muslim man was racially abused and attacked by a group of between six to ten white teenagers while on his way to a mosque in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire. (Huddersfield Examiner, 18 August 2010)
12 August 2010: A house in Leicester was covered with anti-immigrant and Islamaphobic graffiti. (BBC News, 16 August 2010)
14 August 2010: Drunken Gary Littlefair racially abused and threatened workers at a takeaway in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, with a knife. (Northern Echo, 25 August 2010)
15 August 2010: A group of men racially abused staff at a takeaway in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and threw bottles at the building. (Southend Standard, 25 August 2010)
17 August 2010: Three men were hospitalised after an Iranian owned takeaway in Bradford was firebombed late at night. (Telegraph and Argus, 17 August 2010)
18 August 2010: A 17-year-old Iranian boy was racially abused and beaten by two men in Plymouth, Devon. After attacking him they dragged him through a busy street and robbed him. (Plymouth Evening Herald, 23 August 2010)
21 August 2010: An Asian man was racially abused by a drunken man in Kingston, London. When trying to walk away he was chased and violently attacked. (This is Local London, 28 August 2010)
22 August 2010: Four teenage boys have been charged with racially aggravated criminal damage after they smashed up the windows of a curry takeaway in Lincolnshire. (BBC News, 23 August 2010)
24 August 2010: Amandeep Singh, a shopkeeper in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, was racially abused while minding his shop. The attacker called him ‘an Asian animal’ and threatened to rape his mother. (Hemsworth Express, 2 September 2010)
24 August 2010: A war memorial in Leicester Town Hall Square was covered with racist graffiti and swastikas. (Leicester Evening News, 2 September 2010)
26 August 2010: Two men racially abused the Jordanian owner and staff of a takeaway in Southport and vandalised the restaurant. When the owner tried to get them to leave, he was stabbed with a knife. (Southport Visitor, 1 September 2010)
29 August 2010: An Eastern European man was hospitalised after a racist attack by a group of youths in Corby, Northamptonshire, which took place at 4am. (Northants Evening Telegraph, 1 September 2010)
Related links
Read an analysis of racially motivated violence in 2009: Racial Violence: The buried issue
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