guardian-hate.csv

url,text,source,label
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/05/politics-antisemitism-gibraltar-brexit,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/03/dangerous-attitudes-on-the-streets-of-croydon,"It’s all too easy to blame Brexit for last week’s horrific assault in Croydon (Report, 3 April) that has left a teenage Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker fighting for his life, but problems in this London borough are more longstanding.

In July 1992, Ruhullah Aramesh, an Afghan refugee living in the Thornton Heath area of the borough, was beaten to death in a racist attack by six white youths armed with iron bars and lumps of wood. Many other racist assaults occurred there during that decade. In 2011 a woman was filmed delivering a racist rant against black people and Poles on the Croydon tram. In January 2014 the English Defence League began targeting an Islamic community centre in Croydon as an “illegal mosque”. In June 2015 a woman had her hijab violently pulled off in a Croydon street. In October that year there was a high-profile immigration raid on Croydon works premises which resulted in seven arrests. Six of those arrested were transferred to detention centres pending their deportation.

The immediate responsibility for the recent sickening attack lies with the perpetrators, but a share of responsibility surely also may lie with every media outlet, political organisation and government institution that has fuelled a toxic atmosphere against minorities and asylum seekers. And that includes the last home secretary, Theresa May, who sent her vans with anti-immigrant threats around the streets of areas such as Croydon until they were withdrawn. Even the local Tory MP, Gavin Barwell, welcomed their withdrawal.

David Rosenberg

London

• On behalf of Young Roots, I want to express how devastated I am about the attack on the young asylum seeker in Croydon on Friday. We are heartbroken by this brutal crime. Many young asylum seekers have fled war, torture and other atrocities. They have survived dangerous journeys here and face loneliness, worries about the rest of their family, and the challenge of navigating the complex immigration system. A large number have post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet the young people we work with in Croydon are a delight. They are bright, warm, friendly and so keen to learn. They are endlessly supportive and kind.

Our thoughts are with the victim of this alleged hate crime, and we will continue to work hard to support the young refugee and asylum-seeking community in Croydon to be safe and come to terms with this terrible attack.

Jo Cobley

Director, Young Roots – helping young refugees reach their potential

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/03/croydon-attack-comes-as-charities-report-growing-number-of-hate-crimes,"The attack on a teenage asylum seeker in Croydon last Friday comes as reports of abuse directed at refugee children are becoming more frequent, charities and experts have warned.

As Reker Ahmed, the 17-year-old Kurdish Iranian who was attacked, recovered in hospital on Monday, those involved in supporting asylum-seeking children expressed dismay at the attack.

Toxic political agenda is dehumanising entire groups, Amnesty warns Read more

Andy Elvin, chief executive of the fostering organisation Tact, which has looked after hundreds of asylum-seeking children across the country, said he was aware of a number of children in his organisation’s care who had been verbally abused in the streets, and he believed this was a growing problem.

“It is verbal abuse – about their status, what they are doing in this country, why they don’t go back,” he said. The organisation runs support groups, advising newly arrived asylum seeking children on how to respond to negative experiences. It was particularly an issue which young people encountered on public transport, he said.

“We have made several reports to the police of hate crimes. We think it is rising. It is entirely linked to the environment that has been created by the public discourse about people coming to this country from overseas ... Asylum seekers are all seen as bogus – not as children, not traumatised, not in need, just freeloaders coming here to take advantage of the system.”

Usually the abuse came as a complete surprise to the young people, Elvin added. “They didn’t expect to be targeted in this way. The perception of the UK abroad is still that it is a fair equitable country, where people are treated decently.”

Croydon currently has just over 400 unaccompanied child asylum seekers, a higher number than most local authorities, because it is the location of Lunar House, the government office where people must go to claim asylum.But a council spokesperson said: “This type of incident is extremely rare and our experience has been that the vast majority of young asylum seekers have been welcomed into the community.”

Most of the younger child refugees in Croydon and elsewhere are accommodated by the council in foster families, and will go to school in the borough. The older ones, aged 16 or 17, are more likely to be found beds in supported accommodation, and may attend English classes, but will not be in school. Some councils provide acclimatisation sessions for newly arrived refugee children, educating them about British laws, the risks posed by drugs and their personal safety, but often the older arrivals are left largely unsupported to fend for themselves.



Liz Clegg, who worked with child asylum seekers in Calais and is now helping child refugees to settle in the UK, said most were entirely unprepared for hostility. “They think: ‘Oh, now we’re in the UK, we’re completely safe.’ They have fled conflict zones and think they have arrived in the promised land; they have a very positive outlook. We have to educate them that there are still serious dangers, that they need to be careful for their personal safety.”

Gulwali Passarlay, author of The Lightless Sky, an account of coming to the UK as a lone child asylum seeker from Afghanistan, said that attitudes towards refugees had hardened in recent months.

He highlighted the negative effect of the reporting of the arrival of child refugees from Calais last October (where the ages of the asylum seekers were questioned in some parts of the media), stoking cynicism about child refugees’ asylum claims, and dramatically souring a popular mood of support for child refugees that had followed the drowning of the three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi in 2015.

“The environment has changed. People with rightwing views think it is OK to insult asylum seekers. There are a lot of good people in the UK but the mood is changing. Asylum seekers need to be cautious; it’s not always safe to walk around UK cities,” he said.



Josie Naughton, co-founder of Help Refugees, said the attack demonstrated “the level of fear and prejudice which is taking hold of parts of British society”.

Rabbi Janet Darley, who works with Citizens UK’s Safe Passage project, which supports unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, said: “This is a sobering reminder of the importance of the need to create a welcoming society, where refugees feel welcomed and accepted.”

Donations to a crowd-funding site for the victim had reached over £10,000 by Monday afternoon. Bridie Watson, who launched the fundraising drive, had no personal contact with the victim, but was liaising with the police and social services to make sure the victim received the money. “It was so horrific. We wanted to help people put their shock and love into something positive. We want to show that this is not what the UK is about,” she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/27/new-york-stabbing-hate-crime-james-jackson-timothy-caughman,"James Jackson – who is accused of attacking Timothy Caughman from behind with a sword in New York – said he intended to deter interracial relationships

A white suspect accused of the fatal stabbing of a black man on a Manhattan street has been indicted on a charge of murder as an act of terrorism.

James Harris Jackson, 28, appeared briefly in court on Monday and did not speak. Prosecutors had previously also charged him with murder as a hate crime. Jackson’s attorney had no comment.

White veteran 'regarded fatal stabbing of black man as practice for larger attack' Read more

Jackson is accused of killing Timothy Caughman, 66, a stranger to him. Caughman was attacked from behind last week as he was collecting bottles for recycling.



An arraignment on the indictment has been set for 13 April.



Speaking with a reporter for the Daily News at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex, Jackson said he had intended it as “a practice run” in a mission to deter interracial relationships.



He said he envisioned a white woman thinking: “Well, if that guy feels so strongly about it, maybe I shouldn’t do it.”



Caughman, who was remembered as a gentleman and a good neighbor, was alone when he was attacked from behind with a sword. He staggered, bleeding, into a police station and later died at a hospital.

“Tim Caughman did not deserve to die like that,” said Portia Clark, a childhood friend who grew up in Queens and attended the hearing with Caughman’s other friends on Monday. “Nobody does. I mean, come on, we’re black, white, yellow, brown – that’s ridiculous. We’re trying to get along.”

Carl Nimmons wept outside court after seeing Jackson. “It really hurt me to see that man, because I can’t do nothing about it. I don’t have the power to do anything about it,” he said.

In the Rikers interview, Jackson said in retrospect that he would rather have killed “a young thug” or “a successful older black man with blondes ... people you see in Midtown. These younger guys that put white girls on the wrong path”.

He complained that on television, “it’s like every other commercial in the past few years has a mixed-race couple in it”.

“The white race is being eroded ... No one cares about you. The Chinese don’t care about you, the blacks don’t care about you,” he said.

Jackson, who was raised in what was described as a churchgoing, liberal family in a Baltimore suburb, said his ideal society was “1950s America”.

Jackson was in the army from 2009 to 2012 and worked as an intelligence analyst, the army said. Deployed in Afghanistan in 2010 until 2011, he earned several medals and attained the rank of specialist.

The military training, Jackson said, helped him plan the bloodshed.

“I had been thinking about it for a long time, for the past couple of years,” he said. “I figured I would end up getting shot by police, kill myself, or end up in jail.”

His attorney, Sam Talkin, has said if the allegations are anywhere close to being true, “then we’re going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in this case”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/24/new-york-hate-crime-stabbing-james-jackson-timothy-caughman,"James Jackson, who is accused of a hate crime for Timothy Caughman’s murder, traveled to New York to kill ‘as many black men as possible’, prosecutors say

A white military veteran accused of a hate crime for the stabbing death of a black man in New York regarded the attack as “practice” for a larger assault he hoped to carry out in Times Square, court documents claim.

James Jackson, 26, was arrested hours after allegedly stabbing Timothy Caughman to death in Manhattan on Wednesday. According to prosecutors, Jackson, a Maryland resident, traveled to New York for his attack with the intention of killing “as many black men as possible”.

“Mr Jackson regarded the killing as practice prior to going to Times Square to kill additional black men,” according to court documents obtained by the New York Daily News. Police investigators said Jackson admitted to the murder during questioning.

Prosecutors said Jackson plunged a 2ft sword into the chest of Caughman, a self-described “can and bottle recycler”, as Caughman bent over a trash bin near his home. The 66-year-old, whose social media accounts are full of pictures with celebrities such as Beyoncé and Oprah, managed to stagger into a nearby police station, from which he was transported to a hospital and later died.

“The defendant was motivated purely by hatred,” said the assistant district attorney Joan Illuzzi, who added that the charges could be upgraded, “as this was an act most likely of terrorism”.

Prosecutors said Jackson hated black men, especially those who dated white women. According to investigators, Jackson, a decorated veteran of the Afghanistan war, had harbored his beliefs for at least a decade – at one point having been recorded on tape stalking black men.

Dr Scott Krugman, chairman of pediatrics at Franklin Square medical center in Baltimore and a friend of the Jackson family, said the allegations were out of character with his family’s beliefs and the way he was raised.

Jackson’s parents, David and Patricia Jackson, are active members of Towson Presbyterian church and have two other sons. Patricia Jackson is a former teacher of English-language students in the Baltimore County school system and worked for Well for the Journey, a Christian not-for-profit organization that helps people “integrate spirituality into their daily lives in a safe, inclusive space”.

“They’re liberal as liberal can be,” Krugman said. “We were at a dinner party with them and everybody was complaining about the current administration and very open about rights for everybody and making sure we’re not excluding immigrants, everything like that. I’m just beyond shocked right now.”

In a statement, the Jackson family extended condolences to Caughman’s family and said it was “shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/15/beware-jews-road-sign-north-london-reported-police,"Franck Allais says London sign reported to police as a hate crime was not meant to be an antisemitic statement

A photographer and artist behind a red-triangle warning sign depicting the silhouette of an Orthodox Jewish man has apologised for causing offence after a Jewish neighbourhood watch group reported it as a hate crime.

Franck Allais, a freelance photographer, said the contentious sign was part of an artistic project, which includes depictions of a woman pulling a shopping trolley, a man pushing his wheelchair and a cat.

Allais said he intended the project to be a comment on identity and that the sign in Stamford Hill, one of the largest Hasidic communities in Europe, was not an antisemitic statement. He said he was left shaken by the offence he had caused.

He said: “It was a project about crossing the road … how everyone is different, everyone has an identity. There is not only one sign in the street. I put more signs up in the street, but only this one got noticed. I am sorry for any offence caused.”

Shomrim, a Jewish neighbourhood watch group that reported the sign to the Metropolitan police and Hackney council, said earlier it had caused “alarm and distress to local people”. Stamford Hill is at the centre of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish and mainly Hasidic community estimated to number about 30,000 people.

Barry Bard, Shomrim’s operational supervisor in the area, said: “The people of Stamford Hill are very sadly used to instances of antisemitic hate crime, but most of those times it will be verbal abuse or even assault. A lot of the time it will be more of a person-to-person kind of thing, or graffiti, which is more unprofessional.”

Allais, who has done work for Guardian Weekend, the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, FT Weekend magazine, the Independent on Sunday, Newsweek and Time Out, said he had created the signs based on real people he saw crossing the road in the areas where the signs were later hung and photographed.

Some of the other signs have since been spotted.

Jonathan Savage (@JSavageTweets) Here's one of the other signs - put up in Egerton Road N16 pic.twitter.com/cnUcs12Xp9

Hackney council was expected to remove the Stamford Hill sign on Wednesday.



The number of antisemitic incidents in the UK rose by more than a third to record levels in 2016, according to data released by the Community Security Trust.



The CST, which monitors antisemitism and provides security to Jewish communities, recorded 1,309 incidents of anti-Jewish hate last year, compared with 960 in 2015, a rise of 36%. The previous peak was in 2014, when 1,182 incidents were recorded.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/crowds-indian-funeral-man-killed-in-us-protest-against-trump,"

Crowds who gathered for the funeral of an Indian man killed in an apparently racially motivated shooting in Kansas last week have shouted: “Down with Trump” and held up placards that read: “#DownWithRacism.”

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a 32-year-old aviation engineer, was cremated in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Tuesday.

Family members performed the last rites on his body, which had been brought to his home state of Telangana from Kansas on Monday night.

Kuchibhotla’s mother, Parvatha Vardhini, said she would not allow her younger son to return to the US. “I had asked him [Srinivas] to return to India if he was feeling insecure there. But he used to say he was safe and secure,” she said.

Have you seen or been a victim of a hate crime since Trump's election? Tell us Read more

“Now I want my younger son, Sai Kiran, and his family to come back for good. I will not allow them to go back. My son had gone there in search of a better future. What crime did he commit?”

The funeral was held hours after Adam Purinton, 51, a navy veteran, appeared in court in Houston, charged with Kuchibhotla’s murder, the attempted murder of his friend Alok Madasanim and a third man, Ian Grillot, 24, who was wounded when he tried to intervene.

Kuchibhotla and Madasanim went to the US to study and worked as engineers at GPS maker, Garmin.

Witnesses said Purinton shouted “get out of my country” before opening fire. According to a bartender who called 911, Purinton said he had shot “two Iranian people”.

The FBI is investigating whether the shooting constitutes a hate crime, the maximum sentence for which is death penalty.

The incident has raised concerns about the treatment in the US of immigrants, who feel targeted by Donald Trump’s promises to ban certain travellers and build a wall along the Mexico border, and left India and the Indian community in the US in shock.

The Telangana American Telugu Association urged its members to speak English in public places. “Much as we love talking in our mother tongue, it can often be misconstrued. Please see if you can communicate in English in public places,” a statement from the organisation said.



Last week, Kuchibhotla’s widow, Sunaya Dumala, appealed to the US government to do more to prevent hate crimes. “We’ve read many times in newspapers of some kind of shooting happening. And we always wondered, how safe? I need an answer from the government … What are they going to do?” she said.



Hillary Clinton, the losing Democratic candidate in last year’s election, tweeted a link to an article about the shooting and wrote: “With threats & hate crimes on rise, we shouldn’t have to tell @POTUS to do his part. He must step up & speak.”

Trump has not commented on the killing. The White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, said last week that linking the death to Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was “absurd”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/28/documenting-hate-crimes-trump-election,"The US government keeps a flawed record of hate crimes. We want to hear from you to help inform ours and other media outlets’ reporting on the issue

Following one of the most divisive elections in US history, reports have indicated a surge in hate crimes around the country. From acts of antisemitic vandalism and religious discrimination in the workplace to the allegedly targeted shooting of two Indian immigrants and a plot to bomb a refugee community, evidence anecdotally suggests this alarming trend may continue throughout 2017.

That’s why Guardian US, along with other major American newsrooms, advocacy groups and academic institutions, is joining the Documenting Hate project. Led by the not-for-profit news organisation ProPublica, Documenting Hate will attempt to better record these instances and provide rigorous analysis, data-driven investigation, and deep reporting on the issue.

The federal government keeps a flawed and heavily time-lagged record of hate crimes in the US. Much like its monitoring of the number of people police kill every year, the FBI relies on information supplied voluntarily by the 18,000 police departments around the country, meaning thousands of departments report no data at all, while others may simply not be submitting a complete record.

Guardian US is asking readers to submit information, through the form below, if you have witnessed or been the victim of a suspected hate crime, defined by the FBI as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity”.

We would also like to hear from you if you have experienced an incident driven by hatred and prejudice, which may not constitute a crime.

Reporters at Guardian US and other news organisations will work to verify submissions and will not share your name and contact information with anyone outside the project. The incidents will be added to a national database of hate crimes and targeted intimidation, which will inform our broader reporting of the issue.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/22/toxic-political-agenda-dehumanising-entire-groups-amnesty-warns,"Toxic political rhetoric with echoes of 1930s hate speech is stirring up violence worldwide – including in the UK and US, Amnesty International has warned.

Kerry Moscoguiri, Amnesty UK’s director of campaigns, said that campaigning for the Brexit referendum “was a particular low point, with all too real consequences” – pointing to a 57% spike in reported hate crime the week after the vote.

She accused the British government of “creating a hostile climate for refugees and migrants” as it shirked its responsibilities to them, particularly unaccompanied children.

But the UK was not alone in seeing vicious rhetoric targeting the most vulnerable, as 2016 saw leaders worldwide peddling “the dangerous idea that some people are less human than others”, according to Amnesty’s director of crisis research Tirana Hassan.

FBI reports hate crimes against Muslims surged by 67% in 2015 Read more

She pointed particularly to violence stirred up by Donald Trump, right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who called a controversial referendum on refugees, and the Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte who has launched a war on drugs that has cost thousands of lives.

“This report documents the very real human consequences of politicians like Trump, Orbán, Duterte, wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanises entire groups of people,” Hassan said.

The attacks threaten not just human lives but the value system enshrined in international law after the second world war, warned the NGO.

“When language around ‘taking our country back’ and ‘making America great again’ is coupled with proposals to treat EU migrants like bargaining chips or to ban refugees on the grounds of religion, it fosters deep hatred and mistrust and sends a strong message that some people are entitled to human rights and others aren’t,” said Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK.

“Have we forgotten that human rights protections were created after the mass atrocities of the second world war as a way of making sure that ‘never again’ actually meant ‘never again’?”

Politicians fuelled rise in hate crimes after Brexit vote, says UN body Read more

It was a year filled with contempt for those ideals, Amnesty warned, from the almost “routine” bombing of hospitals in Syria and Yemen, to violent suppression of dissent and attacks on refugees and migrants.

Worldwide, 36 countries broke international law and forced refugees back into conflict zones or places where their rights were at risk, it said.

The report was particularly damning of the failure to halt the brutal bombing of rebel-held east Aleppo, in the final stages of a Russian-backed campaign, when chemical weapons and bunker-buster bombs were used against civilians. That inaction “called to mind similar failures in Rwanda and Srebrenica in 1994 and 1995”, the report said, and was a damning indictment of major powers and the UN, paralysed by their rivalries as civilians suffered.

“Never have these failures been as apparent as in December 2016, when we all witnessed the graphic and brutal bombardment of Aleppo, when war crimes were essentially beamed into our living rooms,” Moscogiuri said.

The British government is criticised in the report for stepping up digital surveillance with the new “snooper’s charter”, which allows the state disturbing access to private lives of its citizens.

“By introducing one of the broadest regimes for mass surveillance of any country in the world, the UK took a significant step towards a reality where the right to privacy is simply not recognised,” the report said.

It was not all bleak. Amnesty also noted how fierce repression had inspired courage and resistance around the world, from the people of the Gambia who threw off 22 years off dictatorship in a peaceful election, to the Olympic protest of Ethiopian marathon medallist Feyisa Lilesa, and the young “clown of Aleppo”.

Lilesa drew attention to the struggles of his Oromo tribe by crossing his arms over his head as he reached the finish line, a gesture of defiance that could potentially have cost him the medal.

The 24-year-old entertainer Anas al-Basha chose to stay in besieged Aleppo to bring some distraction and relief to its children, and died there in an airstrike in December.

“Ultimately, the charge that human rights is a project of the elite rings hollow,” the report said. “People’s instincts for freedom and justice do not simply wither away.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/reports-of-antisemitic-incidents-increase-to-record-levels-in-uk,"Rise in incidents is blamed on factors including Labour party antisemitism row and rise in xenophobia after Brexit vote

The number of antisemitic incidents in the UK rose by more than a third to record levels in 2016, according to data released by the Community Security Trust.

The CST, which monitors antisemitism and provides security to Jewish communities, recorded 1,309 incidents of anti-Jewish hate last year, compared with 960 in 2015, a rise of 36%. The previous record number of incidents was in 2014, when 1,182 were recorded.

How are you tackling antisemitism on social media? Share your stories Read more

The CST’s chief executive, David Delew, said: “While Jewish life in this country remains overwhelmingly positive, this heightened level of antisemitism is deeply worrying and appears to be getting worse. Worst of all is that, for various reasons, some people clearly feel more confident to express their antisemitism publicly than they did in the past.”



The 2014 spike in incidents was attributed to the war in Gaza, deemed to be a “trigger event”. However no such trigger was identified for 2016.



Instead, the CST said, there may have been a “cumulative effect of a series of events and factors that, taken together, have created an atmosphere in which more antisemitic incidents are occurring”.



The factors included terrorist attacks in Europe, high profile allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party and a perceived increase in racism and xenophobia following the Brexit referendum, as well as the 2014 Gaza war.



The 1,309 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2016 included 107 violent assaults, up 29% on the previous year; 65 incidents of damage and desecration to Jewish property; and 1,006 incidents of abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, graffiti and on social media.



Social media had become “an essential tool for coordinated campaigns of antisemitic harassment, abuse and threats directed at Jewish politicians, student activists and other individuals, perpetrated by transnational networks of online antisemitic activists, some of whom are involved in extremist politics,” the CST said.



Over three-quarters of incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, where the majority of British Jews live. Greater London saw a 65% increase incidents on the previous year.



The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the government would continue “to do all we can to stamp out these vile attacks and encourage those who experience them to come forward”. Antisemitism was “a deplorable form of hatred that has absolutely no place in a tolerant, open and diverse Britain that works for everyone”.



Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, said the CST’s findings were “extremely distressing”. He added: “I don’t want to live in a country where any member of the Jewish community feels unsafe, afraid or discriminated against … We must root out antisemitism whenever it takes place and wherever it exists, as a party and a country.”

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/28/documenting-hate-crimes-trump-election,"The US government keeps a flawed record of hate crimes. We want to hear from you to help inform ours and other media outlets’ reporting on the issue

Following one of the most divisive elections in US history, reports have indicated a surge in hate crimes around the country. From acts of antisemitic vandalism and religious discrimination in the workplace to the allegedly targeted shooting of two Indian immigrants and a plot to bomb a refugee community, evidence anecdotally suggests this alarming trend may continue throughout 2017.

That’s why Guardian US, along with other major American newsrooms, advocacy groups and academic institutions, is joining the Documenting Hate project. Led by the not-for-profit news organisation ProPublica, Documenting Hate will attempt to better record these instances and provide rigorous analysis, data-driven investigation, and deep reporting on the issue.

The federal government keeps a flawed and heavily time-lagged record of hate crimes in the US. Much like its monitoring of the number of people police kill every year, the FBI relies on information supplied voluntarily by the 18,000 police departments around the country, meaning thousands of departments report no data at all, while others may simply not be submitting a complete record.

Guardian US is asking readers to submit information, through the form below, if you have witnessed or been the victim of a suspected hate crime, defined by the FBI as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity”.

We would also like to hear from you if you have experienced an incident driven by hatred and prejudice, which may not constitute a crime.

Reporters at Guardian US and other news organisations will work to verify submissions and will not share your name and contact information with anyone outside the project. The incidents will be added to a national database of hate crimes and targeted intimidation, which will inform our broader reporting of the issue.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/22/toxic-political-agenda-dehumanising-entire-groups-amnesty-warns,"Toxic political rhetoric with echoes of 1930s hate speech is stirring up violence worldwide – including in the UK and US, Amnesty International has warned.

Kerry Moscoguiri, Amnesty UK’s director of campaigns, said that campaigning for the Brexit referendum “was a particular low point, with all too real consequences” – pointing to a 57% spike in reported hate crime the week after the vote.

She accused the British government of “creating a hostile climate for refugees and migrants” as it shirked its responsibilities to them, particularly unaccompanied children.

But the UK was not alone in seeing vicious rhetoric targeting the most vulnerable, as 2016 saw leaders worldwide peddling “the dangerous idea that some people are less human than others”, according to Amnesty’s director of crisis research Tirana Hassan.

FBI reports hate crimes against Muslims surged by 67% in 2015 Read more

She pointed particularly to violence stirred up by Donald Trump, right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who called a controversial referendum on refugees, and the Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte who has launched a war on drugs that has cost thousands of lives.

“This report documents the very real human consequences of politicians like Trump, Orbán, Duterte, wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanises entire groups of people,” Hassan said.

The attacks threaten not just human lives but the value system enshrined in international law after the second world war, warned the NGO.

“When language around ‘taking our country back’ and ‘making America great again’ is coupled with proposals to treat EU migrants like bargaining chips or to ban refugees on the grounds of religion, it fosters deep hatred and mistrust and sends a strong message that some people are entitled to human rights and others aren’t,” said Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK.

“Have we forgotten that human rights protections were created after the mass atrocities of the second world war as a way of making sure that ‘never again’ actually meant ‘never again’?”

Politicians fuelled rise in hate crimes after Brexit vote, says UN body Read more

It was a year filled with contempt for those ideals, Amnesty warned, from the almost “routine” bombing of hospitals in Syria and Yemen, to violent suppression of dissent and attacks on refugees and migrants.

Worldwide, 36 countries broke international law and forced refugees back into conflict zones or places where their rights were at risk, it said.

The report was particularly damning of the failure to halt the brutal bombing of rebel-held east Aleppo, in the final stages of a Russian-backed campaign, when chemical weapons and bunker-buster bombs were used against civilians. That inaction “called to mind similar failures in Rwanda and Srebrenica in 1994 and 1995”, the report said, and was a damning indictment of major powers and the UN, paralysed by their rivalries as civilians suffered.

“Never have these failures been as apparent as in December 2016, when we all witnessed the graphic and brutal bombardment of Aleppo, when war crimes were essentially beamed into our living rooms,” Moscogiuri said.

The British government is criticised in the report for stepping up digital surveillance with the new “snooper’s charter”, which allows the state disturbing access to private lives of its citizens.

“By introducing one of the broadest regimes for mass surveillance of any country in the world, the UK took a significant step towards a reality where the right to privacy is simply not recognised,” the report said.

It was not all bleak. Amnesty also noted how fierce repression had inspired courage and resistance around the world, from the people of the Gambia who threw off 22 years off dictatorship in a peaceful election, to the Olympic protest of Ethiopian marathon medallist Feyisa Lilesa, and the young “clown of Aleppo”.

Lilesa drew attention to the struggles of his Oromo tribe by crossing his arms over his head as he reached the finish line, a gesture of defiance that could potentially have cost him the medal.

The 24-year-old entertainer Anas al-Basha chose to stay in besieged Aleppo to bring some distraction and relief to its children, and died there in an airstrike in December.

“Ultimately, the charge that human rights is a project of the elite rings hollow,” the report said. “People’s instincts for freedom and justice do not simply wither away.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/reports-of-antisemitic-incidents-increase-to-record-levels-in-uk,"Rise in incidents is blamed on factors including Labour party antisemitism row and rise in xenophobia after Brexit vote

The number of antisemitic incidents in the UK rose by more than a third to record levels in 2016, according to data released by the Community Security Trust.

The CST, which monitors antisemitism and provides security to Jewish communities, recorded 1,309 incidents of anti-Jewish hate last year, compared with 960 in 2015, a rise of 36%. The previous record number of incidents was in 2014, when 1,182 were recorded.

How are you tackling antisemitism on social media? Share your stories Read more

The CST’s chief executive, David Delew, said: “While Jewish life in this country remains overwhelmingly positive, this heightened level of antisemitism is deeply worrying and appears to be getting worse. Worst of all is that, for various reasons, some people clearly feel more confident to express their antisemitism publicly than they did in the past.”



The 2014 spike in incidents was attributed to the war in Gaza, deemed to be a “trigger event”. However no such trigger was identified for 2016.



Instead, the CST said, there may have been a “cumulative effect of a series of events and factors that, taken together, have created an atmosphere in which more antisemitic incidents are occurring”.



The factors included terrorist attacks in Europe, high profile allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party and a perceived increase in racism and xenophobia following the Brexit referendum, as well as the 2014 Gaza war.



The 1,309 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2016 included 107 violent assaults, up 29% on the previous year; 65 incidents of damage and desecration to Jewish property; and 1,006 incidents of abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, graffiti and on social media.



Social media had become “an essential tool for coordinated campaigns of antisemitic harassment, abuse and threats directed at Jewish politicians, student activists and other individuals, perpetrated by transnational networks of online antisemitic activists, some of whom are involved in extremist politics,” the CST said.



Over three-quarters of incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, where the majority of British Jews live. Greater London saw a 65% increase incidents on the previous year.



The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the government would continue “to do all we can to stamp out these vile attacks and encourage those who experience them to come forward”. Antisemitism was “a deplorable form of hatred that has absolutely no place in a tolerant, open and diverse Britain that works for everyone”.



Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, said the CST’s findings were “extremely distressing”. He added: “I don’t want to live in a country where any member of the Jewish community feels unsafe, afraid or discriminated against … We must root out antisemitism whenever it takes place and wherever it exists, as a party and a country.”

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/26/pakistan-bans-religious-tv-host-aamir-liaquat-hussain-over-blasphemy-allegations,"Country’s media regulator accuses TV host of repeatedly making claims tantamount to hate speech in his Bol TV show

Pakistan’s television regulator has banned a well-known talkshow host for hate speech, after he hosted shows accusing liberal activists and others of blasphemy, an inflammatory allegation that could put their lives at risk.

Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Muslim-majority Pakistan that can result in the death penalty. Even being accused of blasphemy can provoke targeted acts of violence by religious rightwing vigilantes.

Aamir Liaquat Hussain, who describes his programme aired on Bol TV as the country’s leading television show, had been at the forefront of a campaign to discredit liberal activists who went missing this month, as well as those defending them.

In a document sent to Bol TV and seen by Reuters, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority said Liaquat’s show “wilfully and repeatedly made statements and allegations which (are) tantamount to hate speech, derogatory remarks, incitement to violence against citizens and casting accusations of being anti-state and anti-Islam.”

Liaquat did not answer calls to his mobile telephone on Thursday and representatives of Bol TV were not immediately available for comment.

He had blamed several prominent Pakistanis for an anti-state agenda and being either sympathetic to, or directly involved in, blasphemy against Islam’s founder, the prophet Muhammad.

In 2011, the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards after he called for reform of the country’s blasphemy laws.

How Pakistan responded to Salmaan Taseer's assassination Read more

Taseer’s killer, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed but not before becoming a hero in the eyes of the religious right.

At least 65 others have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to figures from the Center for Research and Security Studies thinktank and media.

Liaquat, famous for combining religion and gameshows, has often courted controversy. He once gave away abandoned babies during a broadcast and caused uproar by airing vitriolic hate speech against the Ahmadi minority.

One of the targets of Liaquat’s show was activist lawyer Jibran Nasir, who filed a police complaint under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism law on Thursday charging him with “running a defamatory and life-threatening campaign”.

Classical dancer Sheema Kirmani received death threats after Liaquat targeted her on his 19 January broadcast.

Classical dance was banned and associated with obscenity under the regime of military dictator Zia ul Haq, who pushed for greater “Islamisation” of Pakistan in the 1980s.

The situation is potentially worse now than during the Zia era, Kirmani said. “Previously the government could close the auditorium, or arrest you, but now anyone sitting in the audience can decide ‘I am not going to allow this.’”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/23/mayor-london-sadiq-khan-calls-action-antisemitic-attacks,"Sadiq Khan meets genocide survivors after four alleged hate crimes over the weekend against the Jewish community in north London

The mayor of London has urged a zero tolerance attitude to hate crimes in the capital as he met genocide survivors.

Sadiq Khan said the city remained inclusive and global, following four antisemitic attacks over the weekend. He made the remarks as he met genocide survivors at City Hall at the first in a series of events in the lead-up to Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January.

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said on Sunday that officers were investigating four hate crime allegations aimed towards north London’s Jewish community.

Speaking after Monday’s event, Khan said: “I ask all Londoners to report any form of hate crime, no matter how trivial. A brick with a swastika on it thrown through a window of a Jewish home is not a trivial matter and needs to be addressed.”

The other incidents being probed by police include a woman having eggs thrown at her by the occupants of a passing car and offensive graffiti, including a swastika.

The mayor met several people who survived periods of mass murder, including a second world war Holocaust survivor, Mala Tribich, and Sokpal Din, who lived through the Cambodian genocide.

This year’s theme for the memorial is “how can life go on?” aiming to highlight the difficulties faced by survivors.

Tribich, who was 12 when the Germans invaded her Polish home town, described how she lost most of her family and suffered a severe illness in the concentration camps. She told the audience: “Living a normal life is the biggest challenge for Holocaust survivors.”

Din gave a message of hope, saying: “The only thing we had was hope and that was something I never gave up on.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/18/prepare-for-new-surge-in-hate-crimes-against-eu-citizens-says-echr-article-50,"UK human rights watchdog says police should be prepared for backlash against EU citizens when article 50 is triggered

Britain should prepare for a fresh spike in hate crimes against EU citizens when the article 50 process triggering Brexit begins, the human rights watchdog has said.

David Isaac, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), told a hearing of MPs he was worried the start of formally leaving the bloc could cause a backlash against EU citizens, similar to the period of increased hate crime that followed the EU referendum, and was calling on police to be prepared for such an eventuality.



Theresa May has promised to trigger article 50 before the end of March but it could come earlier than that now she has set out her plans to leave the single market in order to secure immigration controls and remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.

Poles in UK fear spike in hate crimes when Brexit process begins Read more

The government is now awaiting the outcome of a supreme court decision about whether parliament will have to pass an act approving Brexit before it can go ahead.

Ahead of that ruling, Isaac told MPs on the women and equalities committee that the EHRC was “hugely concerned about what might happen in relation to an increase in hate crime” when article 50 is triggered.

“And so, to give you examples of what we are seeking to do, we are meeting with groups, we are seeking to ensure that there is as much police protection and understanding in relation to hate crimes as is possible,” he said.

“And, I think, given our role, I believe, we are uniquely placed to be doing all of this at a time when Britain needs guidance in relation to huge anxiety that resides, not just in relation to non-UK citizens and our visitors, but actually many of our own citizens.”

Highlighting the rise in hate crime over the summer, he said: “One of the things that concerns us greatly is the position in relation to the spike in hate crimes since 23 June. I’ve met with the Polish ambassador, my opposite number in Poland, because of the large number of attacks against the Polish community, but I am also in touch with various other groups.”

The prime minister’s spokeswoman said the government would “certainly not want” a surge in hate crimes, when asked if May shared Isaac’s concerns.

“The prime minister has taken a very strong and clear stance on our commitment to continuing to be an open and tolerant nation and to stamp out hate crime wherever it exists,” she said.

“What is important is the approach we have taken of consistently and repeatedly saying that hate crime is completely unacceptable, and that the outcome of the referendum was not a vote to become inward-looking and to stop being an open and tolerant nation. We will continue to champion those values and stand up for them.”

Joanna Mludzinska, a Polish community leader, warned last week that a “wave” of hate crimes against European migrants could follow the start of Britain’s exit from the EU.

The chair of the Polish Social and Cultural Association told MPs on the Commons home affairs committee that triggering article 50 could act as a “flashpoint” for new xenophobic attacks.

Mludzinska said: “Where those people who for whatever reason thought everything would be resolved by Brexit find that doesn’t miraculously happen ... there might be another wave of response... ‘Why aren’t we getting what we wanted, and why are they still here?’”

At the hearing, Yvette Cooper, the committee’s chair, said details of hate crime incidents heard by her committee were appalling. “Hate crime is appalling, un-British and should have no place in our country,” she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/12/amber-rudd-speech-on-foreign-workers-recorded-as-hate-incident,"After complaint from member of the public, police say they will not be investigating speech as a hate crime

A speech about foreign workers given by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, at the Tory party conference in October has been officially recorded as a hate incident, police have confirmed.



Rudd said in her speech that she wanted to make it harder for British companies to employ migrants and to ensure foreign workers “were not taking jobs British workers could do”.

The speech was followed by a background briefing by an aide who suggested firms could be required to publish lists of foreign workers. Rudd herself confirmed the next day that such lists were an option, but the idea was quickly dropped.

When the Tories talk about curbs on foreign workers, they don’t mean me. Or do they? Read more

Media coverage of the speech so alarmed an Oxford University physics professor, Joshua Silver, that he complained to the police. “I felt politicians have been using hate speech to turn Britons against foreigners, and I thought that is probably not lawful,” he told the Times.

His complaint was dealt with by West Midlands police as the Tory conference took place in Birmingham.

National police reporting rules introduced in 2014 and endorsed by Rudd herself require all complaints of hate crime incidents to be recorded “regardless of whether or not those making the complaint are the victim and irrespective of whether or not there is any evidence to identify the hate crime incident”.

West Midlands police have now written to the professor saying they have concluded an assessment of his complaint and they will not be investigating Rudd’s speech as a hate crime. “The matter has been recorded in line with the National Police Chiefs’ Council manual as a non-crime hate incident,” the force told the professor.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “This was not a hate crime. The home secretary has been crystal clear that hatred has absolutely no place in a Britain that works for everyone. She’s made countering hate one of her key priorities; indeed, one of the first public interventions she made was to launch the hate crime action plan.”

The policy of blanket recording of all complaints of hate crime incidents was drawn up by the College of Policing in 2014 with the justification that increased reporting would help police to tackle hate crime more effectively.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/10/poles-in-uk-fear-spike-in-hate-crimes-when-brexit-process-begins,"Poles and other eastern Europeans living in Britain fear there will be a fresh spike in hate crime when the Brexit process is formally triggered before the end of March, MPs have been told.

Polish community leaders told the Commons home affairs committee that since the EU referendum a small minority of people in Britain had been emboldened to launch verbal and physical attacks against migrants in public places, at work and in schools.

“Every statement and every political activity around Brexit negotiations brings a spike in inquiries to our organisation. We expect when article 50 is triggered it will bring another level of discontent,” Barbara Drozdowicz, of the East European Resource Centre, told the MPs.



Police figures show reports of hate crime rose by 46% in the immediate aftermath of the vote last June and a second spike occurred in the last week of July, before incidences settled back to a weekly level 16% above those seen in 2015.



Community leaders say complaints to the police receive a mixed response and some schools turn a blind eye to incidents on their premises.

Joanna Mludzinska, chair of the Polish Social and Cultural Association, told MPs of her shock when her west London cultural centre was covered in graffiti, and said only a government guarantee on the post-Brexit status of the 3 million EU nationals in Britain would give them the confidence to reply to such attacks.

Tadeusz Stenzel, the chair of trustees at the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, said of those responsible for the attacks: “They feel there is a less of a brake on them and they think if the people involved are migrants it is not a racist situation.”

Drozdowicz said her resource centre had experienced an “explosion of calls” since the referendum result. She said there were incidents of teams of Polish construction workers being told to “go home”. A mother with a child in a buggy in the street had been told to “take your Polish bastard back home”.

In a secondary school in west London, teachers had seen a Polish boy being beaten and had failed to respond. When his mother had complained to the school she was told that if he had been black it would have been treated as a racist incident.

Drozdowicz said not all police forces were ready to respond to those who wanted to report hate crime. “They are sometimes waved away as employment issues about discrimination. Others are told that if they do not speak fluent English they are partially to blame for what happened,” she said.

Drozdowicz said the pace of change had been too much for some communities, and people were turning on their neighbours. She said integration policies were not yet in place to help them respond, with east European communities often regarded as a problem rather than an asset.

She stressed that hate crime victims were more likely to be poor east Europeans who were working in low-skilled jobs rather than middle-class professionals such as doctors, managers and lawyers.

Yvette Cooper, the committee’s chair, said the details of hate crime incidents they had heard were appalling. “Hate crime is appalling, unBritish and should have no place in our country,” she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/09/man-who-made-antisemitic-death-threats-to-mp-admits-further-charges,"John Nimmo, 28, who told Luciana Berger she would ‘get it like Jo Cox’, admits further charges after sending abusive tweets

A man who made antisemitic death threats to a Labour MP has admitted further charges after sending abusive messages on Twitter.

John Nimmo, 28, from South Shields, sent two emails to Luciana Berger in which he said she would “get it like Jo Cox” and “watch your back Jewish scum”. The second message to the MP for Liverpool Wavertree included a picture of a large knife and came just three weeks after MP Jo Cox was killed.

In a separate incident he also admitted sending offensive emails to an anti-hate crime organisation including threatening to blow up a mosque.

Newcastle crown court heard the three further charges related to tweets he sent that included messaging someone saying, “watch your back you Jewish inbred you’re dead meat, National Action”.

Berger, the former shadow minister for mental health, said the messages had caused her “great fear and anguish”. She said the incident had left her in a state of “huge distress” and “it caused me to feel physically sick being threatened in such a way”.

“I was extremely concerned for my safety and I felt completely under threat. I had previously received antisemitic messages and threats but the reference to Jo Cox was terrifying,” she said. “The biggest concern was not knowing who this was, for all I knew the offender could have resided next door to me.”

Nimmo was jailed in 2014 for eight weeks for sending abusive messages on Twitter to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creasy. It came after Criado-Perez led a campaign using social media for a female figure to appear on a Bank of England note.

It included Nimmo telling Criado-Perez to “shut up” and made references to rape followed by: “I will find you (smiley face)”.

Nimmo was remanded in custody and told he would be sentenced for all three cases on 10 February.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/07/poles-lin-uk-scared-to-speak-up-on-hate-crimes,"Poles living in Britain are so anxious about their right to remain after Brexit that they are failing to report hate crimes, according to the head of the Polish Social and Cultural Association.

Joanna Młudzińska, who will give evidence on Tuesday to a home affairs select committee inquiry on the issue, said EU nationals felt so disenfranchised at being used as “pawns” in Brexit negotiations that they were opting to keep a low profile, rather than contact the authorities.

The situation has become so acute that the London-based East European Resource Centre (EERC) is launching a pilot scheme to encourage EU nationals to report hate crimes.

Młudzińska, who was born in London to Polish parents, said the government’s failure to clarify the standing of the UK’s 2.9 million EU citizens was “immoral” and was putting Polish and other EU migrants living in Britain in an impossible position.

“Very few people are reporting hate crimes at the moment. People are very scared, because often this occurs in the workplace and they are scared they might lose their job. Or it’s from a neighbour and they don’t want to cause more problems.” Młudzińska added: “They can’t turn around and say: ‘No, I don’t have to go home because your government has said I am allowed to stay.’ That puts you in a weaker position, doesn’t it? It makes people vulnerable. It makes them scared to stand up for themselves, to properly report things.”

Last year the number of Polish-born UK residents was estimated at 831,000, making Poles the largest overseas-born group in the country and Polish the second most spoken language in England.

Various agencies have documented that incidents of hate crime soared in the aftermath of June’s EU referendum vote. On Friday, a 15-year-old boy appeared in Chelmsford youth court charged with the manslaughter of a Polish man who was attacked in Essex weeks after the UK voted to leave the EU.

The death of Arkadiusz Jóźwik, 40, in Harlow was initially reported as a possible hate crime, becoming one of the most high-profile incidents of violence linked to the result of the EU referendum, although it is understood that prosecutors are not treating it as such.

A number of sources recorded an increase in hate crime in the wake of the Brexit vote. Racist or religious abuse incidents recorded by police in England and Wales jumped 41% with 5,468 such crimes being logged in the month after the UK voted to quit the EU, according to the Home Office.

The uncertainty facing EU nationals living in Britain has been highlighted by a series of cases, including that of Dom Wolf, born in London to German parents, who told the Guardian on Thursday that he could not get a British passport unless he took a UK citizenship test because he could not prove his mother had been in England legally when she gave birth to him. The 32-year-old said he felt betrayed by the country in which he was born. His parents arrived in 1974, when his mother worked for the University of London as a lecturer and his father was self-employed.

Other examples include Monique Hawkins, a Dutch woman who has lived in the UK for 24 years and has two children with her British husband, but has been told by the Home Office that she should make arrangements to leave the country after applying for citizenship.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at the University of Kent, said that, despite the apparent rise in hate crimes following the referendum, there were inherent difficulties in quantifying the issue.

“The police measures for recording hate crime and how it is categorised have only recently become more sophisticated, so we’re not really able to say whether things are actually getting worse or better,” he said. “Historically, it’s been an area where we haven’t really invested much.”

Goodwin, who will also appear before the select committee hearing, said that monitoring the far right was problematic because easily identifiable organisations, such as the EDL and BNP, had fractured into small, disparate factions. “This has made it harder for researchers, as well as the security services, to keep on top. There are 20 tiny groups and it’s quite difficult to know what they are doing and how,” he said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/10/poles-in-uk-fear-spike-in-hate-crimes-when-brexit-process-begins,"Poles and other eastern Europeans living in Britain fear there will be a fresh spike in hate crime when the Brexit process is formally triggered before the end of March, MPs have been told.

Polish community leaders told the Commons home affairs committee that since the EU referendum a small minority of people in Britain had been emboldened to launch verbal and physical attacks against migrants in public places, at work and in schools.

“Every statement and every political activity around Brexit negotiations brings a spike in inquiries to our organisation. We expect when article 50 is triggered it will bring another level of discontent,” Barbara Drozdowicz, of the East European Resource Centre, told the MPs.



Police figures show reports of hate crime rose by 46% in the immediate aftermath of the vote last June and a second spike occurred in the last week of July, before incidences settled back to a weekly level 16% above those seen in 2015.



Community leaders say complaints to the police receive a mixed response and some schools turn a blind eye to incidents on their premises.

Joanna Mludzinska, chair of the Polish Social and Cultural Association, told MPs of her shock when her west London cultural centre was covered in graffiti, and said only a government guarantee on the post-Brexit status of the 3 million EU nationals in Britain would give them the confidence to reply to such attacks.

Tadeusz Stenzel, the chair of trustees at the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, said of those responsible for the attacks: “They feel there is a less of a brake on them and they think if the people involved are migrants it is not a racist situation.”

Drozdowicz said her resource centre had experienced an “explosion of calls” since the referendum result. She said there were incidents of teams of Polish construction workers being told to “go home”. A mother with a child in a buggy in the street had been told to “take your Polish bastard back home”.

In a secondary school in west London, teachers had seen a Polish boy being beaten and had failed to respond. When his mother had complained to the school she was told that if he had been black it would have been treated as a racist incident.

Drozdowicz said not all police forces were ready to respond to those who wanted to report hate crime. “They are sometimes waved away as employment issues about discrimination. Others are told that if they do not speak fluent English they are partially to blame for what happened,” she said.

Drozdowicz said the pace of change had been too much for some communities, and people were turning on their neighbours. She said integration policies were not yet in place to help them respond, with east European communities often regarded as a problem rather than an asset.

She stressed that hate crime victims were more likely to be poor east Europeans who were working in low-skilled jobs rather than middle-class professionals such as doctors, managers and lawyers.

Yvette Cooper, the committee’s chair, said the details of hate crime incidents they had heard were appalling. “Hate crime is appalling, unBritish and should have no place in our country,” she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/09/man-who-made-antisemitic-death-threats-to-mp-admits-further-charges,"John Nimmo, 28, who told Luciana Berger she would ‘get it like Jo Cox’, admits further charges after sending abusive tweets

A man who made antisemitic death threats to a Labour MP has admitted further charges after sending abusive messages on Twitter.

John Nimmo, 28, from South Shields, sent two emails to Luciana Berger in which he said she would “get it like Jo Cox” and “watch your back Jewish scum”. The second message to the MP for Liverpool Wavertree included a picture of a large knife and came just three weeks after MP Jo Cox was killed.

In a separate incident he also admitted sending offensive emails to an anti-hate crime organisation including threatening to blow up a mosque.

Newcastle crown court heard the three further charges related to tweets he sent that included messaging someone saying, “watch your back you Jewish inbred you’re dead meat, National Action”.

Berger, the former shadow minister for mental health, said the messages had caused her “great fear and anguish”. She said the incident had left her in a state of “huge distress” and “it caused me to feel physically sick being threatened in such a way”.

“I was extremely concerned for my safety and I felt completely under threat. I had previously received antisemitic messages and threats but the reference to Jo Cox was terrifying,” she said. “The biggest concern was not knowing who this was, for all I knew the offender could have resided next door to me.”

Nimmo was jailed in 2014 for eight weeks for sending abusive messages on Twitter to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creasy. It came after Criado-Perez led a campaign using social media for a female figure to appear on a Bank of England note.

It included Nimmo telling Criado-Perez to “shut up” and made references to rape followed by: “I will find you (smiley face)”.

Nimmo was remanded in custody and told he would be sentenced for all three cases on 10 February.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/07/poles-lin-uk-scared-to-speak-up-on-hate-crimes,"Poles living in Britain are so anxious about their right to remain after Brexit that they are failing to report hate crimes, according to the head of the Polish Social and Cultural Association.

Joanna Młudzińska, who will give evidence on Tuesday to a home affairs select committee inquiry on the issue, said EU nationals felt so disenfranchised at being used as “pawns” in Brexit negotiations that they were opting to keep a low profile, rather than contact the authorities.

The situation has become so acute that the London-based East European Resource Centre (EERC) is launching a pilot scheme to encourage EU nationals to report hate crimes.

Młudzińska, who was born in London to Polish parents, said the government’s failure to clarify the standing of the UK’s 2.9 million EU citizens was “immoral” and was putting Polish and other EU migrants living in Britain in an impossible position.

“Very few people are reporting hate crimes at the moment. People are very scared, because often this occurs in the workplace and they are scared they might lose their job. Or it’s from a neighbour and they don’t want to cause more problems.” Młudzińska added: “They can’t turn around and say: ‘No, I don’t have to go home because your government has said I am allowed to stay.’ That puts you in a weaker position, doesn’t it? It makes people vulnerable. It makes them scared to stand up for themselves, to properly report things.”

Last year the number of Polish-born UK residents was estimated at 831,000, making Poles the largest overseas-born group in the country and Polish the second most spoken language in England.

Various agencies have documented that incidents of hate crime soared in the aftermath of June’s EU referendum vote. On Friday, a 15-year-old boy appeared in Chelmsford youth court charged with the manslaughter of a Polish man who was attacked in Essex weeks after the UK voted to leave the EU.

The death of Arkadiusz Jóźwik, 40, in Harlow was initially reported as a possible hate crime, becoming one of the most high-profile incidents of violence linked to the result of the EU referendum, although it is understood that prosecutors are not treating it as such.

A number of sources recorded an increase in hate crime in the wake of the Brexit vote. Racist or religious abuse incidents recorded by police in England and Wales jumped 41% with 5,468 such crimes being logged in the month after the UK voted to quit the EU, according to the Home Office.

The uncertainty facing EU nationals living in Britain has been highlighted by a series of cases, including that of Dom Wolf, born in London to German parents, who told the Guardian on Thursday that he could not get a British passport unless he took a UK citizenship test because he could not prove his mother had been in England legally when she gave birth to him. The 32-year-old said he felt betrayed by the country in which he was born. His parents arrived in 1974, when his mother worked for the University of London as a lecturer and his father was self-employed.

Other examples include Monique Hawkins, a Dutch woman who has lived in the UK for 24 years and has two children with her British husband, but has been told by the Home Office that she should make arrangements to leave the country after applying for citizenship.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at the University of Kent, said that, despite the apparent rise in hate crimes following the referendum, there were inherent difficulties in quantifying the issue.

“The police measures for recording hate crime and how it is categorised have only recently become more sophisticated, so we’re not really able to say whether things are actually getting worse or better,” he said. “Historically, it’s been an area where we haven’t really invested much.”

Goodwin, who will also appear before the select committee hearing, said that monitoring the far right was problematic because easily identifiable organisations, such as the EDL and BNP, had fractured into small, disparate factions. “This has made it harder for researchers, as well as the security services, to keep on top. There are 20 tiny groups and it’s quite difficult to know what they are doing and how,” he said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/31/intolerant-post-brexit-britain-history-hate-crimes,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/19/new-antisemitism-definition-is-justified,"I was shocked by the letter (17 December) from Tony Greenstein and others about the government adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The letter said: “The new definition has nothing to do with opposing antisemitism, it is merely designed to silence public debate on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Antisemitic incidents comprise about 2% of all hate crime. Why then the concentration on antisemitism and not on Islamophobia, which is far more widespread?”

Those assertions are all either misleading or false and seem to say that antisemitism in Britain doesn’t matter. It is true that religiously based hate crime represents a very small percentage of all hate crime. In 2015 out of about 66,000 hate crimes in the UK, about 5,000 were on grounds of religion and, of those, about 1,000 attacks each were antisemitic and Islamophobic. Both types of attack are as abhorrent as each other. The British Jewish population is less than 10% of the size of the British Muslim population, so the Jewish community is facing far more frequent racist attacks pro rata than the Muslim community. In fact, the attacks on the Jewish community are concentrated on those who are easily identified as being Jewish, including those going to or from Jewish community centres, events or synagogues. Secular Jews are frequently unaware of such attacks.

The new definition of antisemitism that the government has adopted specifically states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. It does, however, define “applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as antisemitic. Is that what they want to do?

There is nothing in the new definition that would stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. When unjustified criticism of Israel is published in the media, such as the false report of a massacre in Jenin, antisemitic attacks in the UK increase, so this new definition is needed. Islamophobia does not increase in response to reports of the Israel-Palestine dispute. It does increase in response to reports of jihadi attacks in the west. That is also unfair on Muslims in Britain who are strongly opposed to terrorism. But it is no reason to make light of antisemitism in Britain.

Stephen Franklin

London

• Deplorable though the Netanyahu government’s settlement policy is, the description by the usual pro-BDS suspects of Israel as “an apartheid state” is ludicrous. This is a country whose minority Arab citizens have, and exercise, the vote, are represented in the Knesset, local government, the judiciary, academia and the press, and whose religion, whether Muslim or Christian, is freely practised.

That is not to say more does not need to be done to enhance provision for Israel’s Arab citizens, especially the Bedouin, but it would be a welcome change if those who constantly denounce Israel for failings real, exaggerated or imagined spent a fraction of their energy protesting about the slaughter in Syria, many of whose citizens are being treated in Israeli hospitals, or the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Jeremy Beecham

Labour, House of Lords

• My question to the letter’s signatories is simple: how many of you have actually visited Israel? If you have had any kind of in-depth visit to Israel, you must have noticed how many Arabs study at its universities. How many of the doctors and teachers are Arab. How many checkout staff in the supermarkets are Arab, working side by side with Israelis. Do you see separate seating on buses and in public places for Arabs and non-Arabs? No. That is what apartheid was, and it is not practised in any shape or form in Israel.

Ann Levin

Ra’anana, Israel

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/17/german-officials-say-facebook-is-doing-too-little-to-stop-hate-speech,"Justice minister threatens sanctions such as fines on tech companies if they still fail to delete illegal posts by early next year

Germany is to consider new laws that would force social media platforms such as Facebook and search engines such as Google to take a more active role in policing illegal hate speech on their sites.

Measures considered by Angela Merkel’s coalition government include forcing companies to set up clear channels for registering complaints, to publish the number of complaints they receive and to hire legally qualified ombudsmen to carry out deletions.

Facebook's plan to tackle fake news raises questions over limitations Read more

Online platforms that fail meet such legal requirements could be hit with fines calculated on the basis of their global annual turnover, or face on-the-spot fines of up to €500,000 if they neglect to remove posts in breach of German hate speech law within 24 hours.

Concerns over social media’s power to fire up populist narratives and boost conspiracy theories has increased after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s shock election in November, with politicians across Europe looking anxiously ahead to elections in France and Germany next year.

In Germany, which has some of the toughest laws around hate speech – including prison sentences for Holocaust denial and inciting hatred against minorities – political frustration with tech companies’ refusal to take responsibility for content posted on their sites has increased markedly in recent months.

A hate speech taskforce including representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter, set up by German justice minister Heiko Maas in autumn 2015, vowed to aim to delete illegal postings within 24 hours. But a government report published in late September this year found that tech companies were still struggling to react adequately to breaches of law, with Facebook only deleting 46%, YouTube 10% and Twitter 1% of illegal content flagged up by normal, non-privileged users.



According to a investigation by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Facebook currently employs about 600 people via the service provider Arvato to each carry out 2,000 deletions per day on its German-language accounts. But German officials say they have received no such information from the tech companies themselves.

If another report due at the start of next year showed no further improvement, the German government would take steps towards sanctioning companies, Maas told The Observer.

“We are already looking in detail at how we can make providers of online platforms criminally liable for undeleted content that breaks German law. Of course, if other measures don’t work we also need to think about fines. That would be a strong incentive for quick action.”

While German law currently sets an upper limit of €10 million for the amount companies can be fined for criminal offences, the justice ministry is independently looking into whether fines in the future can be calculated on the basis of a company’s global annual turnover.

“We urgently need more transparency,” said Maas, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic party. “We could imagine obliging social networks to publish at regular intervals how many complaints they have received about illegal hate speech and how they dealt with them. That way it would be visible for everyone how many complaints there are and how many deletions. That too would increase the pressure on Facebook, Twitter, Google and others.

“Companies that make money with their social networks have social obligations – it cannot be in any company’s interest that their platform is used to commit crimes”, he said.

While the debate in Germany has mostly focused on postings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, such law changes would also have wide-ranging consequences for the Google search engine.

Last Sunday, an Observer article pointed out that the top Google search result for the question “Did the Holocaust happen” linked to an article on a neo-Nazi website. While typing the same question in German into German Google does not yield this link, the first page of results still includes links to Holocaust-denial articles.

According to Christian Solmecke, a Cologne lawyer specialising in hate-speech offences, such statements are “unequivocally” covered by section 130, paragraph 3 of the German criminal code, which states that “whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism [...] in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.”

While Google does not have to seek out illegal content out of its own accord, it has to react to any complaint, whether by deletion or by blocking access, Solmecke said: “According to German law, a complaint would immediately oblige Google to delete such content and avoid a future repeat of such a violation”.

Unlike the three social media sites at the heart of the German government’s current investigation – Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned Youtube – the search engine itself does not offer a prominently displayed channel for lodging complaints, such as Facebook’s abuse button.

A “send feedback” window at the bottom of Google’s search page allows ordinary users to message the search engine, but since there is no separate field for contact details, the process is a one-way street. The Guardian used the feedback box to Google about a link to a website by Ursula Haverbeck – a prominent German holocaust denier who has been repeatedly sent to prison under the incitement of hatred law – but the website was still listed as one of the engine’s top search results 24 hours later.

Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called on Google and other tech companies to take a more active role in stopping the spread of hate speech online. “Websites that deny the Holocaust, stoke antisemitism and resentments against minorities, or spread other inhuman messages, are completely unacceptable”, Schuster said.







",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/16/new-antisemitism-definition-silences-israels-critics,"You report that the government is going to adopt a “new definition” of antisemitism in order to prevent an “over-sweeping condemnation of Israel” (Britain to pioneer new antisemitism definition, 12 December). The new definition has nothing to do with opposing antisemitism, it is merely designed to silence public debate on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Antisemitic incidents comprise about 2% of all hate crime. Why then the concentration on antisemitism and not on Islamophobia, which is far more widespread? The suspicion must be that the real concern is not with antisemitism but with Britain’s support for Israel.

New antisemitism definition is justified | Letters Read more

Israel claims to be “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation are governed by a wholly different set of laws than Jewish settlers. This makes Israel the world’s only apartheid state and thus deserving of strong condemnation and the target of boycott, divestment and sanctions. We agree that it is antisemitic to associate Jews with the actions of the Israeli state. Unfortunately this is precisely what the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition will achieve through perpetuating the stereotype that all Jews support the Israeli state. The IHRA will strengthen not weaken antisemitism. There is a very simple definition of antisemitism from Oxford University’s Brian Klug. Antisemitism is “a form of hostility towards Jews as ‘Jews’.” The IHRA definition smuggles in anti-Zionism, in the guise of antisemitism, as a means of protecting the Israeli state and thus western foreign policy.

Tony Greenstein

Jacqueline Walker

Miriam Margolyes

Professor Haim Bresheeth

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis

Michael Sackin Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Dr Derek Summerfield King’s College

Professor Roger Iredale

Averil Parkinson Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Dr Vacy Vlazna Coordinator, Justice for Palestine Matters

Vicky Moller Child survivor of the Holocaust

Dr Cathy Rozel Farnworth

Rica Bird

Chantal Cameron

Robert Cohen

Brian Chinnery

Mike Cushman

Deborah Darnes

Patrick Darnes

Helen Dickson

Tony Dickinson

Greg Dropkin

Mark Elf

Deborah Fink

Kenny Fryde

Terry Gallogly

Judy Granville

James Hall

William Hanna

Jenny Hardacre

Abe Hayeem

Alain Hertzmann

Doug Holton

Grahame Humphreys

John Leigh-Brown

Penny Leigh-Brown

Leah Levane

Les Levidow

Richard Lightbown

Beverley Lloyd

Kathy McCubbing

Elizabeth Morley

Diana Neslen

Caroline O’Reilly

Edmond O’Reilly

Juergen Peter

Nicola Pratt University of Warwick

Roland Rance

Janine Reed

Bronwen Roberts

Donald Saunders

Ian Saville

Miriam Scharf

Richard Seaford

Roddy Slorach

Charles Stuart

Jean Sullivan

Bernice Walker

Adam Waterhouse

Eric Willoughby

Dorothy Wilson

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/12/loretta-lynch-hate-crimes-election-muslim-trump-administration,"US attorney general Loretta Lynch spoke at a mosque in Virginia on Monday in an attempt to calm fears about rising hate crimes in the wake of the election, and the future of the Department of Justice under the Trump administration.

Lynch spoke at an interfaith event held at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center. She highlighted the post-election spike in hate crimes that have targeted a variety of groups.

“There is a pernicious thread that connects the act of violence against a woman wearing a hijab to the assault on a transgender man to the tragic deaths of nine innocent African-Americans during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina,” she said. “There is a thread that links all of those and when one of us is threatened all of us are threatened.”

Lynch’s visit comes on the heels of the FBI’s release of hate crime statistics for 2015, which found that hate crimes overall had risen by 6% since 2014 and there was a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans specifically – the highest spike since 9/11.

Furthermore, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking incidents reported directly to them or published in the media. In the ten days following the election the advocacy group counted 867 hate incidents. SPLC’s president also directly tied these incidents to the election of Donald Trump and the rhetoric he used during the campaign.

Lynch did not name the Trump administration but she acknowledged fears that some have expressed about the future.

“I know that many Americans are feeling uncertainty and anxiety as we witness the recent eruption of divisive rhetoric and hateful deeds,” she said. “I know that many Americans are wondering if they are in danger simply because of what they look like or where they pray. I know that some are wondering whether the progress we have made at such great cost, and over so many years, is in danger of sliding backwards.”

Trump will nominate Jeff Sessions, US senator from Alabama, to take over from Lynch as attorney general. The senator’s checkered history, including allegedly using the N-word and referring to a black assistant US attorney as “boy”, combined with his anti-immigrant stance, has left many fearing the impact he will have on the department’s civil rights division.

In addition to her visit to the mosque, Lynch is expected to further discuss hate crimes with a group of LGBTQ students at the Harvey Milk high school in New York on Tuesday, where she will also visit the Stonewall Inn and Stonewall National Monument.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel,"Britain among first countries to use new definition that includes over-sweeping condemnation of Israel

The government is to formally adopt a definition of what constitutes antisemitism, which includes over-sweeping condemnation of Israel, with Theresa May saying the measure will help efforts to combat hate crime against Jews.

Britain will become one of the first countries to use this definition of antisemitism, as agreed last May at a conference of the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the prime minister will say in London.

A Downing Street statement said the intention of such a definition was to “ensure that culprits will not be able to get away with being antisemitic because the term is ill-defined, or because different organisations or bodies have different interpretations of it”.

New antisemitism definition is justified | Letters Read more

The IHRA’s definition reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

More detailed guidance on this, released by the IHRA in May, said this could include criticisms which target Israel, if this was “conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. It added: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The guidance says it could be considered antisemitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel or their religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is intrinsically racist.

There will be one definition of antisemitism – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it Theresa May

Concerns about criticism of Israel as a state potentially crossing into overt antisemitism has had particular recent resonance in British politics over recent months, with the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, commissioning a report into the issue in his party.

In October, the vice-chair of the Corbyn-supporting group Momentum, Jackie Walker, was removed from her post in the wake of remarks questioning the need for security at Jewish schools, and about Holocaust Memorial Day.



A series of Jewish MPs have also faced online abuse. In October, a man was jailed for sending antisemitic messages to the Labour MP Luciana Berger. In December, a man was convicted of harassing the same MP with antisemitic rants.

A spokeswoman for Corbyn said he and Labour agreed with the IHRA’s definition. She said: “Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party share the view that language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews is antisemitism, and is as repugnant and unacceptable as any other form of racism.”

Jeremy Corbyn accused of incompetence by MPs over antisemitic abuse Read more

According to excerpts of her speech released in advance, May will say: “It is unacceptable that there is antisemitism in this country. It is even worse that incidents are reportedly on the rise. As a government we are making a real difference and adopting this measure is a groundbreaking step.

“It means there will be one definition of antisemitism – in essence, language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it.”

Police forces already use a version of the IHRA definition to help officers decide what could be considered antisemitism.

In a speech last month, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, recommitted the government to providing extra security for Jewish schools, synagogues and other community buildings.

Referring to the threat both from Islamist militancy and from a renewed surge in rightwing extremism, she said: “We take the security of the Jewish community seriously, and we will continue to put in place the strongest possible measures to ensure the safety of this community and all other communities, too.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/08/man-joshua-bonehill-paine-harassed-mp-luciana-berger-online-jailed-two-years,"A man who harassed Luciana Berger, the Labour MP, in a string of antisemitic online rants has been jailed for two years after a trial at the Old Bailey.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 24, wrote five hate-filled blogs about Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree. He variously called her a “dominatrix” and “an evil money-grabber” with a “deep-rooted hatred of men”. In one, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a “problem”.

He illustrated his posts with offensive pictures, including a rat with Berger’s face superimposed on it, and hailed the “Filthy Jew Bitch Campaign” led by US white supremacist website Daily Stormer as “fantastically successful” after the MP was sent 2,500 tweets.

Giving evidence, Berger said the posts had made her feel sick and “under attack”. She told jurors: “It’s fair to say I was the most concerned I have ever been about my personal safety since I was elected … In the midst of this ‘Filthy Jewish Bitch’ campaign the police were in constant contact with me. They were in my office and home and assisted my personal safety.”

The court heard Bonehill-Paine had a history of online abuse, leaving a trail of devastation in the lives of those with whom he chose to “pick a dispute”.

Bonehill-Paine, who smirked in the dock as he was found guilty on Wednesday, was already serving a sentence of three years and four months for stirring up racial hatred with a flyer for a neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green, north London, that was illustrated with a picture of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp.

While he was posting abusive blogs about Berger, Bonehill-Paine, of Yeovil in Somerset, was on bail awaiting sentence for making false claims on Twitter that several people were paedophiles. Sentencing, Mr Justice Spencer told the defendant he had “amassed a formidable record of hate crime” at the age of just 24.

The judge took into account that he was due for release in April 2017, but said a consecutive sentence was “fully justified”.

He also imposed a criminal behaviour order, carrying a penalty of up to five years in jail, barring the defendant from directly or indirectly contacting Berger, her former assistant and other named individuals.

Police will have the power to monitor Bonehill-Paine’s online activities for the duration of the order, which is effective on his release from jail. “It is abundantly clear from all the evidence in the case and the material I have been provided with that he is tenacious in his use of the internet as a retaliatory weapon against anyone with whom he wishes to pick a dispute,” the judge said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2016/dec/07/antisemitic-trolls-abuse-had-deep-impact-says-luciana-berger-video,"Labour MP Luciana Berger makes a statement outside the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday, after internet troll Joshua Bonehill-Paine is found guilty of harassing her in a string of racist and antisemitic rants. Berger says the abuse deeply affected her life, her family and her team",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/12/loretta-lynch-hate-crimes-election-muslim-trump-administration,"US attorney general Loretta Lynch spoke at a mosque in Virginia on Monday in an attempt to calm fears about rising hate crimes in the wake of the election, and the future of the Department of Justice under the Trump administration.

Lynch spoke at an interfaith event held at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center. She highlighted the post-election spike in hate crimes that have targeted a variety of groups.

“There is a pernicious thread that connects the act of violence against a woman wearing a hijab to the assault on a transgender man to the tragic deaths of nine innocent African-Americans during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina,” she said. “There is a thread that links all of those and when one of us is threatened all of us are threatened.”

Lynch’s visit comes on the heels of the FBI’s release of hate crime statistics for 2015, which found that hate crimes overall had risen by 6% since 2014 and there was a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans specifically – the highest spike since 9/11.

Furthermore, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking incidents reported directly to them or published in the media. In the ten days following the election the advocacy group counted 867 hate incidents. SPLC’s president also directly tied these incidents to the election of Donald Trump and the rhetoric he used during the campaign.

Lynch did not name the Trump administration but she acknowledged fears that some have expressed about the future.

“I know that many Americans are feeling uncertainty and anxiety as we witness the recent eruption of divisive rhetoric and hateful deeds,” she said. “I know that many Americans are wondering if they are in danger simply because of what they look like or where they pray. I know that some are wondering whether the progress we have made at such great cost, and over so many years, is in danger of sliding backwards.”

Trump will nominate Jeff Sessions, US senator from Alabama, to take over from Lynch as attorney general. The senator’s checkered history, including allegedly using the N-word and referring to a black assistant US attorney as “boy”, combined with his anti-immigrant stance, has left many fearing the impact he will have on the department’s civil rights division.

In addition to her visit to the mosque, Lynch is expected to further discuss hate crimes with a group of LGBTQ students at the Harvey Milk high school in New York on Tuesday, where she will also visit the Stonewall Inn and Stonewall National Monument.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel,"Britain among first countries to use new definition that includes over-sweeping condemnation of Israel

The government is to formally adopt a definition of what constitutes antisemitism, which includes over-sweeping condemnation of Israel, with Theresa May saying the measure will help efforts to combat hate crime against Jews.

Britain will become one of the first countries to use this definition of antisemitism, as agreed last May at a conference of the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the prime minister will say in London.

A Downing Street statement said the intention of such a definition was to “ensure that culprits will not be able to get away with being antisemitic because the term is ill-defined, or because different organisations or bodies have different interpretations of it”.

New antisemitism definition is justified | Letters Read more

The IHRA’s definition reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

More detailed guidance on this, released by the IHRA in May, said this could include criticisms which target Israel, if this was “conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. It added: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The guidance says it could be considered antisemitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to Israel or their religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is intrinsically racist.

There will be one definition of antisemitism – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it Theresa May

Concerns about criticism of Israel as a state potentially crossing into overt antisemitism has had particular recent resonance in British politics over recent months, with the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, commissioning a report into the issue in his party.

In October, the vice-chair of the Corbyn-supporting group Momentum, Jackie Walker, was removed from her post in the wake of remarks questioning the need for security at Jewish schools, and about Holocaust Memorial Day.



A series of Jewish MPs have also faced online abuse. In October, a man was jailed for sending antisemitic messages to the Labour MP Luciana Berger. In December, a man was convicted of harassing the same MP with antisemitic rants.

A spokeswoman for Corbyn said he and Labour agreed with the IHRA’s definition. She said: “Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party share the view that language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews is antisemitism, and is as repugnant and unacceptable as any other form of racism.”

Jeremy Corbyn accused of incompetence by MPs over antisemitic abuse Read more

According to excerpts of her speech released in advance, May will say: “It is unacceptable that there is antisemitism in this country. It is even worse that incidents are reportedly on the rise. As a government we are making a real difference and adopting this measure is a groundbreaking step.

“It means there will be one definition of antisemitism – in essence, language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it.”

Police forces already use a version of the IHRA definition to help officers decide what could be considered antisemitism.

In a speech last month, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, recommitted the government to providing extra security for Jewish schools, synagogues and other community buildings.

Referring to the threat both from Islamist militancy and from a renewed surge in rightwing extremism, she said: “We take the security of the Jewish community seriously, and we will continue to put in place the strongest possible measures to ensure the safety of this community and all other communities, too.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/08/man-joshua-bonehill-paine-harassed-mp-luciana-berger-online-jailed-two-years,"A man who harassed Luciana Berger, the Labour MP, in a string of antisemitic online rants has been jailed for two years after a trial at the Old Bailey.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 24, wrote five hate-filled blogs about Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree. He variously called her a “dominatrix” and “an evil money-grabber” with a “deep-rooted hatred of men”. In one, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a “problem”.

He illustrated his posts with offensive pictures, including a rat with Berger’s face superimposed on it, and hailed the “Filthy Jew Bitch Campaign” led by US white supremacist website Daily Stormer as “fantastically successful” after the MP was sent 2,500 tweets.

Giving evidence, Berger said the posts had made her feel sick and “under attack”. She told jurors: “It’s fair to say I was the most concerned I have ever been about my personal safety since I was elected … In the midst of this ‘Filthy Jewish Bitch’ campaign the police were in constant contact with me. They were in my office and home and assisted my personal safety.”

The court heard Bonehill-Paine had a history of online abuse, leaving a trail of devastation in the lives of those with whom he chose to “pick a dispute”.

Bonehill-Paine, who smirked in the dock as he was found guilty on Wednesday, was already serving a sentence of three years and four months for stirring up racial hatred with a flyer for a neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green, north London, that was illustrated with a picture of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp.

While he was posting abusive blogs about Berger, Bonehill-Paine, of Yeovil in Somerset, was on bail awaiting sentence for making false claims on Twitter that several people were paedophiles. Sentencing, Mr Justice Spencer told the defendant he had “amassed a formidable record of hate crime” at the age of just 24.

The judge took into account that he was due for release in April 2017, but said a consecutive sentence was “fully justified”.

He also imposed a criminal behaviour order, carrying a penalty of up to five years in jail, barring the defendant from directly or indirectly contacting Berger, her former assistant and other named individuals.

Police will have the power to monitor Bonehill-Paine’s online activities for the duration of the order, which is effective on his release from jail. “It is abundantly clear from all the evidence in the case and the material I have been provided with that he is tenacious in his use of the internet as a retaliatory weapon against anyone with whom he wishes to pick a dispute,” the judge said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2016/dec/07/antisemitic-trolls-abuse-had-deep-impact-says-luciana-berger-video,"Labour MP Luciana Berger makes a statement outside the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday, after internet troll Joshua Bonehill-Paine is found guilty of harassing her in a string of racist and antisemitic rants. Berger says the abuse deeply affected her life, her family and her team",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/07/racist-troll-guilty-harassing-labour-mp-luciana-berger-joshua-bonehill-paine,"Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 24, made Luciana Berger fear for her safety with series of racist articles and offensive pictures

A racist internet troll has been found guilty of harassing a Labour MP with a series of anti-Jewish rants sent after the jailing of a fellow far-right extremist.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who turned 24 on Wednesday, wrote five hate-filled blogs about Luciana Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, after Garron Helm was sent to prison for four weeks in October 2014.

The jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for just over one hour and 15 minutes before finding Bonehill-Paine guilty of racially aggravated harassment.

Garron, then 21 and from Merseyside, had admitted tweeting a picture depicting Berger, 35, with a Star of David on her forehead with the hashtag “Hitler was right”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luciana Berger arrives at the Old Bailey on Wednesday. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Over the next four months, Bonehill-Paine posted articles calling her a “dominatrix” and “an evil money-grabber” with a “deep-rooted hatred of men”. In one, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a “problem”.

He illustrated his posts with offensive pictures, including a rat with Berger’s face superimposed on it.

Bonehill-Paine hailed the “Filthy Jew Bitch Campaign” led by US white supremacist site Daily Stormer as “fantastically successful” after the MP was sent 2,500 tweets.

Throughout, Bonehill-Paine, of Yeovil, Somerset, was on bail awaiting sentence for making claims on Twitter that several people were paedophiles.

Giving evidence, Berger said the posts had made her feel sick and “under attack”. She told jurors she feared for her safety because “what happens online does not always stay online”.

The MP said: “It’s fair to say I was the most concerned I have ever been about my personal safety since I was elected … In the midst of this ‘Filthy Jewish Bitch’ campaign the police were in constant contact with me. They were in my office and home and assisted my personal safety.”

James Palfrey, for Bonehill-Paine, described the posts as “satire” and “pathetic puerile rubbish” and argued that they fell within the right to freedom of speech.

But Philip Stott, for the prosecution, said the defendant had refused to face questions in the witness box because he had no “sensible” answer to the charge.

The jury was not told that the defendant, a former hospice worker, is already serving a jail sentence for posting antisemitic material. He was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in December last year for producing a flyer advertising a neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green – an area of north London with a large Jewish population – that featured a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp and promised the event would be “a gas”.

Bonehill-Paine, who smirked in the dock as he was sent down, faces up to two years in jail when he is sentenced on Thursday. His conviction comes days after neo-Nazi Thomas Mair, 53, was handed a whole life term at the same court for murdering the Labour MP Jo Cox.

Earlier this year, another internet troll, John Nimmo, 28, from South Shields, was convicted of making a death threat against Berger by saying she would “get it like Jo Cox”.

In his first email of 6 July, he told Berger: “Justice for Joshua Bonehill-Paine will be sweet, he has friends everywhere. Watch your back Jewish scum, regards your friend the Nazi.”

He then followed it up two days later with “You will get it like Jo Cox did, you better watch your back Jewish scum” just as Berger was leaving her office in the early evening.

Nimmo was previously jailed in 2014 for eight weeks for tweeting abusive messages to the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and the Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/01/national-anti-hate-campaign-to-launch-after-spike-in-incidents-betterthanthat-,"A national anti-hate crime campaign backed by the government is to be launched on Thursday in response to the rise in incidents after the EU referendum.

Home Office figures showed the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences leapt 41% in July, compared with the same month last year, prompting fears that the Brexit vote had fuelled intolerance.

As a result, more than 20 community organisations, representing different races, religions, and people with disabilities have joined forces to try to promote what its members say are true British values and give the lie to those who would target minorities. The campaign has cross-party support as well as backing from the prime minister.



Theresa May said: “Hate crime has absolutely no place in Britain and I’m delighted to see people and groups from all communities coming together to support the #BetterThanThat campaign.

“As I said on the steps of Downing Street, my mission is to make Britain a country that works for everyone and for that to happen hate crime of any kind, directed against any community, race or religion, will not be tolerated.”

There were 5,468 racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police in July. Other minorities also reported a spike, with the number of homophobic attacks doubling in the three months after the Brexit vote, accordingto Galop, a LGBT anti-violence charity.

High-profile incidents included the murder of Polish national Arkadiusz Jóźwik in August, which was being investigated as a possible hate crime, and a series of packages containing white powder and racist messages sent to the Muslim peer Lord Ahmed and other people. However, most offences were mainly harassment and threats of a racist nature

Xenophobic graffiti appeared on the doors of the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith, west London, just three days after the vote.

Its chairwoman, Joanna Mludzinska, saidthe #BetterThanThat campaign hoped to channel the outpouring of support PSOK received after the attack, which saw the centre inundated with flowers, cards and letters.

“These people [carrying out the attacks] should be made to feel they are in the minority,” she said. “They are wrong and most people don’t think like they do and don’t support them, which I firmly believe through the responses I had.”

#BetterThanThat was initiated by the Polish Cultural Institute, which drew in other groups including Kick it Out, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Tell MAMA, which monitors attacks against Muslims.

The campaign will be launched at parliament by Conservative MP Sir Eric Pickles, Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan and Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, along with the communities minister Lord Bourne.

Brake said the campaign was about promoting positive British values. “Being proud to be British is fine but traditional values are tolerance and freedom of speech,” he said. “This is about drawing out the positives of being British.”

Although, it was not an issue that the campaign would seek to address, Brake said he believedsecuring the status of EU citizens in the UK would be a positive move in tackling hate crime, a position endorsed by Mludzinska.

She said: “If the government came out with a very definitive statement to say these people are not going to be removed from the country, they contribute, they pay their taxes, there’s no reason they should go ‘home’, maybe that would be a strong message to people, whether they like it or not.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/29/trump-related-hate-crimes-report-southern-poverty-law-center,"Southern Poverty Law Center counts 867 hate incidents across US in 10 days since election, with many targeting immigrants, African Americans and Muslims

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has counted 867 hate incidents in the 10 days after the US election, a report released Tuesday found, a phenomenon it partly blamed on the rhetoric of Donald Trump.

The advocacy group collected reports of incidents from media outlets and its own #ReportHate page. SPLC said it was not able to confirm all reports but believed the number of actual incidents was far higher, as according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics most hate crimes go unreported.

Richard Cohen, SPLC’s president, blamed the recent surge in hate crimes on Trump and his divisive language throughout the campaign.

“Mr Trump claims he’s surprised his election has unleashed a barrage of hate across the country,” said Cohen in a statement on Tuesday. “But he shouldn’t be. It’s the predictable result of the campaign he waged. Rather than feign surprise, Mr Trump should take responsibility for what’s occurring, forcefully reject hate and bigotry, reach out to the communities he’s injured, and follow his words with actions to heal the wounds his words have opened.”

Claims of hate crimes possibly linked to Trump's election reported across the US Read more

Trump’s name or one of his slogans was directly invoked in several instances. SPLC categorized 43 recorded incidents as “Trump-General”, where attackers used Trump’s name but it was unclear what bias motivated the attack.

The appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief White House strategist has proven controversial, due to his record of promoting antisemitic, anti-Muslim and misogynistic content while overseeing the “alt-right” website Breitbart News.

In an interview with 60 Minutes shortly after his victory, Trump claimed that he was “surprised to hear” about the increase in hate crimes since his election, many of which were perpetrated by his supporters. He looked squarely at the camera and told his supporters “Stop it!” during the interview.

According to the report’s findings, anti-black and anti-immigrant incidents were the most commonly reported, with K-12 settings and colleges the most common venues.

Nearly a third of the incidents (289 of them) were motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment, the report said. Assailants often invoked Trump’s promise to build a wall in their attacks and called for the victims to be deported. For instance, in Redding, California, a student brought “deportation letters” to school and recorded himself handing them out to Latino students. In Royal Oak, Michigan, students chanted “build the wall” in a school cafeteria the day after the election.

SPLC released a separate report on Tuesday detailing the impact of the election on schools.

Anti-black incidents were the second-most common, making up 23%, or 180, of the total. References to lynching were frequent, and pictures of nooses were used for intimidation. For instance, a black doll was found hanging from a noose in an elevator at New York’s Canisius College.

In a school in Orlando, students wrote “Yall Black ppl better start picking yall slave numbers. KKK. 4Lyfe.” followed by the line “Go Trump. 2016”.

Antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks were also common. SPLC documented 80 reports of vandalism and graffiti incidents of swastikas, without specific references to Jews. In New York, a swastika was found spray-painted on a sidewalk in a Jewish neighborhood. Muslims had been generally characterized as terrorists, while Muslim women wearing hijabs were “particularly vulnerable to threats and assault”, the report said.

A letter threatening genocide against Muslims and praising Trump was sent to several mosques over the weekend, outside the period included in the report, the Council of American and Islamic Relations said. “There’s a new sheriff in town – President Donald Trump,” the letter reportedly said. “He’s going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he’s going to start with you Muslims.”

SPLC also found 23 incidents of anti-Trump hate, which included attacks on the Trump campaign headquarters or people targeted for wearing paraphernalia such as Trump hats or shirts. For instance, the report said a man in New York City wearing a Trump hat was reportedly grabbed around the neck while riding the subway.

Have you experienced a rise in abuse since Trump’s win?

As this is a sensitive topic, please be reassured that we will not share or publish any personal details without obtaining contributors’ permission first.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/24/john-mcdonnell-urges-more-civilised-debate-in-wake-of-jo-cox,"Shadow chancellor says murder of MP is part of trend of abuse and violence that is on the rise in British politics

People on all sides of politics must work to unite the country and ensure debate takes place in a “civilised” way in the wake of the murder of Jo Cox, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said.

McDonnell said the killing of the Labour MP for Batley and Spen in June was part of a trend of abuse and violence that was on the rise within British politics and had been exacerbated by the EU referendum vote, which took place days after her death.

Neo-Nazi Thomas Mair was handed a whole-life sentence at the Old Bailey on Wednesday for the murder of the 41-year-old mother of two as she arrived for a surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

McDonnell told BBC1’s Breakfast: “We’ve all been distressed about what happened to Jo. I think all of us – and it isn’t just politicians, it’s the whole of society now – have to look at how this has come about. Some of it is about the violent nature of our politics at the moment.

“A lot of MPs – Jo’s was a terrible, extreme example, but if you look at some of the abuse some people have suffered. In the past we’ve had it, but it’s on the rise again. We’ve had hate crime taking place, not just against migrants but a hate-crime rise against disabled people.

“I think what we have to be careful about in all walks of life now is to see how we can unite people.

“Even this Brexit vote has divided society. How can we come back together? I think everything we do now is about trying to unite our country, ensure that we engage in democratic debate in a civilised way. We will all learn lessons from this.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/20/equality-human-rights-commission-cuts-under-threat,"Union fears Equality Commission will become ‘dog with no bark, no bite and no ability to watch’

“Devastating” cuts to staff and budgets have undermined the ability of Britain’s equality watchdog to fight a rising tide of discrimination and hate crime, according to unions.

They say the latest round of cost cutting at the Equality and Human Rights Commission will have an impact on the watchdog’s vital work in combating pregnancy and maternity discrimination, assessing the impact of changes to the welfare system, and ensuring that companies comply with new laws designed to expose the gender pay gap.

Under the restructuring, the watchdog’s budget will be pared to £17.4m by 2020 – down from £62m in 2010.

Staff who have voted to take industrial action fear that colleagues from ethnic minorities and with disabilities are losing out in the latest restructuring, which will see 20 jobs disappear – around 10% of the workforce.

Lasting rise in hate crime after EU referendum, figures show Read more

According to the commission’s own equality impact assessment, almost three-quarters of staff from black and minority ethnic communities have failed the initial stage of the selection process for a post in the restructured watchdog. And only 43% of staff with disabilities have been successful, compared with 62% of staff who did not declare a disability.

The PCS and Unite unions say the cuts will mean fewer litigation and enforcement officers, who support victims of discrimination, and correspondence staff, who handle public queries.

The cuts come amid increases in the number of hate crimes recorded by the police this year, following the EU referendum, compared with 2015. Reports of race hate crimes rose by 15%, religious hate crimes by 34% and attacks because of sexual orientation by 29%.

There has also been a sharp reduction in the number of people who have taken discrimination cases to employment tribunals – largely, unions say, because it is becoming unaffordable. In the last year there has been a 71% drop in sex discrimination cases, a 58% drop in race discrimination cases and a 54% drop in disability discrimination cases.

Theresa May made a firm commitment to tackle inequality and injustice when she became prime minister. But, in a briefing to members, the PCS and Unite unions warn that changes “will have a devastating impact ... on the vital services the commission provides”.

Bystanders need training to tackle hate crime, says report Read more

Siobhan Endean, Unite national officer for equalities, added: “The commission will become a dog with no bark, no bite and no ability to watch at a time when post-Brexit-vote hate and racist incidents are on the rise.”

The commission has a privileged “A” status with the United Nations, which means its advice carries significant weight when criticising the government and institutions. But Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union, said he feared the watchdog was now in danger of losing this status, which would “damage the UK’s international reputation on human rights”.

A UN committee that promotes human rights institutions has questioned whether the cut in funding, equivalent to 70% of its 2010 budget, and staff, reduced from 500 in 2010 to 204 in 2015, threatens the effectiveness and independence of the watchdog.

Commission chief Rebecca Hilsenrath said it had lobbied hard against the cuts, “but we believe we can still deliver our ambitious programme”.

She is confident the watchdog would still be a respected equality champion, despite the latest job losses: “Our reforms will ensure that we remain a strong and independent voice protecting equality and human rights and challenging government where rights are threatened,” she said. “We are confident our UN status will not be lost.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/fbi-anti-muslim-hate-crimes-rise-2015,"Hate crimes against Muslims shot up in 2015, according to new statistics released by the FBI, a rise which experts say was fueled by acts of extremism abroad and anti-Muslim rhetoric in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

According to the FBI, the number of hate crimes against Muslims increased by 67% in 2015, compared with the year before. There were 257 incident of hate against Muslims in the US compared with 154 in 2014.

Claims of hate crimes possibly linked to Trump's election reported across the US Read more

Hate crimes overall grew by 6.8% to a total of 5,850 incidents throughout the year. While crimes targeting Muslims grew by the highest amount, incidents of hate against Jewish, black and LGBTQ people all increased last year as well.

“I wasn’t surprised to learn that anti-Muslim hate crime statistics spiked in 2015.” said Jordan Denari Duffner, research fellow at The Bridge Initiative, a research project on Islamophobia at Georgetown University. “The official FBI statistics confirmed what many of us predicted – that anti-Muslim acts, many of them violent, were on the rise.”

A report released by the Bridge Initiative in May also found a spike in hate crimes against Muslims in 2015. Brian Levin, the director of Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, also noted a spike almost identical to that of the FBI’s in a report released last August.

Levin said that Muslims were now the most disdained social group in the US, and have subsequently been subject to widespread prejudice.

Hate crimes against Muslims peaked in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks which resulted in 481 anti-Muslim hate crime incidents that year. There have been between 105 and 160 incidents per year since then, until 2015 which was the second highest since reporting began in 1992.

Levin and other experts believe that the attacks have seen an increase due to fear around Islam, driven by terrorist attacks associated with fundamentalist groups such as the Paris attacks or San Bernardino.

“We’re also worried about non-quantitive things,” Levin said. “Like the fact that the militias have made Muslims among their top three targets of disdain.”

Groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have noted that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign created a hostile environment for Muslims. The president-elect called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the country, increased surveillance at mosques, and entertained the idea of creating a Muslim identification database.

His newly announced chief-strategist, Steve Bannon, often promoted anti-Muslim extremists and Islamophobic rhetoric on his site Breitbart News and radio show.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steve Bannon, seen at a Trump rally on election day, has promoted Islamophobic views on his site Breitbart News. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Since Trump won the election, there have been several alleged incidents of hate reported on social media, including several incidents in which perpetrators invoked Trump’s name specifically. This includes racist graffiti as well as verbal and physical attacks. Trump told his supporters to stop harassing minorities during his 60 Minutes interview.

Drawing a direct line of causation between Trump’s rhetoric and the spike in hate crimes is difficult. However, Levin notes in his August study that following Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, there were 15 reported hate crimes, an increase on the average of 12.6 per month in the five years prior. However, he also noted that 2015 did not see any increase in anti-Latino hate crimes – it remained unchanged – which is another group that was subjected to hateful speech during Trump’s campaign.

“Politics may play a role but there are many factors, because I think prejudice against Muslims is more fear based, and more widespread than that against Latinos,” Levin said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/14/uk-hate-crime-inquiry-yvette-cooper-prejudice-brexit-trump-campaigns,"As MPs prepare to examine post-Brexit-vote rise, Yvette Cooper condemns reports of similar spike in US after Trump election

The fallout from the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump should serve as a warning about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice in political campaigns, Yvette Cooper has said, as MPs prepare to examine a spike in hate crime in the UK.

The inquiry is Cooper’s first as the chair of the home affairs select committee and will look into both racially and religiously aggravated offences.

Hate crimes recorded by the police in July 2016 were 41% higher than the previous year, with a peak on 1 July, records show. Several high-profile attacks occurred in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU, including the vandalising of the Polish community centre in Hammersmith, west London, and the murder of Polish man Arkadiusz Jóźwik in an unprovoked attack.

Bigots feel they have a mandate to hate. We have to speak out | Owen Jones Read more

The committee’s inquiry will investigate the prevalence of hate crime, the effectiveness of legislation and law enforcement, and the role of social media and other online platforms. Hate crime experts including Nick Lowles, the director of Hope Not Hate, are scheduled to give evidence this week.

MPs have also issued a callout for evidence for a special oral session on Islamophobia as part of the inquiry, to take place in early December. “We have a responsibility to stop this rise of hatred and hate crime,” Cooper said.

“No one should ever find themselves targeted by violence or hatred because of the colour of their skin, their religion, gender, sexuality or disability.”

The Labour MP said there were also worrying indications of rising hate crimes linked to the US election. “The Trump campaign and the reports of hate crime in the US since the election should be a warning to all of us about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice,” she said.

“In a democracy, political disagreement should never provoke violence, hatred or discrimination. Campaigners and political leaders have a responsibility to ensure their rhetoric does not inflame prejudice or become a licence for hate crime.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump ran a divisive campaign. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

Cooper, a former shadow home secretary, said that hate crime, both offline and online, could no longer be seen as separate, adding: “They are intrinsically linked and must be tackled together.” She said freedom of speech should also mean the freedom to speak without fear of intimidation and abuse.

Separately, MPs have established a new all-party parliamentary group to examine the common ground in the debate around Britain’s vote to exit the EU.

The Conservative MP John Penrose and the Labour MP Emma Reynolds, who both pushed for a remain vote, said they wanted to bring together MPs from both sides of the referendum campaign.

The group will consult businesses, trade unions, charities and other organisations, with the aim of reaching a consensus “about what would be the best Brexit, based on pragmatic, rather than ideological, considerations”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/fbi-anti-muslim-hate-crimes-rise-2015,"Hate crimes against Muslims shot up in 2015, according to new statistics released by the FBI, a rise which experts say was fueled by acts of extremism abroad and anti-Muslim rhetoric in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

According to the FBI, the number of hate crimes against Muslims increased by 67% in 2015, compared with the year before. There were 257 incident of hate against Muslims in the US compared with 154 in 2014.

Claims of hate crimes possibly linked to Trump's election reported across the US Read more

Hate crimes overall grew by 6.8% to a total of 5,850 incidents throughout the year. While crimes targeting Muslims grew by the highest amount, incidents of hate against Jewish, black and LGBTQ people all increased last year as well.

“I wasn’t surprised to learn that anti-Muslim hate crime statistics spiked in 2015.” said Jordan Denari Duffner, research fellow at The Bridge Initiative, a research project on Islamophobia at Georgetown University. “The official FBI statistics confirmed what many of us predicted – that anti-Muslim acts, many of them violent, were on the rise.”

A report released by the Bridge Initiative in May also found a spike in hate crimes against Muslims in 2015. Brian Levin, the director of Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, also noted a spike almost identical to that of the FBI’s in a report released last August.

Levin said that Muslims were now the most disdained social group in the US, and have subsequently been subject to widespread prejudice.

Hate crimes against Muslims peaked in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks which resulted in 481 anti-Muslim hate crime incidents that year. There have been between 105 and 160 incidents per year since then, until 2015 which was the second highest since reporting began in 1992.

Levin and other experts believe that the attacks have seen an increase due to fear around Islam, driven by terrorist attacks associated with fundamentalist groups such as the Paris attacks or San Bernardino.

“We’re also worried about non-quantitive things,” Levin said. “Like the fact that the militias have made Muslims among their top three targets of disdain.”

Groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have noted that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign created a hostile environment for Muslims. The president-elect called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the country, increased surveillance at mosques, and entertained the idea of creating a Muslim identification database.

His newly announced chief-strategist, Steve Bannon, often promoted anti-Muslim extremists and Islamophobic rhetoric on his site Breitbart News and radio show.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steve Bannon, seen at a Trump rally on election day, has promoted Islamophobic views on his site Breitbart News. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Since Trump won the election, there have been several alleged incidents of hate reported on social media, including several incidents in which perpetrators invoked Trump’s name specifically. This includes racist graffiti as well as verbal and physical attacks. Trump told his supporters to stop harassing minorities during his 60 Minutes interview.

Drawing a direct line of causation between Trump’s rhetoric and the spike in hate crimes is difficult. However, Levin notes in his August study that following Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, there were 15 reported hate crimes, an increase on the average of 12.6 per month in the five years prior. However, he also noted that 2015 did not see any increase in anti-Latino hate crimes – it remained unchanged – which is another group that was subjected to hateful speech during Trump’s campaign.

“Politics may play a role but there are many factors, because I think prejudice against Muslims is more fear based, and more widespread than that against Latinos,” Levin said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/14/uk-hate-crime-inquiry-yvette-cooper-prejudice-brexit-trump-campaigns,"As MPs prepare to examine post-Brexit-vote rise, Yvette Cooper condemns reports of similar spike in US after Trump election

The fallout from the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump should serve as a warning about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice in political campaigns, Yvette Cooper has said, as MPs prepare to examine a spike in hate crime in the UK.

The inquiry is Cooper’s first as the chair of the home affairs select committee and will look into both racially and religiously aggravated offences.

Hate crimes recorded by the police in July 2016 were 41% higher than the previous year, with a peak on 1 July, records show. Several high-profile attacks occurred in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU, including the vandalising of the Polish community centre in Hammersmith, west London, and the murder of Polish man Arkadiusz Jóźwik in an unprovoked attack.

Bigots feel they have a mandate to hate. We have to speak out | Owen Jones Read more

The committee’s inquiry will investigate the prevalence of hate crime, the effectiveness of legislation and law enforcement, and the role of social media and other online platforms. Hate crime experts including Nick Lowles, the director of Hope Not Hate, are scheduled to give evidence this week.

MPs have also issued a callout for evidence for a special oral session on Islamophobia as part of the inquiry, to take place in early December. “We have a responsibility to stop this rise of hatred and hate crime,” Cooper said.

“No one should ever find themselves targeted by violence or hatred because of the colour of their skin, their religion, gender, sexuality or disability.”

The Labour MP said there were also worrying indications of rising hate crimes linked to the US election. “The Trump campaign and the reports of hate crime in the US since the election should be a warning to all of us about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice,” she said.

“In a democracy, political disagreement should never provoke violence, hatred or discrimination. Campaigners and political leaders have a responsibility to ensure their rhetoric does not inflame prejudice or become a licence for hate crime.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump ran a divisive campaign. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

Cooper, a former shadow home secretary, said that hate crime, both offline and online, could no longer be seen as separate, adding: “They are intrinsically linked and must be tackled together.” She said freedom of speech should also mean the freedom to speak without fear of intimidation and abuse.

Separately, MPs have established a new all-party parliamentary group to examine the common ground in the debate around Britain’s vote to exit the EU.

The Conservative MP John Penrose and the Labour MP Emma Reynolds, who both pushed for a remain vote, said they wanted to bring together MPs from both sides of the referendum campaign.

The group will consult businesses, trade unions, charities and other organisations, with the aim of reaching a consensus “about what would be the best Brexit, based on pragmatic, rather than ideological, considerations”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/24/manchester-lord-mayor-carl-austin-behan-homophobic-abuse-justin-bieber-concert,"Carl Austin-Behan says he was abused by two young women and has reported incident to police

The lord mayor of Manchester has said he was subjected to a barrage of “really offensive and hurtful” homophobic abuse at a Justin Bieber concert on Sunday night.



Carl Austin-Behan, Manchester’s first openly gay lord mayor, said he was called a “dirty faggot and a dirty gay” by two young women before the sold-out gig at Manchester Arena.

Speaking to the Guardian on Monday, the former RAF serviceman said he had reported the alleged hate crime to police. He said the offenders appeared to be in their late teens.

A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester police said: “Shortly after 7.30am on Monday 24 October 2016 police received a report of a hate crime that occurred on Hunt Street in Manchester city centre at around 6.50pm on Sunday 23 October. Inquiries are ongoing.”

Bieber drew criticism from some fans for appearing to storm off stage. The Canadian singer, 22, had pleaded with the audience to stop screaming between songs. He told fans: “I don’t think it’s necessary when I’m trying to say something and you guys are screaming.”

When the noise continued, he dropped the microphone and walked off stage before later returning to continue his performance.

Describing the incident with the two women, Austin-Behan said: “I’m in a privileged position at the moment as the lord mayor and one of the things I’ve stood my ground on is that we need to make sure we report hate crime and get that message across. The fact of highlighting that it’s still out there – however small it is, you still have to report it – because there are still people out there who feel it’s all right to be abusive.

“I’m quite a strong person, I can take that. But if people are still saying those things about someone’s sexuality, I find that really offensive and hurtful. It’s important that we stand our ground and that we demand the respect we should get. It may seem trivial to some people, a bit of name-calling, but it’s highly offensive.”

Austin-Behan, who was sworn in as lord mayor in May, said he was walking to the arena and saw the two girls arguing with a ticket tout when one of them allegedly said: “I’m not paying that to see a dirty gay.”

He added: “As I walked past them I thought ‘I’m not happy with that’ so I turned round and said: ‘Do you think that’s appropriate, in this day and age?’ That’s when the barrage of comments came back [saying] ‘Am I gay? Am I gay? Am I a dirty faggot?’ and all that sort of stuff that started coming out.

“I was annoyed. I wasn’t shaken up, I was annoyed. Because it was a Justin Bieber concert there was a lot of young people there, and it was a mix of people. I was more annoyed that people could go to a gig like that and feel they could get away with saying things like that.”

Austin-Behan, who is also the youngest lord mayor in the 124-year history of the role, has told how he was thrown out of the RAF for being gay.

He was fired from the air force in 1997 when his then partner told RAF bosses about his sexual orientation in order to stop him being posted abroad. Rules preventing gay people from serving in the RAF were overturned in 2000.

After an 18-month stint working for Manchester fire service, Austin-Behan was crowned Mr Gay UK in 2001. The councillor for the Burnage ward has since worked as a small business owner in Manchester and runs a cleaning company with a business partner. He married his partner of 12 years, Simon Austin-Behan, last year.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/18/attacker-grabs-woman-hijab-oxford-street-muslim-headscarf-hate,"Police seek witnesses after man tells Muslim woman to remove headscarf before trying to drag it off her in ‘hate-filled attack’

A woman was attacked by a man grabbing her hijab as she walked along Oxford Street, in central London.

The woman, in her 40s, was targeted in the busy shopping district on 4 October when her assailant repeatedly told her to remove the headscarf before trying to drag it off her. He unpinned her scarf but did not manage to remove it.

Scotland Yard said the attack was being treated as an Islamophobic crime. DS Steve Stamp said: “This was an unprovoked and hate-filled attack in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street. The woman was targeted by this suspect purely based on what she was wearing.

“Racially and religiously motivated crimes will not be tolerated. I would appeal to anyone who witnessed this attack to contact police.”

The woman was walking alone along Oxford Street at about 8.15am when she was attacked. Police are looking at CCTV to try to trace the suspect, who is a white man, aged between 30 and 40, around 5ft 5in, with short, black, greased-back hair. He was wearing a grey sweatshirt and light blue jeans. The suspect ran off towards Marble Arch.

Official figures this month showed that hate crime leapt by more than four-fifths after the EU referendum in June. The number of racially and religiously aggravated alleged offences logged by forces in England and Wales in July was 41% higher than in the same month last year.

A Home Office report also showed that in 2015-16 the overall number of hate crimes logged by forces in England and Wales increased by nearly a fifth, with an average of about 170 offences recorded each day.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/10/cps-guidelines-trolls-beware-desparate-hapless-mistake-from-serious-abuse,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/oct/10/virtual-mobbing-doxing-amount-criminal-activity-cps,"New guidelines published to help prosecutors decide when to act on reports of online harassment and abuse

Internet users who post derogatory hashtags or humiliating Photoshopped images could face prosecution under new legal guidelines.



But sexting – exchanging sexualised images – between those aged under 18 should not normally become the subject of a police investigation if it involves children of a similar age in a relationship, the Crown Prosecution Service has recommended.

The public consultation on updated guidance for lawyers about when antisocial internet use tips over into illegal activity is published at the start of Hate Crime Awareness Week to help prosecutors decide when to act. It follows a Childnet report this year that found one in four teenagers suffered abuse online from trolling because of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability or transgender identity.

The CPS’s social media guidelines also cover attacks on disabled people, violence against women and girls, and racial and religious, homophobic and transphobic hate crime. Their publication will stimulate debate about the limits of free speech online and may help develop a clearer consensus about what is acceptable behaviour.

As well as “virtual mobbing” and “dog-piling” which incite hatred, other forms of online harassment that the CPS believes can amount to criminal activity are encouraging the retweeting of grossly offensive messages, “doxxing” – publishing personal information such as home address or bank details – or devising derogatory hashtags to target victims.

Perpetrators who participate in or initiate hate campaigns may be charged with encouraging an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, the new guidelines suggest.

Sexting cases, the CPS acknowledges, need to be carefully assessed particularly when they involve children. “While it would not usually be in the public interest to prosecute consensual sharing of an image between two children of a similar age in a relationship, a prosecution may be appropriate in other scenarios, such as those involving exploitation, grooming or bullying,” it is proposed.

In more serious cases, the guidelines say, consideration may be given to the offence of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Other practices that may be considered illegal are “baiting” – humiliating someone by labelling them as sexually promiscuous or posting Photoshopped images to disparage victims.

“Social media can be used to educate, entertain and enlighten but there are also people who use it to bully, intimidate and harass,” Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, said. “Ignorance is not a defence and perceived anonymity is not an escape. Those who commit these acts, or encourage others to do the same, can and will be prosecuted.”

The DPP added: “We welcome the comments and opinions of communities and those affected by hate crimes to help us inform the way we deal with such cases in the future. Our latest hate crime report showed that in 2015-16 more hate crime prosecutions were completed than ever before.

“More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, with over 73% guilty pleas, which is good news for victims. We have undertaken considerable steps to improve our prosecution of hate crime and we are committed to sustaining these efforts.”

There was a large reported rise in racial hate crimes in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Police forces have also complained about the growing burden of cybercrime investigations.

Prosecutors are reminded in the guidelines that the threshold for legal action under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003 is the sending of a communication that is deemed grossly offensive.

It adds: “A communication sent has to be more than simply offensive to be contrary to the criminal law.” Messages that are merely satirical, iconoclastic, rude or involve expressions of unpopular or unfashionable opinion will not constitute a criminal offence.

Consultation on the CPS guidelines opens on Monday and lasts for 13 weeks. The CPS, created in 1986, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month.

Internet terminology",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/08/homophobic-attacks-double-after-brexit-vote,"The number of homophobic attacks more than doubled in the three months after the Brexit vote, with toxicity fostered by the EU referendum debate spreading beyond race and religion, new figures suggest.

Hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people increased 147% during July, August and September compared to the same period last year, according to the LGBT anti-violence charity Galop.

Statistics from the police have already documented a spike of hate crimes against ethnic minorities and foreign nationals. Few analysts predicted a rise in hate crime based on victims’ sexual orientation, however. Galop gave support to 187 LGBT people who had suffered hate crimes in the three months that followed the referendum vote, compared with 72 in the same period in 2015. The rise is proportionately higher than other hate crime rises in the wake of Brexit .

More than 3,000 allegations of hate crimes were made to UK police, largely in the form of harassment and threats, in the week before and the week after the 23 June referendum vote, a year-on-year increase of 42%.

On Monday the Home Office will publish comprehensive hate crime reporting figures covering the year until April 2016, although sources say they will also include an addendum addressing the post-Brexit spike. The figures are also expected to focus on Scotland Yard’s progress in tackling disability hate crime.

The law creates a ‘hierarchy of hate crime’ and sends the message that some groups are more worthy of protection David Isaac, EHRC chair

Nik Noone, Galop’s chief executive, said: “UK responses to hate crime are among the best in the world but our hate crime laws are far from perfect. The highest prison sentence a court can give for homophobic, transphobic or disability common assault is six months. That is just a quarter of the two-year maximum for race and faith common assault. This disparity needs redress.”

David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “Currently, the law and sentencing policy create a ‘hierarchy of hate crime’ and send the message that some groups are more worthy of protection than others. This undermines confidence of victims in the law – and may contribute to the huge levels of under–reporting in some communities. We call on the government to undertake a full-scale review of aggravated offences and sentencing provision.”

Four in five respondents to the Galop report, released today, say they have experienced hate crime. However, only a quarter reported the last hate crime they experienced, suggesting a gap in the data collected by police and government departments. The report, based on a survey of 467 LGBT people, shows low satisfaction with the police, with half of those who reported a hate crime to them feeling unsatisfied with the outcome.

A government spokesman said: “In a Britain that works for everyone, hatred against a person because of their sexual orientation will not be tolerated. We welcome Galop’s recognition that UK hate crime laws are among the best in the world, but there is more to be done – and the government’s hate crime action plan, published in July, included measures to encourage prosecutors to pursue tougher sentences for all hate crimes, including those targeting the LGBT community.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/04/schools-racism-hate-crime-brexit-vote,"As hate crime rises after the Brexit vote, primary schools are redoubling efforts to counter racist views – and research shows why it really matters

In a classroom at the Sacred Heart primary school in Hartlepool, tables have been moved aside and chairs arranged in a big circle. There’s a palpable air of excitement. Olivier Bernard, a former Newcastle United player, is in the building, and in a few hours’ time will take year 6 for a fitness class.

Justine King, who is leading this morning’s session, is patient – “Yes, I’m sure you can get his autograph” – but first there’s business to be done. King and Bernard are both education workers with the charity Show Racism the Red Card, and they’re leading a full-day anti-racism workshop with years 5 and 6.

'Horrible spike' in hate crime linked to Brexit vote, Met police say Read more

The class is soon deep in discussion about acceptable and unacceptable words – those who think a particular word is racist have to stand up and swap seats when it’s mentioned.

“When you go out to get a Chinese takeaway, is it racist to say you’re going to the Chinkies?” About two-thirds think it is; the rest that it isn’t. Part of the class moves seat. One boy puts up his hand, hesitant: “There’s a Chinese shop on the corner of my street, and usually I say I’m going to the Chinese shop …”

“Does anyone say Chinkies?”

A couple of tentative hands go up. “Would you use that word inside the takeaway?” Heads shake. “Why not? … That’s right. It’s a racist word that’s been used to make Chinese people feel bad.”

Hartlepool’s schools have one of the lowest proportions of ethnic minority pupils in the country but, says King, the Brexit campaign has changed attitudes in this region, with a new sense that it’s OK to express racist views.

“Brexit legitimised the racism – I feel there’s a gang mentality and there’s safety to say things people didn’t say before. It’s always been there, but it hasn’t risen to the surface in the way we have seen now,” King says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justine King from Show Racism the Red Card. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

At Sacred Heart, a 450-pupil school with a wide catchment area and a relatively low proportion of children on free school meals, the pupils are eager to show their tolerance, and staff emphasise that racist incidents are very rare.

Around the country there have been reports of a spike in race hate crime since the EU referendum. In Hartlepool, 70% of those who voted favoured Brexit – but when King asks how that might affect the way some people are treated, most children look vague. “Sometimes because of the Brexit effect, some more racist things have happened,” King explains.

Show Racism the Red Card, which works with professional footballers, runs schools workshops around the country. These have taken on a new significance since the Brexit debate, says the charity’s education team manager for the north, Laura Pidcock. “Since the vote, there’s a sense that we will now start to control our borders,” she says. “When we went to a school in Newcastle a young person said: ‘You don’t need to come in here any more because we’re kicking all the immigrants out now.’

“We address that by asking the young people what is making them anxious, what’s contributing to their life not being good, and then help them to understand how the system works. So if they think asylum seekers get a house when they arrive, we teach them about how accommodation is really allocated.”

Northern Saints Church of England primary school in Sunderland is another school where the charity has worked, running a workshop with year 6 pupils just after the Brexit vote. The year 6 teacher, Jackie Shrubb, says the school has a workshop each year with the charity, “but this year our headteacher asked us to focus on migration.

“By year 6, they’re seeing and hearing a lot at home and elsewhere, and we wanted to help them to realise they don’t just necessarily have to take the view they get from other people. They really enjoyed it – they could see migration wasn’t necessarily all negative, that there were lots of positives too.”

Figures published by the Department for Education show that primary schools are experiencing first-hand the changes in Britain’s ethnic makeup. Almost a third of primary pupils in England – 31% – are classified as being from ethnic minority backgrounds. In 2006 the figure was about 20%.

Population statistics show that while the birth rate fell among women born in the UK last year, the rate among women born elsewhere has risen – last year more than a quarter of live births were to women not born in Britain. So primary schools’ intakes are becoming more ethnically mixed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pupils at Sacred Heart primary school in the workshop led by Show Racism the Red Card. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

But despite the focus on migration during the Brexit campaign, many of the areas with the highest leave votes were among those with the lowest levels of ethnic change. Hartlepool’s primary school population has not risen since 2006, while its proportion of ethnic minority pupils has increased from 3% to just over 5.5%.

In inner London authorities such as Newham, Brent and Tower Hamlets, by contrast, about nine in 10 primary pupils are from ethnic minority backgrounds. Yet almost 60% of Londoners voted to remain in the EU. In the borough of Greenwich, which had one of the biggest rises in ethnic minority primary school pupils – from 50% to 70% between 2006 and 2016 – 56% of people who voted wanted to stay in the EU.

Statistics show children whose families suffer racist abuse are likely to do less well at school. An analysis of data from more than 2,000 ethnic minority participants in the Millennium Cohort Study found that many pupils whose mothers had experienced racism performed worse than others in spatial and non-verbal reasoning tests at age five – tests that predict GCSE results.

The study followed 19,000 children born in 2000-02 and found the effects occurred even when the researchers controlled for other relevant factors, such as social deprivation.

Dear Nicky Morgan: this is how to deal with post-Brexit racism Read more

Yvonne Kelly, professor of life course epidemiology at University College London, says there’s a complex interplay between mothers’ experiences of racism, their impact on children in the home and poorer outcomes in the classroom. “Poor mental health among parents is linked to experience of racism. It’s linked to a whole lot of physical health problems, and in children there are linkages to learning. We know the children of parents with poor physical and mental health do less well. Racism is very common and it’s a problem in our society,” she says.

Back at Sacred Heart, King is drawing her session to a close. One of the keys to success, she says, is to focus on the positive – if children go home and tell their parents their language is racist that will be counterproductive. But they hope the sessions will have lasting effects, and they conduct focus groups with schools three months after the workshops to look at the impact.

“One boy told me he’d gone to the local corner shop and found out the owner’s name was Ali. He came back to school and said: ‘So now we have to call it Ali’s shop’. It’s a little step, but it might make a big difference in Ali’s life.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/04/eu-commission-uk-authorities-filtering-out-racial-elements-hate-crime-cases,"Police, prosecutors and the courts in Britain are “filtering out” racial elements in hate crime cases, half of reported hate crime is not prosecuted and judges are underusing heavier sentences for hate crime, say Council of Europe anti-racism experts.

The European commission against racism and intolerance (Ecri) says racial aspects of hate crime cases are often being filtered out through a combination of an unwillingness to recognise racist motivation, reclassifying racist attacks as disputes or other forms of hostility, and an over-strict interpretation of the legal provisions on racist motivation.

The report of experts from 47 European countries, published on Tuesday, also says that about half the hate crime recorded by British police – including on social media – goes unpunished because no suspects are identified.

The fifth Council of Europe report on racism in the UK highlights concerns over the “considerable intolerant element” in the public political debate in Britain, particularly on immigration.

The experts say that hate speech continues to be a serious problem in tabloid newspapers, and online hate speech against Muslim people has soared since 2013. They say this is particularly evident in the targeting of Muslim women online on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in newspapers, online and even among politicians,” said the Ecri chair, Christian Ahlund.

“The Brexit referendum seems to have led to a further rise in ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment, making it even more important that the British authorities take the steps outlined in our report as a matter of priority.”

Police hate crime figures showed there was a sustained surge in reported hate crime incidents, with a first spike immediately after the 23 June referendum and a second spike at the end of July. Reported hate crime incidents continued to 15-20% higher than the previous 12 months until early September, when weekly figures were no longer released.

The Ecri report says Home Office figures show police recorded 52,528 hate-motivated criminal offences in 2014/15, including hate speech and violence covering religious, race and sexual orientation hate crimes.

But the Crown Prosecution Service said that 49% of all recorded offences went unprosecuted because no suspect had been identified and the case was closed. “This means a very large amount of hate crime goes unpunished,” says the report.

The anti-racism experts say that heavier “enhanced” sentences are one of the clearest indicators that the police, crown prosecutors and courts have all recognised the hate motivation in a case but say no data is available to show how often they are imposed. This has given rise to speculation that the provision in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act for enhanced sentences is underused.

The report also highlights concerns that the process of accepting guilty pleas sometimes leads to the “aggravating” race or religious crime element being dropped. The CPS told the commission that it is not policy to accept pleas to lesser offences or to minimise admissible evidence of racial or religious aggravation for the sake of expediency, but guilty pleas can benefit victims and witnesses who then do not have to attend court to give evidence and can substantially reduce costs.

“However, in light of the considerable evidence that hate crime is more traumatising to victims that other types of crime, the failure to acknowledge the hate motivation is emotionally damaging to victims as it does not recognise the specific harm suffered by them,” says the report.

The experts say that the CPS has already taken steps in response to community concerns to reinforce its policy to ensure that the racial aggravation element is not dropped in hate crime cases. But they recommend that data should be recorded when “enhanced sentences” are imposed, including on the criminal record of the offender. Steps also need to be taken to close the 50% gap between hate crime recorded by the police and cases referred for prosecution.

The report also praises progress in Britain, including the development by the government and police of a hate crime action plan and a new policy to improve opportunities for black and minority ethnic communities and substantial efforts to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/08/homophobic-attacks-double-after-brexit-vote,"The number of homophobic attacks more than doubled in the three months after the Brexit vote, with toxicity fostered by the EU referendum debate spreading beyond race and religion, new figures suggest.

Hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people increased 147% during July, August and September compared to the same period last year, according to the LGBT anti-violence charity Galop.

Statistics from the police have already documented a spike of hate crimes against ethnic minorities and foreign nationals. Few analysts predicted a rise in hate crime based on victims’ sexual orientation, however. Galop gave support to 187 LGBT people who had suffered hate crimes in the three months that followed the referendum vote, compared with 72 in the same period in 2015. The rise is proportionately higher than other hate crime rises in the wake of Brexit .

More than 3,000 allegations of hate crimes were made to UK police, largely in the form of harassment and threats, in the week before and the week after the 23 June referendum vote, a year-on-year increase of 42%.

On Monday the Home Office will publish comprehensive hate crime reporting figures covering the year until April 2016, although sources say they will also include an addendum addressing the post-Brexit spike. The figures are also expected to focus on Scotland Yard’s progress in tackling disability hate crime.

The law creates a ‘hierarchy of hate crime’ and sends the message that some groups are more worthy of protection David Isaac, EHRC chair

Nik Noone, Galop’s chief executive, said: “UK responses to hate crime are among the best in the world but our hate crime laws are far from perfect. The highest prison sentence a court can give for homophobic, transphobic or disability common assault is six months. That is just a quarter of the two-year maximum for race and faith common assault. This disparity needs redress.”

David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “Currently, the law and sentencing policy create a ‘hierarchy of hate crime’ and send the message that some groups are more worthy of protection than others. This undermines confidence of victims in the law – and may contribute to the huge levels of under–reporting in some communities. We call on the government to undertake a full-scale review of aggravated offences and sentencing provision.”

Four in five respondents to the Galop report, released today, say they have experienced hate crime. However, only a quarter reported the last hate crime they experienced, suggesting a gap in the data collected by police and government departments. The report, based on a survey of 467 LGBT people, shows low satisfaction with the police, with half of those who reported a hate crime to them feeling unsatisfied with the outcome.

A government spokesman said: “In a Britain that works for everyone, hatred against a person because of their sexual orientation will not be tolerated. We welcome Galop’s recognition that UK hate crime laws are among the best in the world, but there is more to be done – and the government’s hate crime action plan, published in July, included measures to encourage prosecutors to pursue tougher sentences for all hate crimes, including those targeting the LGBT community.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/04/schools-racism-hate-crime-brexit-vote,"As hate crime rises after the Brexit vote, primary schools are redoubling efforts to counter racist views – and research shows why it really matters

In a classroom at the Sacred Heart primary school in Hartlepool, tables have been moved aside and chairs arranged in a big circle. There’s a palpable air of excitement. Olivier Bernard, a former Newcastle United player, is in the building, and in a few hours’ time will take year 6 for a fitness class.

Justine King, who is leading this morning’s session, is patient – “Yes, I’m sure you can get his autograph” – but first there’s business to be done. King and Bernard are both education workers with the charity Show Racism the Red Card, and they’re leading a full-day anti-racism workshop with years 5 and 6.

'Horrible spike' in hate crime linked to Brexit vote, Met police say Read more

The class is soon deep in discussion about acceptable and unacceptable words – those who think a particular word is racist have to stand up and swap seats when it’s mentioned.

“When you go out to get a Chinese takeaway, is it racist to say you’re going to the Chinkies?” About two-thirds think it is; the rest that it isn’t. Part of the class moves seat. One boy puts up his hand, hesitant: “There’s a Chinese shop on the corner of my street, and usually I say I’m going to the Chinese shop …”

“Does anyone say Chinkies?”

A couple of tentative hands go up. “Would you use that word inside the takeaway?” Heads shake. “Why not? … That’s right. It’s a racist word that’s been used to make Chinese people feel bad.”

Hartlepool’s schools have one of the lowest proportions of ethnic minority pupils in the country but, says King, the Brexit campaign has changed attitudes in this region, with a new sense that it’s OK to express racist views.

“Brexit legitimised the racism – I feel there’s a gang mentality and there’s safety to say things people didn’t say before. It’s always been there, but it hasn’t risen to the surface in the way we have seen now,” King says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justine King from Show Racism the Red Card. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

At Sacred Heart, a 450-pupil school with a wide catchment area and a relatively low proportion of children on free school meals, the pupils are eager to show their tolerance, and staff emphasise that racist incidents are very rare.

Around the country there have been reports of a spike in race hate crime since the EU referendum. In Hartlepool, 70% of those who voted favoured Brexit – but when King asks how that might affect the way some people are treated, most children look vague. “Sometimes because of the Brexit effect, some more racist things have happened,” King explains.

Show Racism the Red Card, which works with professional footballers, runs schools workshops around the country. These have taken on a new significance since the Brexit debate, says the charity’s education team manager for the north, Laura Pidcock. “Since the vote, there’s a sense that we will now start to control our borders,” she says. “When we went to a school in Newcastle a young person said: ‘You don’t need to come in here any more because we’re kicking all the immigrants out now.’

“We address that by asking the young people what is making them anxious, what’s contributing to their life not being good, and then help them to understand how the system works. So if they think asylum seekers get a house when they arrive, we teach them about how accommodation is really allocated.”

Northern Saints Church of England primary school in Sunderland is another school where the charity has worked, running a workshop with year 6 pupils just after the Brexit vote. The year 6 teacher, Jackie Shrubb, says the school has a workshop each year with the charity, “but this year our headteacher asked us to focus on migration.

“By year 6, they’re seeing and hearing a lot at home and elsewhere, and we wanted to help them to realise they don’t just necessarily have to take the view they get from other people. They really enjoyed it – they could see migration wasn’t necessarily all negative, that there were lots of positives too.”

Figures published by the Department for Education show that primary schools are experiencing first-hand the changes in Britain’s ethnic makeup. Almost a third of primary pupils in England – 31% – are classified as being from ethnic minority backgrounds. In 2006 the figure was about 20%.

Population statistics show that while the birth rate fell among women born in the UK last year, the rate among women born elsewhere has risen – last year more than a quarter of live births were to women not born in Britain. So primary schools’ intakes are becoming more ethnically mixed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pupils at Sacred Heart primary school in the workshop led by Show Racism the Red Card. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

But despite the focus on migration during the Brexit campaign, many of the areas with the highest leave votes were among those with the lowest levels of ethnic change. Hartlepool’s primary school population has not risen since 2006, while its proportion of ethnic minority pupils has increased from 3% to just over 5.5%.

In inner London authorities such as Newham, Brent and Tower Hamlets, by contrast, about nine in 10 primary pupils are from ethnic minority backgrounds. Yet almost 60% of Londoners voted to remain in the EU. In the borough of Greenwich, which had one of the biggest rises in ethnic minority primary school pupils – from 50% to 70% between 2006 and 2016 – 56% of people who voted wanted to stay in the EU.

Statistics show children whose families suffer racist abuse are likely to do less well at school. An analysis of data from more than 2,000 ethnic minority participants in the Millennium Cohort Study found that many pupils whose mothers had experienced racism performed worse than others in spatial and non-verbal reasoning tests at age five – tests that predict GCSE results.

The study followed 19,000 children born in 2000-02 and found the effects occurred even when the researchers controlled for other relevant factors, such as social deprivation.

Dear Nicky Morgan: this is how to deal with post-Brexit racism Read more

Yvonne Kelly, professor of life course epidemiology at University College London, says there’s a complex interplay between mothers’ experiences of racism, their impact on children in the home and poorer outcomes in the classroom. “Poor mental health among parents is linked to experience of racism. It’s linked to a whole lot of physical health problems, and in children there are linkages to learning. We know the children of parents with poor physical and mental health do less well. Racism is very common and it’s a problem in our society,” she says.

Back at Sacred Heart, King is drawing her session to a close. One of the keys to success, she says, is to focus on the positive – if children go home and tell their parents their language is racist that will be counterproductive. But they hope the sessions will have lasting effects, and they conduct focus groups with schools three months after the workshops to look at the impact.

“One boy told me he’d gone to the local corner shop and found out the owner’s name was Ali. He came back to school and said: ‘So now we have to call it Ali’s shop’. It’s a little step, but it might make a big difference in Ali’s life.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/04/eu-commission-uk-authorities-filtering-out-racial-elements-hate-crime-cases,"Police, prosecutors and the courts in Britain are “filtering out” racial elements in hate crime cases, half of reported hate crime is not prosecuted and judges are underusing heavier sentences for hate crime, say Council of Europe anti-racism experts.

The European commission against racism and intolerance (Ecri) says racial aspects of hate crime cases are often being filtered out through a combination of an unwillingness to recognise racist motivation, reclassifying racist attacks as disputes or other forms of hostility, and an over-strict interpretation of the legal provisions on racist motivation.

The report of experts from 47 European countries, published on Tuesday, also says that about half the hate crime recorded by British police – including on social media – goes unpunished because no suspects are identified.

The fifth Council of Europe report on racism in the UK highlights concerns over the “considerable intolerant element” in the public political debate in Britain, particularly on immigration.

The experts say that hate speech continues to be a serious problem in tabloid newspapers, and online hate speech against Muslim people has soared since 2013. They say this is particularly evident in the targeting of Muslim women online on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in newspapers, online and even among politicians,” said the Ecri chair, Christian Ahlund.

“The Brexit referendum seems to have led to a further rise in ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment, making it even more important that the British authorities take the steps outlined in our report as a matter of priority.”

Police hate crime figures showed there was a sustained surge in reported hate crime incidents, with a first spike immediately after the 23 June referendum and a second spike at the end of July. Reported hate crime incidents continued to 15-20% higher than the previous 12 months until early September, when weekly figures were no longer released.

The Ecri report says Home Office figures show police recorded 52,528 hate-motivated criminal offences in 2014/15, including hate speech and violence covering religious, race and sexual orientation hate crimes.

But the Crown Prosecution Service said that 49% of all recorded offences went unprosecuted because no suspect had been identified and the case was closed. “This means a very large amount of hate crime goes unpunished,” says the report.

The anti-racism experts say that heavier “enhanced” sentences are one of the clearest indicators that the police, crown prosecutors and courts have all recognised the hate motivation in a case but say no data is available to show how often they are imposed. This has given rise to speculation that the provision in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act for enhanced sentences is underused.

The report also highlights concerns that the process of accepting guilty pleas sometimes leads to the “aggravating” race or religious crime element being dropped. The CPS told the commission that it is not policy to accept pleas to lesser offences or to minimise admissible evidence of racial or religious aggravation for the sake of expediency, but guilty pleas can benefit victims and witnesses who then do not have to attend court to give evidence and can substantially reduce costs.

“However, in light of the considerable evidence that hate crime is more traumatising to victims that other types of crime, the failure to acknowledge the hate motivation is emotionally damaging to victims as it does not recognise the specific harm suffered by them,” says the report.

The experts say that the CPS has already taken steps in response to community concerns to reinforce its policy to ensure that the racial aggravation element is not dropped in hate crime cases. But they recommend that data should be recorded when “enhanced sentences” are imposed, including on the criminal record of the offender. Steps also need to be taken to close the 50% gap between hate crime recorded by the police and cases referred for prosecution.

The report also praises progress in Britain, including the development by the government and police of a hate crime action plan and a new policy to improve opportunities for black and minority ethnic communities and substantial efforts to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/28/hate-crime-horrible-spike-brexit-vote-metropolitan-police,"A “horrible spike” in hate crime after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was at least partly linked to the referendum, Britain’s most senior police officer has said.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, told a hearing at London’s City Hall that hate crime was showing signs of decreasing after a sharp rise in June and July, but it had still not returned to pre-referendum levels.

Monitoring presented at the hearing by the London mayor’s evidence and insight team showed a 16% increase in hate crime in the 12 months to August. It also showed that in the 38 days after the referendum there were more than 2,300 recorded race-hate offences in London, compared with 1,400 in the 38 days before the vote.

Hogan-Howe expressed alarm about the figures. “We saw this horrible spike after Brexit,” he said. He revealed there was a connection between the referendum and many of the incidents and pointed out that many of the victims were eastern Europeans.

Hogan-Howe said: “We couldn’t say it was absolutely down to Brexit, although there was obviously a spike after it. Some of them were attributed to it because of what was said at the time. We could attribute that, and eastern Europeans were particularly targeted within the race-hate crime [category]. So there certainly was a spike related to it.

“We have fortunately seen it start to come back down, but I’m not sure we can say yet it is back to previous levels.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Metropolitan police commissioner: ‘We saw this horrible spike after Brexit.’ Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

He added: “The absolute numbers are low, but we think it is massively under-reported [crime]. Sadly, people don’t tell us about the harassment and the abuse that we know will go on out there.”



Hogan-Howe pledged that more specialist officers dedicated to tackling hate crime would be deployed.

Sophie Linden, London’s deputy mayor for policing, who was hosting the hearing, said she was still getting daily reports about hate crime in the capital. “It is worrying that it does not appear to have gone back down to pre-referendum levels.”

Figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council showed a 49% rise in hate crime incidents to 1,863 in the last week in July in England, Wales and Northern Ireland compared with the previous year.

A survey by the Guardian found that European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens since the referendum.

The vast majority of incidents involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more attacks against Poles than against all the other nationalities put together.

They include the killing of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, in an apparently unprovoked attack that is being treated by police as a possible hate crime. Five 15-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy, all from Harlow, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Jóźwik and bailed until 7 October pending further inquiries. A second Polish man survived the attack.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/28/pepe-the-frog-online-hate-symbol-database-anti-defamation-league,"The Anti-Defamation League has included the cartoon to its Hate on Display list after it was adopted by white supremacists this year

Pepe the Frog, a green frog with red lips created by cartoonist Matt Furie in 2005, has been labelled an “online hate symbol” by the Anti-Defamation League after his adoption as an icon of the white supremacist movement.

“Images of the frog, variously portrayed with a Hitler-like moustache, wearing a yarmulke or a Klan hood, have proliferated in recent weeks in hateful messages aimed at Jewish and other users on Twitter,” the ADL said, explaining its decision to add the meme to its online Hate on Display database.

The ADL’s decision comes two weeks after Hillary Clinton’s campaign posted an article pointing to Pepe as the common factor linking Donald Trump and the white supremacist movement. The campaign wrote that “in recent months, Pepe’s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the ‘alt-right.’ They’ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.

“Now white supremacists have given Pepe the cartoon frog some Trump hair – and the candidate’s own son says he is ‘honoured to be grouped with’ him,” the post concluded.

The character of Pepe, who may be better known as the “sad frog meme”, was originally created for Furie’s comic Boy’s Club, but achieved online fame in 2008, when the 4Chan forum took a shine to the character. Depending on one’s point of view, the anonymous users of 4Chan adopted, remixed, or stole Pepe, placing him in new situations and permanently linking him with the phrase “feels good man”, the punchline to the first comic featuring Pepe that hit the forum.

For almost a decade, Pepe existed mostly as a meme on the internet, with his roots in 4Chan. The character has become so divorced from his origins in Furie’s comic that a brief resurgence in popularity in 2015 saw 4Chan coining the concept of a “rare Pepe”, sharing little-seen variants of the image.

But in 2016, the rise of the “alt-right” – the group that sits at the crossover of 4Chan and neo-nazism – led to Pepe being adopted as an unofficial icon.

The second life has disturbed Pepe’s creator, who told the Guardian that “I just try to take it in stride, but the thing that’s come to my attention is … well, I didn’t know what white nationalists were until, like, yesterday. And the alt-right or whatever? It’s all very new and very strange and definitely not something that I support. I guess Pepe is kind of its own internet thing now. I’m hoping not to get any hate or threats or anything. You have to do a little bit of research to even link it back to me, I think.”

The chief executive of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, emphasised the twisted nature of Pepe’s genesis as a hate icon. “Once again, racists and haters have taken a popular internet meme and twisted it for their own purposes of spreading bigotry and harassing users,” he said. “These anti-Semites have no shame. They are abusing the image of a cartoon character, one that might at first seem appealing, to harass and spread hatred on social media.”

It’s the second time the alt-right has managed to create a new hate symbol. In June, the ADL added the (((echo))) symbol to its watchlist after online antisemites had been spotted using it to identify Jewish users on social media.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/23/antisemitism-group-complains-labour-jeremy-corbyn-video-tired-hearing,"The Campaign Against Antisemitism has formally complained to the Labour party about Jeremy Corbyn.

It has acted over a video posted on the party leader’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts.in which Corbyn’s supporters answer five questions they are “tired of hearing”. The fifth question is: “Do you promote antisemitism?” The video was subsequently deleted from social media, but at the time of writing it was available on YouTube.

The CAA said this was the latest in a long of line of incidents where Corbyn and his supporters had failed to address antisemitism. It has sent a letter of complaint to Labour’s deputy leader (pdf), Tom Watson, to present to the national executive committee.

The letter accuses Corbyn of “committing acts that are grossly detrimental to the party, namely characterising Jewish people as dissembling and dishonest in their reporting of antisemitism, and by using the influence and prestige of his office to disseminate and normalise that lie”.

It continues: “The allegation that Jews lie and deceive in order to further hidden agendas is an age-old antisemitic trope. It has now been manifestly deployed by Mr Corbyn in his leadership campaign video.”

The CAA accuses Corbyn and his allies of having “a long association with antisemites”. It goes on to list a series of incidents where it says Corbyn and his supporters dismissed allegations of antisemitism.

Jeremy Corbyn launches antisemitism report amid controversy Read more

The letter says: “This week, Mr Corbyn’s personal Facebook and Twitter accounts released a video featuring supporters declaring they were ‘tired of hearing’ about antisemitism, characterising the Jewish community’s complaints as ‘rubbish’ – physically and metaphorically – to be tossed on to the floor.

“In an admission of guilt, the video has been withdrawn, but by then it had been viewed and endorsed over 200,000 times, and there has been no rebuttal by Mr Corbyn. These accumulated acts committed by Mr Corbyn himself or under his direct leadership form the basis of our complaint under the clauses stated above.

“Under Mr Corbyn, the Labour party that was once a pioneer in the fight against racism, has made itself deaf to Jews. Labour’s institutions have failed to act decisively against Sir Gerald Kaufman MP, Ken Livingstone and countless others.

“It is now high time that the party acted to preserve its values, and to defend the much-abused Jewish community against the antisemitic lie promoted by Mr Corbyn that our complaints of anti-semitism are hollow and motivated by hidden agendas.”

Corbyn’s leadership has been dogged with allegations of failing to tackle antisemitism.

In April, Corbyn asked Shami Chakrabarti, the former head of Liberty, to conduct an investigation into antisemitism in the party. Her report, published at the end of June, said Labour members “should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine”. The inquiry came after the suspension of the MP Naz Shah and former London mayor Ken Livingstone amid antisemitism claims. Livingstone claimed that Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism. In August, Corbyn was criticised by some members of his party after subsequently nominating Chakrabarti for a peerage.

Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish MP who has called for him to do more to crack down on abuse after she received tens of thousands of offensive messages, including antisemitic abuse, is to attend the party’s conference this weekend with a bodyguard, amid fears for her safety.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/23/bystanders-need-training-to-tackle-hate-says-report,"Inquiry into everyday experiences of those facing prejudice suggests attacks get traction in a climate of indifference

Teachers and bus drivers need training to tackle “blatant and latent” prejudice and indifference before it escalates into hate crime, according to a new report.

The recommendations from the Scottish government’s independent advisory group on hate crime, prejudice and community cohesion, published on Friday, suggest that responsibility for tackling hate crime in society should extend beyond the criminal justice system.

In the first major investigation into hate crime in Scotland since a significant rise in alleged incidents was reported across the UK following the Brexit vote in June, the group examined how external events – such as the terrorist attacks in Paris, the EU referendum and football matches – made some people feel that they had “permission” to attack others on the basis of their identity.

The inquiry was led by Duncan Morrow, from the University of Ulster, who previously chaired a similar group set up by the Scottish government to investigate sectarianism, and examined the day-to-day experiences of those facing prejudice based on their race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Many of the report’s recommendations are focused on ensuring that the criminal justice response to hate crime is clear, swift and consistent. In particular, the report criticises the patchy operation across the UK of the existing third-party reporting system.

Morrow said, however, that hate crime needed to be treated as a citizenship as much as justice issue.

“In addition to supporting improvement in criminal justice, there needs to be a recognition that these kind of crimes emerge from a background of blatant and latent prejudice and indifference which festers far beyond individual attacks,” he said.

“Attacks on people because of their identity with a group get traction in a climate where perpetrators may feel that they are acting ‘with permission’, or ‘with the sympathy of the wider community’, both spoken and unspoken.”

Morrow said that many of those interviewed for the report described a “constant drip of insult, harassment and verbal abuse” as an everyday normality”, resulting in loss of confidence and social isolation. “Yet most of this never reaches the threshold of crime, and more often than not there are few witnesses.”

He said one solution was to train bystanders to intervene. “Schools and teachers are often in the front line. Youth workers, transport providers and community organisations are often in a position to act more immediately and more effectively. Identifying ways for people to act without putting themselves at risk is important.

“What we would like to see is training for people in immediate responsibility, like school teachers or bus drivers, and education on how to report and respond to violent incidents for the general public.”

In recent years, Police Scotland has developed bystander training as a key part of its strategy to tackle sexual and domestic violence. The force has worked with bar and club owners, for example, to train staff to recognise situations where a woman may be vulnerable to sexual assault, and teach them to intervene safely.

Morrow’s report focused on public transport as “a particular kind of enclosed space where a vulnerable individual was often more at risk”. He described it as “emblematic of the unexpected places where hate crime becomes real”.

“People stopping travelling or going out at night may feel like small steps, but they have significant impact on community cohesion and a sense of public safety,” he said.

The report suggests the Scottish government consider changes to the legal framework governing hate crime in Scotland, including extending protection to include gender, age and membership of other groups such as refugees and asylum seekers.

It also calls for measures to improve the monitoring of online hate crime and prejudice, and responses to it.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland welcomed the report. Its director, Alastair Pringle, said: “This is fundamentally a responsibility for all of us in Scotland. We all have a part to play, from the Scottish government, to our schools, to our workplaces, to each of us all as individuals.

“I was struck by a recent reported case where several passengers complained about the offensive behaviour and racist language from other passengers on a flight to Ibiza last week. This resulted in their removal from the flight.

“I think this demonstrates exactly how we can make a change in society by refusing to be a bystander, showing responsible leadership by example and speaking up and being an active citizen.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2016/sep/22/six-things-weve-learned-about-misogyny-as-a-hate,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/19/embassies-alleged-hate-crimes-since-brexit-vote,"European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens since the vote to leave the European Union, according to figures obtained by the Guardian.



The vast majority of xenophobic incidents involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more attacks against Poles than all the other nationalities put together, the survey of EU embassies in London revealed.

The Polish consular service in London, Manchester and Edinburgh has logged 31 incidents of reported hate crime since 23 June, including eight attacks in the past three weeks.

They include the killing of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, in an apparently unprovoked attack that is being treated by police as a possible hate crime. Five 15-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy, all from Harlow, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Jóźwik and bailed until 7 October pending further inquiries. A second Polish man survived the attack.

The Guardian contacted the London embassies of all 27 EU member states. Of the 17 embassies that replied, almost half reported a rise in incidents of xenophobic abuse in the 12 weeks since the EU referendum. Between them, there were 60 incidents logged, including shots fired at a Lithuanian home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, this month, an arson attack on a Romanian shop in Norwich in July and a break-in at a home in Nottingham in the immediate aftermath of the vote when a Latvian family were called “fucking immigrants” and told to leave the UK.

The bulk of the attacks were against Poles or people mistaken for Poles. A Finnish mother was told “Poles go home” when she was overheard talking to her children, according to the Finnish embassy in London. The embassies of western European countries that responded to the survey, including Spain, France and Germany, reported no post-referendum abuse against their citizens.

Arkady Rzegocki, the Polish ambassador to the UK, said he was “saddened by each and every incident”.

He added: “The Polish community is the largest national minority in the UK and, due to its visibility, may be statistically an easier target of xenophobic abuse. We recognise and appreciate the show of solidarity from the British public and the decisive steps taken by the British government and local authorities to resolve the problem. We need to work together to foster dialogue and mutual understanding between communities.”

The issue of hate crime in the wake of the vote was raised by London-based diplomats at a working lunch of the Nordic group of ambassadors on Tuesday. Latvia’s ambassador, Baiba Braže, who hosted the lunch, said: “It is a trend that we discussed. Our citizens have not experienced anything like this before the referendum.



“None of six incidents [involving Latvians] referred to the referendum, but there is maybe an atmosphere that is more permitting of unpleasant words and maybe actions. There shouldn’t be any discrimination and the Latvian community shouldn’t let it go unreported.”

Jon Burnett, a researcher at the Institute of Race Relations, said: “The upsurge in attacks against eastern Europeans should come as no surprise, given the way that they have been portrayed repeatedly as scroungers, cheats and, ultimately, threats. This depiction, which intensified in the build-up to the referendum, of course predated it. The hate crimes are a product of a politically constructed climate which has been years in the making.”

Braže welcomed the British government’s assurances that it would not tolerate such abuse. She said she had been encouraged by a fall in incidents involving Latvians since the immediate aftermath of the vote.

But the Polish embassy is troubled by a recent uptick in violence against Poles. Many of the 31 attacks it recorded took place in the days after the vote and, by early August, the embassy had detected a lull in incidents. But there has been a new spike in attacks, with eight incidents in the past three weeks, including attacks on three other Poles in Harlow and an allegedly racist attack on a Polish man in the Armley area of Leeds last Friday.

‘We’re going to put cameras up’

In the days after the Brexit vote, one Polish family in Plymouth felt the force of what appears to be a continuing spike in hate crimes across the country. An arson attack destroyed a shed at their home in Efford. The perpetrators left a note which read: “Go back to your country next be [sic] your family.”

Ewa Banaszek, 22, said the experience had stayed with her and her family but they were trying to get on with their lives and had received support from the local community. A crowdfunding appeal on behalf of the family raised £7,000.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Ablamowicz with daughter Ewa Banaszak, Photograph: Plymouth Herald/SWNS.com

“It has been overwhelming really,” said Banaszek, who works at a leisure centre in Plymouth. “When it happened, lots of local people left flowers outside the house and even now people are always checking if we are OK.

“The way the money was raised was really heartening. I told Hannah [Brotherstone], who arranged the fundraising, how overwhelmed we were. We now have the money and we are going to put cameras up around the house and this will help to pay for them.

“Since the incident we have tried to just get on with our life. The attack will always be in the back of my mind, but people have been supportive.”

Gareth Cuerden, hate crime manager for Victim Support in Wales, said a media focus on hate crime had led to a positive impact in encouraging victims to speak out.

“It has made people feel empowered to come forward and report what has happened to them. I think because of that we are getting a truer picture of the scale of hate crime,” he said. “Research shows that it is underreported – 50% of people wait until it gets more serious before they consider reporting and instead they tend to normalise incidents. But this attention on hate crime has made them feel able to report, which is a positive thing.”

Iolanda Viegas, a councillor for the Portuguese community in Wrexham, north Wales, said people had been heartened by the support they were receiving from their neighbours and from the police in the aftermath of the vote.

“The police have come along to tell us what to do if these incidents happen, they have talked to people about what a hate crime is and what they should do if they are targeted. And many people in the wider community are helping. At least we feel we are not alone and that someone will help us.”

Embassy breakdown of reported xenophobic incidents since the referendum

Poland 31 incidents reported as hate crimes. As well as the killing of Jóźwik they include eight assaults, including attacks on Polish men in Yeovil, St Ives and Leeds; seven attacks on Polish homes and businesses; and four cases of abusive graffiti, including messages scrawled on the front door of the Polish Cultural Association in Hammersmith, west London, and on a war memorial in Portsmouth. The 31 cases include six reports of fresh abuse in longstanding complaints about intimidation from neighbours that predate the referendum.

Lithuania 10 incidents of alleged hate crimes, five of which are being investigated by the police. They include a shooting at a Lithuanian home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, on 5 September. Other incidents of alleged abuse have been reported in Peterborough, Kings Lynn and Boston, where many Lithuanians work as agricultural labourers. A spokesman said: “The Lithuanian community is very concerned [by] the surge of hate attacks after the referendum.”

Lithuania’s deputy foreign minister, Mantvydas Bekešius, has raised the issue with the Foreign Office. He said Lithuanian children in UK schools had been verbally abused not just by other pupils but by parents and even teachers since the referendum.

Latvia Six incidents of alleged xenophobic abuse and harassment, in Nottingham, London, Bristol, Wellingborough, Yorkshire and South Shields. The worst incident involved a break-in at a home in Nottingham where a Latvian family were branded “fucking immigrants” and told to leave the UK. The embassy also reported that Latvians had been refused service at a post office in London and at a mobile phone shop in Bristol in the days after the vote.

Sweden “Around five” incidents of verbal abuse. A spokesman said: “That’s a big increase, because we haven’t really seen abuse against Swedish citizens in recent memory. It is obviously linked to the referendum, because phrases like ‘go home’ were used.”

Finland Until the referendum, no Finns had been involved in xenophobic incidents. Since the vote, there have been four incidents, including a mother being told “Poles go home” when she was overheard speaking to her children.

Romania On 8 July, a Romanian shop in Norwich was torched in what Norfolk police are treating as a hate crime. The embassy also reported “a few” other xenophobic incidents, but declined to give details.

Bulgaria One “xenophobia-motivated” attack against a Bulgarian national in the UK. The embassy refused to provide details.

Hungary A “marginal number” of inquiries expressing fear after the referendum.

The embassies of Belgium, Greece, Germany, France, Denmark, Cyprus, Austria, Spain and Estonia reported no abuse of their citizens in the UK.

Additional reporting by Chris Owen",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/14/bigots-hate-brexit-migrants-uk-eu-attacks-referendum,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/misogyny-hate-crime-nottingham-police-crackdown,"Police forces across England and Wales are considering expanding their definition of hate crime to include misogyny after an experiment in one city that saw more than 20 investigations launched in two months.

The initial success of Nottingham’s crackdown against sexist abuse has drawn national interest after the city’s police revealed that they investigated a case of misogyny every three days during July and August, the first months to see specially trained officers targeting behaviour ranging from street harassment to unwanted physical approaches.

Several other forces have confirmed they are sending representatives to Nottingham this month to discuss the introduction of misogyny as a hate crime.

Police and campaigners said the initial figures were broadly in line with other categories of hate crime such as Islamophobia and antisemitism but were likely to rise significantly as awareness increased.

Dave Alton, the hate crime manager for Nottingham police, said: “The number of reports we are receiving is comparable with other, more established, categories of hate crime. We have received numerous reports and have been able to provide a service to women in Nottinghamshire who perhaps wouldn’t have approached us six months ago. The reality is that all of the reports so far have required some form of police action.”

Incidents reported by Nottingham women ranged from verbal harassment to sexual assault. Initial claims from sections of the media that wolf-whistling would be reported by women have proved unfounded. So far, two men have been arrested for public order offences and actual bodily harm in incidents classified as misogynist.

Melanie Jeffs, the manager of Nottingham Women’s Centre, said: “Women are groped, or groups of lads shout abuse or very sexualised comments at them. We have incidents of sexual touching, women being grabbed and men trying to get women into a car with them.”

Loretta Trickett, a criminologist at Nottingham Trent University, predicted that the number of reports of misogyny in the city would increase after much of the large student population – more than 60,000 attend its two universities – arrived later this month. In 10 days’ time, Nottinghamshire police will release a film featuring first-hand accounts of street harassment victims to encourage more women to report incidents.

Jeffs said: “We know it’s a big issue that happens on a daily basis – it’s part of the everyday wallpaper of women’s lives. This is about raising awareness, making women feel that they don’t have to put up with it – and that’s very empowering. Already women are ringing through to the police saying: ‘I want this to be recorded as a misogynistic hate crime’.”

Other forces understood to be interested include Devon and Cornwall, Durham and Lincolnshire, which are all sending officers to Nottingham to discuss the experiment.

Alton said: “There has been quite a lot of interest in the action we have taken. Both our chief constable and our commissioner have been contacted by forces and commissioners nationally to discuss how we have made the changes and what the impact has been so far.”

The force defines misogyny hate crime as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”.

The new classification means women can report incidents that might not be considered a crime and the police will investigate.

Last week it was revealed that prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls in England and Wales have reached record levels amid warnings that the increasing use of social media is fuelling the rise. Campaigners believe misogyny is spilling over from the virtual world of the internet into the real world.

Trickett said: “Street harassment is at the root of a lot of the sexualised violence that we see – the idea that women are sexual commodities. It’s also linked to online abuse. A lot of it has gone unchallenged for so long that it has almost become normalised.”

Campaigners in the city said the reaction to the classification of misogyny as a hate crime had been overwhelmingly positive, with many men also registering their approval.

“We’ve had women say how proud they are to be from this city, and that this makes them feel like they’re walking 10 feet taller,” said Jeffs.

One issue that has concerned campaigners is street harassment aimed at schoolchildren, with Trickett saying that sexist abuse could be aimed at youngsters as young as eight.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2016/sep/22/six-things-weve-learned-about-misogyny-as-a-hate,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/19/embassies-alleged-hate-crimes-since-brexit-vote,"European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens since the vote to leave the European Union, according to figures obtained by the Guardian.



The vast majority of xenophobic incidents involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more attacks against Poles than all the other nationalities put together, the survey of EU embassies in London revealed.

The Polish consular service in London, Manchester and Edinburgh has logged 31 incidents of reported hate crime since 23 June, including eight attacks in the past three weeks.

They include the killing of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, in an apparently unprovoked attack that is being treated by police as a possible hate crime. Five 15-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy, all from Harlow, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Jóźwik and bailed until 7 October pending further inquiries. A second Polish man survived the attack.

The Guardian contacted the London embassies of all 27 EU member states. Of the 17 embassies that replied, almost half reported a rise in incidents of xenophobic abuse in the 12 weeks since the EU referendum. Between them, there were 60 incidents logged, including shots fired at a Lithuanian home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, this month, an arson attack on a Romanian shop in Norwich in July and a break-in at a home in Nottingham in the immediate aftermath of the vote when a Latvian family were called “fucking immigrants” and told to leave the UK.

The bulk of the attacks were against Poles or people mistaken for Poles. A Finnish mother was told “Poles go home” when she was overheard talking to her children, according to the Finnish embassy in London. The embassies of western European countries that responded to the survey, including Spain, France and Germany, reported no post-referendum abuse against their citizens.

Arkady Rzegocki, the Polish ambassador to the UK, said he was “saddened by each and every incident”.

He added: “The Polish community is the largest national minority in the UK and, due to its visibility, may be statistically an easier target of xenophobic abuse. We recognise and appreciate the show of solidarity from the British public and the decisive steps taken by the British government and local authorities to resolve the problem. We need to work together to foster dialogue and mutual understanding between communities.”

The issue of hate crime in the wake of the vote was raised by London-based diplomats at a working lunch of the Nordic group of ambassadors on Tuesday. Latvia’s ambassador, Baiba Braže, who hosted the lunch, said: “It is a trend that we discussed. Our citizens have not experienced anything like this before the referendum.



“None of six incidents [involving Latvians] referred to the referendum, but there is maybe an atmosphere that is more permitting of unpleasant words and maybe actions. There shouldn’t be any discrimination and the Latvian community shouldn’t let it go unreported.”

Jon Burnett, a researcher at the Institute of Race Relations, said: “The upsurge in attacks against eastern Europeans should come as no surprise, given the way that they have been portrayed repeatedly as scroungers, cheats and, ultimately, threats. This depiction, which intensified in the build-up to the referendum, of course predated it. The hate crimes are a product of a politically constructed climate which has been years in the making.”

Braže welcomed the British government’s assurances that it would not tolerate such abuse. She said she had been encouraged by a fall in incidents involving Latvians since the immediate aftermath of the vote.

But the Polish embassy is troubled by a recent uptick in violence against Poles. Many of the 31 attacks it recorded took place in the days after the vote and, by early August, the embassy had detected a lull in incidents. But there has been a new spike in attacks, with eight incidents in the past three weeks, including attacks on three other Poles in Harlow and an allegedly racist attack on a Polish man in the Armley area of Leeds last Friday.

‘We’re going to put cameras up’

In the days after the Brexit vote, one Polish family in Plymouth felt the force of what appears to be a continuing spike in hate crimes across the country. An arson attack destroyed a shed at their home in Efford. The perpetrators left a note which read: “Go back to your country next be [sic] your family.”

Ewa Banaszek, 22, said the experience had stayed with her and her family but they were trying to get on with their lives and had received support from the local community. A crowdfunding appeal on behalf of the family raised £7,000.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Ablamowicz with daughter Ewa Banaszak, Photograph: Plymouth Herald/SWNS.com

“It has been overwhelming really,” said Banaszek, who works at a leisure centre in Plymouth. “When it happened, lots of local people left flowers outside the house and even now people are always checking if we are OK.

“The way the money was raised was really heartening. I told Hannah [Brotherstone], who arranged the fundraising, how overwhelmed we were. We now have the money and we are going to put cameras up around the house and this will help to pay for them.

“Since the incident we have tried to just get on with our life. The attack will always be in the back of my mind, but people have been supportive.”

Gareth Cuerden, hate crime manager for Victim Support in Wales, said a media focus on hate crime had led to a positive impact in encouraging victims to speak out.

“It has made people feel empowered to come forward and report what has happened to them. I think because of that we are getting a truer picture of the scale of hate crime,” he said. “Research shows that it is underreported – 50% of people wait until it gets more serious before they consider reporting and instead they tend to normalise incidents. But this attention on hate crime has made them feel able to report, which is a positive thing.”

Iolanda Viegas, a councillor for the Portuguese community in Wrexham, north Wales, said people had been heartened by the support they were receiving from their neighbours and from the police in the aftermath of the vote.

“The police have come along to tell us what to do if these incidents happen, they have talked to people about what a hate crime is and what they should do if they are targeted. And many people in the wider community are helping. At least we feel we are not alone and that someone will help us.”

Embassy breakdown of reported xenophobic incidents since the referendum

Poland 31 incidents reported as hate crimes. As well as the killing of Jóźwik they include eight assaults, including attacks on Polish men in Yeovil, St Ives and Leeds; seven attacks on Polish homes and businesses; and four cases of abusive graffiti, including messages scrawled on the front door of the Polish Cultural Association in Hammersmith, west London, and on a war memorial in Portsmouth. The 31 cases include six reports of fresh abuse in longstanding complaints about intimidation from neighbours that predate the referendum.

Lithuania 10 incidents of alleged hate crimes, five of which are being investigated by the police. They include a shooting at a Lithuanian home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, on 5 September. Other incidents of alleged abuse have been reported in Peterborough, Kings Lynn and Boston, where many Lithuanians work as agricultural labourers. A spokesman said: “The Lithuanian community is very concerned [by] the surge of hate attacks after the referendum.”

Lithuania’s deputy foreign minister, Mantvydas Bekešius, has raised the issue with the Foreign Office. He said Lithuanian children in UK schools had been verbally abused not just by other pupils but by parents and even teachers since the referendum.

Latvia Six incidents of alleged xenophobic abuse and harassment, in Nottingham, London, Bristol, Wellingborough, Yorkshire and South Shields. The worst incident involved a break-in at a home in Nottingham where a Latvian family were branded “fucking immigrants” and told to leave the UK. The embassy also reported that Latvians had been refused service at a post office in London and at a mobile phone shop in Bristol in the days after the vote.

Sweden “Around five” incidents of verbal abuse. A spokesman said: “That’s a big increase, because we haven’t really seen abuse against Swedish citizens in recent memory. It is obviously linked to the referendum, because phrases like ‘go home’ were used.”

Finland Until the referendum, no Finns had been involved in xenophobic incidents. Since the vote, there have been four incidents, including a mother being told “Poles go home” when she was overheard speaking to her children.

Romania On 8 July, a Romanian shop in Norwich was torched in what Norfolk police are treating as a hate crime. The embassy also reported “a few” other xenophobic incidents, but declined to give details.

Bulgaria One “xenophobia-motivated” attack against a Bulgarian national in the UK. The embassy refused to provide details.

Hungary A “marginal number” of inquiries expressing fear after the referendum.

The embassies of Belgium, Greece, Germany, France, Denmark, Cyprus, Austria, Spain and Estonia reported no abuse of their citizens in the UK.

Additional reporting by Chris Owen",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/14/bigots-hate-brexit-migrants-uk-eu-attacks-referendum,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/misogyny-hate-crime-nottingham-police-crackdown,"Police forces across England and Wales are considering expanding their definition of hate crime to include misogyny after an experiment in one city that saw more than 20 investigations launched in two months.

The initial success of Nottingham’s crackdown against sexist abuse has drawn national interest after the city’s police revealed that they investigated a case of misogyny every three days during July and August, the first months to see specially trained officers targeting behaviour ranging from street harassment to unwanted physical approaches.

Several other forces have confirmed they are sending representatives to Nottingham this month to discuss the introduction of misogyny as a hate crime.

Police and campaigners said the initial figures were broadly in line with other categories of hate crime such as Islamophobia and antisemitism but were likely to rise significantly as awareness increased.

Dave Alton, the hate crime manager for Nottingham police, said: “The number of reports we are receiving is comparable with other, more established, categories of hate crime. We have received numerous reports and have been able to provide a service to women in Nottinghamshire who perhaps wouldn’t have approached us six months ago. The reality is that all of the reports so far have required some form of police action.”

Incidents reported by Nottingham women ranged from verbal harassment to sexual assault. Initial claims from sections of the media that wolf-whistling would be reported by women have proved unfounded. So far, two men have been arrested for public order offences and actual bodily harm in incidents classified as misogynist.

Melanie Jeffs, the manager of Nottingham Women’s Centre, said: “Women are groped, or groups of lads shout abuse or very sexualised comments at them. We have incidents of sexual touching, women being grabbed and men trying to get women into a car with them.”

Loretta Trickett, a criminologist at Nottingham Trent University, predicted that the number of reports of misogyny in the city would increase after much of the large student population – more than 60,000 attend its two universities – arrived later this month. In 10 days’ time, Nottinghamshire police will release a film featuring first-hand accounts of street harassment victims to encourage more women to report incidents.

Jeffs said: “We know it’s a big issue that happens on a daily basis – it’s part of the everyday wallpaper of women’s lives. This is about raising awareness, making women feel that they don’t have to put up with it – and that’s very empowering. Already women are ringing through to the police saying: ‘I want this to be recorded as a misogynistic hate crime’.”

Other forces understood to be interested include Devon and Cornwall, Durham and Lincolnshire, which are all sending officers to Nottingham to discuss the experiment.

Alton said: “There has been quite a lot of interest in the action we have taken. Both our chief constable and our commissioner have been contacted by forces and commissioners nationally to discuss how we have made the changes and what the impact has been so far.”

The force defines misogyny hate crime as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”.

The new classification means women can report incidents that might not be considered a crime and the police will investigate.

Last week it was revealed that prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls in England and Wales have reached record levels amid warnings that the increasing use of social media is fuelling the rise. Campaigners believe misogyny is spilling over from the virtual world of the internet into the real world.

Trickett said: “Street harassment is at the root of a lot of the sexualised violence that we see – the idea that women are sexual commodities. It’s also linked to online abuse. A lot of it has gone unchallenged for so long that it has almost become normalised.”

Campaigners in the city said the reaction to the classification of misogyny as a hate crime had been overwhelmingly positive, with many men also registering their approval.

“We’ve had women say how proud they are to be from this city, and that this makes them feel like they’re walking 10 feet taller,” said Jeffs.

One issue that has concerned campaigners is street harassment aimed at schoolchildren, with Trickett saying that sexist abuse could be aimed at youngsters as young as eight.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/08/hate-crime-eu-referendum-culture-secretary-karen-bradley-newspaper-editors,"Karen Bradley plans to discuss how press can tackle problem as report reveals major increase in hate crime since EU referendum

The culture secretary, Karen Bradley, has said she will talk to newspaper editors about how they can tackle a rise in hate crime and improve social cohesion.

A report released by the National Police Chiefs Council on Thursday revealed a major increase in hate crimes since the EU referendum, in which both politicians and the press focused heavily on immigration.

During parliamentary questions, the Labour MP Paul Blomfield cited the role of the press in creating a charged atmosphere that could contribute to hate crimes and asked Bradley to raise the issue with newspaper editors.

He said: “Sections of the press share a responsibility for creating the climate in which that is happening, and all of them have an opportunity to change it.”

Bradley replied that she would bring the issue up in the course of planned meetings with editors. She said: “I am, of course, meeting editors and others to discuss many points, and I assure the honourable gentleman that I will raise this one.”

Bradley was the Home Office minister responsible for tackling hate crime prior to being appointed culture secretary in Theresa May’s new government.

Blomfield later issued a statement welcoming Bradley’s commitment, saying he would follow the issue closely.

He said: “The media plays a big part in shaping public attitudes. They have a particular responsibility to reflect on the consequences of headlines and stories in provoking fear and anger between different groups.

“Inflammatory, divisive and misleading reporting, especially on immigration and asylum, can encourage the sort of violence that has shocked the country.

“It’s important that newspaper editors recognise how influential they can be and take steps to ensure they don’t contribute to the appalling rise in hate crimes we’ve witnessed since the EU referendum.”

Research published earlier this month by the former Sunday Times journalist Liz Gerard found that large sections of the press, led by the Daily Mail and Daily Express, had since the 2010 general election regularly lead with negative stories about refugees and asylum seekers.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/07/hate-surged-after-eu-referendum-police-figures-show,"Hate crime surged in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the second half of July – nearly a month after the EU referendum vote – and still remains at significantly higher levels than a year ago.

Man in Harlow assault died after single punch to the head, CCTV shows Read more

The latest set of figures quietly released by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on Wednesday show a 49% rise in incidents to 1,863 in the last week in July when compared with the previous year. The week after saw a record 58% increase in recorded incidents to 1,787.

Jack Dromey, who was Labour’s shadow police minister for three years, said: “Many victims are still afraid to come forward and so the scale of attacks could be far higher than what is being reported. The UN said two weeks ago that the problem of underreporting hate crime persists in Britain and the government’s own hate-crime strategy sets out to increase the reporting of hate crime, acknowledging one of the biggest challenges to the police in tackling it,” he said.

Previously published official figures had revealed that there had been a 46% spike – then the worst on record – in reports of hate crime to the police in the week immediately after the 23 June referendum. But the latest data shows that the increase in hate crime has continued, although the level of increase has dipped.

The most recent weekly data shows that the level of hate crime is 16% higher than over a similar period last year, with 1,384 incidents reported in the third week of August, the last set of figures available.



But despite the increases, police chiefs say they no longer want to collate weekly figures, arguing that the reduction in the level of increase means that is no longer justified.

Mark Hamilton, the NPCC lead for hate crime, said that the reductions in the rate of increase meant they were no longer going to require weekly updates from police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“We have seen continued decreases in reports of hate crimes to forces and these reports have now returned to formerly seen levels for 2016. For this reason, we will return to our previous reporting procedures and will no longer be requiring weekly updates from forces,” he said.

“This doesn’t mean that hate crime is no longer a priority. We know that divisions still exist in our society and that tensions could rise again. Police forces will continue with their robust response and we will react swiftly to any future signs of tension.”

The disclosure comes in a week when senior Polish ministers travelled to Britain to seek reassurances about the safety of the Polish community in the UK in the aftermath of the fatal attack on Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, Essex. A silent vigil and march was held in Harlow at the weekend.

Dromey said it was not yet the right time for the police to decide to stop collecting weekly figures. “The national rate of reported hate crimes remains higher than at this point last year and the high-profile attacks in Harlow show that there is still a deeply worrying trend of abuse and violence.”

The police linked the spike in hate crime incidents immediately after the June referendum directly to the vote, saying people had taken the vote to leave the EU as a licence to behave in a racist or discriminatory way. Offences had been mainly harassment and threats of a racist nature against “visible minorities” as well as people from eastern Europe.

Amber Rudd, the home secretary, went further when she discussed the figures with MPs on the home affairs select committee on Wednesday, saying that the level was back in line with 2015.

“There was a spike in crime after 23 June. I am pleased to say it has now gone back to levels comparable to last year. We are watching it carefully. We will continue to combat hate crime however we can,” she told MPs.



Dromey said: “Putting race and immigration centre-stage in the referendum campaign in the way that politicians did resulted in a tide of abuse. Immigration will be a dominant issue in the debate on where Britain goes post-Brexit and so we will need a continued focus on the impact this is having in communities.”





",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/29/sexist-hate-crimes-second-class-status-misogyny-maria-miller,"Gender-related hate crime has been given second-class status while sexist behaviour online, in the street and in the classroom has been going unchallenged, according to Maria Miller, who chairs the women and equalities select committee.

The warning from the Tory former cabinet minister comes after the Nottinghamshire chief constable, Sue Fish, spoke in depth for the first time about the force’s pioneering policy to recognise misogyny as a hate crime.

Miller, whose committee has most recently been taking evidence on the sexual harassment of girls in schools, hailed the Nottinghamshire pilot, but she warned: “While progress has been made in sensitising people to the issue of racial and religious hate crime, it seems to me that gender-related hate crime has taken on second-class status.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aileen MacKay, who was grabbed and then followed by a man on the Glasgow subway. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Nottinghamshire police, in partnership with Nottingham Women’s Centre, has become the first force in the country to record harassment of women as a hate crime. The change began in May after a public summit last autumn at which women explained how unsafe they felt on the streets. And there have been some encouraging results since, with supporters hoping the Nottinghamshire policy could be taken up by other police forces around the country.

“Listening to women’s experiences, they felt that they weren’t going to be taken seriously and then had mixed experiences if they did report. For both those who take the calls and the officers who respond to them, [the new policy] is giving a clear position,” Fish told the Guardian.

Wolf-whistling is no crime – but it is part of our misogynist culture | Laura Bates Read more

Previously police knew the procedure when it was “indecent assault or a public order offence … But if it’s at the lower end, officers would have lots of empathy with the women but were not quite sure what they could do,” she said. The force now defines misogyny hate crime as: “Incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman.”

The basic hate crime definition is not provided by statute, and police forces are encouraged to include types of hate crime identified as a priority in their areas. The Nottingham classification now means people can report incidents that might not be considered to be a crime and the police will investigate, and can offer the victim support. Since the policy was officially launched in mid-July, Fish expressed some frustration with headlines about “arrests for wolf-whistling”, including one in the Guardian.

“This challenges the power base in society, and some people have deliberately misunderstood,” she said. “Some trivialise it and say: ‘Oh so I can’t chat up a woman now.’ But I think there’s a significant difference between ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ and ‘Do you want some cock?’ This is about the unacceptable abuse of women because they are women and it has to stop.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martha Jephcott campaigns against misogynist hate crimes in Nottinghamshire. Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian

A similar frustration is expressed by the campaigner Martha Jephcott, who has so far led 40 training sessions for police on misogynistic harassment. “A really important part of the training, which is usually male dominated, is to emphasise that the average man doesn’t do this, but also to point out the hidden nature of the problem,” she said. “It’s never been done to me when I’m standing next to a man.”

Jephcott is perfectly placed to explain the details of women’s lived experience to officers having set up the Nottingham branch of the global anti-street harassment campaign Hollaback while at university in 2014.

'I cried all the way back': sexual harassment on public transport Read more

“I tell them about the things that women do to keep safe – whether that’s carrying keys between your knuckles, changing from heels to trainers, or walking in the middle of the road so you can’t be dragged off – which encourages them to think about the world that women live in when men are not around. I explain the fear that women report when they are shouted at in the street, and how they are always thinking about the worst-case scenario of serious sexual assault.”



Crucially, the Nottinghamshire scheme will allow police to chart the scale of the problem for the first time: in the first month since they began recording in early May, they received 21 reports of misogynistic hate crime, which included verbal abuse, threats of violence, assault and unwanted physical contact.

It is hoped that there will be growing awareness of the ability of victims to report such behaviour. While thousands of anecdotal reports have been collated by organisations such as Hollaback and Laura Bates’s Everyday Sexism site, a recent study supports what younger women have been saying for a number of years: that harassment of women in public is at epidemic levels.

Believed to be the first study to look specifically at this issue, the results of a YouGov survey for the End Violence Against Women Coalition were released on 8 March, International Women’s Day. It found 64% of women of all ages have experienced unwanted sexual harassment in public places, while 35% have experienced unwanted sexual touching. For women aged 18-24 the percentages increased significantly to 85% and 45% respectively.

The Guardian was unable to gather UK-wide data on reports of street harassment, partly because there is no uniform way of logging or responding to these incidents. But one thing is clear: where the police do concentrate their energies, reporting figures leap up.

In 2013, British Transport police introduced a dedicated text service to encourage people to quickly and discretely report any form of behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable – that could be rubbing, leering, sexual comments, indecent acts or more serious sexual assault. This was followed up in 2015 with the Report it to stop it campaign.

BTP have since seen a dramatic increase in reporting, increasing force-wide by 40% from 2014-15 to 2015-16, after the campaign had been launched. The spike was particularly visible in London, which the BTP had previously targeted with the Project Guardian campaign, with reporting increasing from 567 a year to 894, a rise of 58%.

BTP are keen to stress that, even if women do not want to give further information, reporting an incident helps to build intelligence. “The whole point is to change the culture of reporting,” said a spokesperson. And, because all BTP officers have received training for these campaigns, victims’ experience of reporting has also changed.

“I cannot praise the British Transport police enough,” said Aileen MacKay, who was harassed and physically grabbed late at night on the Glasgow subway by a man who then followed her out of the station demanding her address. “I would encourage anyone else unfortunate enough to be a victim of misogynistic harassment to get in touch with them. They will take you seriously, act thoroughly and offer you victim support.”

'I cried all the way back': sexual harassment on public transport Read more

But other women who shared their experiences of reporting street harassment with GuardianWitness revealed far less constructive responses from the authorities. One Londoner described how a 999 call handler insisted that she return to the road where a man had followed her, threatening to rape and murder her, to confirm the spelling of the street name.

Another respondent from the east Midlands, after reporting that a man had followed her from a train station when she was eight and a half months pregnant, then grabbed and squeezed her bottom “so aggressively that I could feel his fingers dig in between my buttocks”, was asked by an officer: “Are you sure he didn’t do it by accident?” A student who managed to run away from a man who had grabbed her and told her “I’m going to rape you” was advised by police to get a taxi in future when returning home late at night.

For DCI Alwyn Bell, head of the Edinburgh public protection unit, the benefits of being victim-led are self-evident. Two years ago, Bell set up a dedicated team of six officers in the Scottish capital to deal with high-volume, lower-level offences such as voyeurism, indecent exposure and communications, and minor sexual assaults. They deal with about 1,000 offences a year and undertake outreach work with the local media and victims’ charities “to allay fears that we won’t take women seriously”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Initiatives have tried to address problems faced by women taking transport alone at night. Photograph: Alamy

As with England and Wales, there is no legislative hate crime provision for misogyny in Scotland, so the basic laws and powers of the courts apply in these cases. Lewd remarks on the street or groping in a bar will usually fall under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.

They reinforced my sense that the streets are not my domain. I can walk on them​,​ but it’s at the discretion of men

For those who would argue that pursuing these crimes distracts from more serious offences, Bell emphasised – as the BTP do – the operational importance of information gathering, especially where offending escalates. “The beauty of a specialised team is that you can see patterns developing,” Bell said. For example, after a recent appeal for witnesses to a man allegedly making lewd remarks towards a woman on the street in Edinburgh, the individual was eventually charged with two other counts of indecent exposure.

Bell said: “Regardless of independent corroboration, we will still bring the person to the station if they are identified, take their photograph and fingerprints. They can make no comment and we may not be able to pursue it further at that time, but they are on our radar and we can check if they are a potential suspect in other cases, or they may come up again. The bigger picture is that if you’re making a comment like that, what does that lead to? And if you get away with that, what else do you think you can get away with?”

Research reveals huge scale of social media misogyny Read more

Since the Nottinghamshire force launched their misogyny hate crime initiative, a number of other forces have expressed initial interest in the pilot. In Scotland, although gender was left out as an aggravating factor in previous legislation, campaigners believe the rise of online misogyny and greater sensitivity both to street harassment and sexism in schools means the scene has shifted significantly since then. The Scottish government’s independent advisory group on hate crime, prejudice and community cohesion is expected to report next month.

Another woman reported that two men who shouted sexual abuse at her from their van as she was walking to work in the morning, then revved the engine and drove towards her at speed. She said the officer behind the police station desk had smirked at her account, laughed with a colleague and failed to write down the registration she had noted.

She described succinctly the effect of her experience: “I don’t suppose all police officers would handle my report this badly, but the fact they might do makes me unwilling to report similar. They reinforced my sense that the streets are not my domain. I can walk on them but it’s at the discretion of men. And there’s a lot of hatred out there.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/28/jewish-graves-desecrated-belfast-cemetery,"Up to eight youths attacked graves with hammers, according to Northern Ireland assembly member

Seventeen Jewish graves have been destroyed and vandalised in what appears to have been an organised attack inside a Belfast cemetery.

Up to eight youths, some using hammers, attacked the graves in west Belfast on Friday evening, according to a member of the Northern Ireland assembly.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has confirmed it is investigating the incident as a hate crime. The graves, some of which date back to the 1870s, are in a walled-off section of Belfast city cemetery between the Whiterock and Falls roads.

Ch Insp Norman Haslett of the PSNI said the attack was “a particularly sickening incident, which we are treating as a hate crime”. He added: “To disturb the sanctity of a cemetery in this way is completely unacceptable and I can assure the public that we will conduct a robust investigation.”

Democratic Unionist assembly member William Humphrey said he has learned from Belfast city council staff that eight youths were involved and that they used hammers and blocks during the attack. Humphrey said a larger crowd had gone into the cemetery to support the eight youths carrying out the vandalism. “A graveyard is a sacred place and should be respected as such,” he said.

Paul Maskey, Sinn Féin’s West Belfast MP, also condemned those responsible for the vandalism. “Visiting cemeteries can bring great comfort to grieving relatives and friends and it would be very distressing for anyone to have the grave of a loved one desecrated in this way,” Maskey said.

The Alliance party Belfast councillor Michael Long said he believed the vandalism was a targeted attack.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/23/oklahoma-tulsa-hate-crime-stanley-majors-khalid-jabara,"Stanley Majors, who was also charged with first-degree murder, had used racial slurs and violence against Khalid Jabara’s family in feud that lasted years

Prosecutors charged a Tulsa man on Tuesday with first-degree murder and committing a hate crime in the killing of his Lebanese neighbor – a culmination of what authorities said was the man’s violent feud with the family that spanned several years and included a regular barrage of racial insults and personal confrontations.

Stanley Majors, 61, was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and threatening a violent act in the 12 August fatal shooting of 37-year-old Khalid Jabara. The hate crime charge is a misdemeanor under Oklahoma law and accuses Majors of intimidating and harassing Jabara and his mother, Haifa Jabara, “because of race, color, religion, ancestry and national origin”, according to court papers filed on Tuesday by prosecutors.

Majors is scheduled for arraignment in district court on Wednesday.

Majors spent years in conflict with the Jabara family, often hurling epithets such as “filthy Lebanese”, “dirty Arabs” and “Moo-slems” at his nextdoor neighbors, authorities said. The Jabaras are actually Christian.

Lebanese immigrants have long been a visible part of the Oklahoma population, with many making their living as merchants, restaurateurs and grocers.

The alleged abuse between the neighbors escalated to the point where Haifa Jabara obtained a protective order in 2013 that required Majors to stay 300 yards away and prohibited him from possessing any firearms until 2018. Majors also had a 2009 felony conviction from California for threatening a crime with intent to terrorize.

But last year, Majors was accused of plowing his car into Haifa Jabara. She suffered a broken shoulder, among other injuries. After Majors struck her, he kept driving, prosecutors said. Officers who stopped him later reported that he was intoxicated. Prosecutors charged Majors last September with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, leaving the scene of a collision violating the protective order and public intoxication.

Majors’ conflict with the Jabara family also put him at odds with his husband, Stephen Schmauss, who came to befriend Khalid and thought of him as an apprentice, teaching him how to use power tools and computer circuitry. Last week, Schmauss said his husband had killed his “best friend”.

Khalid Jabara’s slaying drew national attention, including a mention from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said her “heart breaks” for Jabara’s loved ones.

Schmauss tried to explain Majors’ comments, saying his husband is “textbook bipolar” and a diabetic who refuses to take any medication. Schmauss said anything Majors said to the Jabara family was “done under the bipolar situation”.

While awaiting trial for assault and battery, a judge freed Majors from jail on $60,000 bond, overruling strong objections by Tulsa County prosecutors, who called him “a substantial risk to the public” and pleaded with the court to set a higher bond of $300,000.

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/14/online-hate-crime-hub-metropolitan-police-internet-trolls,"Scotland Yard is to set up a £1.7m “troll-hunting” unit to target online hate crime, it has emerged.

The Online Hate Crime Hub, which will receive £450,000 from the Home Office, aims to support victims and receive technology training to identify offenders.



The London mayor’s office for policing and crime (Mopac) said a consultation on crime reduction had identified the increasing role online hate played in targeting individuals and communities. The consultation found social media provided hate-crime perpetrators with a veil of anonymity, making it harder to bring them to justice and potentially affecting a larger number of people.

“The Metropolitan police service is committed to working with our partners, including the mayor, to tackle all types of hate crime including offences committed online,” a spokesman for the Met said. “By establishing this unit, we are sending a strong message to those who use online forums to spread hate that their actions will not be tolerated. The Metropolitan police service continues to have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of hate crime. The Met encourages all victims of hate crime to report any incident to the police and will make every effort to hold offenders to account and bring them to justice.”

Mopac also found the police response to online hate crime was inconsistent, primarily because police officers were not equipped to tackle it.

The team, including one detective inspector, one detective sergeant, and three detective constables, will identify the location of crimes and allocate them to the appropriate force. They will also aim to develop links with volunteers who will report both criminal and non-criminal online hate incidents.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/07/flatmates-of-gay-syrian-refugee-beheaded-in-turkey-fear-they-will-be-next,"Three friends of Wisam Sankari, who was killed in a homophobic attack in Istanbul last week, say they have received death threats

Three flatmates of a gay Syrian refugee beheaded in a homophobic attack in Turkey last week fear they face a similar fate, after receiving death threats in the days since his murder.

Wisam Sankari, a hospital cleaner, went missing on 25 July after going to meet another gay man in Istanbul. His body was found two days later in a nearby area of Istanbul, his head severed and his battered body only identifiable to his friends by his clothing.

A week on, three of his flatmates say they fear being murdered in the same fashion after receiving warnings that the man Sankari met on 25 July wants to kill them too.

“There have been people in the street and people on the phone, who said: ‘He will get you next,’” said one of Sankari’s friends, a chef who, like his flatmates, asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “There was also a voice message on Facebook.”

In an interview with the Guardian in Sankari’s former room, a cramped lodging he shared with five other people, his friends said he had been in fear during the last months of his life after Turkish officials, UN diplomats and charity workers had proved unable to protect him following a series of homophobic attacks.

A Greek appeals board said in June that it considers Turkey safe enough for gay Syrians to be deported to as part of the controversial EU-Turkey migration deal. But Sankari’s friends say his experiences show how dangerous the country is for gay refugees, and unstable for refugees in general.

They alleged that in the months before his death, Sankari had:

Been kidnapped and raped in two separate homophobic attacks.



Been mocked and ignored by police officers after he reported one of the incidents.



Eventually initiated legal proceedings against his unknown kidnappers after a local NGO helped him find a lawyer.



Recorded a video in which he expressed fears that he might soon be killed in a homophobic attack.



Briefly moved to another Turkish city in an unsuccessful attempt to find a safer place to live.



Been fired from a factory job because of his sexuality.



“Do you call this safe?” summarised a second of Sankari’s flatmates, as they listened to their friend’s favourite song and watched a video made in his honour. “We don’t have an organisation to protect us. We want everyone in Europe to understand our situation here for Syrians, especially gays. We’re suffering.”

This was the third brutal attack Sankari had experienced, the flatmate continued. “Five months ago, he was attacked and his head was cut,” he said. “He went to the police, but they didn’t help him. [Another time] he was put in a car and he had to throw himself from it [to survive].” Then at 12.20am on 25 July, he got a call from a Syrian who had recently arrived in Istanbul. “He went to see him, and he never came back. Two days later we heard he was dead.”

Sankari’s murder was one of at least 20 homophobic attacks on Syrian refugees in the past six months, according to an activist who is documenting such incidents. “Turkey is not a safe place, it’s not a gay-friendly place,” said Hossam, a Syrian who organises a weekly support session for gay refugees in Istanbul, and who asked to be identified only by his first name. “And with the political situation in the country, it’s not getting better.”

More generally, Sankari’s friends said many of his other experiences showed how vulnerable life is for refugees of any sexuality in Turkey.

Despite recent legislative changes, the vast majority of the 2.7 million Syrians in Turkey have no realistic chance of accessing the legal labour market, forcing them to work illegally in exploitative conditions that contravene the UN refugee convention.

Sankari was one such case. His latest employers paid him about half the Turkish minimum wage (600 Turkish lira, or £150) for a hospital cleaning job that saw him work seven days a week. If he complained, he risked being fired; during previous employment as a waiter at a cafe, he was sacked for asking for time off to recover from illness.

'We feared the worst': Turkey's failed coup a relief for Syrian refugees Read more

“We’re working as animals,” said one of Sankari’s friends, a literature graduate who was a teacher in Syria but now works as a waiter in Turkey. “No one is working at what they studied for. We work here 12-13 hours a day. We don’t have a weekend. The Turks want us to work and work and work – without money or rights.”

Sankari’s battles with Turkish bureaucracy also highlight the basic logistical challenges Syrians face on a daily basis in Turkey. Sankari struggled to access support from aid groups and officials in Istanbul because he had first registered with the Turkish government in Hatay, a city near the country’s southern borders.

To apply for resettlement in the west, or to secure even basic support from government-affiliated NGOs, Sankari needed to return to Hatay. But he was scared to do so because of threats he had faced while briefly living there, said Hossam, who had met Sankari at his weekly drop-in session.

“He was desperately seeking help but he couldn’t reach anyone,” said Hossam.

It is a depressingly familiar situation, the activist added. “During my time with the group, I’ve witnessed a lot of serious threats, a lot of hate crimes, people who have experienced incidents that didn’t necessarily end their life, but [involved] beatings, rape and abuse,” said Hossam. “And those people couldn’t reach places where they felt safe and secure. They had to deal with this on their own.”

A senior government official said: “We are unable to independently verify the claim that the victim’s plea for assistance was ignored by law enforcement. Obviously, this barbaric attack doesn’t reflect the way Syrian refugees are treated in Turkey, which is the largest host of refugees in the world. We are investigating this incident and will take all necessary steps to bring perpetrators to justice.”

In a statement, the UN refugee agency said it was working to resettle LGBTI refugees currently living in Turkey, and expressed sadness about Sankari’s death. A spokesperson added: “We are very sorry and we would like to express our shock and sadness at this appalling crime. We are looking forward to seeing that investigation of the case by the officials concluded asap and perpetrators are brought to justice.

“Syrian refugees in Turkey are given temporary protection by the government of Turkey, which is primarily responsible for their protection in the country. UNHCR does not register or document Syrian refugees in Turkey.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/23/oklahoma-tulsa-hate-crime-stanley-majors-khalid-jabara,"Stanley Majors, who was also charged with first-degree murder, had used racial slurs and violence against Khalid Jabara’s family in feud that lasted years

Prosecutors charged a Tulsa man on Tuesday with first-degree murder and committing a hate crime in the killing of his Lebanese neighbor – a culmination of what authorities said was the man’s violent feud with the family that spanned several years and included a regular barrage of racial insults and personal confrontations.

Stanley Majors, 61, was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and threatening a violent act in the 12 August fatal shooting of 37-year-old Khalid Jabara. The hate crime charge is a misdemeanor under Oklahoma law and accuses Majors of intimidating and harassing Jabara and his mother, Haifa Jabara, “because of race, color, religion, ancestry and national origin”, according to court papers filed on Tuesday by prosecutors.

Majors is scheduled for arraignment in district court on Wednesday.

Majors spent years in conflict with the Jabara family, often hurling epithets such as “filthy Lebanese”, “dirty Arabs” and “Moo-slems” at his nextdoor neighbors, authorities said. The Jabaras are actually Christian.

Lebanese immigrants have long been a visible part of the Oklahoma population, with many making their living as merchants, restaurateurs and grocers.

The alleged abuse between the neighbors escalated to the point where Haifa Jabara obtained a protective order in 2013 that required Majors to stay 300 yards away and prohibited him from possessing any firearms until 2018. Majors also had a 2009 felony conviction from California for threatening a crime with intent to terrorize.

But last year, Majors was accused of plowing his car into Haifa Jabara. She suffered a broken shoulder, among other injuries. After Majors struck her, he kept driving, prosecutors said. Officers who stopped him later reported that he was intoxicated. Prosecutors charged Majors last September with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, leaving the scene of a collision violating the protective order and public intoxication.

Majors’ conflict with the Jabara family also put him at odds with his husband, Stephen Schmauss, who came to befriend Khalid and thought of him as an apprentice, teaching him how to use power tools and computer circuitry. Last week, Schmauss said his husband had killed his “best friend”.

Khalid Jabara’s slaying drew national attention, including a mention from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said her “heart breaks” for Jabara’s loved ones.

Schmauss tried to explain Majors’ comments, saying his husband is “textbook bipolar” and a diabetic who refuses to take any medication. Schmauss said anything Majors said to the Jabara family was “done under the bipolar situation”.

While awaiting trial for assault and battery, a judge freed Majors from jail on $60,000 bond, overruling strong objections by Tulsa County prosecutors, who called him “a substantial risk to the public” and pleaded with the court to set a higher bond of $300,000.

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/14/online-hate-crime-hub-metropolitan-police-internet-trolls,"Scotland Yard is to set up a £1.7m “troll-hunting” unit to target online hate crime, it has emerged.

The Online Hate Crime Hub, which will receive £450,000 from the Home Office, aims to support victims and receive technology training to identify offenders.



The London mayor’s office for policing and crime (Mopac) said a consultation on crime reduction had identified the increasing role online hate played in targeting individuals and communities. The consultation found social media provided hate-crime perpetrators with a veil of anonymity, making it harder to bring them to justice and potentially affecting a larger number of people.

“The Metropolitan police service is committed to working with our partners, including the mayor, to tackle all types of hate crime including offences committed online,” a spokesman for the Met said. “By establishing this unit, we are sending a strong message to those who use online forums to spread hate that their actions will not be tolerated. The Metropolitan police service continues to have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of hate crime. The Met encourages all victims of hate crime to report any incident to the police and will make every effort to hold offenders to account and bring them to justice.”

Mopac also found the police response to online hate crime was inconsistent, primarily because police officers were not equipped to tackle it.

The team, including one detective inspector, one detective sergeant, and three detective constables, will identify the location of crimes and allocate them to the appropriate force. They will also aim to develop links with volunteers who will report both criminal and non-criminal online hate incidents.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/07/flatmates-of-gay-syrian-refugee-beheaded-in-turkey-fear-they-will-be-next,"Three friends of Wisam Sankari, who was killed in a homophobic attack in Istanbul last week, say they have received death threats

Three flatmates of a gay Syrian refugee beheaded in a homophobic attack in Turkey last week fear they face a similar fate, after receiving death threats in the days since his murder.

Wisam Sankari, a hospital cleaner, went missing on 25 July after going to meet another gay man in Istanbul. His body was found two days later in a nearby area of Istanbul, his head severed and his battered body only identifiable to his friends by his clothing.

A week on, three of his flatmates say they fear being murdered in the same fashion after receiving warnings that the man Sankari met on 25 July wants to kill them too.

“There have been people in the street and people on the phone, who said: ‘He will get you next,’” said one of Sankari’s friends, a chef who, like his flatmates, asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “There was also a voice message on Facebook.”

In an interview with the Guardian in Sankari’s former room, a cramped lodging he shared with five other people, his friends said he had been in fear during the last months of his life after Turkish officials, UN diplomats and charity workers had proved unable to protect him following a series of homophobic attacks.

A Greek appeals board said in June that it considers Turkey safe enough for gay Syrians to be deported to as part of the controversial EU-Turkey migration deal. But Sankari’s friends say his experiences show how dangerous the country is for gay refugees, and unstable for refugees in general.

They alleged that in the months before his death, Sankari had:

Been kidnapped and raped in two separate homophobic attacks.



Been mocked and ignored by police officers after he reported one of the incidents.



Eventually initiated legal proceedings against his unknown kidnappers after a local NGO helped him find a lawyer.



Recorded a video in which he expressed fears that he might soon be killed in a homophobic attack.



Briefly moved to another Turkish city in an unsuccessful attempt to find a safer place to live.



Been fired from a factory job because of his sexuality.



“Do you call this safe?” summarised a second of Sankari’s flatmates, as they listened to their friend’s favourite song and watched a video made in his honour. “We don’t have an organisation to protect us. We want everyone in Europe to understand our situation here for Syrians, especially gays. We’re suffering.”

This was the third brutal attack Sankari had experienced, the flatmate continued. “Five months ago, he was attacked and his head was cut,” he said. “He went to the police, but they didn’t help him. [Another time] he was put in a car and he had to throw himself from it [to survive].” Then at 12.20am on 25 July, he got a call from a Syrian who had recently arrived in Istanbul. “He went to see him, and he never came back. Two days later we heard he was dead.”

Sankari’s murder was one of at least 20 homophobic attacks on Syrian refugees in the past six months, according to an activist who is documenting such incidents. “Turkey is not a safe place, it’s not a gay-friendly place,” said Hossam, a Syrian who organises a weekly support session for gay refugees in Istanbul, and who asked to be identified only by his first name. “And with the political situation in the country, it’s not getting better.”

More generally, Sankari’s friends said many of his other experiences showed how vulnerable life is for refugees of any sexuality in Turkey.

Despite recent legislative changes, the vast majority of the 2.7 million Syrians in Turkey have no realistic chance of accessing the legal labour market, forcing them to work illegally in exploitative conditions that contravene the UN refugee convention.

Sankari was one such case. His latest employers paid him about half the Turkish minimum wage (600 Turkish lira, or £150) for a hospital cleaning job that saw him work seven days a week. If he complained, he risked being fired; during previous employment as a waiter at a cafe, he was sacked for asking for time off to recover from illness.

'We feared the worst': Turkey's failed coup a relief for Syrian refugees Read more

“We’re working as animals,” said one of Sankari’s friends, a literature graduate who was a teacher in Syria but now works as a waiter in Turkey. “No one is working at what they studied for. We work here 12-13 hours a day. We don’t have a weekend. The Turks want us to work and work and work – without money or rights.”

Sankari’s battles with Turkish bureaucracy also highlight the basic logistical challenges Syrians face on a daily basis in Turkey. Sankari struggled to access support from aid groups and officials in Istanbul because he had first registered with the Turkish government in Hatay, a city near the country’s southern borders.

To apply for resettlement in the west, or to secure even basic support from government-affiliated NGOs, Sankari needed to return to Hatay. But he was scared to do so because of threats he had faced while briefly living there, said Hossam, who had met Sankari at his weekly drop-in session.

“He was desperately seeking help but he couldn’t reach anyone,” said Hossam.

It is a depressingly familiar situation, the activist added. “During my time with the group, I’ve witnessed a lot of serious threats, a lot of hate crimes, people who have experienced incidents that didn’t necessarily end their life, but [involved] beatings, rape and abuse,” said Hossam. “And those people couldn’t reach places where they felt safe and secure. They had to deal with this on their own.”

A senior government official said: “We are unable to independently verify the claim that the victim’s plea for assistance was ignored by law enforcement. Obviously, this barbaric attack doesn’t reflect the way Syrian refugees are treated in Turkey, which is the largest host of refugees in the world. We are investigating this incident and will take all necessary steps to bring perpetrators to justice.”

In a statement, the UN refugee agency said it was working to resettle LGBTI refugees currently living in Turkey, and expressed sadness about Sankari’s death. A spokesperson added: “We are very sorry and we would like to express our shock and sadness at this appalling crime. We are looking forward to seeing that investigation of the case by the officials concluded asap and perpetrators are brought to justice.

“Syrian refugees in Turkey are given temporary protection by the government of Turkey, which is primarily responsible for their protection in the country. UNHCR does not register or document Syrian refugees in Turkey.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/29/tell-mama-met-police-care-anti-muslim-abuse,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/disabled-lives-law-hate-crime,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/26/hate-crime-fighting-group-tell-mama-says-met-failing-to-protect-it,"Helpline for victims of Islamophobia says it has suffered campaign of abuse but police say it is low risk

Police have been accused of failing to protect a hate crime-fighting group that was championed by Jo Cox, the MP who was shot and stabbed to death in June.

Tell MAMA, which helps victims of Islamophobia, says it has suffered a campaign of abuse that has peaked in the last eight days, with a barrage of hate messages blocking its victim helpline.

The group says it has repeatedly asked the Metropolitan police for help and was amazed to be told it was considered to be at low risk of harm. It says the campaign of harassment from people spouting racist abuse has paralysed the organisation.

It claims that while police have listened to recordings of the hate messages they have not secured them as evidence.

On Tuesday the government announced new measures to tackle hate crimes, including a review of how police handle them.

Police in England and Wales say hate crime went through the biggest-ever recorded increase during and after the EU referendum campaign.

Tell MAMA says abuse spiked eight days ago and that there has been a concerted campaign of abuse on its helpline, with hate calls coming in quick succession.

Fiyaz Mughal, founder and director of Tell MAMA, told the Guardian: “In the last eight days, we have had to disconnect our phone lines and have not been able to service victims of anti-Muslim hatred because of the incessant abusive calls we have received and which have intimidated my female staff. The harassment has been so bad that we have had to leave the phones offline.”

Mughal said the abuse included racist and misogynistic terms and anti-Muslim abuse.

Mughal added: “A national hate crime project under constant abuse and focus by anti-Muslim bigots and far-right extremists clearly fits into a project that has risks. We are in a complex and fast-changing environment where my team should not have to put up with a poor response from the Met and with assessments of risk that have no relevance to the actual risk.”

Mughal said harassment had been suffered for years and the Met’s response had been similarly poor, in his judgment. “For over four years, my colleagues and I have been maliciously targeted with threats, floods of malicious calls, viruses being sent to us, death threats and general anti-Muslim bigotry.

“We have approached the Met and spent tens of hours filling in paperwork with little or no action taken by them. The Met have not brought a single person to book for the targeting of us.”

The Met said: “We are currently investigating this allegation that has been reported in the last two weeks and are engaging with Tell MAMA about how we can assist them.”

Tell MAMA was supported by Cox, who was killed by a man whose case will be treated as terrorist as it is handled by the court system.

Mughal said: “After Jo Cox, we are very on edge. Does it take someone to be physically injured for the police to get their act together?”

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said a new package of measures to boost the fight against hate crime would involve Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary examining the police response.

Rudd said: “This government is determined to build a Britain that works for everyone. Those who practise hatred send out a message that it’s OK to abuse and attack others because of their nationality, ethnicity or religious background; that it’s OK to disregard our shared values and promote the intolerance that causes enormous harm to communities and individuals.”

Amid concern over the rise in hate crime since the vote for Brexit, one of Britain’s most senior judges, Lord Dyson, warned on Tuesday that tolerance in Britain was “being put under strain by xenophobia and forces of hate”.

Dyson, the master of the rolls, was speaking at a ceremony to mark his retirement. “I feel a great debt of gratitude to this country for allowing my forebears to settle here,” he said. Dyson’s mother came from Bulgaria and his father’s parents came from Lithuania.

“I fervently hope that the events of recent weeks have not put that tolerance at risk. I am fearful that it is being put under strain by xenophobia and forces of hate.”

He added: “I do have faith in the British people. I believe their tolerance will continue to shine.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/14/wolf-whistling-hate-crime-misogyny-nottinghamshire-police,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/13/nottinghamshire-police-count-wolf-whistling-hate-crime,"Force becomes first in the country to adopt a separate category for misogynistic incidents in attempt to tackle sexist abuse

Uninvited sexual advances and unwanted verbal contact with a woman, including catcalling or wolf-whistling in the street, are to be recorded as a hate crimes in a new effort to tackle sexist abuse.

Nottinghamshire police has expanded its categories of hate crime to include misogynistic incidents, characterised as behaviour targeted towards a victim simply because they are a woman.



This means incidents ranging from street harassment to unwanted physical approaches can be reported to and investigated by the police, and support put in place for victims.

The force is the first in the country to adopt the separate misogyny hate crime category, and has provided specific training to selected officers in the past three months.

Commenting on the new procedures, introduced in partnership with Nottingham Women’s Centre, Ch Con Sue Fish said: “I’m delighted that we are leading the way towards tackling misogyny in all its forms.

“It’s a very important aspect of the overall hate crime work being conducted and one that will make Nottinghamshire a safer place for all women. What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing.”

Work on the change began in June 2014 after a research project, which led on to a conference at which women gave examples of harassment they had faced.

Fish encouraged anyone affected by misogynistic hate crime to contact police without hesitation. “The work we are doing with Nottingham Women’s Centre is so valuable and I am looking forward to continuing that work,” she added.

Melanie Jeffs, the manager at the centre, said: “We’re pleased to see Nottinghamshire police recognise the breadth of violence and intimidation that women experience on a daily basis in our communities.



“Understanding this as a hate crime will help people to see the seriousness of these incidents and hopefully encourage more women to come forward and report offences.”

The Nottinghamshire force defines a hate crime as “any incident which may or may not be deemed as a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hatred”.

Domestic abuse is not included within the scope of misogyny hate crime as it is dealt with under its own procedures.



Misogyny hate crime is classed under the new policy as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”.

Examples of such incidents may include unwanted or uninvited sexual advances, physical or verbal assault, unwanted or uninvited physical or verbal contact or engagement, and use of mobile phones to send unwanted or uninvited messages or take photographs without consent.

Last year, a building firm was investigated by police after a 23-year-old woman, Poppy Smart, reported men wolf-whistling at her in the street.

While the matter was dropped when dropped Smart was satisfied it had been handled internally by the firm, it was believed to be the first time police had investigated wolf-whistling as a potential crime.

Rachel Krys, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “It is great that police in Nottingham will be capturing the way a lot of harassment in public spaces is targeted at women and girls. In a recent poll we found that 85% of women aged 18-24 have experienced unwanted sexual attention in public places and 45% have experienced unwanted sexual touching, which can amount to sexual assault.

“This level of harassment is having an enormous impact on women’s freedom to move about in the public space as it makes women feel a lot less safe. The women we spoke to do a lot of work to feel safer, including avoiding parts of the city they live in, taking taxis and leaving events in groups.”

Krys said recording such incidents would give police and policymakers a much clearer grasp on the levels of harassment women and girls are subjected to, and better understand measures which could reduce it.

“It should also challenge the idea that women and girls in public or online spaces are ‘fair game’,” she added. “We know that ignoring harassment and sexist bullying creates the impression that other types of violence against women will be tolerated so we welcome any action which counters this.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/jul/11/brexit-police-hate-crime-training-eu-referendum,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/11/police-blame-worst-rise-in-recorded-hate-on-eu-referendum,"Reported incidents increased by 42% in the week before and week after the UK’s vote to leave the EU on 23 June

Police believe the spike in hate crime following the EU referendum was the worst on record.



Mark Hamilton, head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said: “I believe the referendum debate has led to an increase in reporting of hate crime. It is very clear in the last couple of weeks that more people have been aware of experiencing such incidents than we have had before.”

Cameron condemns xenophobic and racist abuse after Brexit vote Read more

Reports to police increased by 42%, to more than 3,000 allegations of hate crime across Britain in the week before and the week after the 23 June vote. “It’s probably the worst spike,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton, who is also assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said an increased likelihood of reporting incidents, as well as an increase in incidents, accounted for the spike.

He said there was a direct link to the vote. “Some people took that as a licence to behave in a racist or other discriminatory way. We can not divorce the country’s reaction to the referendum and the increase in hate crime reporting.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Polish cultural centre in Hammersmith was the target of racist graffiti after the referendum result. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Offences were mainly harassment and threats of a racist nature, said Hamilton, directed against “visible minorities” as well as people from eastern Europea. He said the number of reports had fallen in recent days and was returning to what police were used to.

There were geographical variations in the spike. Increases were seen in the Metropolitan police area, covering London, home to the largest population of ethnic minorities. Avon and Somerset police, covering Bristol and the west country, and Greater Manchester police recorded higher numbers of reported hate crime, while in one force area the rate dropped marginally.

Police figures released on Friday showed a large rise in reported incidents, averaging more than 200 a day. Police said 3,076 hate crimes and incidents were reported to forces across the UK between 16 and 30 June; one week before and one week after the vote on 23 June.

The 42% rise in incidents being reported to police amounted to an increase of 915 reports compared with the same time last year. The real figures could be higher, with past studies suggesting just one in four hate crimes are reported to police. A total of 289 offences were recorded on 25 June, the first full day after the referendum result was announced.

Historically, police have struggled to convince communities affected by hate crime that they should take such offences seriously. Surveys show the vast majority of hate crime – 85% – is race related.

‘A frenzy of hatred’: how to understand Brexit racism Read more

Police believe just one in four incidents are reported to them. Thus 52,000 hate crimes were recorded by police last year but a national crime survey suggested 225,000 was the real figure.

Hamilton said something about the referendum had triggered the incidents.“I do not believe it suddenly emerged. Some people felt it gave licence to vent views or behaviour,” he said.

“The action of someone who carries out a hate crime is motivated by a desire to intimidate or frighten others. It is trying to exclude the other and having a supremacist view.”

Police have seen spikes in hate crimes following events such as Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which saw a rise in targeting of Jewish people in Britain, and the terrorist murder of Lee Rigby, which led to a rise in Islamophobic attacks.

The government says it is planning further measures to tackle hate crimes.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/05/how-london-has-a-friend-in-carole-king,"The tears shed by the crowd at Carole King’s Hyde Park concert were not just for the evocative lyrics of You’ve Got a Friend (Beautiful Tapestry performance finds a 50,000-strong backing choir, 5 July). At a time of great uncertainty, they were a cathartic reaffirmation of all that is good in life and an expression of defiance against those who wish to undermine our tolerant and freedom-loving society. The only downer was a ripoff £7 bratwurst. Thank you, Carole King, for lifting London’s spirits.

Stan Labovitch

Windsor

• Our five-year-old granddaughter came home from school with a letter from the Metropolitan police about hate crime, encouraging anyone who experienced it to report to them (‘Unity events’ held in London after post-Brexit spike in hate crime, 4 July, theguardian.com) Although it was reassuring, it was also sad and shocking that small children in a multi-ethnic primary school should have to bring such letters home.

Alicia Baker

London

• What a shame that in the current centenary commemorations of the Battle of the Somme (A new kind of war memorial: fleeting, human, haunting, Editorial, 4 July), there is so little – indeed any – recognition of the parts played by soldiers who came from the Indian subcontinent, including the 20th Deccan Horse regiment, which was comprised of Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.

Colin Hulley

Buxton, Derbyshire

• I have decided to resign. I do not currently have anything to resign from, but I can’t see why this should deter me. Why should only the elite have the opportunity? The noble cause of Brexit has finally made me dare to dream.

Robert Philip

Edinburgh

• I’ve just got back from a fortnight abroad with no TV or internet access. Have I missed anything important?

Geoff Watson

Bristol

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/13/nottinghamshire-police-count-wolf-whistling-hate-crime,"Force becomes first in the country to adopt a separate category for misogynistic incidents in attempt to tackle sexist abuse

Uninvited sexual advances and unwanted verbal contact with a woman, including catcalling or wolf-whistling in the street, are to be recorded as a hate crimes in a new effort to tackle sexist abuse.

Nottinghamshire police has expanded its categories of hate crime to include misogynistic incidents, characterised as behaviour targeted towards a victim simply because they are a woman.



This means incidents ranging from street harassment to unwanted physical approaches can be reported to and investigated by the police, and support put in place for victims.

The force is the first in the country to adopt the separate misogyny hate crime category, and has provided specific training to selected officers in the past three months.

Commenting on the new procedures, introduced in partnership with Nottingham Women’s Centre, Ch Con Sue Fish said: “I’m delighted that we are leading the way towards tackling misogyny in all its forms.

“It’s a very important aspect of the overall hate crime work being conducted and one that will make Nottinghamshire a safer place for all women. What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing.”

Work on the change began in June 2014 after a research project, which led on to a conference at which women gave examples of harassment they had faced.

Fish encouraged anyone affected by misogynistic hate crime to contact police without hesitation. “The work we are doing with Nottingham Women’s Centre is so valuable and I am looking forward to continuing that work,” she added.

Melanie Jeffs, the manager at the centre, said: “We’re pleased to see Nottinghamshire police recognise the breadth of violence and intimidation that women experience on a daily basis in our communities.



“Understanding this as a hate crime will help people to see the seriousness of these incidents and hopefully encourage more women to come forward and report offences.”

The Nottinghamshire force defines a hate crime as “any incident which may or may not be deemed as a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hatred”.

Domestic abuse is not included within the scope of misogyny hate crime as it is dealt with under its own procedures.



Misogyny hate crime is classed under the new policy as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”.

Examples of such incidents may include unwanted or uninvited sexual advances, physical or verbal assault, unwanted or uninvited physical or verbal contact or engagement, and use of mobile phones to send unwanted or uninvited messages or take photographs without consent.

Last year, a building firm was investigated by police after a 23-year-old woman, Poppy Smart, reported men wolf-whistling at her in the street.

While the matter was dropped when dropped Smart was satisfied it had been handled internally by the firm, it was believed to be the first time police had investigated wolf-whistling as a potential crime.

Rachel Krys, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “It is great that police in Nottingham will be capturing the way a lot of harassment in public spaces is targeted at women and girls. In a recent poll we found that 85% of women aged 18-24 have experienced unwanted sexual attention in public places and 45% have experienced unwanted sexual touching, which can amount to sexual assault.

“This level of harassment is having an enormous impact on women’s freedom to move about in the public space as it makes women feel a lot less safe. The women we spoke to do a lot of work to feel safer, including avoiding parts of the city they live in, taking taxis and leaving events in groups.”

Krys said recording such incidents would give police and policymakers a much clearer grasp on the levels of harassment women and girls are subjected to, and better understand measures which could reduce it.

“It should also challenge the idea that women and girls in public or online spaces are ‘fair game’,” she added. “We know that ignoring harassment and sexist bullying creates the impression that other types of violence against women will be tolerated so we welcome any action which counters this.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/jul/11/brexit-police-hate-crime-training-eu-referendum,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/11/police-blame-worst-rise-in-recorded-hate-on-eu-referendum,"Reported incidents increased by 42% in the week before and week after the UK’s vote to leave the EU on 23 June

Police believe the spike in hate crime following the EU referendum was the worst on record.



Mark Hamilton, head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said: “I believe the referendum debate has led to an increase in reporting of hate crime. It is very clear in the last couple of weeks that more people have been aware of experiencing such incidents than we have had before.”

Cameron condemns xenophobic and racist abuse after Brexit vote Read more

Reports to police increased by 42%, to more than 3,000 allegations of hate crime across Britain in the week before and the week after the 23 June vote. “It’s probably the worst spike,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton, who is also assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said an increased likelihood of reporting incidents, as well as an increase in incidents, accounted for the spike.

He said there was a direct link to the vote. “Some people took that as a licence to behave in a racist or other discriminatory way. We can not divorce the country’s reaction to the referendum and the increase in hate crime reporting.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Polish cultural centre in Hammersmith was the target of racist graffiti after the referendum result. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Offences were mainly harassment and threats of a racist nature, said Hamilton, directed against “visible minorities” as well as people from eastern Europea. He said the number of reports had fallen in recent days and was returning to what police were used to.

There were geographical variations in the spike. Increases were seen in the Metropolitan police area, covering London, home to the largest population of ethnic minorities. Avon and Somerset police, covering Bristol and the west country, and Greater Manchester police recorded higher numbers of reported hate crime, while in one force area the rate dropped marginally.

Police figures released on Friday showed a large rise in reported incidents, averaging more than 200 a day. Police said 3,076 hate crimes and incidents were reported to forces across the UK between 16 and 30 June; one week before and one week after the vote on 23 June.

The 42% rise in incidents being reported to police amounted to an increase of 915 reports compared with the same time last year. The real figures could be higher, with past studies suggesting just one in four hate crimes are reported to police. A total of 289 offences were recorded on 25 June, the first full day after the referendum result was announced.

Historically, police have struggled to convince communities affected by hate crime that they should take such offences seriously. Surveys show the vast majority of hate crime – 85% – is race related.

‘A frenzy of hatred’: how to understand Brexit racism Read more

Police believe just one in four incidents are reported to them. Thus 52,000 hate crimes were recorded by police last year but a national crime survey suggested 225,000 was the real figure.

Hamilton said something about the referendum had triggered the incidents.“I do not believe it suddenly emerged. Some people felt it gave licence to vent views or behaviour,” he said.

“The action of someone who carries out a hate crime is motivated by a desire to intimidate or frighten others. It is trying to exclude the other and having a supremacist view.”

Police have seen spikes in hate crimes following events such as Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which saw a rise in targeting of Jewish people in Britain, and the terrorist murder of Lee Rigby, which led to a rise in Islamophobic attacks.

The government says it is planning further measures to tackle hate crimes.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/05/how-london-has-a-friend-in-carole-king,"The tears shed by the crowd at Carole King’s Hyde Park concert were not just for the evocative lyrics of You’ve Got a Friend (Beautiful Tapestry performance finds a 50,000-strong backing choir, 5 July). At a time of great uncertainty, they were a cathartic reaffirmation of all that is good in life and an expression of defiance against those who wish to undermine our tolerant and freedom-loving society. The only downer was a ripoff £7 bratwurst. Thank you, Carole King, for lifting London’s spirits.

Stan Labovitch

Windsor

• Our five-year-old granddaughter came home from school with a letter from the Metropolitan police about hate crime, encouraging anyone who experienced it to report to them (‘Unity events’ held in London after post-Brexit spike in hate crime, 4 July, theguardian.com) Although it was reassuring, it was also sad and shocking that small children in a multi-ethnic primary school should have to bring such letters home.

Alicia Baker

London

• What a shame that in the current centenary commemorations of the Battle of the Somme (A new kind of war memorial: fleeting, human, haunting, Editorial, 4 July), there is so little – indeed any – recognition of the parts played by soldiers who came from the Indian subcontinent, including the 20th Deccan Horse regiment, which was comprised of Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.

Colin Hulley

Buxton, Derbyshire

• I have decided to resign. I do not currently have anything to resign from, but I can’t see why this should deter me. Why should only the elite have the opportunity? The noble cause of Brexit has finally made me dare to dream.

Robert Philip

Edinburgh

• I’ve just got back from a fortnight abroad with no TV or internet access. Have I missed anything important?

Geoff Watson

Bristol

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/02/anti-racist-groups-brexit-hate-crime,"A nationwide strategy to calm community tensions and challenge the post-referendum surge in racism will be launched on Monday amid fears that an emboldened far right could provoke rising racial conflict in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate will unveil an initiative involving more than 100 unity meetings in identified racist “hotspot” communities, the start of a summer-long campaign to tackle intolerance that has seen reported hate crimes soar during the past week.

The #moreincommon initiative – partly funded by the Jo Cox campaign, which has raised almost £1.5m from nearly 44,000 donations since the MP was murdered shortly before the referendum – coincides with evidence that rightwing extremists feel legitimised by the Vote Leave victory.

Figures released by senior police officers show that hate crime increased fivefold to 331 recorded incidents during the week after the referendum; officials suggest that the figure is vastly under-reported.

On Saturday, Tell Mama, which collates reports of anti-Muslim abuse, said it had identified a “cluster” of 66 incidents during the past week directly linked to Brexit. During an average week the organisation would expect to receive between 40 to 50 incidents of Islamophobia stemming from a broad range of triggers.

Nick Stevens, South Yorkshire organiser of Hope Not Hate, said the strategy is particularly needed in traditionally Labour-voting areas where the anti-immigrants message propagated by the Ukip leader Nigel Farage had gained traction.

“It’s about shifting the narrative away from the horrendously negative into one of solidarity and a celebration of Britain, turning the tide against some of the racism and xenophobia that’s going on,” said Stevens.

A separate scheme organised by the grassroots community alliance London Citizens will stage more than 30 unity events across the capital tomorrow, with volunteers gathering outside transport hubs to tell commuters how they can report hate crime.

One place targeted by Hope Not Hate’s campaign is Rotherham in South Yorkshire, a town repeatedly targeted by the far right, who have attempted to inflame tensions against the Muslim community after court cases exposed the extent of child-grooming rings. During the past 18 months there have been 15 far-right demonstrations in the town, including by the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL), the ultra-right nationalist group Britain First, the neo-Nazi National Front and a regional nationalist group called the North East Infidels. The anti-Muslim group Pegida UK is due to return at the end of next month led by the UK’s most high-profile far-right activist, the former EDL leader Tommy Robinson.

“These excursions come at great financial and social cost. In the days after far-right incursions in Rotherham we see kids fighting at school, people fighting in the street, horrible incidents,” said Stevens. Following the referendum he said that two organisations from Sheffield and one from Leeds had contacted him asking how they could best challenge the far right.

Latest analysis of the far right reveals that at least 25 extreme groups are active throughout the UK, with members often switching between organisations or creating splinter groups. Recently another group emerged when members of the National Front and the regional nationalist organisation the Northern Patriotic Front formed a new outfit called the Northern Nationalists.

Matthew Collins of Hope Not Hate said: “It’s a race war, the neo-Nazis want a race war, the EDL and Britain First see it as a religious conflict, but they all have these Armageddon philosophies, a sense of inevitability that some sort of judgment day is coming.”

He estimates a hardcore cohort of 500 far-right members are currently “active” in the UK, with up to 2,000 “involved” in the sense that they might turn up for meetings or marches.

Tell Mama, which revealed last week that incidents of anti-Muslim abuse rose by more than 300% in 2015, found that a much larger number of individuals linked to the far right are active online. Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell Mama, said that “tens of thousands” followed far-right groups on social media and he aired concerns that, in broad terms, rightwing views had hardened since the Brexit vote.

Of 364 cases of anti-Muslim abuse examined by the group, almost half – 165 – were found to have verifiable far-right support. Only in 62 cases could no links to the far right be found.

Campaigners fear that worse may follow the 23 June vote. “Brexit has left them feeling legitimised, their bigotry normalised, and their views have hardened towards immigration, multiculturalism and the Muslim community,” said Mughal.

Of 207 online perpetrators of anti-Muslim abuse, 63 followed Nigel Farage’s Twitter account, according to Tell Mama analysis. However, among extreme far-right groups Farage and Ukip are viewed with contempt, mainly because such groups believe that Farage has stolen and successfully popularised some of their views. “Ukip are seen as neocons who stole their respectability and their palatable policies,” said Collins.

The surge in racism prompted prime minister David Cameron to tell parliament on Wednesday that the government would be publishing a hate-crime action plan. Monitoring of the far right is undertaken by the National Counter Terrorism Policing Operations Centre, with daily assessments currently being made of the potential for the far right to “engage in violence or terrorist activity”.

Although the unit refuses to disclose how many individuals it is currently monitoring, the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit said it had 2,627 individuals on its database – including leftwing and animal-rights extremists – in a response to a Freedom of Information query two years ago.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/30/eu-referendum-fallout-britain-happiness-leave-voters-violence,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/30/racism-brexit-eu-referendum-video,"A vote for Brexit is not racist, argues the Guardian’s political editor, Anushka Asthana. But a small group with deeply racist views have hijacked the result of last week’s referendum, and are having a field day. Boris Johnson and others in the Leave camp have let a genie out of a bottle, and they must do whatever they can to put it back

WARNING: contains swearing

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/frenzy-hatred-brexit-racism-abuse-referendum-celebratory-lasting-damage,"Campaigners and victims are reporting a rise in racist abuse since the referendum. Has it always been there under the surface – and will this ‘celebratory racism’ cause lasting damage?

Brexit was a political earthquake, but its shocks were felt on our streets even before the polls closed. Lakshmi D’Souza felt the early fallout from the bitter battle over the EU referendum while pushing a pram through east London early on Thursday morning. D’Souza passed a woman who warned her to “be careful”. A man in the street was shouting racist abuse at a shopkeeper and passersby. As D’Souza walked past with her baby son, he looked at her and spat on the floor. D’Souza says that she fears the referendum has unleashed “a frenzy of hatred”.

“It takes a lot more than some idiot to bother me,” she says. “But the implication that this sort of behaviour will get worse because of a political decision … just blows my mind.”

After a campaign scarred by bigotry, it’s become OK to be racist in Britain | Aditya Chakrabortty Read more

True Vision, a police-funded hate-crime-reporting website, has seen a 57% increase in reporting between Thursday and Sunday, compared with the same period last month. This is not a definitive national figure – reports are also made directly to police stations and community groups – but Stop Hate UK, a reporting charity, has also seen an increase, while Tell Mama, an organisation tackling Islamophobia, which usually deals with 40-45 reports a month, received 33 within 48-72 hours.

In Great Yarmouth, Colin Goffin, who is vice-principal of an educational trust, was told about taunts and jeers being directed at eastern European workers by 10am on Friday morning – just hours after the results of the referendum had been announced. Goffin went to see a Kosovan-born friend, the manager of a car wash, to discuss the vote. In the Norfolk coastal town, 72% had voted to leave.

“I wanted him to know that I didn’t agree with the decision, or the way that the issue of immigration had been used in the campaign,” Goffin says. But when he arrived, the abuse against the multinational staff had already begun. “He told me people were slowing down to laugh at his staff, wave and mouth ‘goodbye’,” Goffin says. “They had clearly not wasted any time in deciding to be hateful.”

Unsurprisingly, European staff members were worried by the vote. “What was most shocking was that these guys are well liked and go out of their way to help people – up until then, they would have felt part of our community. Suddenly, people felt it was OK to suggest they should clear off ‘home’. I am angry and embarrassed by the way people from my home town acted.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Racist graffiti in Newington Green, London. Photograph: Emma Reynolds

Architect Toni (a Spanish citizen living in Brighton) had barely touched down in the UK after a weekend in Alicante when he came across a group of men causing a disturbance at passport control. “There were four of them,” he said. “One of them shouted: ‘Why are these bloody immigrants in the same queue as we are?’ His friends were laughing. They were saying it loudly so people would hear. It was very uncomfortable. I have been here four years and I have never experienced anything like this.”

Although another British passenger challenged the men, Toni said he was shaken by the incident. “I am questioning whether I should stay – will I be a second-class citizen now?”

Reports of xenophobia and racism have piled up in the media: the firebombing of a halal butchers in Walsall, graffiti on a Polish community centre in London and laminated cards reading: “No more Polish vermin” apparently posted through letterboxes in Huntingdon. Asked about the rise in hate crimes during PMQs on Wednesday, David Cameron said the government would be publishing a hate-crime action plan.

Racist cards sent in Huntingdon. Photograph: Huntingdon Living Facebook

Why this sudden explosion? Paul Bagguley, a sociologist based at the University of Leeds, points to the gleeful tone of the racism: “There is a kind of celebration going on; it’s a celebratory racism.” With immigration cited in polls as the second most common reason in voting for Brexit, “people are expressing a sense of power and success, that they have won,” he says.

“People haven’t changed. I would argue the country splits into two-thirds to three-quarters of people being tolerant and a quarter to a third being intolerant. And a section of that third have become emboldened. At other times, people are polite and rub along.”

Bagguley stresses that it wasn’t racist to vote leave, and that many people were voting about “political control”, yet the Brexit campaign’s relentless rhetoric about “controlling our borders” has led people who might previously have kept their intolerant views to themselves to feel legitimised. A spokesperson from campaign group Hope not Hate points out that, while not all Ukip voters are racists, it does “swallow up the ‘respectable racist’ vote that might have once gone to the BNP”. Bagguley agrees: “People have to be prepared to be more critical of them and the implicit racism that runs through much of what they say.”

Brexit has given voice to racism – and too many are complicit | Miqdaad Versi Read more

Simon Woolley, the director of Operation Black Vote, goes further. “The Brexiters, with their jingoistic rhetoric, have put the country on a war footing. By framing the debate as ‘we want our country back’, they have made immigrants the enemy and occupiers who need to be expelled.”

The turmoil that followed the vote – with sterling in freefall, and the leadership of Britain’s two main political parties in disarray – has also played a part, according to Bagguley. “At times of generalised social crises, people think they can get away with things in public that they would not normally do.” On Tuesday, video footage emerged that appeared to show a mixed-race man being racially abused on a Manchester tram. Police have made three arrests over the incident.

Corinne Abrahams, 24, witnessed a similar incident in London as she made her way home from the Glastonbury festival on Monday. As she sat on the tube at around 2pm, a man “began shouting things such as: ‘Russians are all scumbags’ and ‘Poles should all leave’”. Another passenger protested and the argument grew heated. Other travellers moved away, but Abrahams, who has Jewish heritage, says she could not stay silent. “My people have gone through all this before. I don’t want it to have to happen to others. I said: ‘You are an embarrassment to the country. No one else here agrees with what you’re saying.’ He replied: ‘I’m a real British man. This is my country.’ It was unprovoked and disgusting.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A National Front banner in Newcastle. Photograph: Emma Foster

Bagguley says that what makes the recent attacks unusual is who they are directed at. Central to the anti-EU discourse in the media over the past decade has been a sense of British people being fundamentally different from Europeans. As Scottish politics and identity moved in a new direction, this mutated into a white English nationalism “that has a resonance with racial ways of thinking”, he says.

“This has been the bedrock and basis for this xenophobia, directed at everybody who is a little different. It is unlike the backlash after terrorist attacks, which targeted Irish people in the 70s, or Muslims and those thought to be Muslims, more recently. It is a very generalised kind of racism oriented against any groups perceived not to be in that narrow category of white English identity.”

The hate crimes recently reported to Operation Black Vote seem to confirm this. “Two Muslim women in Bethnal Green, east London, had eggs thrown at them on the street,” says Woolley. “A black woman on a bus had a bunch of bananas placed on the chair next to her and was told to ‘fuck off back to your country’. It is not just women. An Italian man was punched to the ground for asking another man which way he voted in the referendum.”

Racist incidents feared to be linked to Brexit result Read more

Nor are attacks confined to areas that voted strongly to leave. A British Asian doctor in Urmston, Greater Manchester, tells me she was told to “go back to your own country” in a petrol forecourt at the weekend by a woman annoyed she had not driven away from the pump quickly enough. “You just don’t expect this in Manchester. I have never had that before,” she says.

In Edinburgh, Lauren Stonebanks, 36, was on a bus on Monday when she says a woman shouted: “‘Get your passport, you’re fucking going home.’” She believes she was targeted because she is mixed race. “As I got off the bus, the woman started making threatening gestures, like punching gestures. It made me feel absolutely terrified.”

In Cobham, Surrey, British-born Saima, 46, was shopping for her elderly mother when she, too, experienced her first brush with racism. “There was a man in his mid to late 30s ranting in the street about ‘making Britain great again’. I looked over and he pointed at me, saying: ‘People like you will be out of here soon.’ It reminds me of the 70s with the National Front, when I remember being scared for my family. I feel as if we have gone back in time.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Neo-Nazi stickers in Glasgow. Photograph: Eoin Palmer

Woolley is clear, as is Tell Mama, that hate crimes have never gone away. Tell Mama’s annual report, released on Wednesday, states that anti-Muslim hatred reported to them rose by a staggering 326% in 2015. Women, especially those who wear hijabs or niqabs, bear the brunt of this. Hope Not Hate points out that it has been arguing for some time that far-right extremism is not getting the attention it deserves. Yet the Brexit-inspired racism seems slightly different in that slurs are focused on ethnicity over religion. A report to Tell Mama included an incident of a man shouting: “Brexit, you Paki” at a taxi driver, before assaulting him.

Writer Nikesh Shukla was in Bristol on Tuesday when he witnessed an argument between a white man and a black man. As they separated, the white man shouted: “Well, it’s not your fucking country, is it?” On Friday, a tweet about the far right in the US resulted in him being told to “go back to brownland”. “The tool of the racist, more recently, has been to make you feel you have a chip on your shoulder. Now it is barefaced: ‘Go back to your country.’”

BBC journalist Sima Kotecha interviewed a leave voter in her home town of Basingstoke who used the word “Paki”. Afterwards, she tweeted: “Haven’t heard that word here since the 80s!” For many British Asians, it is a reminder of a darker period in British history. Anna Rahman, a psychiatrist, posted on Facebook: “The first time I heard the word ‘Paki’, I was five and people were pelting eggs and stones at our windows. My father told me no one had the right to make me feel I didn’t belong here, telling me: ‘You are as British as the Queen.’ It makes me want to sob that, in this climate, I may need to have this discussion with my own kids.”

Stop Hate UK’s Rose Simkin cautions that about 80-99% of hate crimes go unreported, making their prevalence hard to estimate. Woolley thinks this could be “because they want to cleanse themselves of the experience and forget that it happened”. Bagguley is confident that after a spike in incidents, things will calm down. Yet he also warns that if these attacks go unchallenged, the damage to our social fabric could be lasting, making attacks more frequent in the future. “It is the residue that is the problem. If people get away with [racist attacks], then the next time there is a reason to have a go, they will.”

Additional reporting by Imran Rahman-Jones. Some names have been changed.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/britons-urged-to-wear-safety-pins-in-solidarity-with-immigrants-safetypin,"#safetypin trends on Twitter after surge in reports of racist and xenophobic incidents after EU referendum

After reports of post-referendum hate crime, people have been encouraged to wear a safety pin to show solidarity with immigrants living in the UK.

According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, initial figures have shown a 57% rise in reported incidents. On Monday, the prime minister, David Cameron, condemned the “despicable” abuse.

Allison, who preferred not to give her last name, wanted to do something to show solidarity with immigrants living in the UK. As an American living in London, she had been unable to vote in the referendum, but was concerned about the increase in reports of abuse.

miss pommery 1926 (@cheeahs) So I have an idea similar to #ridewithme to help protect those eing abused as result of Brexit referendum - but I need your help.

miss pommery 1926 (@cheeahs) I'd like to come up with something that can be made by anybody anywhere to pin on their jacket or coat to signify that they are an ally.

miss pommery 1926 (@cheeahs) I quite like the idea of just putting a safety pin, empty of anything else, on your coat. A literal SAFETY pin!

“I kept seeing these reports about people being abused on buses and trains,” she told the Guardian.



“I was watching the Euros with my husband and I thought, how can we show people in public we are going to stand with them? We didn’t want to force people to go out and buy something so I said, what about a safety pin? Most people have one somewhere in the house.

“My husband said it’s like a pin of safety – he likes puns.”

Allison tweeted about it on Sunday, and by Tuesday, #safetypin was trending on Twitter as people posted pictures wearing the symbol.

Alexander Gates (@dr_alex_gates) Wearing #SafetyPin in solidarity with those from all over the world who make our NHS tick-intolerance to hate & fear pic.twitter.com/OEKSrcXknp

Emma Pass (@EmmaPass) Wearing a #safetypin to show solidarity with EU citizens and immigrants here in the UK. #youarewelcomehere pic.twitter.com/dQ0sukN9t5

Dancing Psychiatrist (@Lollindialogue) Ready to be your #SafetyPin on the bus,in streets,wherever you are,my fellow foreign-born friends ❤️#LoveOverFear pic.twitter.com/4wqzMCHs2N

Fuad Alakbarov (@DrAlakbarov) I'm also wearing #safetypin to show solidarity with immigrants and EU citizens. ☺ #HopeNotHate pic.twitter.com/6CSo1cqHFh

Similar hashtags have sprung up in solidarity with victims of hate crime in the past. For example, after attacks in Sydney raised fears there would be reprisals against members of the Muslim community, thousands of people tweeted #illridewithyou in solidarity.

miss pommery 1926 (@cheeahs) Day 1 of Initiative #safetypin - for EU nat'ls and for immigrants, this means I'm a safe person in an unsafe world. pic.twitter.com/WurV3QOIP8

Susan Elkin (@SusanElkinJourn) Ready for the day. #safetypin Everyone/anyone suffering racial abuse of violence, I'm on your side. pic.twitter.com/oIIwdkT3ll

Allison said it was important the pin and the hashtag were not treated as an empty gesture with no action behind it.

“If you put the pin on, to me you are pledging to stand up. It can’t just be an empty gesture. You are pledging to make a difference. You could record what’s happening, you could call the police, stop the bus driver.

“Even if you feel too frightened, you can go to the person afterwards and say: ‘I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do for you?’ Even if it’s just making them a cup of tea.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/29/police-failing-victims-disability-hate-crime-daniel-smith,"Daniel Smith, an autistic man, was charged with assault by police after an alleged attack on him. His is not an isolated case

It was clear something was very seriously wrong when Daniel Smith arrived at his father Owen’s house in the early hours of the morning on 18 October last year visibly bruised and shaken. Owen Smith had spent the previous few hours anxiously looking for his 25-year-old son, who has autism, after he failed to turn up to meet him as planned.

“I looked at his face and I thought ‘oh my God, what’s happened?,’” Smith recalls. At first he thought his son might have knocked himself out and been at a hospital. But it was much worse than he feared. Smith believes Daniel had been the victim of a brutal disability hate crime where he was repeatedly beaten and punched while trying to defend himself against two attackers, but it was his son who was then charged with assault and detained in a police station, alone and vulnerable for nine hours.

To combat disability hate crime, we must understand why people commit it | Katharine Quarmby Read more

In April, six “distressing” months after first being arrested, Daniel was finally acquitted of both assault charges at a court in Corby. It was accepted that he had acted in self-defence.

However, Smith says that while the family is relieved the court ordeal has ended, the justice system needs to be held to account for failing Daniel. The “staggering incompetence” and mistreatment of his son by officers from Northamptonshire police and a failure by the courts to support Daniel during proceedings left the family with no choice but to complain to both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Smith says.

According to Smith, the incident that triggered Daniel’s arrest took place when he was visiting his father in Rushden, Northants, for the weekend. On the Saturday afternoon, while sitting in a local park Daniel, who according to his father is naturally friendly and talkative, allegedly approached two teenage girls and asked a couple of innocuous questions. One girl phoned her father claiming – wrongly, says Smith – that Daniel had been taking photos of the girls. The girl’s father told the police that he arrived “to sort him out for being weird,” says Smith.

Reeling and frightened from injuries after being punched to the ground, Daniel says in his written complaint: “I ran to the police station because I felt safe to do so. It was a major shock when I was handcuffed tightly so I could not move. I felt very scared and upset. I told the police I had autism. I wanted to speak to my Dad but I was not allowed to and my phone was taken. [No photos were found on his phone]. I felt no one was listening. When I was locked up, I held my head and cried. I felt like dying.”

The family’s complaint against Northants police is now being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). It outlines an alleged litany of egregious errors on the part of officers. These include a failure to recognise and act upon the fact that Daniel was mentally vulnerable, even after he explained twice that he had autism, or to investigate that he was the victim of a hate crime, not a perpetrator. It also alleges that despite his evident physical injuries officers did not arrange for Daniel to be examined by a medic.

At no point during his estimated nine hours in custody were reasonable adjustments made for Daniel’s mental vulnerabilities. This would include seeking an “appropriate adult” (AA) who could advocate for him and help him navigate the system, says Owen. This is despite guidelines stipulating that once someone is being treated as a suspect a number of steps must be followed.

The codes of practice require that police locate an AA as soon as practicable, (this could be a guardian, relative or others including volunteer AAs from established networks around the country). Appropriate adults are widely recognised as having a key role to play in safeguarding the rights and welfare of children (for whom AAs are mandatory) and vulnerable adults in custody. They have specific responsibilities, such as ensuring people understand their rights and observing police behaviour.

The Smith family’s IPCC complaint documents that they were not contacted by police, even after Daniel requested to speak to his father, that police ignored his pleas for help after running away from the “bullies”, and disregarded the fact that there were no photographs of the girls, as alleged, on Daniel’s phone. Had an AA or someone else been called, Smith believes the situation would have been handled very differently. “They should have first phoned me, appointed a suitable adult straight away, waited until they’d collated all the information and evidence of what had happened – and listened to Daniel. This was a hate crime. Daniel was the victim. The whole system is merciless,” he says.

Police officers sacked over Bijan Ebrahimi murder case Read more

Daniel’s treatment has echoes of other recent cases involving disabled people such as that of Bijan Ebrahimi who asked for protection from a man who accused him of being a paedophile but was instead arrested by Avon and Somerset police. The man would later go on to murder Ebrahimi outside his home in Bristol in 2013. Officers have since been sacked and two jailed. The full findings of a probe by the IPCC into Ebrahimi’s case are expected imminently.

There are similarities, too, with the case of an 11-year-old girl with a neurological disability who was detained under the Mental Health Act, handcuffed and restrained with a mesh hood by Sussex police. An IPCC report published earlier this month found that the child was held overnight twice in police cells, without any appropriate adult being present.

According to access to justice campaigners and disability rights advocates, Daniel’s alleged experience exposes glaring fault lines throughout the criminal justice system. Stephen Brookes, co-ordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network, suggests Northants police “got it so wrong, it’s incredible” in Daniel’s case. The number of disability hate crimes recorded by police has skyrocketed (up by 25% between 2013-14 and 2014-15 in England and Wales). This is in part because more people are reporting them, but Brookes argues that police need to be much better trained at spotting disability hate crimes and engaging with people who have mental impairments.

“We’ve got some forces who lack understanding of the nuances [of disability hate crimes]. Too often people are accused of being a perpetrator,” says Brookes. DHCN and others work closely with forces, police chiefs and policymakers to improve procedures, and what is striking, he says, is that “where forces are getting it right, they’re really good”.

Chris Bath, chief executive of the National Appropriate Adult Network (Naan) says the issue of criminal justice and mentally vulnerable people needs to be seen “in a human rights context”. He points to Naan’s recent research estimating that around a quarter of a million mentally ill, learning disabled and autistic people are detained annually by police without an AA present, leaving them wide open to injustices.

The report, commissioned by the home secretary, Theresa May, after Naan raised the issue with the Home Office, found that in some places there are no AA schemes, meaning that even when police try to access help it’s often not available. Where there are AA schemes, the research found, police are better at identifying hate crimes. Another problem, Bath suggests, is that many are under pressure due to local authority budget cuts.

An IPCC report in March revealed that people with mental health problems were more likely to be restrained and four times more likely to die after being subjected to police force. Next month the College of Policing will roll out a new training programme for officers on engaging with mentally vulnerable people.

Northants police says that it made a mandatory referral to the IPCC after assessing the incident with Daniel. A spokeswoman for the IPCC says it will take a “number of months” to fully investigate Daniel’s case.

Asked what is he hoping for, Owen replies: “Justice for Daniel.” As for Daniel, he has told the IPCC: “I can’t trust the police any more. I am frightened of the police.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/29/incidents-of-anti-muslim-abuse-up-by-326-in-2015-says-tell-mama,"Monitoring group’s report paints picture of an explosion of anti-Muslim hate, with women disproportionately targeted by mostly teen perpetrators

Incidents of anti-Muslim abuse and attacks in public areas of the UK rose by 326% in 2015, with women disproportionately targeted by mostly teenage perpetrators, according to a new report from the monitoring group Tell MAMA.

More than one in 10 of all incidents reported to the organisation took place in educational establishments, with public transport in city centres another cluster area.

Far-right extremist groups and sympathisers were actively promoting hatred of Muslims on social media, which was a significant radicalisation factor, said Tell MAMA.



“The statistics paint a profoundly bleak picture of the explosion of anti-Muslim hate both online and on our streets, with visible Muslim women being disproportionately targeted by cowardly hatemongers,” said Shahid Malik, chair of Tell MAMA.

“This exponential growth is a testament to the fact that despite great efforts to fight anti-Muslim hatred, as a society we are still failing far too many of our citizens. With the backdrop of the Brexit vote and the spike in racist incidents that seems to be emerging, the government should be under no illusions, things could quickly become unpleasant for Britain’s minorities.”



UK faith leaders unite in condemning post-referendum rise in xenophobic abuse Read more

According to the report, the ability of Muslim women to travel on public transport free of fear and intimidation is being curtailed. Women wearing the hijab or niqab were especially vulnerable.

“The largest proportion of incidents involve Muslim women, usually wearing Islamic garments, facing attacks from young white males,” said the report.



The demographic of perpetrators had also changed, with a marked shift to youths aged between 13 and 18, according to data collected from victims. The findings “suggest that some teenagers are being radicalised and are moving away from the mainstream views of their age group, who are much more multicultural in their orientation,” the report said.



Tell MAMA, which was founded in 2012, uses data from more than 15 police forces plus reports from victims and members of the public to compile a picture of Islamophobic activity in the UK.



The organisation directly received 1,128 reports of abuse and attacks in 2015, of which it verified more than 800.

Alongside the notable spike in street-based incidents, it reported many victims saying that bystanders had not intervened or challenged abusive behaviour.



The proportion of incidents – 11% – taking place in schools and colleges was “troubling”, said the report. Teaching staff need to be trained to identify and challenge bigotry in the classroom, said Tell MAMA.



Workers in customer service roles, such as catering, security and taxi drivers, were also disproportionately targeted, according to the report.



Fiyaz Mughal, Tell MAMA’s founder, said: “We simply cannot have such hatred fester in our communities and in our societies. With a 326% increase in anti-Muslim hatred reported to us in 2015, we have to deal with this issue … Now is the time to redouble our efforts to tackle such hate from all extremist groups.”

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/28/uk-faith-leaders-unite-in-condemning-post-referendum-rise-in-xenophobic-abuse,"Leaders of Britain’s main faith communities have united in condemning intolerance amid mounting reports of xenophobic and racist abuse in the wake of the EU referendum result.

The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, the chief rabbi and senior imams have all spoken out against division and expressions of hatred.



In Brussels, the United Nations human rights chief said he was deeply concerned about reports of attacks on minority communities and foreigners. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein urged the UK authorities to prosecute those responsible, saying racism and xenophobia were “completely, totally and utterly unacceptable in any circumstances”.



Police recorded a 57% increase in hate crime complaints in the four days following the referendum, in which immigration was a key plank of the leave campaign.



Justin Welby, the leader of the Church of England, said people of “evil will” were using the referendum result as an excuse to vent their hatred.



“The privilege of democracy is to vote, to campaign vigorously, to have robust and firm discussion. It is not a privilege of democracy to express hatred, to use division as an excuse for prejudice and for hate-filled attacks,” the archbishop of Canterbury said at an iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast with the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on Monday.



“We’ve seen a sharp increase in those in the last few days. Somehow people who were already of evil will – and I’m not blaming the leave campaign, I want to be quite clear about that – but people who were of evil will are using this as an excuse, a mere sham, for their hatred to be expressed.”



Welby specifically condemned an attack on a Polish cultural centre in west London at the weekend. “That is an outrageous attack on the representatives of a country that have been friends and allies of Britain for decades, and who we value very greatly,” he said.



A common stand against intolerance, discrimination and hatred was “absolutely crucial for the future of this country, and for rebuilding this country with a new vision of what it means to be outward-looking, generous, hospitable, powerful in doing good, strong in resisting evil”.



Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, also condemned the attack on the Polish centre and on other communities.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cardinal Vincent Nichols, archbishop of Westminster, said: ‘This upsurge of racism, of hatred towards others, is something we must not tolerate’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

“This upsurge of racism, of hatred towards others, is something we must not tolerate. We have to say this is simply not acceptable in a humane society and it should never be provoked or promoted,” he said.



“We need to grasp again our basic sense of purpose; in living together, creating together and fashioning a society. It is that sense of purpose that we may have lost focus of; believing that the purpose of politics is to manipulate power; the purpose of business is simply to make profit for a few. This challenge has been with us for a while now.”



He added: “The great challenge for those leading the nation now is to speak for everyone. If a victory in a referendum remains a point of division, then we become weaker and weaker as a nation and not play a part in the international scene tackling the world’s problems, which are great and challenging.”

People on both sides of the referendum debate needed to remain positive, said Qari Asim, an imam at Leeds mosque. “Not all those who voted to leave are bigoted, xenophobic or racist. That needs to be clear.”



But, he added, “my concern is that the outcome could reinforce ultra-right nationalist tendencies who seek to alienate minorities. And what’s been very upsetting is that there has been no immediate statement of condemnation from the pro-leave camp.”



He said members of his congregation who are third-generation Britons had been asked: “When are you leaving our country?

“We must be vigilant, remain positive and report all incidents to the police.”



Ibrahim Mogra, an imam from Leicester, said: “The UK has a very proud history of peaceful coexistence of diverse communities, and we cannot afford to lose that. We must accept the outcome of the referendum and remain united with our differences of opinion, and not allow any kind of hatred to take root in our communities – and not give any platform to people to use the referendum result as an opportunity to spread hatred.



“Faith communities are united in our commitment to peaceful and faithful coexistence and are of one voice in our condemnation of these incidents.”

At the East London mosque, Shaykh Abdul Qayum said it was “sad and worrying when some politicians stoke racial and religious tensions to secure votes. We saw this in the recent London mayoral elections, now we are feeling the bitter effects in the aftermath of a divisive EU referendum. It has left many communities, even those who have been here for generations, in fear as hatred is openly turned against them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shaykh Abdul Qayum of the East London mosque said: ‘We are feeling the bitter effects in the aftermath of a divisive EU referendum.’ Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

“I truly believe this does not reflect the majority of British society. People of goodness need to stand firmly together to resist those who would divide us.”



Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, said: “Sadly, we know only too well that when political and economic uncertainty strike, discord and hatred are often not far behind. We must heed this warning that even here in the UK, where we treasure diversity, we are not immune to the scourge of prejudice.”

Natalie Pitimson, a sociology lecturer at the University of Brighton, was abused on a train. She was carrying a book bag with the word “schlep” printed on it that she had bought at the Jewish Museum in London.

“I noticed a lad and his girlfriend looking at me and my bag, which was on my lap. When they spotted me looking back at them, he told me to ‘fuck off back to Israel with the other yids’,” wrote Pitimson on The Conversation website.

She added: “So much of the pro-Brexit campaign rested on mainstreaming the most toxic views about ‘outsiders’ that have swirled around in public discourse for a long time.”

On Monday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said the community understood feelings of vulnerability and “will not remain silent in the face of a reported rise in racially motivated harassment”.

Reports of xenophobic or racist abuse abounded on social media, although most were hard to verify.



In the House of Lords, Stephen Cottrell, the bishop of Chelmsford, said a headteacher had told him that her pupils “were frightened when they went to school on Friday” and that she had seen an increase in race hatred and intolerance.



A German woman named only as Karen, who has lived in the UK since 1973, told LBC Radio that dog excrement had been thrown at her door.



“I haven’t been out of the house for three days,” she said, in tears. “My neighbours told me they don’t want me living in this road. My friend’s grandson got beaten up because he had a foreign grandmother. I’m so scared, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”



Police in Manchester arrested three people in connection with the alleged racial abuse of a passenger on a tram on Tuesday. Two men aged 20 and 18, and a youth of 16, were being questioned in custody.



Ch Insp Gareth Parkin said: “All hate incidents are treated with the upmost severity and this behaviour will not be tolerated in Greater Manchester. “

A hashtag, #PostRefRacism, was being used on Twitter to collate reports of racism and xenophobia. Dr M Ali Abbasi tweeted: “Last night a Sikh radiographer colleague of mine was told by a patient ‘shouldn’t you be on a plane back to Pakistan? we voted you out.’”



Another Twitter user, Owen Barder, said: “My friend’s kids, who are black and British, had ‘so long, farewell’ sung to them all day at school yesterday. I want my country back.”



Amnesty International launched an emergency campaign to combat racism and xenophobia in the UK following the rise in reports of racial abuse.

“Some people now feel licensed to express racist views in a way we haven’t seen for decades,” said Amnesty UK director, Kate Allen.

“The referendum campaign was marked by divisive, xenophobic rhetoric as well as a failure from political leaders to condemn it. We are now reaping the referendum rhetoric whirlwind.

“Amnesty is deeply concerned at reports of verbal abuse, attacks on buildings, racist slogans on T-shirts, calls for people to leave the country and other acts of intimidation and hate.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/28/ethnic-minorities-ask-how-did-great-britain-become-little-england,"Evidence is emerging of an increase in racist incidents in the wake of the Brexit vote. There have been more than 100 reports of racist incidents since Friday, causing alarm about increasing racial, religious and ethnic tensions.

In particular, there have been instances of Muslims targeted in racist acts across Wales and in Birmingham. During a Channel 4 news interview, a voter in Barnsley, where the leave vote was nearly 70%, said he wanted “to stop Muslims coming to this country. Simple as that”.

Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) In Barnsley, 70% of the population voted to leave the European Union @C4Ciaran found out whyhttps://t.co/KursMuHHOV

We asked young Muslims and people from ethnic minorities to share their experiences after the referendum:



‘I fear for my daughter when people are being told to “get back to your own country”’

My blood ran cold when I heard we were leaving. I live in a small town in the north-east that voted 65% to leave. The Brexit campaign made me feel like an alien, an outsider, like being brown was now bad in England. I was excluded from the debate because I was up for debate – somehow I had become up for national debate.



Recently I spoke to a mum I know from my daughter’s school who has just recently moved from London. She says she isn’t happy here as the people are not very open and friendly.



Having been born and bred in England, my nationality, my birthright, has been suddenly called into question. I am fearful for my six-year-old daughter living in a place where people are being told on the street to “get back to your own country” or to “start packing”.

Sam, 34, Middlesbrough

Jahura Hussain.

‘I doubt I would get a visa now because of my hijab’



It’s a very sad time for British politics. As a Scottish Muslim, it will affect me the same as it will affect everyone else. I feel that Muslims have actively engaged in this campaign where young people have rallied together.



However, I do feel scared to go to France and I highly doubt I would even get a visa now because of my hijab. I think that will be the case across Europe – that we will be discriminated against when it comes to travelling because of our religion or the way we dress. I think overall it’s not just about Muslims but how it affects all of us. I hope that there will be a decrease in Islamophobia though.

I was, and am, proud to call myself a European, and still believe that the European project can and will live on. Scotland has voted to remain in the European Union. I voted to remain in the European Union and I will most definitely be voting yes in the next Scottish referendum and working to ensure we return to the EU.



Jahura Hussain, 20, Edinburgh

‘There is a poisonous anti-foreign sentiment in the air’



The result has left me feeling like an outsider. As a child, I grew up in a predominantly white, working-class area, and ignorant comments were almost made on a daily basis to me. As a mixed-race child of Oriental and European descent, I felt like I had to prove myself. My mother was put off teaching me her native language as a teacher told her it would stop me from progressing and “confuse” me. I was ashamed to show off my culture.

Seeing the active persecution of ethnic minorities and immigrants, I’m scared that those feelings of isolation and alienation that I experienced as a child will come back. But on a bigger scale, to the point I fear for my safety. I walk down the street now and I’m worried that people think I’m an outsider and that they want me gone.

I’m scared to go to my home town to visit my parents. I’m scared of how people will treat my white father for being married to my Oriental mother. I am scared that she may be attacked. I feel safer being in Manchester, but there is this poisonous anti-foreign sentiment in the air.



Brexit has allowed some people to believe that their intolerance and racism is now justified. I was in Manchester city centre and a woman glared at me in disgust. Whether or not it was to do with Brexit, I am now vigilant and cautious when I used to be carefree and happy. It all builds up and as an ethnic minority I don’t know if people accept me anymore. I used to be proud of this ethnically diverse country. Now I feel scared of it.



Khristi, 23, Manchester

Hassan Qadri.

‘This is a dark time for British Muslims’



It seems Project Hate has become Project Reality and has caused an unbridgeable chasm within society. The relentless fear-mongering, deceit and lies of the leave campaign have made this a dark time for British Muslims.



I am absolutely disgusted with the result and to hear from the leave camp that this is Britain’s “Independence” day is nothing short of comical. If younger voters [had] turned out in higher numbers the results may have been different. But this is primarily an educational issue, where the young need to know why their vote counts and how this referendum was different than a general election. Simply put, the old have failed the young.

Hassan Qadri, 21, York

‘Blaming your failures in life on an immigrant is not a solution to your problems’



Many leavers are claiming they got their country back but for ethnic minorities it will become more inhospitable. When I got off the train the other day I had a mud ball thrown at at me by a group of young children asking me why I was still here. This was not long after the result. They said I had 48 hours to go back to my home country.

I am a second-generation economic migrant. My dad was a bus driver, we had little to eat and I used to collect glass bottles and return them to off-licences to get the 5p or 10p in return. I vowed to escape that way of life. I went on to university and am now within the top 2% of all earners. I studied so hard that every piece of my sinews ached. An alternative vision of reality for me would have been growing up in a village in Pakistan. It would have been difficult but I would have stuck by my values and made the best of my situation.

So whilst I can understand individual feelings of being disaffected, blaming your failures in life on an immigrant is not a solution to your problems.

I want to live in a country where people are kind, tolerant and decent, not xenophobic and prejudiced. I fear the rise of the far right and I doubt leaving the EU will make things any better for those who are already marginalised in our society. How did Great Britain become Little England?

Bil, 46, Derby

Assad Khan.

‘The leave campaign completely alienated young Muslims’



The leave campaign peddled hate, bigotry and xenophobia. Of course, not everyone who voted leave was racist, but there is evidence to suggest that a significant amount were. I can’t speak on behalf of all young Muslims but what I can say is that the leave campaign did nothing to involve young Muslims. In fact, it alienated them.



There are many young Muslims who were completely disengaged during this referendum. Seeing as turnout levels are low, it’s good to target those in the minority.



What has started to become evident is that there is a huge difference between Scotland and England and how they engage with their minority communities. I’m happy to see Nicola Sturgeon bringing the constitutional independence referendum back on the table.

Assad Khan, 18, Edinburgh

‘It was the first openly racist incident I’ve experienced in over 30 years’



The day after the result I was at Heston services for a coffee when I saw a car with a St George flag stuck on its side. Three white males, a woman and a small child saw me get out of my car, and one of them turned his back to me and shouted “fucking immigrants, we voted out!”



It struck me as a bit odd as I am not an immigrant. Having being born here and being a barrister, I don’t consider myself an immigrant in the way he implied it. This is the first openly racist incident I have encountered in over 30 years and it’s sadly looking like it is not just me.

I have two beautiful kids with an Irish-English wife. Should I leave my home country? What should I do?



Mahmud Choudhry, 49, London",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/the-guardian-view-on-homophobia-after-orlando-to-fix-it-we-must-first-face-it,"Homophobia is alive, well and deadly in the United States. That is surely the single starkest lesson to be drawn from the tragedy in Orlando, which saw a New York-born American walk into a gay club and slaughter dozens with an AR-15 assault style rifle. The gun laws need debating of course, but the usual suspects may well thwart that discussion in the usual way. Meanwhile the avowed inspiration that Omar Mateen drew from Isis will lead to complex arguments about what it means for a terrorist group to “claim” an attack these days. But with this hate crime target, and with the killer’s parents attesting to hate crime motivation – anger at seeing two men kiss – one would hope that all could agree that this was a crime that flowed from a particular spring of hostility which runs deep in many cultures around the world, including the west.

The hesitancy in certain quarters, including rightwing British pundits on TV as well as American reactionaries, to label this as a homophobic hate crime, plain and simple, at first blush appears puzzling. After all, the standard script these days for political leaders immediately after a terrorist atrocity almost anywhere in the west involves describing an assault on “our values and way of life”, defined to include a degree of tolerance and an aversion to persecuting anybody on grounds of sexuality. The bullishness with which this tolerance is asserted, however, may sometimes be about compensating for the shallowness of its roots. In the UK, for example, Whitehall makes an entirely appropriate stand against bullying laws that Vladimir Putin signs against supposed “pro-gay” propaganda, and yet as recently as the late 1980s the British government was itself drafting statutes purely to spread smears, through the notorious section 28. Indeed, large numbers of serving Conservative MPs declined to back its repeal as recently as 2003. Even more recently, in the last parliament, very many MPs, including a plurality of the Tories, voted against equal civil marriage for gay people.

In the US, where the culture wars have been more central to politics, only a dozen years have passed since the Republicans masterminded a run of anti-gay marriage amendments to state constitutions, to raise the turnout among evangelicals, an effort that helped to George W Bush win a second term. Even today, rightwing governors play divisive games with superfluous laws regulating transsexual use of public toilets. The impulse to rally public policy against those deemed to be sexually different, then, has not quite gone away. The progress towards gay rights over the last generation is inarguable. But so is the backlash – even if, mercifully, very little of it is anything like as brutal as the murderous bigotry of Isis. The suspicion lingers that there are some who are willing to accept diversity only as a marker of difference with the west’s enemies, a highly conditional basis for tolerance.

The tide of ideas is turning, to some extent even within religion: Archbishop Justin Welby on Monday asserted the primacy of love over the proscriptions of the holy texts. Yet the texts remain, and conservative belief – Christian as well as Islamic – remains a powerful driver of homophobia. The tactical support of gay rights as a tool of western soft power is an improvement over the old prejudice. But it is hardly surprising if that does not provide the community with the support it deserves and expects in its hour of need.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/13/new-bbc-documentary-series-to-examine-us-hate-crimes,"Three-part BBC3 series, among a raft of new commissions, will examine the psychology of those involved

A new BBC documentary series will look at hate crimes in the US, including the murder of a transgender woman by her boyfriend and a Texan man killed for being gay.

The three-part BBC3 series, Love and Hate Crime, is part of a new season of BBC documentaries announced on Monday including a week-long study of one of London’s biggest hospital trusts, an insight into parents in prison and a feature about Sir Chris Hoy.

The BBC said Love and Hate Crime, commissioned before the weekend’s Orlando shooting, will look at the dangers facing those who are singled out as “different” in the US.

It will look at the killing of a transgender woman killed by her boyfriend, who claimed the shock of finding out his partner had been born male made him lose control and kill her.

It will explore another case of a young man from Texas killed for being gay by his own boyfriend’s family, while a third film will look at how two white teenage girls from Mississippi on a night out ended up taking part in a race-hate killing.

“By interviewing police, prosecutors, perpetrators and those close to the victims, these films will unravel the mystery of what really happened in each of these unfolding cases,” said the BBC, announcing the documentaries in the run-up to this year’s Sheffield documentary festival.

“They will explore the psychology and motivation of those involved and the consequences for the communities they come from.”

Other new commissions include BBC1’s My Parent’s in Prison, made by Brian Woods about children who have a mum or dad behind bars, a figure which is growing.

BBC2’s The Hospital: Life and Death in a Week will look at the pressures on the NHS as told through a week at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, following patients from first admittance to when they are discharged.

Sir Chris Hoy: From Velodrome to Le Mans, also for BBC2, will follow the Olympic cycling champion as he purses his dream of competing in the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

A BBC4 documentary, Surviving Aberfan, will look back, 50 years on, at the south Wales tragedy, the worst disaster involving children in modern British history.

Patrick Holland, BBC head of commissioning, documentaries, said: “I want the BBC to be the place where the most exciting and acclaimed documentary film-makers in the UK can come and do their very best work.

“The new series and singles we are announcing today use a range of film-making techniques offering unique and privileged access to some extraordinary stories.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/us-antisemitism-anti-defamation-league-echo-hate-symbol-chrome,"Symbol is ‘online equivalent of taunting someone verbally’, says US watchdog the Anti-Defamation League chief, days after Google removes antisemitic Chrome extension

US antisemitism watchdog, the Anti-Defamation League, has added the “(((echo)))” symbol, used online by white supremacists to single out Jews, to its online database of hate symbols.

The group’s decision comes days after Google removed a Chrome extension that was being used by antisemites to add triple parentheses around the names of prominent Jewish public figures including Michael Bloomberg and New York Times journalist Jonathan Weisman.

“The echo symbol is the online equivalent of tagging a building with antisemites graffiti or taunting someone verbally,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s chief executive. “We at ADL take this manifestation of online hate seriously, and that’s why we’re adding this symbol to our database and working with our partners in the tech industry to investigate this phenomenon more deeply.”

The intersection of old-fashioned white supremacy and antisemitism with tech-savvy online groups centred around websites such as 4chan and Reddit has given rise to a movement loosely termed the “alt-right”. The echo symbol is just the latest artefact of that group’s thinking to burst into the mainstream, thanks largely to an article in late May from the NYT’s Weisman highlighting its use.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was targeted by the antisemitic Chrome extension. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Weisman linked the antisemitism on display with the professed political support of those abusing him: the Twitter user who referred to him as “((Weisman))” went by the handle @CyberTrump.

But the denigration of Jews online extends beyond the Trump supporters highlighted by Weisman. An investigation by Mic revealed how widespread the symbol’s use has become, largely below the radar of the mainstream.

“To the public, the symbol is not easily searchable on most sites and social networks; search engines strip punctuation from results,” wrote the publication’s reporters, Cooper Fleishman and Anthony Smith. “This means that trolls committed to uncovering, labelling and harassing Jewish users can do so in relative obscurity: No one can search those threats to find who’s sending them.”



The pair trace the origins of the symbol back to far right blog Right Stuff. “In Right Stuff propaganda, you’ll often read that Jewish names ‘echo’. According to the blog’s lexicon page, ‘all Jewish surnames echo throughout history’. In other words, the supposed damage caused by Jewish people reverberates from decade to decade.” The parentheses are used to imply that same echo textually.

While many antisemites simply write out Jewish names with the parentheses manually, using it as a deliberate taunt, there was also a popular Chrome extension that automated the function. Named “Coincidence Detector” – a sarcastic reflection of the anti-semitic conspiracy that Jews control the media – it automatically flagged up common Jewish surnames to anyone who installed it.

Google removed Coincidence Detector on Thursday, citing terms and conditions that prohibit “promotions of hate or incitement of violence”, shortly after Mic wrote about the extension.

The publicity around the echo symbol has led to a counter protest, with Jews and non-Jews alike putting the symbol around their own names on social media, led by Tablet magazine’s Yair Rosenberg:

(((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) Want to raise awareness about anti-Semitism, show solidarity with harassed Jews & mess with the Twitter Nazis? Put ((( ))) around your name.

(((Faheem))) (@ims43) @Yair_Rosenberg oh man I'm Muslim this will confuse them

(((DCCyclone))) (@DCCyclone) @fmitchell @Yair_Rosenberg @jonrosenberg Non-practicing Hindu, myself. But gonna go for it, hate Nazis.

The echo symbol is just the latest in a string of coded ways the far right has learned to communicate online. Neo-Nazis regularly adopt the numbers 88 – standing for HH, or “heil Hitler” – and 14, referring to “the 14 words”, the white-supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/the-guardian-view-on-homophobia-after-orlando-to-fix-it-we-must-first-face-it,"Homophobia is alive, well and deadly in the United States. That is surely the single starkest lesson to be drawn from the tragedy in Orlando, which saw a New York-born American walk into a gay club and slaughter dozens with an AR-15 assault style rifle. The gun laws need debating of course, but the usual suspects may well thwart that discussion in the usual way. Meanwhile the avowed inspiration that Omar Mateen drew from Isis will lead to complex arguments about what it means for a terrorist group to “claim” an attack these days. But with this hate crime target, and with the killer’s parents attesting to hate crime motivation – anger at seeing two men kiss – one would hope that all could agree that this was a crime that flowed from a particular spring of hostility which runs deep in many cultures around the world, including the west.

The hesitancy in certain quarters, including rightwing British pundits on TV as well as American reactionaries, to label this as a homophobic hate crime, plain and simple, at first blush appears puzzling. After all, the standard script these days for political leaders immediately after a terrorist atrocity almost anywhere in the west involves describing an assault on “our values and way of life”, defined to include a degree of tolerance and an aversion to persecuting anybody on grounds of sexuality. The bullishness with which this tolerance is asserted, however, may sometimes be about compensating for the shallowness of its roots. In the UK, for example, Whitehall makes an entirely appropriate stand against bullying laws that Vladimir Putin signs against supposed “pro-gay” propaganda, and yet as recently as the late 1980s the British government was itself drafting statutes purely to spread smears, through the notorious section 28. Indeed, large numbers of serving Conservative MPs declined to back its repeal as recently as 2003. Even more recently, in the last parliament, very many MPs, including a plurality of the Tories, voted against equal civil marriage for gay people.

In the US, where the culture wars have been more central to politics, only a dozen years have passed since the Republicans masterminded a run of anti-gay marriage amendments to state constitutions, to raise the turnout among evangelicals, an effort that helped to George W Bush win a second term. Even today, rightwing governors play divisive games with superfluous laws regulating transsexual use of public toilets. The impulse to rally public policy against those deemed to be sexually different, then, has not quite gone away. The progress towards gay rights over the last generation is inarguable. But so is the backlash – even if, mercifully, very little of it is anything like as brutal as the murderous bigotry of Isis. The suspicion lingers that there are some who are willing to accept diversity only as a marker of difference with the west’s enemies, a highly conditional basis for tolerance.

The tide of ideas is turning, to some extent even within religion: Archbishop Justin Welby on Monday asserted the primacy of love over the proscriptions of the holy texts. Yet the texts remain, and conservative belief – Christian as well as Islamic – remains a powerful driver of homophobia. The tactical support of gay rights as a tool of western soft power is an improvement over the old prejudice. But it is hardly surprising if that does not provide the community with the support it deserves and expects in its hour of need.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/13/new-bbc-documentary-series-to-examine-us-hate-crimes,"Three-part BBC3 series, among a raft of new commissions, will examine the psychology of those involved

A new BBC documentary series will look at hate crimes in the US, including the murder of a transgender woman by her boyfriend and a Texan man killed for being gay.

The three-part BBC3 series, Love and Hate Crime, is part of a new season of BBC documentaries announced on Monday including a week-long study of one of London’s biggest hospital trusts, an insight into parents in prison and a feature about Sir Chris Hoy.

The BBC said Love and Hate Crime, commissioned before the weekend’s Orlando shooting, will look at the dangers facing those who are singled out as “different” in the US.

It will look at the killing of a transgender woman killed by her boyfriend, who claimed the shock of finding out his partner had been born male made him lose control and kill her.

It will explore another case of a young man from Texas killed for being gay by his own boyfriend’s family, while a third film will look at how two white teenage girls from Mississippi on a night out ended up taking part in a race-hate killing.

“By interviewing police, prosecutors, perpetrators and those close to the victims, these films will unravel the mystery of what really happened in each of these unfolding cases,” said the BBC, announcing the documentaries in the run-up to this year’s Sheffield documentary festival.

“They will explore the psychology and motivation of those involved and the consequences for the communities they come from.”

Other new commissions include BBC1’s My Parent’s in Prison, made by Brian Woods about children who have a mum or dad behind bars, a figure which is growing.

BBC2’s The Hospital: Life and Death in a Week will look at the pressures on the NHS as told through a week at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, following patients from first admittance to when they are discharged.

Sir Chris Hoy: From Velodrome to Le Mans, also for BBC2, will follow the Olympic cycling champion as he purses his dream of competing in the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

A BBC4 documentary, Surviving Aberfan, will look back, 50 years on, at the south Wales tragedy, the worst disaster involving children in modern British history.

Patrick Holland, BBC head of commissioning, documentaries, said: “I want the BBC to be the place where the most exciting and acclaimed documentary film-makers in the UK can come and do their very best work.

“The new series and singles we are announcing today use a range of film-making techniques offering unique and privileged access to some extraordinary stories.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/us-antisemitism-anti-defamation-league-echo-hate-symbol-chrome,"Symbol is ‘online equivalent of taunting someone verbally’, says US watchdog the Anti-Defamation League chief, days after Google removes antisemitic Chrome extension

US antisemitism watchdog, the Anti-Defamation League, has added the “(((echo)))” symbol, used online by white supremacists to single out Jews, to its online database of hate symbols.

The group’s decision comes days after Google removed a Chrome extension that was being used by antisemites to add triple parentheses around the names of prominent Jewish public figures including Michael Bloomberg and New York Times journalist Jonathan Weisman.

“The echo symbol is the online equivalent of tagging a building with antisemites graffiti or taunting someone verbally,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s chief executive. “We at ADL take this manifestation of online hate seriously, and that’s why we’re adding this symbol to our database and working with our partners in the tech industry to investigate this phenomenon more deeply.”

The intersection of old-fashioned white supremacy and antisemitism with tech-savvy online groups centred around websites such as 4chan and Reddit has given rise to a movement loosely termed the “alt-right”. The echo symbol is just the latest artefact of that group’s thinking to burst into the mainstream, thanks largely to an article in late May from the NYT’s Weisman highlighting its use.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was targeted by the antisemitic Chrome extension. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Weisman linked the antisemitism on display with the professed political support of those abusing him: the Twitter user who referred to him as “((Weisman))” went by the handle @CyberTrump.

But the denigration of Jews online extends beyond the Trump supporters highlighted by Weisman. An investigation by Mic revealed how widespread the symbol’s use has become, largely below the radar of the mainstream.

“To the public, the symbol is not easily searchable on most sites and social networks; search engines strip punctuation from results,” wrote the publication’s reporters, Cooper Fleishman and Anthony Smith. “This means that trolls committed to uncovering, labelling and harassing Jewish users can do so in relative obscurity: No one can search those threats to find who’s sending them.”



The pair trace the origins of the symbol back to far right blog Right Stuff. “In Right Stuff propaganda, you’ll often read that Jewish names ‘echo’. According to the blog’s lexicon page, ‘all Jewish surnames echo throughout history’. In other words, the supposed damage caused by Jewish people reverberates from decade to decade.” The parentheses are used to imply that same echo textually.

While many antisemites simply write out Jewish names with the parentheses manually, using it as a deliberate taunt, there was also a popular Chrome extension that automated the function. Named “Coincidence Detector” – a sarcastic reflection of the anti-semitic conspiracy that Jews control the media – it automatically flagged up common Jewish surnames to anyone who installed it.

Google removed Coincidence Detector on Thursday, citing terms and conditions that prohibit “promotions of hate or incitement of violence”, shortly after Mic wrote about the extension.

The publicity around the echo symbol has led to a counter protest, with Jews and non-Jews alike putting the symbol around their own names on social media, led by Tablet magazine’s Yair Rosenberg:

(((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) Want to raise awareness about anti-Semitism, show solidarity with harassed Jews & mess with the Twitter Nazis? Put ((( ))) around your name.

(((Faheem))) (@ims43) @Yair_Rosenberg oh man I'm Muslim this will confuse them

(((DCCyclone))) (@DCCyclone) @fmitchell @Yair_Rosenberg @jonrosenberg Non-practicing Hindu, myself. But gonna go for it, hate Nazis.

The echo symbol is just the latest in a string of coded ways the far right has learned to communicate online. Neo-Nazis regularly adopt the numbers 88 – standing for HH, or “heil Hitler” – and 14, referring to “the 14 words”, the white-supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/14/donald-trump-long-island-hate-crime-marcelo-lucero,"Trump fundraiser on Thursday is ‘a finger in the eye’ of Patchogue’s Ecuadorians who still endure racism that led to hate crime against Marcelo Lucero in 2008

It takes about three minutes to walk from the lowbrow Emporium nightclub where Donald Trump is being feted at a Republican fundraiser on Thursday night to the unmarked spot on the sidewalk in Patchogue where Marcelo Lucero died after being attacked by a pack of white teenagers in 2008, just days after Barack Obama became America’s first black president.

Lucero, 37, who worked at a local dry cleaner, was set upon by seven youths engaged in “hunting Latinos” and his killing was prosecuted as a hate crime.

“There are dozens and dozens of venues in this county where the local Republican party could hold this event and they have chosen the very road that is stained with Marcelo’s blood,” said Allan Ramirez, a retired local pastor and community organizer, standing next to the fence where Lucero had collapsed as he tried to get away from his attackers.

Ramirez said he had been “shattered” by the homicide at the time and had struggled to comfort Lucero’s family and the large local Ecuadorian community that had complained of years of slurs and violence in the town.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Rev Allan Ramirez marks the spot on Railroad Avenue in Patchogue where Marcelo Lucero was killed. Photograph: Joanna Walters for the Guardian

“Donald Trump has the right to speak, he just doesn’t have the right to spew the kind of hatred and rhetoric he has been promoting and which was going around at the time and led to Marcelo’s death. This presidential election is not a reality show,” he said.

He and other community organizers are planning a rally, a vigil, a church service and a “Make America Love Again” march in Patchogue on Thursday to protest against the Trump event.

The local Suffolk County GOP has so far staunchly refused to bend to requests from community groups to cancel the fundraiser, defending it simply as free speech.

The Emporium holds about 1,000 people. Local police were conducting security checks on the roof on Wednesday and uninvited visitors were rapidly ushered out from the dim interior by tight-lipped staff, because “the secret service are doing their sweep-through right now”.

Standing outside the Emporium at a rally to cancel the event on Wednesday, Patrick Young, a professor of immigration at Long Island’s Hofstra University, pointed down Railroad Avenue.

“I think every Republican around here knows very well that this is the road where Marcelo was killed. Holding this fundraiser here is a finger in the eye of the Latino community. I mean, the Emporium is even kind of a dumpy place,” he said.



“Before Marcelo was killed, if you reported a hate crime in Patchogue the cops would ask you what country you were from,” he added. “They would not even file a report on the hate crime, but they would notify immigration about you. Between 2000 and 2010, hundreds of people from around here were deported.”

Many would not report racist attacks as a result, which helped fuel an atmosphere of xenophobia that escalated into groups chanting “out of here” on Patchogue street corners and physically attacking Latinos at night, with a high degree of impunity, Young said.

There have been many changes at the police department since then and some very publicly racist politicians have left office, he said, though some problems remain.

“There are thousands of Trump supporters on Long Island and they believed in what they believed in way before Trump was running for office, where immigrants can be blamed for anything – even though there is low unemployment here,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A ‘Make America Love Again’ yard sign. Photograph: Joanna Walters for the Guardian

Marcelo Lucero’s younger brother Joselo Lucero, who has led the lobbying effort for the local GOP to cancel the event, said his family had never recovered from the death of his brother.

His mother had remained in the family’s small home village in Ecuador when three of her four children had set out for the US as teenagers to seek a better future and ended up in Patchogue, where they knew other Ecuadorian émigrés.

“Not long after Marcelo’s death she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” said Joselo Lucero.

His father had died when he was six and his mother died in October 2015. The only time in her life she had ever been to the US was to attend the trial of Marcelo’s attackers.

In 2010, the group of local 18- and 19-year-olds who came to be known as the Patchogue Seven, were sentenced after a trial in which the bleak details of years of local divisions between white Long Islanders and the growing Ecuadorian community were laid bare.

Six of them were sentenced to between five and seven years on charges including gang assault, attempted assault as a hate crime and conspiracy.

Jeremy Conroy, 19, who actually stabbed Marcelo Lucero with a folding knife, was sentenced to 25 years for manslaughter as a hate crime.

When a police officer came to Joselo Lucero’s door the morning after his older brother had died, Lucero said he was so shocked he felt as though time stopped.

“I didn’t even feel pain I was so … I … I just couldn’t believe it,” he said.

As a welder with limited knowledge of English, he decided to take the role of defending his brother and fellow immigrants, and had to learn very quickly how to speak in public and decipher the legal language of the court case.

“I also had to phone my mother and tell her that her son had been killed, and why,” he said.

Joselo continued to send his welder’s wages back to his mother to support her and treat her illness, until he flew back to Ecuador last fall to see her before she died.

He is now the outreach coordinator for the Hagedorn Foundation, a Long Island fund promoting social equity.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The coffin containing Marcelo Lucero’s body arrives in Gualaceo, Ecuador, to be cremated in 2008. Photograph: AP

The family filed several lawsuits against two local towns and the county police, but none was successful.

The Suffolk County police came under federal investigation and supervision from the Department of Justice after Marcelo Lucero’s death, following widespread reports that the police ignored hate crimes in the area.

Accounts of Marcelo Lucero’s death often include a line that his screams for help went unheeded.

But at the house on whose fence he collapsed, an Ecuadorian immigrant, Doris Loja, 24, opened the door on Wednesday afternoon.

She is a manager at a local group home for youth with disabilities and was preparing to head out to work the evening hours.

She remembers Marcelo’s death right outside.

“It was kind of weird that we didn’t hear anything. I was here with my mom and dad at the time and we were watching a movie. We didn’t know anything had happened until my mom saw blue lights outside and it was the ambulance and they were carrying the guy into it,” she said.

“My mom was, like, ‘Oh no, I probably know him,’ because everyone knows each other,” she added.

She pointed to a bar across the nearby railroad tracks and up the street to where more bars are located.

“When you would hear shouts at night, anyway, people just think it’s the local boys heading from bar to bar, goofing around, so you wouldn’t necessarily know there was an attack happening,” she said.

She recalls her father helping to wash Marcelo’s blood from the street, the sidewalk and the fence.

“What’s crazy is that I knew the boys who did it, at least by sight at school, and I had no idea they were doing stuff like that. When I heard the next day that they would hunt Latinos, I was, like – wait, that’s a thing? Those guys?”

She believes she has avoided a lot of racism herself because she picked up English very quickly after arriving from Ecuador at 15 and speaks without an accent.

“But my father speaks broken English and my mother doesn’t really speak English, and some people roll their eyes when they speak to them and mutter ‘Mexicans’. Patchogue can definitely be racist. It’s stupid really. They talk about us ‘taking their jobs’, but my father worked in a restaurant kitchen for years, my mother works in a cosmetics factory and is on her feet 24/7 – I’m sure if those folks wanted those jobs, they’d only have to apply and they can have one,” she said.

She goes to the gym at 5am and sees some of her fellow Ecuadorians who got up at 4am waiting for a ride to go to construction jobs in Manhattan.

“It’s not like we want to be millionaires, we just want to work hard and support our families,” she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2016/apr/11/sadiq-khans-concern-for-londons-jews-shames-his-smearing-tory-foes,"A noteable feature of the London mayor campaign has been the praise heaped on Labour’s Sadiq Khan by Jewish media commentators. Following a hustings held by Jewish News last week, the paper’s online editor Jack Mendel applauded him for having “worked overtime” to win the backing of the capital’s Jewish community despite a “mounting list of problems” with the Labour Party. “In my professional dealings with Sadiq Khan he seems to get the problem,” Mendel enthused. By contrast: “Tory hopeful Zac Goldsmith seems to simply be lying low.”

It’s not the first such tribute Khan has been paid. In January, the Jewish Chronicle’s political correspondent Marcus Dysch expressed similar disappointment with Goldsmith. Describing a “broken, bitter relationship between the community and Labour” which he felt had “plummeted further” since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader, he thought the Tory candidate “could be expected to seize on this and, coupled with his pro-Israel stance and Jewish background, secure the backing of Jewish voters.” And yet: “It is Mr Khan who has made the most attractive approach.” Dysch recalled Khan demonstrating:

A detailed knowledge of London Jews’ concerns – distancing himself from toxic former mayor Ken Livingstone, dropping names of his Jewish backers and friends and explaining how his Muslim faith makes him aware of shared issues such as religious slaughter, circumcision and concerns about coroners and burial.

Cynics might sneer at him breaking his Ramadan fast in synagogues or at what seems an overly-enthusiastic approach to interfaith work. But he is willingly doing all those things and has been for a long time. It is not just campaign fodder. It is borne out of an apparently genuine desire and his past position as a communities minister.

By contrast, Goldsmith was judged by Dysch to have failed to provide “any developed thought on what exactly he would do for London’s Jews.”

These assessments strike me as very telling. They underline big differences between Khan and Goldsmith in their attitudes to an important part of the job they seek and their understanding of the city they wish to lead.

One difference is simply the degrees of enthusiasm each man seems to have for securing the position they are seeking. In the wake of two more opinion polls giving Khan healthy leads – and, remember, the pollsters called London about right for last year’s general election, despite getting the country as a whole wrong – the Telegraph’s James Kirkup, anticipating a Khan win, has called Goldsmith’s campaign “underwhelming” and “openly negative” while the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman describes “those around” Goldsmith as “in despair.” She thinks the Tory candidate “doesn’t give the impression he’s all that bothered about winning.” No one, though, is doubting Khan’s desire to get the job. He has done his homework and it shows.

The other difference is about something more significant for London than any politician’s will to win command of City Hall. The capital is rightly famed for its variety of cultures and their tranquil co-existence. This is a precious asset that should be nurtured and protected. One of the concerns of Jewish Londoners is a rise in antisemitic attacks recorded by the Met. Even before those figures were released, Khan had declared his determination to support London’s Jews and foster understanding between different ethnic and religious groups.

Make no mistake: the savvy Khan will have been well aware of his political need to be seen to be embracing Jewish London. But in his eagerness to do so, he has shown a grasp of the cultural dynamics of everyday London that Goldsmith cannot begin to match. It isn’t right to hold the wealthy Tory’s privileged background against him, but where the capital’s community relations are concerned Khan’s life experience makes his opponent’s very sheltered one look a potential liability for the city.

Goldsmith has spoken of receiving antisemitic abuse on Twitter - the usual ugly slurs - and I don’t doubt he has. Yet he’s hardly gone out of his way to say how he would try to deal with that poison or others of a similar kind. Khan, though, has been consistently eloquent on his childhood experience of racism on London’s streets, and his years as a lawyer have given him further close-up insights into the damage to the social fabric that hate crime, harassment and discrimination of every type can do. As the observations of Jack Mendel and Marcus Dysch testify, the Labour man brings a passion and an intellectual insight to such matters that Goldsmith appears to lack.

Indeed, the Tory’s campaign tactics have demonstrated what can most indulgently be described as a casual readiness to risk stirring community tensions in London in the search for votes. Having purchased the services of election strategist Lynton Crosby’s company, those world-famous specialists in negative campaigning, Goldsmith has feebly permitted the crude targeting of Tamil and Indian Hindu and Sikh Londoners with literature seemingly designed to remind them that Khan is a Muslim of Pakistani descent and thereby - without, of course, exactly saying so - encourage them to regard him as inherently a danger to them. That is how the “dog whistle” coded message technique works.

Another part of Goldsmith’s scaremongering approach is to get government ministers to smear Khan by publicly insinuating the fiction that he has sympathies with Islamist fanatics. Defence secretary Michael Fallon was the first poodle to yap such lines which, naturally, found their way on to the front page of the Goldsmith-backing London Evening Standard. The latest example came at the weekend when outgoing mayor Boris Johnson and, of all people, Home Secretary Theresa May, used the Conservatives’ spring forum in London to parrot those sly claims.

The truth is that Khan has no “extremist links,” no extremist sympathies and no extremists views and has been battling extremism for years. Johnson and May surely know this, but are implying that the opposite is the case. There are words for people who do things like that. I don’t need to use them here. You can probably already hear them.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/mar/30/scared-come-out-lgbt-kosovo-serbia-bosnia-hate-crime,"In Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia, NGOs are collecting hate crime data and leveraging the countries’ EU ambitions to push for rights

The young gay activist slowly stirs sugar into his coffee as he says he’s never had a boyfriend who would hold his hand in public.

“Most people from my generation are too scared to come out,” says 22-year-old Liridon Veliou, who works with the LGBT rights group QESh. Behind him, is a cafe scene from any European city – smartphones and MacBook computers illuminating the faces of young men and women against a backdrop of bookshelves stacked with 60s American novels.

But beyond the cafe’s terrace and its young, open-minded clientele, lies a country where 81% of the LGBT community has suffered threats or insults because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This is the highest rate of discrimination in the western Balkans, according to a 2015 poll by the National Democracy Institute. The statistics are a sharp reminder that, despite appearances, this isn’t London or Rome – this is Pristina, capital of Kosovo.

Trans rights: Meet the face of Nepal's progressive 'third gender' movement Read more

On paper, Kosovo looks modern and inclusive – its progressive constitution written in the aftermath of the 1998-99 war includes a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. But LGBT groups say this image contradicts reality. “If you look at the constitution in Kosovo, you’d think this is a pretty good place to live as an LGBT person,” says Gemza Burgija, programme manager at the Centre for Equality and Liberty (CEL), an LGBT rights group based in Pristina. “But that’s not really the case.”

To unveil the difficulties faced by the LGBT community in Kosovo, Burgija and her colleagues have started working on the country’s first public database, which will document cases of discrimination and violence against the LGBT community and will be available online by June.

Evidence-based advocacy is an important tool, says Lilit Poghosyan who works with Ilga Europe. “In the beginning, [governments in the western Balkans] said there was no discrimination. To prove this was an issue, organisations started to collect data because no government had a system in place to do so.”

Since the LGBT community is invisible, most people and institutions we work with ask for numbers and percentages Vladana Vasić and Maja Lukic Schade

Using data to fight discrimination has helped the cause in Bosnia. In 2013, survey data collected by the human rights group the Sarajevo Open Centre (SOC), revealed that 73% of the LGBT community did not trust the police. Armed with this evidence, the group approached the ministry of interior and begin working with the police department to educate them about LGBT hate crime.

SOC staff members Vladana Vasić and Maja Lukic Schade believe they were invited to be involved in police training because their data allowed them to be “very loud” about the increasing number of hate crimes. “Had we not documented cases, conducted research among the LGBT community and presented the ministry with concrete data, we probably would not cooperate with them as closely as we have so far,” they said.

Vasić and Lukic Schade believe that data is crucial for pressuring the authorities. “Since the LGBT community is invisible, most people and institutions we work with ask for certain numbers and percentages to establish relevance of the issue. When there is no data , relevant authorities might claim there is no need to work on that issue.”

The top 10 sources of data for international development research Read more

Exploiting EU ambitions

A collaboration between six NGOs across the region is aiming to use the fact that respect for gay rights is a criterion for joining the EU to improve the treatment of LGBT people in the western Balkans. Activists document the situation on the ground, so that candidate or potential candidate countries, such as Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia, cannot exaggerate the progress they’ve made.

Whereas Kosovar campaigners use data to push the country’s institutions to fulfil their responsibilities, in Serbia, collection has become an important tool to check state institutions are not manipulating statistics.

“Data is important for us because the state tends to lower the rates of hate crime, hate speech and discrimination,” says Jelena Vasiljević, programme coordinator at Belgrade-based LGBT group Labris. She believes the Serbian justice system does this by processing crimes against the LGBT community as ordinary violent crimes, removing the hate crime label.

Six countries making progress on LGBT rights Read more

As rights organisations in the western Balkans cooperate more, the power of data has spread slowly throughout the region, reaching Albania – also an EU candidate country – where the Pink Embassy is currently working on its first ever survey.

Artan Karoli, director of the group, says that as the Pink Embassy gathers more and more evidence of discrimination in Albania, the country’s institutions are starting to see the organisation as “more powerful, more serious”.

Ultimately, data is giving civil society groups, such as the Pink Embassy, the muscles to challenge their country’s LGBT rights record because, as Poghosyan of Ilga Europe says, “personal stories are not enough”.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/09/elliot-morales-guilty-new-york-hate-crime-anti-gay-shooting-west-village,"Elliot Morales was accused in the shooting death of Carson, a gay man killed on 17 May 2013 after a brief verbal dispute in New York’s West Village

A New York jury found Elliot Morales, the man accused of a hate crime for the shooting death of Mark Carson, guilty of all charges on Tuesday.

Carson, a gay man, was killed by Morales on 17 May 2013 after a brief verbal dispute in New York’s West Village neighborhood. The second degree murder charge, with the hate crime designation, carries a prison term of life without parole. The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for just over one day before reaching their verdict.

“I feel like I got justice for my nephew,” said Florence Bupurs, Carson’s aunt who attended much of the emotional two-week trial. Speaking on behalf of the family, she said that “even if I don’t feel like [the verdict] is enough, it will have to be enough ... It’s closure”.

Adding to the drama of trial, which spanned several weeks, was the fact that Morales, 36, was deemed fit to represent himself after rejecting four public defenders assigned to him by the court. For Carson’s supporters this meant not just having to be in the same courtroom as Morales, but having to listen to him examine witnesses each day. It also meant for Carson’s friend Danny Robinson, who was with Carson at the time he was shot, having to answer questions posed by his friend’s killer.

“You could have avoided all of this from escalating to the level it did if you and Mr Carson just went along with your own business?” Morales asked Robinson on the first day of testimony.

“That is so offensive,” Robinson responded, as the prosecution objected. Robinson was visibly shaken after the testimony.

Robinson testified that the encounter began when Morales walked past the two men calling them “faggots” and “queers”, at one point saying: “You look like gay wrestlers.” Surveillance footage shown to the jury appears to capture this exchange, with Robinson and Carson choosing to come back to Morales and confront him after his aggressive comments.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Screengrab from video of the encounter. Photograph: Manhattan District Attorney's Office

During closing arguments, prosecutor Shannon Lucey said that the slurs Morales allegedly used are an example of “how a killer dehumanizes the target of his anger”, adding that to Morales, “Mark Carson was nothing but a sub-human faggot”.

Several witnesses testified that a verbal altercation between the men ensued after the comments. All three went around the corner where Morales pulled out a gun and shot Carson once in the face before fleeing on foot. A forensic pathologist testified during the trial that Carson would have been killed instantly by the shot.

Accused killer of New York gay man had used homophobic slurs, court hears Read more

During his closing remarks to the jury last week, Morales said the shooting “was not a deliberate act. It was moreso a reaction to a perceived threat on my life”, adding: “Mr Carson reached into his right pocket and retrieved what appeared to be a gun and I reacted to that.” No other witness recalled seeing Carson with a gun, and none was recovered on the scene. Robinson said that the only reaching Carson did was to retrieve his cell phone to call 911.

When he took the stand in his own defense, Morales testified that he did not aim his gun at Carson but instead turned around to run, firing as his arm flailed out.

Police officer Henry Huot, who captured Morales after the shooting, testified that Morales pointed his gun at the officer before “fumbling” it on the ground. This was the basis for charging Morales with “menacing a police officer” , which the jury also convicted him of. Huot said he tackled Morales, and once on the ground Morales said “he thought he was tough and I shot him”. Huot also said that to him Morales sounded “evil” and “demonic” the way he was laughing.

The jury was played cellphone video of Morales immediately after being captured in which he can be heard saying “I fucking shot him, he’s dead” while badly slurring his words. Morales cackles and can be seen licking the pavement before his mood suddenly shifts and he begins cursing at the arresting officers and refusing to speak further.

Morales testified and later reiterated during his closing arguments that he did not remember any of the behavior portrayed in the video, attributing it to “fear, shock, trauma, or all of the above”. Morales also argued that he was too intoxicated to act rationally, claiming he had consumed about 10 drinks the night of of the incident.

As part of his defense, Morales, who insisted throughout the trial that he was not a bigot, called a transexual woman to the stand to testify that the two had been engaged in a sexual relationship in the past. The court allowed the woman to testify from behind a sheet and under the pseudonym Jane Smith to protect her identity. While Smith was on the stand, Morales told jurors that “I consider myself trisexual, bisexual – multiple,” adding during closing arguments: “how do you prosecute someone for a hate crime and you never even question their sexual orientation?”

Prosecutor Lucey asked jurors not to be swayed by Morales’ expressed sexual orientation. “What you should take away from this witness is that the defendant never walked with her in public, never brought her home to meet his family,” Lucey said, adding that Morales had “self-loathing” issues and “had a problem with proud open gay men”.

Early on, in an attempt to build the case for a hate crime, the prosecution asked jurors to consider testimony about an incident from earlier in the evening where Carson allegedly used homophobic slurs towards the employees of the Annisa Restaurant after being asked to stop urinating on the street in front.

Several restaurant employees testified Morales came into the restaurant and repeatedly asked if certain employees were “faggots” before flashing a gun.

The restaurant is located just a few hundred feet from the historic Stonewall Inn, the symbolic launching point of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/23/capitol-hill-seattle-gay-neighborhood-lgbt-hate-crimes-tech-sector,"In response to the recent spate of LGBT hate crimes, residents are pushing back against the influx of ‘tech bros’ who are displacing and harming the community

It was barely 10 minutes into 2014 when smoke began to float towards the ceiling in Neighbors, a Seattle LGBT nightclub where around 750 people partied to welcome the new year. Empty glasses of champagne began to pile in trash cans around the dance floor.

As the stairwell fire started, alcohol-infused club goers continued partying as the music played on. It was at that point that Steve Tracy, the club’s general manager for over 20 years, smelled the smoke.

As the club was evacuated by Tracy and his staff, the party-goers still didn’t realize what went on. They were pushed into an alley near the intersection of Pike and Broadway in the traditionally LGBT neighborhood of Capitol Hill. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Musab Masmari, the man who had jumped a fence to enter the club with a gasoline canister to start the fire, now faces 10 years in prison.

This type of incident would become emblematic of a climate change already in progress within the LGBT neighborhood. Since 1 January 2014, there have been more than 200 reported bias incidents in Seattle, including a double homicide involving two gay men and a second fire-attempt at the nightclub – all disproportionately targeting LGBT people. The latest report for the first half of 2015 showed a 56% increase compared with 2014, according to the Seattle police department.



Long-term Capitol Hill residents don’t know how to stop this influx of violence. But for some, the culprits are easily identifiable: “tech bros”.

“My husband Michael and I were recently out on a Saturday night and were walking around the Pine/Pike Corridor,” Mayor Ed Murray, the city’s first openly gay mayor, said sitting his office one recent afternoon. “And we looked at each other and said: my God, what happened to the gays? Literally, who are all of these straight people in our neighborhood?”

These “straight people” the mayor refers to are part of the influx of tech workers who have flooded the city since the opening of major campuses and offices in the area close to Capitol Hill.

Although Seattle is one of the “gayest” city in America – recently released census data shows the city of Seattle saw a 52% increase in same-sex couples from 2010 to 2012 – the Capitol Hill neighborhood saw a 23% decline of LGBT people living there during the same period. Meanwhile, rents have also gone up by more than 33%, according to Zillow.

As new glass and steel condos are sprouting across the skyline, many LGBT people fear to walk down streets they used to call their own. So they’ve begun to push back.

John Cristicello’s artwork. Photograph: Conor MacBride

The artist John Cristicello, one of the many LGBT people against this dwindling of “queer” in the area, sits atop a magazine stand outside his art studio, arms covered in tattoos. His artwork is now infamous the area. One of his pieces states: “We came here to get away from you.” Another shows a tech bro in a hat, holding a beer and stating: “No faggots better look at me.” Cristicello explained: “I saw that guy. I heard him say that. And I was like, why are you even fucking here if you don’t want faggots to look at you?

“My art is a declaration to interlopers in the neighborhood like, don’t fuck with us,” Cristicello explains. “It wasn’t me trying to fix anything, but hold a mirror up.”

Above him is a large painting in progress showing the iconic Space Needle on fire.

•••

In fall 2014, openly gay police officer Jim Ritter, the LGBT liaison for Seattle police department, began receiving phone calls asking the same question: “Why is there such explosive growth of hate crimes in Seattle?”

“I [remember pulling] the statistics for the previous year and not seeing any ‘explosive’ growth,” Ritter recalls. But he would then ask: “Why do you think there is such explosive growth?”

Callers would then spout off names of friends they knew were attacked, or the name of intersections where they knew bias violence had occurred. Ritter quickly realized that none of these had been reported to the police.

“Oh, boy,” Ritter remembers thinking. “We have a problem here.”

Victims had compelling reasons for not doing so. “I am not out yet. I was intoxicated. I didn’t think the police would do anything,” Ritters said. “A lot of people were listening to the rhetoric around the country at the time to not trust the police,” he added, referring to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

To address this issue, Seattle’s Safe Place program began taking shape – and eventually launched in May 2015. The program trains business owners on how to respond to bias incidents – specifically LGBT ones – if and when they happen around their business. It already includes 1,000 businesses displaying rainbow shields on front doors, including every Starbucks in the city.

Thanks to this gesture, LGBT people in Seattle now know they can enter that business if attacked and that owners will not hold any LGBT bias, allow them to call 911 and use their business as a safe place to hide until emergency responders can arrive.

Ritters feels it’s working. This past weekend, three people were attacked and reported the LGBT bias incident at a business with the rainbow shield stating Safe Place stuck on the front window.

•••

Shaun Knittel, the founder of Social Outreach Seattle, has been of the most visible leaders in stopping the violence. As Knittel grew concerned about reports of violent assaults after the fire at Neighbors, he decided to launch a shuttle service to help people get home safely after a night out. The shuttle is an old van that he has painted pink and has the number to call for a ride displayed on the sides. Since it launched in March 2015, the shuttle has driven more than 700 people home.

“We sometimes beat the police there and have to help the victims, even taking them to the hospital sometimes,” Knittel says when discussing the weekends the service is provided. “And that gives us a chance to talk to them and get them to report the incident, so it’s documented by the police.”

But even with the success of this service, many still do not report hate crimes targeting the most vulnerable people within Seattle’s LGBT community.

“Most of the people I know who are victims of hate crimes in the past few months are all trans women,” says Jackie Sandberg, a hate crimes survivor in the area and leader with a local LGBT homeless group.

Sandberg, who works with many of the transgender and queer homeless people, believes they are probably targeted the most, but will not report to police because they are homeless, have prior arrests or just fear the police.

Sandberg, who has faced homelessness and has once been attacked by a couple who used a skateboard as a weapon, is part of a growing group of LGBT people in Seattle who believe these new efforts only protect well-off Capitol Hill residents.

“I don’t think queer people feel any more comfortable reporting the hate crimes now,” Sandberg said in regards to the shuttle service and the police working intentionally on this issue. “I think it’s more of an attempt by SPD [Seattle police department] to endear themselves to the more privileged white, higher-income queers that are [still] moving into the neighborhood.”

So life goes on as usual for many.

The 'gaytrification' effect: why gay neighbourhoods are being priced out Read more

“A couple weeks ago, one of my trans girlfriends was walking up the Hill with her partner and there was a guy walking down the street,” Sandberg said, before resuming passing out condoms on the streets of Capitol Hill. “And all of a sudden he punches my girlfriend in the chest and then starts threatening her to come at him.”

Sandberg says the friends escaped and didn’t engage the man. When asked about the assailant’s appearance, the response is immediate: “He seemed like one of those hip party people. Bro type.”

The incident was never reported.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/04/2015-sees-fall-from-record-rate-of-antisemitic-hate-crimes,"Despite large fall compared to 2014, last year third-worst since Community Services Trust began monitoring hate crimes against Jews 30 years ago

Antisemitic hate incidents in the UK fell by 22% in 2015, but the annual total was still the third highest recorded, new figures show.

The Community Security Trust, which has monitored antisemitism in the UK for more than 30 years, recorded 924 incidents last year. This included 86 violent assaults – an increase of 6% on 2014.



There were 685 incidents of abusive behaviour which includes verbal abuse, graffiti, and abuse on social media. More than half the incidents of abusive behaviour were targeted at Jews going about their daily business in public places, the CST said.



Sixty-five incidents of damage and desecration to Jewish property were recorded.



Three-quarters of all attacks were recorded in London and Manchester, home to the two largest Jewish communities in the UK.



There was a record high of 1,179 antisemitic incidents in 2014, which the CST attributed to reactions to the war in Gaza in July and August of that year. The second highest year was 2009, when there was also a war in Gaza. “In contrast, there was no similar ‘trigger’ event in 2015 to explain the relatively high annual total,” said the CST.



David Delew, the trust’s chief executive, welcomed the fall in the annual total but said it was less than hoped for. “The number of antisemitic incidents remains unacceptably high,” he said.



Home secretary Theresa May said: “We must challenge antisemitism wherever we find it – just as we must challenge all forms of ethnic and religious hatred and combat extremism … While a fall in antisemitic incidents should be welcomed, there are still too many cases.”



Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham warned against complacency, saying: “Antisemitism is repugnant, unacceptable and scars our society.” Political action was needed to tackle the roots of prejudice and hatred, he added.



Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said security was still a serious concern for Jews in the UK. “Antisemitic hate crime remains unacceptably high and more must be done to ensure that the Jewish community can live without fear of abuse or attack … These figures demand action from our leaders.”

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/27/race-hate-crimes-uk-railways-rise-37-per-cent-five-years,"Race hate crimes on Britain’s railway networks have risen by 37% in the past five years, an average of more than five reported incidents of abuse or harassment a day.

British transport police (BTP), covering railway services in England, Scotland and Wales, including London underground, recorded 1,993 racially motivated hate crimes in 2015, an average of 5.5 per day.

Excluding incidents where the race of the victim was not stated, more than three-quarters of incidents recorded in 2015 involved non-white victims: 36% were perpetrated against black victims, 33% against those of Asian origin, 3% involved mixed-race victims and 3.5% were against those of another race.

Reported hate crimes rise by almost a fifth Read more

The greatest increase in racially motivated crimes in recent years was against white victims, which now account for 24% of incidents recorded. There were 346 hate crimes involving white victims in 2015 compared with 204 crimes in 2011, which represented 19% of such hate crimes at the time. In 27% of incidents, the race of the victim is not stated by BTP.

The data, obtained from the BTP via a freedom of information request, showed that the number of race hate crimes resulting in a prosecution fell between 2011 and 2015, from 704 to 663.

The majority of hate crimes recorded last year were carried out by white people, who accounted for 73% of suspects. In 2015, black suspects accounted for 17% of incidents where the race of the suspect was stated, compared with 14% in 2011.

The most common type of hate crimes recorded last year involved racially or religiously motivated harassment, alarm or distress. Such incidents accounted for 58% of all those recorded by BTP. Common assaults where no injury was recorded accounted for about 11% of hate crimes – 220 incidents – while racially or religiously motivated aggravated assault resulting in bodily harm accounted for 1.5%, or 30 such crimes.

“Only by understanding the true scale and nature of the problem can we hope to develop lasting solutions that will give all travellers and rail staff an environment as free from hate crime as possible,” a British Transport Police spokesman said.



He advised people to report any such crimes immediately. “What is important for people to know is that we care and we will respond,” the spokesman added.

Karen Bradley, minister for preventing abuse and exploitation, said: “Crime motivated by hatred or hostility towards someone because of their race or religion has absolutely no place in our society, and we will do everything we can do eradicate it.

“We welcome the fact that more and more people are coming forward to report hate crime to the police, and that forces are improving the way they identify and record hate crime.

“We already have in place one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world to protect communities from hostility, violence and bigotry. But we are not complacent. That is why we will publish a comprehensive new Cross-Government Hate Crime Action Plan shortly to drive forward action against hate crime including crimes that occur on public transport. We are working in partnership with communities to ensure we target the harm that hate crime causes and with the police and the CPS on how we can bring the perpetrators of hate crime to justice.”

Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT union, said: “These are shocking figures and match up with the reports that RMT members are feeding back to the union from the sharp end. They coincide with the drive to de-staff our trains and stations in the search for cuts and increased profits.”

The British Transport Police can be contacted on 0800 40 50 40 or via text at 61016.

Peter Yeung is a freelance journalist. He has contributed to The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Financial times and The Independent. He is @ptr_yeung on Twitter.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/27/one-in-four-uk-seen-racial-hate-this-year-holocaust-memorial-day-survey-finds,"Don’t walk on by is the message of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day as two survivors of recent genocide tell of their debt to bystanders who stepped in

A quarter of the British public have witnessed racial hate crime in the last year, according to research released to mark Holocaust Memorial Day as the millions who fell victim to genocide are commemorated.

Younger people are more likely to challenge violence or hostility against someone based on their race or ethnicity, while two-thirds (69%) of people regret not intervening, according to a survey commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.



Race hate crimes reported on UK railways rise 37% in five years Read more

The role of the bystander is the focus of Wednesday’s Holocaust Memorial Day, which adopts the theme “Don’t stand by” for the annual commemoration of the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust under Nazi persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.



The survey focused on incidents involving ethnicity, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. More than one fifth of 2,007 people questioned had seen an act of violence or hostility based on religion or beliefs.



The Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia … survivors tell their stories Read more

One in six (17%) of 16-24 year-olds said they had intervened, compared with one in eight (13%) people aged 25 to 34, and just 7% of those aged 35 to 44.



More than a tenth (12%) of respondents said they themselves had been a victim of a hate crime, with 60% of them saying no one nearby intervened.



Olivia Marks-Woldman, the trust’s chief executive, said: “When we look back to the Holocaust and to other genocides, we learn that they happened because cultures were created and encouraged that allowed persecution to flourish. People stood by and tolerated increasing persecution, sometimes, because they were afraid to speak out against it.”



“We thought 25% of people having witnessed at least one hate crime in the past 12 months was shocking,” she said.”

The survey found verbal abuse was the most common form of hate crime, accounting for three quarters of incidents in the last year. Almost a third (30%) said they had seen harassment, and a fifth (20%) had witnessed threats of violence. Some 14% had seen physical attacks, ranging from punching to spitting.

Online abuse, through social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, was witnessed by more than a quarter (28%). The overwhelming majority questioned (77%) said they felt there was no difference between bullying or “trolling” someone online and shouting abuse in the street.



Home Office statistics on recorded hate crime released in October showed a rise of 18% on the previous year. In 2014-15 there were 52,528 hate crimes recorded by police, compared with 44,471 hate crimes the year before.



Of those, 42,930 (83%) were hate crimes based on race, 5,597 (11%) were about sexual orientation, 3,254 (6%) were to do with religion, 2,508 (5%) were directed at disabled people and 605 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.



Marks-Woldman said: “As well as taking stock of what’s happening in our own communities here in the UK today, we also need to be mindful of the fact that genocide is continuing in Darfur, where thousands of people have been murdered and millions have been forced to flee to makeshift refugee camps.

Appolinaire Kageruka: ‘You should not stand by. You must do something to fight against hatred.’ Photograph: Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

“We all need to reflect on the fact that the path to genocide begins with exclusion and discrimination, and that standing by allows hatred to take hold.”



More than 3,500 events to commemorate the Holocaust are being held on Wednesday and during the week at venues across the UK. A national commemoration in central London will be attended by more than 200 survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides with readings from the actors Sheila Hancock, Robert Lindsay, Kevin Whately and Freddie Fox.



Also in the capital, the artist Clare Twomey is gifting 2,000 artworks – handcrafted porcelain spoons inspired by meeting survivors of the Bosnian war – on Westminster Bridge. In York, 600 candles, laid out to form a Star of David, will be lit in York Minster’s historic Chapter House to commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered by the Nazis during the second world war.

CASE STUDIES

Rwanda: Appolinaire Kageruka

Kageruka, 49, says he owes his life to a neighbour who refused to stand by during the Rwandan genocide, in which almost one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in 1994

As a Tutsi primary school teacher in Kibungo, he saw the hatred building but never envisaged the levels it would reach.

As the violence against Tutsis spread, Kageruka’s parents fled to their local Catholic church along with hundreds of others seeking sanctuary. They were among more than 1,500 victims of the infamous massacre at Nyarubye church.

Kageruka did not follow them, but went instead to the home of a impoverished Hutu neighbour. His neighbour offered to hide him and for three weeks he sheltered in the tiny home. “Me, him, his wife, his two children; we couldn’t hardly fit into his house.”

But rumours starting spreading that Kageruka was being hidden, he said. His neighbour told him: “If they find you here, they will kill you and they will kill us. So it is better [for you] to go.”



He took him out into the bush and brought him food and news at night. Kageruka remained there for seven days until the arrival of the Rwandan Patriotic Front army.

“He saved my life,” said Kageruka, who is now living in Coventry. “You should not stand by. You must do something to fight against hatred.”

Darfur: Abdul Aziz Mustafa

Mustafa was just 15 when, alone and terrified, he fled from Sudan. Today he wonders if more could have been done to halt the continuing mass slaughter of Darfuri men, women and children in western Sudan.



Mustafa, now 25, is from the Zaghawa ethnic group who havefilled the refugee camps in the Darfuri crisis. His father was killed in 2003 as rebel and government forces clashed in Tine, on the Chad-Sudan border, and the town was bombarded.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abdul Aziz Mustafa: ‘He bought me a ticket, and some water and a sandwich.’ Photograph: Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

For two years, Mustafa, his mother and younger brother survived at a UN camp in al-Fashir, terrified that he would be taken as a child soldier. “Any kid over the age of seven, they just take them to fight,” he said.



His mother paid a people smuggler, and he was loaded into a lorry, driven to Khartoum, hidden in a house, driven to Port Sudan in another lorry and loaded on to a ship. “I was very scared, because I didn’t know where they were going to take me,” he said.

After two or three weeks, he was left at a service station on a motorway near London. Police told him he must register with the Home Office.



“I got to Victoria [station], but I didn’t know where I was. I saw police in the station, but they couldn’t understand me.” A passerby, an Iraqi Kurd, stepped in to interpret. He explained that Mustafa would have to register for asylum in Croydon.



“He told the police ‘don’t worry, I will give him a ticket to Croydon.’ And he bought me a ticket, and some water and a sandwich. Then he directed me to the train.” It was an act of kindness from a stranger he will never forget.



Once in Croydon, another stranger showed him the way to the asylum office. It was by now late at night, so he slept outside in freezing January temperatures, before joining the queue the next morning.



Today Mustafa, who was allocated a foster family and granted asylum, has studied at school and worked as a waiter. His younger brother fled to South Sudan, while his mother remains in Sudan. He has not seen them in 10 years.



His memories of Sudan are of the hatred and violence that scarred him from an early age. The Zaghawa, he said, were the constant target of hate crime. “They say ‘you don’t belong here’. But I am from Sudan,” he said.



And still it goes on, he said. “It has been running for 13 years, and nobody is talking about it.”

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/23/bijan-ebrahimi-murder-disability-hate-crime-police,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/dec/23/i-have-tourette-syndrome-and-heres-why-i-want-you-to-laugh-video,"Jess Thom’s tics from Tourette syndrome can be funny, but people often suppress their laughter for fear of causing offence. This, she says, shows how hard it can be to deal with people who are different from us. But by having an open conversation about disability and difference, she argues, the barriers between us become smaller",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/22/pigs-heads-dumped-outside-islamic-school,"Police treat incident in Blackburn as hate crime and put on extra patrols in area to reassure public

Police are treating the dumping of two pigs’ heads outside an Islamic school in Lancashire as a hate crime.

It is believed the heads were left at the gates of the Markazul Aloom school in Blackburn, between 5pm on Friday and 8.30am on Saturday, when police were alerted.

Ch Insp Sheena Tattum, of Lancashire police, said: “This is being treated extremely seriously and we understand the concern that incidents like this, while thankfully rare, can cause in the community.

“We have put extra patrols on in the area to try to offer some reassurance. An investigation is under way to identify those responsible and a team of detectives are carrying out numerous inquiries.

“We have carried out house-to-house inquiries in the area and done a search through CCTV and we would appeal for anyone who has any information which could assist the investigation to get in touch with us.”

Anybody with information were asked to contact police on 101 quoting crime reference ED1517304 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/23/the-sun-jihadi-headline-dangerous-poll-dubious-survey-hate-crimes-muslims,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/toronto-canada-muslim-woman-assault,"Canadian police have said that the assault and robbery of a Muslim woman in Toronto appears to have been “motivated by hate”.

Police said two men beat the woman up Monday while she was heading to pick up her son from school.

“It was a completely unprovoked attack,” said Constable Victor Kwong. “She was punched all over and kicked.”

The two men used bigoted slurs and tried to rip off the woman’s hijab, Kwong said. She was robbed of her cellphone and some money, he said.

“There’s no doubt that this is hate-motivated,” Kwong said, noting that police typically see a spike in such incidents after events like the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

The woman was treated in a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening and later released. Police have not identified the woman.

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne, who represents the riding where the Toronto assault took place, said Canadians need to guard against racism.

“This is actually a time we need to reach out to our Muslim neighbors and friends and recognize the acts that took place in Paris were acts of terrorism and not borne of religion,” said Wynne.

Toronto mayor John Tory also denounced the attack, calling it “disgusting, unacceptable and not reflective of our city’s values”.

The assault came two days after a mosque in Peterborough, Ontario, was set on fire in an act police are treating as a hate crime.

Police are still searching for suspects in the Saturday night blaze and say it is unclear if it was connected to the attacks in Paris the previous day.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for last week’s attacks in Paris that left at least 129 people dead. French officials said the attacks were carried out by disaffected French Muslims under the supervision of a Belgian who had fought in Syria.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims has advised Muslims to be vigilant against potential backlash, saying there was concern members of the community would be targeted.

It decried both the assault on the woman and anti-Muslim graffiti seen in Toronto.

“Such hateful and cowardly acts are abhorrent to all Canadians who stand united in condemning xenophobia and hatred,” said executive director Ihsaan Gardee.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/10/dieudonne-holocaust-denial-not-protected-under-free-expression-laws,"European court of human rights rejects appeal by French comic Dieudonne who wished to stage ‘the biggest antisemitic meeting’ since the war

Europe’s top human rights court has rejected an appeal by the controversial French comic Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, saying the right to free expression does not protect antisemitism or Holocaust denial.

Dieudonne, as he is known, finished a December 2008 performance by inviting a prominent Holocaust denier on stage and then having an actor dressed to resemble a concentration camp prisoner offer him a prize.

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala: French 'quenelle' comedian banned from UK Read more

He was convicted of hate crime charges by a French court in October 2009 and fined €10,000. He lost repeated appeals, and took his case to the Strasbourg-based European court of human rights.

The court noted Dieudonne’s stated desire to stage “the biggest antisemitic meeting since the last world war” and ruled on Tuesday that the event was not a show but the expression of ideology.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/05/man-who-threw-pensioners-walking-frame-off-bus-in-racist-attack-jailed,"CPS says Kashif Samuels, 25, jailed for 16 weeks after video on social media showed him shouting racist abuse at pensioner on 149 bus

A man who shouted racist abuse at a pensioner before throwing his walking frame off a bus has been jailed for 16 weeks, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.



Kashif Samuels, 25, launched the attack on a packed 149 service in north London on 15 October. He was arrested after footage was posted on social media of him screaming obscenities at his victim before throwing the walking frame out of the vehicle.

Samuels, from Tottenham, was handed the 16-week jail sentence at Highbury Corner magistrates court after previously admitting racially and religiously aggravated harassment.

The sentence was increased because of the “hostility shown towards the victim’s disability” and the “racially and religiously aggravated nature of the offence”, the CPS said.

Spokesman Gerallt Evans said: “This case has quite rightly caused shock and outrage among the general public.

“Kashif Samuels used abusive anti-Muslim and racist language against the victim and caused distress and alarm to the other passengers on the bus. Not only did he shout and swear at the victim but also threw the victim’s walking frame from the bus when it came to a halt.

“This appalling outburst was caught on camera by a public-spirited fellow passenger and left Samuels no choice but to plead guilty.

“Hate crime of any kind will not be tolerated in London. Members of the public should be able to travel on the city’s transport network without fear of violence, abuse or harassment and we will continue to work with our police partners to bring those that commit these crimes to justice.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/05/cps-bahar-mustafa-killallwhitemen-tweet-goldsmiths,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/03/culture-secretary-ed-vaizey-social-media-tackle-transphobic-hate,"Ed Vaizey tells parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality that sites should have a code of conduct to deal with hate attacks online

Social media sites should have a clear code of conduct to tackle transphobic hate, the culture minister has said.

Ed Vaizey, the Conservative MP for Wantage, told senior MPs during a parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality on Tuesday that hate attacks online were “a massive concern” and that straightforward legal action was not enough.

“Twitter trolling and the kind of abuse people see online is shocking,” he said, adding that although the police and legal action dealt with complaints, this alone was not adequate.

“Social media companies have not been forthcoming with a clear code of conduct,” said Vaizey, who added that they had also failed to outline a clear process for victims of online hate to complain, and a process for potential arbitration.

He said social media executives had acknowledged and spoken about how they had not taken action against hate speech fast enough.

Jay Stewart, the director of Gendered Intelligence, a transgender youth group, agreed that more needed to be done about transphobic abuse online.

You don’t have to be trans to be an ally against transphobia | Owen Jones Read more

“There needs to be more regulation. If people behaved like that in a school or at work it would be dealt with. Why is it that people can say such horrific things online and we have to accept it?” he told the Guardian.

“Importantly though what is at the heart of the abuse is the fundamental lack of understanding around trans people. There is a conflation with gender and sexuality.

“People also think that being trans has something to do with child abuse or they obsess over gender reassignment surgery. All of this comes down to an educational issue and the government can do more here,” Stewart said.

As well as discussing the issue of transphobic online content and hate speech, MPs at the inquiry questioned Vaizey about media policy on transgender equality. He said it was the duty of broadcasters to see transgender representation on screens not as “something exotic, but completely mainstream”. Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, should have an updated code of conduct next spring, Vaizey revealed.



Criticism of the mainstream media’s sensationalisation of trans issues was valid, Vaizey said, as it focused only on the process of coming out and never the day to day.

“I would rather see someone cast as a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, an MP, and who happens to be trans,” Vaizey said. “Too few broadcasters reflect diversity of society.

“I think that any people who are transgender live with a great deal of discrimination, bullying and victimisation. The last thing we’d want people to feel is they can’t raise legitimate criticism with broadcasters,” he said.

Hate crime is everyday reality for rural LGBT people, study says Read more

On the issue of trans people being excluded from sporting activities, Vaizey said: “It’s obviously incumbent for sporting authorities to call this practice out when it happens.”

Vaziey said although the Equality Act allowed an exception for single-sex sports to exclude other sexes, “based on strength and stamina reasons”, he added that: “Clearly there are many, many sports where both sexes can compete on level terms.”

He said he expected bodies such as Sport England and other national bodies for sport to call out “arbitrary exclusion”.

Vaizey said he would write to the inquiry committee specifically on the issue of changing rooms, and said it was possible for organisations and lottery funds to help secure appropriate facilities to cater for people of different sexes playing team games together.

Tuesday’s hearing was the final evidence session in the landmark parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality in the UK, which was launched in the summer to assess levels of transphobia, access to NHS services and issues affecting trans youth.



More than 230 submissions have been sent to the women and equalities select committee, including much personal or sensitive information. The findings will be published in stages, the committee said.

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/05/cps-bahar-mustafa-killallwhitemen-tweet-goldsmiths,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/03/culture-secretary-ed-vaizey-social-media-tackle-transphobic-hate,"Ed Vaizey tells parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality that sites should have a code of conduct to deal with hate attacks online

Social media sites should have a clear code of conduct to tackle transphobic hate, the culture minister has said.

Ed Vaizey, the Conservative MP for Wantage, told senior MPs during a parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality on Tuesday that hate attacks online were “a massive concern” and that straightforward legal action was not enough.

“Twitter trolling and the kind of abuse people see online is shocking,” he said, adding that although the police and legal action dealt with complaints, this alone was not adequate.

“Social media companies have not been forthcoming with a clear code of conduct,” said Vaizey, who added that they had also failed to outline a clear process for victims of online hate to complain, and a process for potential arbitration.

He said social media executives had acknowledged and spoken about how they had not taken action against hate speech fast enough.

Jay Stewart, the director of Gendered Intelligence, a transgender youth group, agreed that more needed to be done about transphobic abuse online.

You don’t have to be trans to be an ally against transphobia | Owen Jones Read more

“There needs to be more regulation. If people behaved like that in a school or at work it would be dealt with. Why is it that people can say such horrific things online and we have to accept it?” he told the Guardian.

“Importantly though what is at the heart of the abuse is the fundamental lack of understanding around trans people. There is a conflation with gender and sexuality.

“People also think that being trans has something to do with child abuse or they obsess over gender reassignment surgery. All of this comes down to an educational issue and the government can do more here,” Stewart said.

As well as discussing the issue of transphobic online content and hate speech, MPs at the inquiry questioned Vaizey about media policy on transgender equality. He said it was the duty of broadcasters to see transgender representation on screens not as “something exotic, but completely mainstream”. Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, should have an updated code of conduct next spring, Vaizey revealed.



Criticism of the mainstream media’s sensationalisation of trans issues was valid, Vaizey said, as it focused only on the process of coming out and never the day to day.

“I would rather see someone cast as a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, an MP, and who happens to be trans,” Vaizey said. “Too few broadcasters reflect diversity of society.

“I think that any people who are transgender live with a great deal of discrimination, bullying and victimisation. The last thing we’d want people to feel is they can’t raise legitimate criticism with broadcasters,” he said.

Hate crime is everyday reality for rural LGBT people, study says Read more

On the issue of trans people being excluded from sporting activities, Vaizey said: “It’s obviously incumbent for sporting authorities to call this practice out when it happens.”

Vaziey said although the Equality Act allowed an exception for single-sex sports to exclude other sexes, “based on strength and stamina reasons”, he added that: “Clearly there are many, many sports where both sexes can compete on level terms.”

He said he expected bodies such as Sport England and other national bodies for sport to call out “arbitrary exclusion”.

Vaizey said he would write to the inquiry committee specifically on the issue of changing rooms, and said it was possible for organisations and lottery funds to help secure appropriate facilities to cater for people of different sexes playing team games together.

Tuesday’s hearing was the final evidence session in the landmark parliamentary inquiry into transgender equality in the UK, which was launched in the summer to assess levels of transphobia, access to NHS services and issues affecting trans youth.



More than 230 submissions have been sent to the women and equalities select committee, including much personal or sensitive information. The findings will be published in stages, the committee said.

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/muslim-leaders-in-uk-warn-of-worrying-levels-of-islamophobia,"Muslim Council of Britain expresses concern at figures showing anti-Muslim attacks in London increased by 70% in year up to July

The Muslim Council of Britain has warned of increasing levels of Islamophobia in the UK after recent videos showing anti-Muslim abuse on public transport were posted online and police forces in England and Wales were ordered to treat such attacks in the same vein as antisemitism.

Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain said: “As a whole, we have to understand that the UK is a very tolerant society, with London one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and thankfully these kinds of attacks are relatively rare. But they are on the rise.

“The growth in Islamophobia has reached levels which are very worrying. Most Muslims know someone who’s suffered some form of abuse, whether online, physical or verbal. We’re now in a very serious situation and have been for the past year.”

The furore surrounding the videos has also underlined the difficulties of compiling reliable data on religiously motivated attacks, particularly when such abuse takes place online. In one attack, a woman was filmed shouting abuse at two Muslim women, one of whom was pregnant, and calling them “Isis bitches”. A 36-year-old woman from north-west London was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to causing racially aggravated distress.

In the same week, a 25-year-old man handed himself in to police after video footage emerged that purportedly showed a man screaming Islamophobic abuse at a pensioner in Tottenham, north London, and then apparently throwing his walking frame out on to the pavement.

The videos, which were widely shared on social media, emerged shortly after the Metropolitan police released figures indicating that anti-Muslim attacks in London had increased by 70% in the 12 months to July, from 478 incidents the previous year to 816.

Yet the underlying picture is that religiously motivated crime is extremely rare in the UK, affecting 0.1% of adults, according to Home Office figures.

In total, 52,528 hate crimes were recorded by police in England and Wales in 2014-15, an increase of 18% on the previous year. Of those, 3,254 were religiously motivated. That is only 6% of the total number of hate crimes – but the figure was a 43% increase on the previous year.

The recording of data by police, while still patchy, has improved, which could help explain the increase. But the reluctance of victims to report attacks may also underestimate the true figures.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman is filmed shouting at two Muslim women on a bus in London.

Figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), a face-to-face victimisation poll, estimated that there were 222,000 hate crimes per year between 2012 and 2015. About a sixth (38,000 a year) of this estimate related to religiously motivated hate crimes.



Among groups who are the targets of religiously motivated attacks, Muslims are by far the biggest group – although the chances of being a victim are still very small. According to the CSEW figures, 0.8% of Muslims are the victims of hate crimes, compared to 0.3% of Hindus, 0.1% of Christians and 0.5% of other religious groups.



Last year, the College of Policing defined hate crime as offences motivated by hostility or prejudice on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender status or disability.



According to Tell MAMA, an organisation that monitors anti-Muslim attacks through self-referrals, women are much more likely to be targeted because their dress makes them more vulnerable. “Women wearing the headscarf are more likely to experience name calling, have things thrown at them, general abuse”, Fiyaz Mughal of Tell MAMA said. “Women wearing the full-face veil will suffer both more incidents and more aggressive incidents, such as people pulling off their veils.”



He added that Muslim women also faced high levels of abuse online, with their faith and gender targeted for humiliation. “It’s the intersectionality of prejudice.”

A recent report for Tell MAMA, We Fear For Our Lives, based on in-depth interviews with the targets of Islamophobic attacks, found a spike in the number of incidents following “trigger” events such as the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January and the Tunisia terrorist attack in June.



The report gives examples of online threats relating to the Charlie Hebdo killings. One read: “Fill your car with Calor gas canisters, park it next to a mosque, light the fuse then leave. #JeSuisCharlie #KillAllMuslims #ParisShooting.” Others urged driving a car into a crowd of Muslims leaving a mosque and compiling a “hitlist” of Muslim homes and schools.



While Home Office data shows an increase following the murder of Lee Rigby in July 2013, there was no clear increase following the Charlie Hebdo shootings.



According to Mughal, there has also been in increase in anti-Muslim attacks directly relating to the refugee crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing persecution and conflict in the Middle East and Africa trying to reach safe haven in Europe.



Man hands himself in to police after bus video Read more

“People see women in hijabs coming into Europe, so the poor British woman just going to work or to the shops gets it,” he said.



Earlier this month, David Cameron ordered police forces to record data on anti-Muslim hate crimes and to treat them as seriously as antisemitic attacks, a move welcomed by the MCB and Tell MAMA.

The move means police forces across the UK will adopt uniform recording mechanisms that will help build a more comprehensive picture of Islamophobic crime, Mughal said. “But it will take up to five years to properly implement that”, he added.



Versi said better recording was the first step in the long process of reducing the occurrences of Islamophobic crimes.“Islamophobia and antisemitism are both serious crimes, but work to tackle antisemitism is well developed. Now we need to replicate that fantastic work with Islamophobia. All forms of bigotry need to be treated equally.”



Many Muslims were wary of reporting attacks to the police, he said, believing they would be viewed “through the lens of counter-terrorism. We need a situation where the police are seen as allies against hate crimes”.

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/fbi-hate-investigation-indiana-student-attack-muslim-woman,"Police say 19-year-old Indiana University student Triceton Bickford shouted racial slurs and tried to remove a woman’s headscarf at a cafe on Saturday

The FBI has opened a hate crime investigation into an attack on a Muslim woman in which police say a 19-year-old Indiana University student shouted racial slurs and tried to remove her headscarf.

FBI special agent Wendy Osborne said Thursday that there is no deadline for concluding the investigation into Saturday’s incident in Bloomington, Indiana. She said the FBI became aware of the incident Monday and started the investigation Tuesday.

“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence and ensure the investigation is conducted in a fair, thorough and impartial manner,” she said. “We will conduct the investigation as expeditiously as possible.”

Triceton Bickford of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been charged with multiple felony charges, including intimidation, strangulation and battery, in the attack on the 47-year-old woman in a Turkish cafe in Bloomington, about 50 miles south-west of Indianapolis.

According to a probable cause affidavit, the Muslim woman was sitting at a table with her nine-year-old daughter when a man later identified as Bickford emerged from a nearby alley shouting “white power”, anti-black racial slurs and “kill the police”. Bickford grabbed the woman by the neck and forced her head forward, restricting her breathing as he tried to remove her headscarf, police say.

Indiana University expelled Bickford following reports of the attack. He was released Sunday from Monroe County’s jail on $705 bond and other fees and is scheduled to appear in Monroe County court Friday.

Bickford has said he has no memory of the incident and that a combination of drinking alcohol and not taking his anti-anxiety medication caused him to snap.

Court records do not indicate that Bickford has an attorney who could speak on his behalf. He didn’t respond to email and phone requests for comment.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/15/facial-hatred-disability-crime-disfigurement-prejudice,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/muslim-woman-was-doused-in-alcohol-on-train-in-islamophobic-attack-study-reveals,"Incident one of many in study of hate crime that lays bare UK Muslims’ reluctance to report abuse and lack of support from wider public

A Muslim woman was showered in alcohol in a violent Islamophobic attack on a train as other passengers silently watched on, researchers have revealed.

The incident was one of many hate attacks on Muslims uncovered in a study by criminologists Imran Awan of Birmingham City University and Dr Irene Zempi of Nottingham Trent University. The full report, commissioned by Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), will be unveiled in parliament on Tuesday.

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, Awan and Zempi examined the impact of anti-Muslim hate crime through in-depth interviews with victims.

They revealed that many Muslims were reluctant to report incidents of abuse and often received little support from witnesses. Hira, the woman involved in the train attack, said a group of men waved alcoholic drinks in her face, asking her if she wanted some. They continued to chant “we are racist, we are racist and we love it” and asked her if she ate bacon and had a bomb under her scarf.

“They started chanting. I asked the person abusing me to stop but he wouldn’t. Then they dropped alcohol on my coat … People were watching but they ignored it. No one wanted to help,” she said.

Sarah, who converted to Islam, said she received abuse following reports of incidents involving Isis in the media. She said: “When I became identifiably Muslim, I got nasty looks, threats and abuse, and that’s an everyday experience, especially because I am a white British Muslim. When I suffer abuse in public, people walk off or stare … I was on my way to the shops and people shouted at me, ‘why don’t we chop your head off?’… Anti-Muslim hate is normal.”

Asma, a midwife, quit her job after being abused by her patients. She said: “I was on a maternity ward and one of my patients, during a nightshift, was in labour. When she saw me with my hijab, she swore at me. She shouted, ‘I don’t want my baby to see your terrorist face. I don’t want my child to come to this world and see someone like you, a terrorist. Leave my country! How dare you come to my ward and show your ugly face.’ I then left my job as a midwife as I felt a lot of people hate me.”

Awan and Zempi revealed that Muslims were multiple and repeat victims of both online and offline forms of hate crime. Many Muslim women said they were now removing their headscarves and men were shaving their beards in an attempt to disguise their faith.

Awan said: “This research reveals worrying levels of fear and intimidation experienced by many Muslims, compounded by a lack of support from the wider public when facing physical threats in the real world and an absence of tough action from social media platforms at the abuse people are receiving online.

“Participants argued that anti-Muslim hate must be challenged from within Muslim communities – too often reluctant to report abuse or attacks – and that the public should intervene and assist victims of anti-Muslim hate where possible.”

Zempi added: “Our participants made a number of recommendations for tackling anti-Muslim hate crime. We are determined to work with relevant organisations to ensure that their voices are heard and recommendations implemented.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/reported-hate-crimes-rise-by-almost-a-fifth,"Home Office figures show more than 52,000 offences were reported to police in England and Wales in 2014-15, an 18% increase on the previous year

The number of hate crimes reported to police has jumped by nearly a fifth, figures show.

There were 52,528 such offences recorded by forces in England and Wales in 2014-15 – an increase of 18% compared with the previous year, according to Home Office data.

More than 80% were classed as race hate crimes, with others involving religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender victims.

The actual scale of hate crimes is likely to be higher than the number drawn from police records.



Officials calculated that, based on combined data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales between 2012-13 and 2014-15, there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes each year.



The latest figures follow a trend in 2013-14, when offences involving religious hatred soared by 45% and race hate crime by 4% after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.

A report published alongside the data pointed to improved recording of crime over the past year, particularly for offences involving violence. It added: “Together with a greater awareness of hate crime, and improved willingness of victims to come forward, this is likely to be a factor in the increase in hate crimes recorded by the police in 2014-15 compared with the previous year.”

Police told to treat anti-Muslim hate crimes in same way as antisemitic attacks Read more

David Cameron has also announced that anti-Muslim hate crimes are to be recorded as a separate category for the first time.



Statisticians found that, contrary to reports, there was no “clear spike” in offences around the times of the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham in August last year, or the Charlie Hebdo terrorist shooting in Paris in January.

A hate crime is defined as “any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic”.

There were increases in reported offences for all five of the monitored hate crime strands between 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Police recorded 42,930 race hate crimes – an increase of 15% on the previous year. Offences linked to victims’ religion increased by 43% on 2013-14 to 3,254, while the number has more than doubled in the past three years.



Hate crimes involving sexual orientation (5,597), disability (2,508) and transgender identity (605) saw annual rises of 22%, 25% and 9% respectively.



An analysis of hate crimes logged by 22 police forces found that 59% were public order offences while three in 10 involved violence, of which 30% led to injury.



Despite the rise in hate crimes recorded by police, the crime survey shows a “statistically significant” fall of 28% between 2007-09 and 2012-15.

Let’s up the ante on disability hate crime | Peter Lewis Read more

Based on data from the 2012-13 to 2014-15 survey, it was estimated that there were an average of 106,000 incidents of racially motivated crime a year, while 38,000 involved religion.



The poll also indicated that Muslims were more likely to be targeted in religiously motivated crimes.



Karen Bradley, minister for preventing abuse and exploitation, said: “Crimes motivated by hatred or hostility towards someone because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender-identity or because they are disabled are absolutely abhorrent and this Government will do everything to eradicate them.



“The increase in recorded hate crime shows that more victims have the confidence to come forward and that the police are improving the way they identify and record hate crimes. We welcome this.”



Asst Ch Con Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for hate crime, said it “damages society and undermines the diversity and tolerance we should instead be celebrating”. He added: “The police are working hard to reduce its impact by listening to victims and supporting the most vulnerable, however, it is also vital that communities and partner agencies come together to challenge hatred wherever they see it.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/police-must-record-anti-muslim-hate-crimes,"Government’s commitment to record anti-Muslim offences as hate crime is designed to reassure Muslim communities that strategy is balanced

The government is to press ahead with requiring police forces in England and Wales to record anti-Muslim hate crimes and to treat them as seriously as antisemitic attacks, David Cameron is to confirm.



The commitment to record anti-Muslim offences as a separate category of hate crime was first made in the Conservative party manifesto and is designed to reassure Muslim communities that the government’s strategy will be balanced, and not just focus on clamping down on potential sources of Muslim extremism, such as its announcement that madrasas will be subject to Ofsted inspection.

The prime minister will make the announcement at the first meeting of his new community engagement forum, convened to discuss the government’s counter-extremism strategy, due to be published later this month. He will also announce extra funding to boost security at faith establishments including mosques.

At present the Tell Mama project, which was set up in 2012, is the best unofficial source of statistics on anti-Muslim hate crime, although the Metropolitan police does compile numbers.



Hate crimes against Muslims in Britain spike after 'jihadi' attacks, study finds Read more

In 2013, 14 police crime statistics showed religious hate crimes increased by 45% and race hate crimes by 4%, with new statistics being published by the Home Office this morning expected to show further rises. Creating a separate category will enable police, prosecutors, local authorities and the communities they serve to have a better understanding of the prevalence of anti-Muslim hate crime and allocate resources accordingly. It will provide the first accurate picture of the extent of anti-Muslim hate crime in England and Wales.

The community engagement forum is the latest in a long line of government efforts to reach out to key figures in the Muslim community.

Downing Street said the group will principally discuss the themes and objectives of the forthcoming counter-extremism strategy, including mobilising a national coalition to challenge and speak out against extremism in all its forms. It will also consider what more government can do to help young British Muslims reach their full potential.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Muslim girls read the Qur’an at madrasa at a Bradford mosque. David Cameron will also announce funding to boost security in mosques. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Ahead of the meeting Cameron said: “I want this government to be as bold in delivering social reform as we have been in economic – and a big social problem we need to tackle to rebuild Britain as an even greater country is extremism.

“We all have a role to play in confronting extremism. That’s why I have invited important Muslim and non-Muslim figures to join the new community engagement forum so I can hear directly about their work in our communities, the challenges they face and so that they can be part of our one nation strategy to defeat it.

“I want to build a national coalition to challenge and speak out against extremists and the poison they peddle. I want British Muslims to know we will back them to stand against those who spread hate and to counter the narrative which says Muslims do not feel British. And I want police to take more action against those who persecute others simply because of their religion.”

Cameron has said in recent speeches he will clamp down on intolerance and the meeting is certain to focus on the roots of extremism, as well as the role Muslim communities can play in countering the roots of a terrorist threat.

Explaining the measures on hate crime, the home secretary, Theresa May, said: “Hate crime has no place in Britain and I am determined to make further progress to ensure we can eradicate this deplorable act.

“Working with police to provide a breakdown in religious-based hate crime data will help forces to build community trust, target their resources and enable the public to hold them to account.

The forum will initially include about 30 multi-faith representatives from across the country and is an opportunity for the PM to hear directly from those taking a leading role challenging extremism in British communities.

They will also be consulted on how best to improve the security of faith institutions and their recommendations will be considered as part of the wider work of Cameron’s extremism taskforce led by Louise Casey.

At present some forces do record Islamophobic crimes as such. Other forces categorise them as hate crimes or specific offences such as assault or grievous bodily harm.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/reported-hate-crimes-rise-by-almost-a-fifth,"Home Office figures show more than 52,000 offences were reported to police in England and Wales in 2014-15, an 18% increase on the previous year

The number of hate crimes reported to police has jumped by nearly a fifth, figures show.

There were 52,528 such offences recorded by forces in England and Wales in 2014-15 – an increase of 18% compared with the previous year, according to Home Office data.

More than 80% were classed as race hate crimes, with others involving religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender victims.

The actual scale of hate crimes is likely to be higher than the number drawn from police records.



Officials calculated that, based on combined data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales between 2012-13 and 2014-15, there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes each year.



The latest figures follow a trend in 2013-14, when offences involving religious hatred soared by 45% and race hate crime by 4% after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.

A report published alongside the data pointed to improved recording of crime over the past year, particularly for offences involving violence. It added: “Together with a greater awareness of hate crime, and improved willingness of victims to come forward, this is likely to be a factor in the increase in hate crimes recorded by the police in 2014-15 compared with the previous year.”

Police told to treat anti-Muslim hate crimes in same way as antisemitic attacks Read more

David Cameron has also announced that anti-Muslim hate crimes are to be recorded as a separate category for the first time.



Statisticians found that, contrary to reports, there was no “clear spike” in offences around the times of the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham in August last year, or the Charlie Hebdo terrorist shooting in Paris in January.

A hate crime is defined as “any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic”.

There were increases in reported offences for all five of the monitored hate crime strands between 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Police recorded 42,930 race hate crimes – an increase of 15% on the previous year. Offences linked to victims’ religion increased by 43% on 2013-14 to 3,254, while the number has more than doubled in the past three years.



Hate crimes involving sexual orientation (5,597), disability (2,508) and transgender identity (605) saw annual rises of 22%, 25% and 9% respectively.



An analysis of hate crimes logged by 22 police forces found that 59% were public order offences while three in 10 involved violence, of which 30% led to injury.



Despite the rise in hate crimes recorded by police, the crime survey shows a “statistically significant” fall of 28% between 2007-09 and 2012-15.

Let’s up the ante on disability hate crime | Peter Lewis Read more

Based on data from the 2012-13 to 2014-15 survey, it was estimated that there were an average of 106,000 incidents of racially motivated crime a year, while 38,000 involved religion.



The poll also indicated that Muslims were more likely to be targeted in religiously motivated crimes.



Karen Bradley, minister for preventing abuse and exploitation, said: “Crimes motivated by hatred or hostility towards someone because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender-identity or because they are disabled are absolutely abhorrent and this Government will do everything to eradicate them.



“The increase in recorded hate crime shows that more victims have the confidence to come forward and that the police are improving the way they identify and record hate crimes. We welcome this.”



Asst Ch Con Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for hate crime, said it “damages society and undermines the diversity and tolerance we should instead be celebrating”. He added: “The police are working hard to reduce its impact by listening to victims and supporting the most vulnerable, however, it is also vital that communities and partner agencies come together to challenge hatred wherever they see it.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/police-must-record-anti-muslim-hate-crimes,"Government’s commitment to record anti-Muslim offences as hate crime is designed to reassure Muslim communities that strategy is balanced

The government is to press ahead with requiring police forces in England and Wales to record anti-Muslim hate crimes and to treat them as seriously as antisemitic attacks, David Cameron is to confirm.



The commitment to record anti-Muslim offences as a separate category of hate crime was first made in the Conservative party manifesto and is designed to reassure Muslim communities that the government’s strategy will be balanced, and not just focus on clamping down on potential sources of Muslim extremism, such as its announcement that madrasas will be subject to Ofsted inspection.

The prime minister will make the announcement at the first meeting of his new community engagement forum, convened to discuss the government’s counter-extremism strategy, due to be published later this month. He will also announce extra funding to boost security at faith establishments including mosques.

At present the Tell Mama project, which was set up in 2012, is the best unofficial source of statistics on anti-Muslim hate crime, although the Metropolitan police does compile numbers.



Hate crimes against Muslims in Britain spike after 'jihadi' attacks, study finds Read more

In 2013, 14 police crime statistics showed religious hate crimes increased by 45% and race hate crimes by 4%, with new statistics being published by the Home Office this morning expected to show further rises. Creating a separate category will enable police, prosecutors, local authorities and the communities they serve to have a better understanding of the prevalence of anti-Muslim hate crime and allocate resources accordingly. It will provide the first accurate picture of the extent of anti-Muslim hate crime in England and Wales.

The community engagement forum is the latest in a long line of government efforts to reach out to key figures in the Muslim community.

Downing Street said the group will principally discuss the themes and objectives of the forthcoming counter-extremism strategy, including mobilising a national coalition to challenge and speak out against extremism in all its forms. It will also consider what more government can do to help young British Muslims reach their full potential.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Muslim girls read the Qur’an at madrasa at a Bradford mosque. David Cameron will also announce funding to boost security in mosques. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Ahead of the meeting Cameron said: “I want this government to be as bold in delivering social reform as we have been in economic – and a big social problem we need to tackle to rebuild Britain as an even greater country is extremism.

“We all have a role to play in confronting extremism. That’s why I have invited important Muslim and non-Muslim figures to join the new community engagement forum so I can hear directly about their work in our communities, the challenges they face and so that they can be part of our one nation strategy to defeat it.

“I want to build a national coalition to challenge and speak out against extremists and the poison they peddle. I want British Muslims to know we will back them to stand against those who spread hate and to counter the narrative which says Muslims do not feel British. And I want police to take more action against those who persecute others simply because of their religion.”

Cameron has said in recent speeches he will clamp down on intolerance and the meeting is certain to focus on the roots of extremism, as well as the role Muslim communities can play in countering the roots of a terrorist threat.

Explaining the measures on hate crime, the home secretary, Theresa May, said: “Hate crime has no place in Britain and I am determined to make further progress to ensure we can eradicate this deplorable act.

“Working with police to provide a breakdown in religious-based hate crime data will help forces to build community trust, target their resources and enable the public to hold them to account.

The forum will initially include about 30 multi-faith representatives from across the country and is an opportunity for the PM to hear directly from those taking a leading role challenging extremism in British communities.

They will also be consulted on how best to improve the security of faith institutions and their recommendations will be considered as part of the wider work of Cameron’s extremism taskforce led by Louise Casey.

At present some forces do record Islamophobic crimes as such. Other forces categorise them as hate crimes or specific offences such as assault or grievous bodily harm.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/15/chicago-teen-sikh-man-assault-hate-crime,"Further investigation into apparent road rage incident revealed that teenager yelled racial slurs at Inderjit Mukker, 53, which included calling him a terrorist

A suburban Chicago teenager already charged with punching a Sikh man during what authorities describe as a road rage incident has been charged with a hate crime, prosecutors said on Tuesday.



Further investigation into the incident in Darien on 8 September revealed that the teen yelled racial slurs from his vehicle at 53-year-old Inderjit Mukker, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office said in a news release.

After the two pulled over, Mukker stayed sitting in his vehicle but the teen approached and punched him in the face, prosecutors say.

“Crimes based on hatred or prejudices have no place in our society,” state’s attorney Robert B Berlin said in a statement. “Any physical attack motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s pre-conceived bias against another individual based on race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation is a crime not only against the victim but against society as a whole.”

A faith group called the Sikh Coalition has been urging authorities to charge the teen with a hate crime after Mukker, a resident of Darien, told the group that his attacker had yelled at him, calling him a terrorist. The group said they met with prosecutors Monday and “shared additional evidence and information”, according to a Sikh Coalition news release.

“For the Sikh American community, a formal hate crime charge was never about a harsher penalty, but instead prosecuting the crime for what it was,” Sikh Coalition legal director Harsimran Kaur said.

After the incident, police identified the teen and went to his home in nearby Willowbrook. There, according to Berlin’s office, the teen resisted arrest and punched a police officer in the face.

He has also been charged with five counts of felony aggravated battery.

A lawyer for the teenager could not immediately be identified.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/21/white-supremacist-convicted-plot-to-kill-obama-death-ray-device,"A New York white supremacist was convicted by a federal jury on Friday of plotting to use a remote-controlled radiation device he called “Hiroshima on a light switch” to harm Muslims and President Barack Obama.



After less than three hours of deliberation in US district court in Albany, New York, the jury unanimously found Glendon Scott Crawford guilty of all three charges against him.

Crawford, 51, wearing a gray suit and eyeglasses, showed no emotion as judge Gary Sharpe read the verdict.

He was convicted of use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to build and use a radiological dispersal device. He was also convicted of distributing information with respect to a weapon of mass destruction.

“Glendon Scott Crawford was a terrorist who attempted to acquire a weapon of mass destruction and to use it to kill innocent members of the Muslim community,” said Richard Hartunian, US attorney for the northern district of New York.

Men built X-ray gun to shoot Israel opponents – FBI Read more

Hartunian credited the public with giving tips to law enforcement that led to an investigation of Crawford.

At his sentencing on 15 December, Crawford faces a mandatory minimum of 25 years to life in prison and a $2m fine for the radiological dispersal device charge, up to life in prison for the weapon of mass destruction charge and up to 20 years in prison for the distribution of information charge.

In the trial’s closing arguments, assistant US attorney Rick Belliss said the scheme was “very real, very viable and very deadly”.

Crawford, 51, is a Ku Klux Klan member from Galway. The KKK is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an American hate group.

Summing up the five-day trial, Belliss played videotapes in which Crawford said he planned for decades to create the device and unleash it on his enemies – Muslims and the White House. Belliss said one target was “a certain liberal politician” who Crawford said was in the White House.

Defense lawyer Kevin Luibrand told jurors Crawford had been entrapped by the government, and he blamed undercover Federal Bureau of Investigations agents for creating the device.

In his closing argument, Luibrand said if “Crawford is guilty of anything, it is proliferating information” but said the government was responsible for creating what the media dubbed the “death ray” machine.

Crawford went to North Carolina to discuss funding his project with Chris Barker, KKK imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights, who turned out to be cooperating with the FBI.

Belliss held up a glass-enclosed metal “X-ray tube” that he said was similar to the device, saying it was proof that Crawford did “more than hand out pamphlets”.

Luibrand also played several video clips of meetings between two undercover FBI agents and Crawford, who admitted he did not have the technical knowledge to make or operate such a device.

“The government is not allowed to encourage someone to commit a crime,” Luibrand said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/01/jewish-muslim-lgbt-communities-hate-crime-hotline-boris-johnson-london,"Internal emails reveal Boris Johnson, mayor of London, intends to introduce single hotline for capital, but charities say plans will dilute community trust

London’s Jewish, Muslim and LGBT communities have joined forces to oppose plans by Boris Johnston for a hate-crime hotline, claiming it would dissuade victims from reporting antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic attacks at a time of rising attacks.

Not yet officially announced, internal emails from the mayor’s office for policing and crime, seen by the Guardian, reveal that Johnson is intending to introduce a one-number hotline for reporting hate crime throughout the capital.

However, the Community Service Trust, a Jewish security charity that runs an incident hotline; Tell Mama (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), which monitors Islamophobic incidents in Britain; and the charity Galop, which records hate crime towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, say that Johnson’s plans will dilute community trust in the existing hotlines and discourage reporting.

“Reporting relies on trust between organisations and their communities, and a one-number, blanket approach ignores this fundamental principle,” said Nik Noone, chief executive of Galop.

The development comes as statistics show that the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK recently reached the highest level ever recorded, with CST reports of violence, property damage, abuse and threats against Britain’s 291,000 Jews more than doubling last year. Last year some of the UK’s biggest police forces recorded a rise in the number of violent homophobic crimes.

Similarly, Muslims in Britain are consistently the target of hate crimes in retribution for global terrorist attacks, with noticeable spikes observed in the immediate aftermath of high-profile terrorist attacks in Paris, Sydney, and Copenhagen in the past year.

New figures reveal that pattern was repeated during the aftermath of the shootings in Tunisia that killed 38 including 30 British nationals last month. During the week before the attack, Tell Mama recorded 11 incidents of offline and online Islamophobia, rising to 23 in the week following the terror attack in Sousse.

Richard Benson, former chief executive of the CST for 12 years until 2013, said: “It is quite clear that communities feel more comfortable when they are victims of a hate crime to report the issue to somebody within that community who understands them.

“That’s why the CST and Tell Mama have both been successful in providing a level of support to their communities, but to have a one-stop shop that covers every single community will be confusing and, secondly, will dilute the existing successful work currently carried out by those groups.”

A similar proposal by the Metropolitan police, said Benson, to introduce a hate crime monitoring hotline was defeated around five years ago after resistance by experts and anti-discrimination groups.



The CST declined to comment, pointing out that Benson was speaking in his capacity as former director of the charity.

Noone said the mayor’s plans risked undermining the existing schemes that meant London was a world leader in its approach to hate crime.

“If London wants to retain its place as a world-leading city in tackling hate crime they need to retain and invest in the community-built solution, not impose a new generalist service that will push away direct access to the specialist services which are at the heart of why London is currently the world leader.”

She added: “These community-led approaches have made the UK the world leader for hate crime reporting. A quarter of all anti-LGBT hate crime reports in UK are made in London and the city has more hate crime reports each year than the whole of the US.”

Fiyaz Mughal, who founded interfaith group Faith Matters, which runs Tell Mama, said: “There is a real problem with this, since singular reporting points do not work well and where implemented, anti-Muslim hate figures are extremely low. Furthermore, another number will confuse members of the public and, in relation to anti-Muslim hate, it is already difficult to report and this will add another layer of confusion. It will also segment data-collection.”

According to the emails from Johnson’s office, the launch of the hotline will be announced during Hate Crime Awareness Week in October. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office for policing and crime said: “While there has been an increase in the reporting of hate crime, we know that these offences are still significantly under-reported and that is why the mayor is committed to making it easier for victims to come forward”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/24/fresno-california-transgender-woman-stabbed,"Activists are calling for a hate crimes investigation after a transgender woman in California was stabbed to death early Thursday morning.

Police in Fresno are investigating the death of KC Haggard as a homicide – the second such killing of a trans woman this week – as community members are calling her stabbing a “targeted attack”.



Haggard, 66, was walking north on Blackstone Avenue at 1.43am early Thursday morning, when a light-colored SUV pulled over and the car’s occupants began talking to her.

In a surveillance video supplied by Most Wanted Tattoo, a business across the street, Haggard can be seen speaking with both the passenger and driver of the vehicle.

Haggard was stabbed in the neck a few moments later, after she leaned closer to the open window of the passenger side of the vehicle, according to officials.

The footage shows the car speeding off after the victim, leaving Haggard holding her neck and trying to flag down passing vehicles, none of which stopped.

It’s unclear how long she waited until a passerby noticed she was bleeding and called an ambulance. She was immediately rushed to Community Regional medical center, where she was later pronounced dead.

“The way we seen it … it was cold-blooded murder,” Augie Rubio, owner of the tattoo shop, told Fresno news-station KSFN-TV shortly after the attack. “You didn’t have to, man – you could have just drove away.”

Haggard was not robbed during the attack, which has led the local transgender community to see her killing as a hate-crime.

'I am Alena': life as a trans woman where survival means living as Christopher Read more

“I viewed the police feed and she was obviously targeted as a transgender woman,” Karen Adell Scott, founder of TransCare, told the Guardian.

Scott said that Haggard was one of only a few people on the street at that time, which she believed was proof that it was a targeted attack.

“They ‘clocked’ her, or saw her as transgender and then selected her as their target over the others,” Scott said. “They had time to interact with her at the window of her car and finalized their decision to violently murder her based upon this final analysis of who she was.”



A vigil was held at the crime scene hours after the murder, with a significant number of the local LGBT activist community attending.

Plainclothes Fresno officers came to the vigil, off-duty, to provide security for the event, according to Scott, who organized the vigil.

“This woman was representative of all of us,” Scott said. “She was trying to be authentic as her real self.

“[And then] she died alone and uncared for, treated as an expendable entertainment, a piece of garbage, for those who do not see transgender people as actual human beings,” she continued.

Haggard is the 11th transgender woman to be killed in the US this year alone. Her murder comes just two days after 25-year-old India Clarke was found beaten to death in Tampa Bay, Florida.

Earlier this year, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released a comprehensive report on violence affecting HIV-positive and LGBTQ people, which found that 2014 saw a 19% rise in murders.

With Haggard’s death, 2015 looks set to be the most violent on record for trans women.

Her murder comes two days before the Sunday premiere of the highly anticipated eight-part reality series I Am Cait, which will follow Caitlyn Jenner as she transitions to living as a woman..

Haggard, who also recently came out and began publically transitioning, according to Scott, was only a year older then Jenner.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/22/dylann-roof-charleston-shooting-hate-crimes-charges,"Man suspected of killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston indicted by federal grand jury on dozens of charges, some of which carry the death penalty

The 21-year-old man suspected of killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, has been indicted on dozens of federal charges, US attorney general Loretta Lynch announced on Wednesday.

Lynch said a federal grand jury indicted Roof on 33 hate crime charges, including murder and attempted murder, stemming from what she described as a months-long plot to kill African Americans at worship in a black church. Roof could face the death penalty as a result of the charges, though Lynch said prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the punishment.

“Racially motivated violence such as this is the original domestic terrorism,” said Lynch, while praising the families of the Emanuel AME shooting victims as pillars of “true grace”.



“On that summer evening, [Roof] found his target: African Americans engaged in worship,” said Lynch. “Met with welcome by the ministers of the church and its parishioners, he joined them in their Bible study group. The parishioners had Bibles. Dylann Roof has his gun, eight magazines loaded with hollow-point bullets. While the parishioners were engaged in Bible study, Dylann Roof drew his pistol and opened fire.”



The grand jury indicted Roof under two separate federal hate crimes statutes, Lynch said, specifically citing the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act.



The charges are in addition to murder and weapons charges he already faces at the county level. Both the federal and state charges can include the death penalty, though no decision has yet been made on whether to seek Roof’s execution.

Roof is accused of entering the Emanuel AME church in Charleston on 17 June and sitting through an hour of Bible study before fatally shooting nine people and fleeing. He was captured 240 miles away in Shelby, North Carolina.



In addition to evidence gathered at the scene and photos in which he appears waving a Confederate flag, authorities also suspect Roof is the author of a widely cited racist screed, published on a website called the Last Rhodesian, a reference to the now-defunct African nation whose leader was openly racist.

The federal charges come as Roof faces nine counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons charge in Charleston County, counts on which South Carolina prosecutors could choose to seek the death penalty.

Roof cannot be charged with hate crimes in state court, however – South Carolina is among just five states, including the southern states of Georgia and Arkansas, that have no hate crimes laws.

A hate crime is not a distinct federal offense, but rather an existing criminal offense that is motivated by bias, such as alleged racial bias in Roof’s case. The FBI often helps local jurisdictions investigate these acts, such as arson or murder. That evidence may be used to bring civil rights charges against a defendant, under the US Justice Department’s purview. The FBI looks at hate crime prosecutions as a “backstop” to prosecutions by local law enforcement. In 2012, the FBI helped investigate more than 200 hate crimes, the agency said on its website.

Nationally, almost 6,000 hate crimes were reported to local law enforcement agencies in 2013, according to the FBI. That is the most recent year for which data is available. However, it’s unclear how reliable this data is.



Studies by the Department of Justice have found as many as 250,000 Americans aged 12 and older could be victims of hate crimes each year, two-thirds of which go unreported.



Federal prosecutors believe that hate crimes are underreported, and recent research suggests that as many as two-thirds of hate crimes are not correctly counted as such by local jurisdictions.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/22/combat-disability-hate-crime-understand-people-commit,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/29/muslim-graves-in-nottingham-cemetery-damaged-after-tunisia-attack,"Nottingham council says it is treating damage to name plaques and decorative lights on plots at High Wood cemetery in Bulwell as a hate crime

Damage caused to graves in the Muslim section of a cemetery in the wake of the Tunisia terror attack has been condemned as an attempt to divide communities.

Nottingham city council said it was treating the damage to at least 10 plots at High Wood cemetery in Bulwell as a hate crime.

Nottinghamshire police have stepped up patrols at the cemetery and other sites after name plaques and decorative lights on Muslim and non-Muslim plots were damaged at the weekend.

The council’s deputy leader, Graham Chapman, said: “We totally condemn what has taken place at High Wood cemetery. This irresponsible act of hatred achieves absolutely nothing.

“We will be increasing security at the cemetery and, although we cannot guarantee solving this hate crime, the council will be working with the police to do our utmost to track down the perpetrators.”

Ch Supt Mark Holland confirmed that the focus of the damage appeared to be on Muslim graves, and said the incident was very upsetting for the families affected.

He said: “Nottinghamshire police has been liaising closely with the Muslim community in Nottinghamshire since the events in Tunisia and we have been in close contact following the reports of these events. I am sure everyone in Nottinghamshire will be united in their condemnation of these actions and we would urge anyone who knows anything about this incident to contact police immediately.”

Anyone with information that could identify those responsible is asked to call Nottinghamshire police on 101.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/23/homophobic-abuse-schools-must-do-more,"Your piece on the bullying of LGBT people (Alert over rural LGBT hate crimes, 23 June) reminded me vividly of my own experiences. These included shouted abuse in the street, hammering on the front door, intrusion into our property, staring into the window and ugly phone calls. Our tormentors succeeded in intimidating us. We lived in a state of apprehension and worry. Every time we went out or took a holiday, we wondered whether there would be another broken window. The sad thing about all this was that all of our abusers were young people – often very young children. Where did they acquire this hatred?

After trying to reason with them – without success – we eventually discovered how to counterattack our oppressors. We threatened to photograph them and take the photos to the police; by this time there were laws to prosecute hate-mongers. And we had a CCTV system installed with prominent warnings. This worked immediately. Since then, we haven’t had a single malicious experience. But of course this hasn’t changed the mindset of our abusers. Schools could do more to tackle homophobia, but teachers are terrified that they might be labelled as gay. Perhaps parents and the media have scared children with tales of paedophiles. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that the lives of many young people have been blighted by a deep aversion against LGBT people. What a way to live your childhood.

Maurice George

Ormskirk, Lancashire",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/23/hate-crime-rural-lgbt-people-study,"Many do not report abuse because of fears that police would not take them seriously or that they would be outed to their families

LGBT people in Britain’s rural towns and villages are being bullied relentlessly because of their sexuality, leaving some too scared to leave the house, according to an expert in hate crime.

Stevie-Jade Hardy, a lecturer at the University of Leicester’s Centre for Hate Studies and the author of a report on hate crime, said harassment and verbal abuse was an everyday reality for many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

She said LGBT people were being left “lonely and isolated with nowhere to turn”, but many did not report hate crimes because they feared that the police would not take them seriously or that they would be “outed” to their families.

“There were quite a few who mentioned being targeted by young people in their area,” Hardy said. “People would graffiti their house or cause criminal damage, young people when they walked down the street would verbally abuse them, call them derogatory names, and often it would start to escalate.

“If something was done about it, then they found that sometimes the instances got worse and those young people were targeting them more frequently. But it tended to be those more everyday experiences that are incredibly difficult to deal with – that drip-drip effect.”

Hardy pointed to national figures that suggest eight in 10 LGBT people have been verbally abused or harassed and one in 10 has been physically assaulted. She said LGBT people felt they were more likely to be the victim of hate crime if they were “noticeably different”, potentially making those in villages particularly vulnerable.

“Within rural locations those differences are maybe magnified, and so young people will often target someone who they see as being different in that context. People are actually scared to go out into their garden to enjoy the sun; some people had taken some practical steps like having CCTV put into their house.

“It can be really damaging, particularly in the rural locations it tended to be older LGBT people as well. And so there isn’t often that community or that group you can go to to access support. That was a big issue, just feeling lonely and isolated and that there is nowhere to turn.”

Hardy said 44 of the 50 people she had spoken to for her report – LGB&T Crime Reporting: Identifying Barriers and Solutions – had been a victim of a hate crime.

She said about 35,000 cases of hate crime against LGBT people went unreported each year. In 2012-13, 4,267 incidents were recorded by police. The Crime Survey for England and Wales showed 39,000 homophobic hate incidents over the same period.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is launching a campaign to encourage people to report abuse.

Its deputy chair, Caroline Waters, said it was unacceptable that the LGBT community “still face such persistent prejudice, abuse and discrimination”.

She said: “We are a country with proud traditions of tolerance and respect but we must not let important progress in areas such as same-sex marriage mask the acute and continuing challenges that still remain.

“Researchers in today’s report were told of victims’ fear of not being taken seriously, how they were scared of being ‘outed’ and suspicion and distrust of the authorities. We must all redouble our efforts, and work together to give LGBT communities a stronger voice and put an end to the hatred that is a blight on modern society.”

Paul Roberts, the chief executive of the LGBT Consortium, said: “LGBT communities are already working with the police to remove barriers to reporting, and offer practical and emotional support. However, too often LGBT people don’t know they are experiencing hate crime or just shrug it off.

“Collectively, we are saying it is time to move on from this. Our message today is recognise hate crime when it happens, report it, and get support when you need it.”

The equalities minister, Nicky Morgan, said: “The EHRC has my full support in its campaign to encourage LGB&T people to report hate crimes to the relevant authorities, and they deserve to know that when they report these abhorrent crimes they will be taken seriously and dealt with fairly.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/17/hate-crimes-against-muslims-britain-spike-jihadi-attacks-study,"Anti-Muslim attacks in the UK nearly quadrupled after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris but fell overall on 2013-14, when Lee Rigby was murdered

Muslims in Britain are becoming the target of hate crimes in retribution for terrorist attacks around the world, according to a new report based on the latest figures for anti-Muslim attacks.

The study by Teesside University found that children as young as 10 have been involved in hate-crime attacks and incidents, although most perpetrators were identified as being over 40.

The latest data for anti-Muslim incidents in Britain from the Tell Mama project reveals that there were noticeable spikes in the immediate aftermath of the high-profile terrorist attacks in Paris, Sydney, and Copenhagen in the past year.

The Tell Mama (Measuring anti-Muslim attacks) figures, which have previously been cited by the home secretary, Theresa May, show that there were 548 incidents reported from March 2014 to February 2015. These ranged from online abuse and threats, to street-based assaults and extreme violence.

The 548 incidents reported in 2014-15 compares with 734 cases reported to Tell Mama during 2013-14. The study’s authors, Prof Matthew Feldman and Dr Mark Littler, say that the reduction is most likely to be accounted for by the enormous spike in attacks on Muslims in the weeks following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on 22 May 2013: “The overall number of reports is consistent with the picture presented in 2012-13, when 584 cases were reported.”

The study, by Teesside University’s centre for fascist, anti-fascist and post-fascist studies, says that fewer than half of the 548 recorded incidents were reported to the police by victims. Most of the incidents – 402 – took place online but most of the physical attacks were against women, and in a significant number of cases, the victim was wearing distinctively Muslim clothing. They included 21 cases of assault, 29 threats and 15 cases of damage to property.

The online attacks included anti-Muslim abuse and the dissemination of anti-Muslim literature.

Bar chart showing increase in anti-Muslim attacks after killings in Sydney, Copenhagen and Paris More restrained media reporting of the Sydney siege, in which the gunman’s history of mental illness was quickly identified, may have helped minimise the backlash against Muslims in Britain, the study suggests.

The authors say the figures reveal spikes in incidents against British Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the three self-proclaimed jihadi Islamist atrocities in Sydney, Paris and Copenhagen.

In the seven days before the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on 7 January, in which 12 people were killed, there were 12 incidents reported to Tell Mama, but there were 45 in the seven days that followed.

The pattern was similar in the Sydney hostage crisis in December and in Copenhagen in which two people were killed by a gunman outside the city’s Great Synagogue in February. There were 10 reported incidents against British Muslims in the seven days before Sydney and 12 reported in the week after. There were 18 incidents in the seven days before the Copenhagen attack, which rose to 30 in the following seven days.



The study suggests that more restrained media reporting of the Sydney hostage situation, in which the hostage taker, who claimed to be acting on behalf of Islamic State, was swiftly identified as having a background of mental illness, may have played a role in minimising the backlash against the Muslim community in Britain.

Feldman said “The analysis offers broad support for the theory of cumulative extremism, with the ratcheting up of violent activity between opposing groups, with an act of violence triggering a response that itself sparks further attacks.

Littler added: “Findings also suggest that where the media stress the Muslim background of attackers, and devote significant coverage to it, the violent response is likely to be greater than in cases where the motivation of the attackers are downplayed or rejected in favour of alternative explanations. The latter appears to be the case with the Sydney perpetrator, who was swiftly and repeatedly identified as mentally ill.”

Fiyaz Mughal, of Tell Mama, said: “From the work that we do with victims of anti-Muslim hate [crimes], it is clear that local, national and international incidents have real impacts on people’s lives here in the UK. In a globally connected world, it seems that hate is no different and that the actions by one group lead to counter-reactions and impacts on another set of communities in another country.”

The Tell Mama project, which was started in 2012, is considered the only authoritative source of data on the scale of attacks on Muslims in Britain. The home secretary has said she wants all police forces to record anti-Muslim hate crimes in an attempt to establish the full extent of Islamophobia in Britain.

The minister for countering extremism, Lord Ahmad, said: “The government is determined to defeat extremism in all its forms by continuing to work in partnership with communities to challenge the spread of hatred and intolerance.

“We deplore religious and racially motivated attacks and are committed to tackling hate crime. As part of this work we have committed to reviewing the legislation governing hate crime and will introduce a comprehensive package of measures to address those who stir up hatred against others.

“The police have recorded hate crime since 2011, and we are exploring how this data can be broken down further.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/11/impact-of-changes-to-disability-benefits,"Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (Disabled people have become human collateral in an ideological war, 9 June) is a travesty of the truth. First among a catalogue of inaccuracies is the claim that support made available to some disabled people under the independent living fund is to be removed. Responsibility for providing this support is, in fact, being transferred to local authorities. Far from being taken away, it will be administered in a way better able to take account of variations in local circumstances and services.

Mr Chakrabortty goes on to claim that Atos was commissioned by Iain Duncan Smith in order to test every claimant for employment support allowance and “bring down the bill for disability benefits”. In fact Atos was appointed by the last Labour government and under the coalition there has been significant improvement to the process to provide a better experience for claimants. Far from bringing down any bills, the assessment of claimants ensures fairer outcomes, enables employment support for disabled people who might previously have just been written off, and targets financial help at those with the greatest need.

Disability minister’s travesty of the truth | Letters Read more

Perhaps the most disingenuous of all Mr Chakrabortty’s allegations is that the government has caused an increase in disability hate crime. It is because of efforts to increase awareness of disability hate crime that these types of offences are now more likely to be reported and are finally being treated with the seriousness they deserve.

Mr Chakrabortty may feel the only people he is damaging with these falsehoods are ministers like me. But it is high time he realised the effect that his scaremongering might also have on the anxiety levels of some of the most vulnerable disabled people.

Justin Tomlinson MP

Minister for disabled people

• In the year we celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta we have a significant section of the population for whom justice is denied, so that many of them do not have the means to live. Mark Wood, a gentle, artistic, ecologically-minded man with complex needs, died of starvation after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits. This happened in Bampton in 2013, in the heart of David Cameron’s constituency. Mark’s family, with the support of Mind, the mental health charity, have put together in his memory an exhibition of his creative work, which will be showing at Oxford town hall from 27 June to 18 July. The exhibition is free, and we hope that David Cameron and his new minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, will find time to visit it, and perhaps feel some shame.

Hilary Caldicott

Witney, Oxfordshire",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/10/lee-irving-murder-disability-hate-crime-increase,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/03/new-york-transgender-woman-subway-assault,"The 28-year-old woman sustained minor injuries after being assaulted while waiting for train, as NYPD investigates possible hate crime

The NYPD are investigating a possible hate crime after a transgender woman waiting on a New York City subway platform was pushed on to the tracks on Monday morning.

A man shown in surveillance released on Wednesday is wanted by authorities.



The 28-year old woman, who has not been identified by NYPD, was waiting for a southbound 6 subway train at the Bleeker Street station in Manhattan at approximately 9am on Monday.

The assailant asked the woman “What are you looking at?” while standing nearby on the platform. He then “ran to a garbage pail” and removed a plastic bottle which he threw at her before pushing her onto the tracks, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Commuters shortly after the incident pulled the woman back onto the platform as the assailant fled the scene. Authorities then took her to Bellevue Hospital where she was treated for lacerations on her chin and bruises on her chin and arm before being released

Homicides involving transgender women of color have been unusually high so far in 2015 with eight confirmed deaths as of last month. The FBI began reporting hate crimes towards transgender women for the first time in December 2014 with organizations like the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Project (NCAVP) calling their numbers “incredibly low”.

The NYPD’s hate crimes task force is currently investigating the case.

Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS, submit tips on the Crime Stoppers website, or text 274637 (Crimes) and enter TIP577.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/02/lgbt-people-suffer-widespread-violent-abuse-discrimination-new-un-report,"The report cites beatings, jailings and murder and says despite actions to reduce the abuse, human rights violations based on sexual orientation continue

The United Nations human rights chief has said in a new report that lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people are victims of “pervasive violent abuse, harassment and discrimination” in all regions of the world and cites hundreds of hate-related killings.

The high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said actions by some countries to reduce violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity since the last report in 2011 have been overshadowed by continuing human rights violations against these groups, too often perpetrated with impunity.

The report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council circulated on Monday cites the murder of transsexual women in Uruguay and of black lesbian women in South Africa, and the killing of a gay man in Chile by neo-Nazis who carved swastikas into his body. In February 2015, it said, photos appeared to show several men, allegedly accused of homosexual acts, being pushed off a building to their deaths in Syria by militants of the so-called Islamic State extremist group.

While data is “patchy”, the report said available information suggests alarmingly high rates of violence against LGBTs.

Transphobic hate crimes rising in UK, police say Read more

Brazil reported 310 documented murders in 2012 “in which homophobia or transphobia was a motive”, it said. The trans murder monitoring project, which collects reports of homicides of transgender people, lists 1,612 murders in 62 countries between 2008 and 2014. And the inter-American commission on human rights reported 594 hate-related killings of LGBT people in the 25 countries of the Organisation of American States between January 2013 and March 2014, it said.

The report also gives many examples of non-lethal violence including the arrest, beating and ill-treatment by police in Zimbabwe of 44 members of an LGBT organisation, a woman reportedly arrested in Bangladesh for being a lesbian who was allegedly raped by police while in custody, and four people arrested in Egypt for their alleged sexual orientation who were reportedly sexually assaulted by other inmates while in detention.

In the United States, the report said recent government figures show that bias-motivated crimes based on sexual orientation rank second only to racist incidents among hate crimes.

According to the report, at least 76 countries retain laws used to criminalise and harass people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, including laws criminalising consensual same-sex relationships among adults.

In Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and parts of Nigeria and Somalia, consensual homosexual conduct may be punished by death, “a grave violation of human rights,” the report said.

The rights chief expressed concern about laws enacted or proposed in the past two years to restrict public discussion of sexual orientation under the guise of protecting minors from information on not-traditional sexual relations. He pointed to Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Moldova, Russia, Uganda and Ukraine.

The report makes more than 20 recommendations including urging all countries to ban so-called “conversion therapies” intended to “cure” homosexual attraction as well as involuntary treatment, forced sterilisation and forced genital and anal examinations.

The high commissioner also calls for changing laws to remove offences relating to consensual same-sex conduct, investigating and prosecuting alleged hate-crimes and prohibiting incitement of hatred and violence on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.



",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/23/hate-crime-rural-lgbt-people-study,"Many do not report abuse because of fears that police would not take them seriously or that they would be outed to their families

LGBT people in Britain’s rural towns and villages are being bullied relentlessly because of their sexuality, leaving some too scared to leave the house, according to an expert in hate crime.

Stevie-Jade Hardy, a lecturer at the University of Leicester’s Centre for Hate Studies and the author of a report on hate crime, said harassment and verbal abuse was an everyday reality for many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

She said LGBT people were being left “lonely and isolated with nowhere to turn”, but many did not report hate crimes because they feared that the police would not take them seriously or that they would be “outed” to their families.

“There were quite a few who mentioned being targeted by young people in their area,” Hardy said. “People would graffiti their house or cause criminal damage, young people when they walked down the street would verbally abuse them, call them derogatory names, and often it would start to escalate.

“If something was done about it, then they found that sometimes the instances got worse and those young people were targeting them more frequently. But it tended to be those more everyday experiences that are incredibly difficult to deal with – that drip-drip effect.”

Hardy pointed to national figures that suggest eight in 10 LGBT people have been verbally abused or harassed and one in 10 has been physically assaulted. She said LGBT people felt they were more likely to be the victim of hate crime if they were “noticeably different”, potentially making those in villages particularly vulnerable.

“Within rural locations those differences are maybe magnified, and so young people will often target someone who they see as being different in that context. People are actually scared to go out into their garden to enjoy the sun; some people had taken some practical steps like having CCTV put into their house.

“It can be really damaging, particularly in the rural locations it tended to be older LGBT people as well. And so there isn’t often that community or that group you can go to to access support. That was a big issue, just feeling lonely and isolated and that there is nowhere to turn.”

Hardy said 44 of the 50 people she had spoken to for her report – LGB&T Crime Reporting: Identifying Barriers and Solutions – had been a victim of a hate crime.

She said about 35,000 cases of hate crime against LGBT people went unreported each year. In 2012-13, 4,267 incidents were recorded by police. The Crime Survey for England and Wales showed 39,000 homophobic hate incidents over the same period.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is launching a campaign to encourage people to report abuse.

Its deputy chair, Caroline Waters, said it was unacceptable that the LGBT community “still face such persistent prejudice, abuse and discrimination”.

She said: “We are a country with proud traditions of tolerance and respect but we must not let important progress in areas such as same-sex marriage mask the acute and continuing challenges that still remain.

“Researchers in today’s report were told of victims’ fear of not being taken seriously, how they were scared of being ‘outed’ and suspicion and distrust of the authorities. We must all redouble our efforts, and work together to give LGBT communities a stronger voice and put an end to the hatred that is a blight on modern society.”

Paul Roberts, the chief executive of the LGBT Consortium, said: “LGBT communities are already working with the police to remove barriers to reporting, and offer practical and emotional support. However, too often LGBT people don’t know they are experiencing hate crime or just shrug it off.

“Collectively, we are saying it is time to move on from this. Our message today is recognise hate crime when it happens, report it, and get support when you need it.”

The equalities minister, Nicky Morgan, said: “The EHRC has my full support in its campaign to encourage LGB&T people to report hate crimes to the relevant authorities, and they deserve to know that when they report these abhorrent crimes they will be taken seriously and dealt with fairly.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/17/hate-crimes-against-muslims-britain-spike-jihadi-attacks-study,"Anti-Muslim attacks in the UK nearly quadrupled after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris but fell overall on 2013-14, when Lee Rigby was murdered

Muslims in Britain are becoming the target of hate crimes in retribution for terrorist attacks around the world, according to a new report based on the latest figures for anti-Muslim attacks.

The study by Teesside University found that children as young as 10 have been involved in hate-crime attacks and incidents, although most perpetrators were identified as being over 40.

The latest data for anti-Muslim incidents in Britain from the Tell Mama project reveals that there were noticeable spikes in the immediate aftermath of the high-profile terrorist attacks in Paris, Sydney, and Copenhagen in the past year.

The Tell Mama (Measuring anti-Muslim attacks) figures, which have previously been cited by the home secretary, Theresa May, show that there were 548 incidents reported from March 2014 to February 2015. These ranged from online abuse and threats, to street-based assaults and extreme violence.

The 548 incidents reported in 2014-15 compares with 734 cases reported to Tell Mama during 2013-14. The study’s authors, Prof Matthew Feldman and Dr Mark Littler, say that the reduction is most likely to be accounted for by the enormous spike in attacks on Muslims in the weeks following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on 22 May 2013: “The overall number of reports is consistent with the picture presented in 2012-13, when 584 cases were reported.”

The study, by Teesside University’s centre for fascist, anti-fascist and post-fascist studies, says that fewer than half of the 548 recorded incidents were reported to the police by victims. Most of the incidents – 402 – took place online but most of the physical attacks were against women, and in a significant number of cases, the victim was wearing distinctively Muslim clothing. They included 21 cases of assault, 29 threats and 15 cases of damage to property.

The online attacks included anti-Muslim abuse and the dissemination of anti-Muslim literature.

Bar chart showing increase in anti-Muslim attacks after killings in Sydney, Copenhagen and Paris More restrained media reporting of the Sydney siege, in which the gunman’s history of mental illness was quickly identified, may have helped minimise the backlash against Muslims in Britain, the study suggests.

The authors say the figures reveal spikes in incidents against British Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the three self-proclaimed jihadi Islamist atrocities in Sydney, Paris and Copenhagen.

In the seven days before the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on 7 January, in which 12 people were killed, there were 12 incidents reported to Tell Mama, but there were 45 in the seven days that followed.

The pattern was similar in the Sydney hostage crisis in December and in Copenhagen in which two people were killed by a gunman outside the city’s Great Synagogue in February. There were 10 reported incidents against British Muslims in the seven days before Sydney and 12 reported in the week after. There were 18 incidents in the seven days before the Copenhagen attack, which rose to 30 in the following seven days.



The study suggests that more restrained media reporting of the Sydney hostage situation, in which the hostage taker, who claimed to be acting on behalf of Islamic State, was swiftly identified as having a background of mental illness, may have played a role in minimising the backlash against the Muslim community in Britain.

Feldman said “The analysis offers broad support for the theory of cumulative extremism, with the ratcheting up of violent activity between opposing groups, with an act of violence triggering a response that itself sparks further attacks.

Littler added: “Findings also suggest that where the media stress the Muslim background of attackers, and devote significant coverage to it, the violent response is likely to be greater than in cases where the motivation of the attackers are downplayed or rejected in favour of alternative explanations. The latter appears to be the case with the Sydney perpetrator, who was swiftly and repeatedly identified as mentally ill.”

Fiyaz Mughal, of Tell Mama, said: “From the work that we do with victims of anti-Muslim hate [crimes], it is clear that local, national and international incidents have real impacts on people’s lives here in the UK. In a globally connected world, it seems that hate is no different and that the actions by one group lead to counter-reactions and impacts on another set of communities in another country.”

The Tell Mama project, which was started in 2012, is considered the only authoritative source of data on the scale of attacks on Muslims in Britain. The home secretary has said she wants all police forces to record anti-Muslim hate crimes in an attempt to establish the full extent of Islamophobia in Britain.

The minister for countering extremism, Lord Ahmad, said: “The government is determined to defeat extremism in all its forms by continuing to work in partnership with communities to challenge the spread of hatred and intolerance.

“We deplore religious and racially motivated attacks and are committed to tackling hate crime. As part of this work we have committed to reviewing the legislation governing hate crime and will introduce a comprehensive package of measures to address those who stir up hatred against others.

“The police have recorded hate crime since 2011, and we are exploring how this data can be broken down further.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/11/impact-of-changes-to-disability-benefits,"Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (Disabled people have become human collateral in an ideological war, 9 June) is a travesty of the truth. First among a catalogue of inaccuracies is the claim that support made available to some disabled people under the independent living fund is to be removed. Responsibility for providing this support is, in fact, being transferred to local authorities. Far from being taken away, it will be administered in a way better able to take account of variations in local circumstances and services.

Mr Chakrabortty goes on to claim that Atos was commissioned by Iain Duncan Smith in order to test every claimant for employment support allowance and “bring down the bill for disability benefits”. In fact Atos was appointed by the last Labour government and under the coalition there has been significant improvement to the process to provide a better experience for claimants. Far from bringing down any bills, the assessment of claimants ensures fairer outcomes, enables employment support for disabled people who might previously have just been written off, and targets financial help at those with the greatest need.

Disability minister’s travesty of the truth | Letters Read more

Perhaps the most disingenuous of all Mr Chakrabortty’s allegations is that the government has caused an increase in disability hate crime. It is because of efforts to increase awareness of disability hate crime that these types of offences are now more likely to be reported and are finally being treated with the seriousness they deserve.

Mr Chakrabortty may feel the only people he is damaging with these falsehoods are ministers like me. But it is high time he realised the effect that his scaremongering might also have on the anxiety levels of some of the most vulnerable disabled people.

Justin Tomlinson MP

Minister for disabled people

• In the year we celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta we have a significant section of the population for whom justice is denied, so that many of them do not have the means to live. Mark Wood, a gentle, artistic, ecologically-minded man with complex needs, died of starvation after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits. This happened in Bampton in 2013, in the heart of David Cameron’s constituency. Mark’s family, with the support of Mind, the mental health charity, have put together in his memory an exhibition of his creative work, which will be showing at Oxford town hall from 27 June to 18 July. The exhibition is free, and we hope that David Cameron and his new minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, will find time to visit it, and perhaps feel some shame.

Hilary Caldicott

Witney, Oxfordshire",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/10/lee-irving-murder-disability-hate-crime-increase,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/03/new-york-transgender-woman-subway-assault,"The 28-year-old woman sustained minor injuries after being assaulted while waiting for train, as NYPD investigates possible hate crime

The NYPD are investigating a possible hate crime after a transgender woman waiting on a New York City subway platform was pushed on to the tracks on Monday morning.

A man shown in surveillance released on Wednesday is wanted by authorities.



The 28-year old woman, who has not been identified by NYPD, was waiting for a southbound 6 subway train at the Bleeker Street station in Manhattan at approximately 9am on Monday.

The assailant asked the woman “What are you looking at?” while standing nearby on the platform. He then “ran to a garbage pail” and removed a plastic bottle which he threw at her before pushing her onto the tracks, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Commuters shortly after the incident pulled the woman back onto the platform as the assailant fled the scene. Authorities then took her to Bellevue Hospital where she was treated for lacerations on her chin and bruises on her chin and arm before being released

Homicides involving transgender women of color have been unusually high so far in 2015 with eight confirmed deaths as of last month. The FBI began reporting hate crimes towards transgender women for the first time in December 2014 with organizations like the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Project (NCAVP) calling their numbers “incredibly low”.

The NYPD’s hate crimes task force is currently investigating the case.

Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS, submit tips on the Crime Stoppers website, or text 274637 (Crimes) and enter TIP577.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/02/lgbt-people-suffer-widespread-violent-abuse-discrimination-new-un-report,"The report cites beatings, jailings and murder and says despite actions to reduce the abuse, human rights violations based on sexual orientation continue

The United Nations human rights chief has said in a new report that lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people are victims of “pervasive violent abuse, harassment and discrimination” in all regions of the world and cites hundreds of hate-related killings.

The high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said actions by some countries to reduce violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity since the last report in 2011 have been overshadowed by continuing human rights violations against these groups, too often perpetrated with impunity.

The report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council circulated on Monday cites the murder of transsexual women in Uruguay and of black lesbian women in South Africa, and the killing of a gay man in Chile by neo-Nazis who carved swastikas into his body. In February 2015, it said, photos appeared to show several men, allegedly accused of homosexual acts, being pushed off a building to their deaths in Syria by militants of the so-called Islamic State extremist group.

While data is “patchy”, the report said available information suggests alarmingly high rates of violence against LGBTs.

Transphobic hate crimes rising in UK, police say Read more

Brazil reported 310 documented murders in 2012 “in which homophobia or transphobia was a motive”, it said. The trans murder monitoring project, which collects reports of homicides of transgender people, lists 1,612 murders in 62 countries between 2008 and 2014. And the inter-American commission on human rights reported 594 hate-related killings of LGBT people in the 25 countries of the Organisation of American States between January 2013 and March 2014, it said.

The report also gives many examples of non-lethal violence including the arrest, beating and ill-treatment by police in Zimbabwe of 44 members of an LGBT organisation, a woman reportedly arrested in Bangladesh for being a lesbian who was allegedly raped by police while in custody, and four people arrested in Egypt for their alleged sexual orientation who were reportedly sexually assaulted by other inmates while in detention.

In the United States, the report said recent government figures show that bias-motivated crimes based on sexual orientation rank second only to racist incidents among hate crimes.

According to the report, at least 76 countries retain laws used to criminalise and harass people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, including laws criminalising consensual same-sex relationships among adults.

In Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and parts of Nigeria and Somalia, consensual homosexual conduct may be punished by death, “a grave violation of human rights,” the report said.

The rights chief expressed concern about laws enacted or proposed in the past two years to restrict public discussion of sexual orientation under the guise of protecting minors from information on not-traditional sexual relations. He pointed to Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Moldova, Russia, Uganda and Ukraine.

The report makes more than 20 recommendations including urging all countries to ban so-called “conversion therapies” intended to “cure” homosexual attraction as well as involuntary treatment, forced sterilisation and forced genital and anal examinations.

The high commissioner also calls for changing laws to remove offences relating to consensual same-sex conduct, investigating and prosecuting alleged hate-crimes and prohibiting incitement of hatred and violence on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.



",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/24/police-didnt-see-deen-as-victim-bristol-hate-crime,"One August evening, in Brue Close, a housing estate in Weston-super-Mare, police and emergency services were called to No 39. Two police cars, a police van, a dog and several officers arrived. They saw a crowd of hostile white adults, “an angry mob” and a middle-aged black man standing in his front garden bleeding profusely from a head wound. His five-year-old daughter was distraught. The emergency services were responding to two separate reports. The first came from Kim Jones, the tenant at No 39, requesting urgent help for her partner, Tajudeen “Deen” Taiwo. She said he had been the victim of a racial assault. His head had been banged against a wall, cracking it open. The second call said a black man had a knife.

What subsequently unfolded is to become part of an innovatory attempt by Avon and Somerset police to challenge police behaviour and attitudes that consciously or otherwise sanction hate crime. Following his arrest, a publicly humiliated Taiwo was taken to hospital in handcuffs to have his head wound treated. He needed 14 stitches. He was kept in custody for 35 hours in total and charged with a number of offences, including possession of an offensive weapon and threats to kill while his family, which includes two boys from an earlier relationship of Jones’s, were left without support on an estate with hostile neighbours.

It took three years of struggle, a flawed internal police inquiry that revealed officers’ complete ignorance of the force’s own hate policy and inept disciplinary procedures before Avon and Somerset police finally accepted culpability for its discriminatory behaviour and made a public apology, paid compensation and made a commitment to involve the family in an overhaul of its training procedure. Part of that overhaul includes the making of a documentary of Taiwo and Jones’s experience so that it can be used as a tool to tackle racism and prejudice in police ranks (this is the first time in Britain that the police have used this approach). Filming begins on Thursday. The impact of this new training approach will be monitored by the force for 12 months.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Film-makers Andy Munden Castle, right, and Jon Mowat. Photograph: Sophia Evans/Observer

The documentary will be made by a team headed by former BBC Bristol-based film-maker Jon Mowat, executive producer Lynn Barlow (Anatomy of a Crime, for which she was series producer, is a multi-award-winning police documentary) and directed by Andy Mundy-Castle, who recently made African Masters, a series on contemporary African art for the Africa Channel, among other documentaries. The aim is for the documentary to have a wider audience with other police forces and public services, such as housing providers who work with the police to support victims of hate crime. “We are involving a psychologist in the making of the film because we want to find the most effective way to challenge stereotypes and a system of thought within some sectors of the police,” says Mowat. “We won’t use a dramatic reconstruction. Deen and Kim will tell their own story. It’s a horror story. That’s what will give emotional power to the training tools that go alongside the film.”

Hate crime is defined by the Home Office as “any incident which constitutes a criminal offence perceived by the victim or any other person as motivated by prejudice or hate”. Hate crime, under the government’s national hate crime strategy, is recorded by the police under five categories: disability, race, religion/belief, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Such crimes are notoriously under-reported. Even so, there has been a 15% rise in hate crimes in England and Wales since 2012, with some forces registering increases of up to 67%. In 2013/14, according to the Home Office, there were 44,480 hate crimes recorded by the police, 84% of which were racially motivated.

Somerset and Avon police currently has 18 police officers and civilians under investigation for matters relating to a single hate-crime case that led to the murder of a man. Alex Raikes of the Bristol charity Sari – Stand Against Racism and Inequality – says that it dealt with 550 cases of hate crime in the city last year. She predicts that the number will be significantly higher this year, influenced by an increase in “Islamaphobia”. Each case may cover a number of incidents. If those incidents aren’t properly investigated by the police because of its own bias, the injustice for the victim is doubled. “All we ever wanted was for the police to do a proper job,” Jones, 35, says. “To establish what really happened and why — to do the right thing.”

More than 20 years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report that made 70 recommendations and accused the Metropolitan police of “institutional racism”, senior officers concede that a serious problem remains. In addition, according to a recent Home Office poll, the public’s faith in the ability of the police to investigate its own behaviour, when a complaint is made, is low. So, will this latest initiative really break new ground? And is the policing of the police – the scrutiny of its own behaviour — as fair and effective as it ought to be?

Taiwo, 53, a gentle, softly spoken man, came to Britain from Nigeria in his 20s. He is a long-distance lorry driver. He and Jones now have a second daughter, aged 18 months. The strain of the last three years ended their relationship but they remain friends. Jones is an office manager, articulate, passionate and full of vim. They first met in Weston-super-Mare in 1999. The couple initially lived in London and were subjected to the kind of casual racism that depletes the spirit and damages self-respect, especially if the victim believes that reporting it to the police will result in little action. “Deen would tell me about racist incidents and I’d say, ‘That can’t be true.’ Once we became a mixed race couple, it was aimed at me too. People made comments in the street, especially women. Deen would say, ‘Ignore it. Don’t react. Walk away.’ We would end up in an argument because I didn’t think that was right,” Jones says.

Taiwo’s job meant he had a company car. He reports that he was constantly stopped by the police, on one day, five times. “I got used to going to the station to produce his documents,” Jones says. On another occasion, they were pulled over in a garage. “Deen was approached by the police. They said he was an illegal immigrant and a wanted man. It was so scary. He’s a British citizen. The police had two riot vans and the name Dean. Eventually, they said, ‘Sorry, we’ve made a spelling error on your name.’”

In 2006, the couple moved back to Weston. Three years later, in 2009, Taiwo suffered a racist attack by two men. They broke his nose. A friend witnessed the assault. He was an off-duty community support officer. Taiwo says that this friend later told him that he had been told by colleagues that if he gave evidence, his job would suffer. The police took no statements, CCTV was lost and the case was not pursued. “They didn’t care. That hurt,” Taiwo says quietly. In the same year, the family moved to Brue Close. “It was a house with a garden. We thought we’d be happy.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alex Raikes of the charity Sari, which fought Taiwo’s case. Photograph: Sophia Evans/Observer

Initially, Scott, Taiwo’s stepson, now 20, became friends with another local teenager. “Scott was troubled because he kept hearing very racist language, including the n-word,” Jones says. “Then there was a racist incident with two little Chinese girls in the park and Scott told me about it and said, ‘That could have been my sister.’” The couple told Scott to end his friendship. Over the two years leading up to August 2012, the family experienced constant harassment and racial abuse. Taiwo’s car was scratched several times, his work van was shot at with an air rifle, nails found their way into his tyres and car windows were broken. There were disputes about parking. “I always said I wouldn’t retaliate,” Taiwo says. “I wouldn’t do anything until they came to my front door and came for my family. And one day, they did.”

On that day, 11 August 2012, one of Taiwo’s neighbours parked his motorbike directly next to his van, making it difficult to enter the vehicle. Taiwo moved the motorbike so he could open the van’s doors. Subsequently, the neighbour and a group of 10-15 adults came to No 39 and began to chant racial abuse. One said: “I’m going to kill you, you are going to take your last breath, n*****.” The neighbour slammed Taiwo’s head into the wall, causing a 10cm gash. Taiwo went into his kitchen and came back out with a knife, which he held up to protect himself and his five-year-old daughter, who had witnessed the assault on her father. “I thought they were going to attack my family,” he says. Jones phoned the emergency services and Taiwo returned the knife to the kitchen. When the police arrived, he was empty-handed and covered in blood.

PC Steve Faulkner approached Taiwo, and threatened him with a Taser. Taiwo explained he had got the wrong person. He said he had been the victim of a racially motivated assault. None of the officers listened to his account. None of the officers recorded his allegation for further investigation, as required by the force’s own policy on hate crime; no one else was interviewed or arrested. Taiwo was arrested, handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle to the sound of monkey noises. Another officer, Sergeant Gareth Starr, took a detailed account from Jones and assured her that her fears about her family’s safety would be dealt with later. No steps were taken. A neighbour and witness said that as Taiwo was driven away, she shouted: “You’ve got it wrong. You have got the wrong man.” Much later, witnesses say they saw the attack but they were too frightened of repercussions to come forward. The estate had a history of racial incidents and a BNP connection. Taiwo and Jones were tenants of Knightstone Housing Association. The association reported that many ethnic minority families “suffered abuse from other residents”.

Taiwo insisted on being taken to hospital to have his wound stitched. Initially, the police ordered that he remain in handcuffs but a doctor refused to attend to him unless he was released. He was subsequently taken to a magistrates court, released on bail and told not to return to his home. The evening of his arrest, Jones repeated her allegation that Taiwo had been a victim of a hate crime at Weston police station. She said there had been a history of racial violence towards her family and they were unsafe in the property. She was advised to move elsewhere “until the dust settled”. The police took no other steps to ensure the family was secure. The following day, Jones was informed by the housing association that her family would be evicted because her partner had been involved in a knife crime.

At this point, a friend of Taiwo and Jones suggested that they contact Sari. The award-winning charity was established in Bristol in 1988 and was the brainchild of the United Housing Association, a housing provider for black and ethnic minority people. At the time, victims of racism were not receiving a co-ordinated response – or, often, any response – from police and other agencies. In 1991, its first year of operation, it had 44 cases. A driving force was Batook Pandya, who died last year. Originally from Kenya, he arrived in London at the age of 17 and became an engineer. Years later, having experienced racism as an apprentice, he took a pay cut to lead Sari. In 1999, he was badly beaten in a racial attack in front of his family. Undeterred, Pandya turned Sari into a nationally recognised group, involved in action against all strands of hate crime, working in schools, research and training as well as investigating cases and supporting victims. Now, it covers much of the West Country, employs more than 20 staff and handles more than 500 cases a year.

After Taiwo and Jones made contact with Sari, in 2012 the organisation sent a report to Avon and Somerset police, the Crown Prosecution Service and Knightstone Housing Association’s senior leadership team. The charges against Taiwo were dropped and a criminal investigation belatedly launched into his allegations against his neighbour and other assailants. However, the officer in charge of that investigation decided that it was not in the public interest to take the case to court. The family then sought accountability through the police complaints system.

An internal police inquiry reported in February 2013 and concluded that no officer had a case to answer on grounds of misconduct. The officers who attended the scene at Brue Close would, instead, be given advice over “inconsiderate behaviour” that left their records unblemished and pensions untouched. “The internal inquiry report was so poor it was nonsensical,” says Raikes. “Deen’s case is one of the worst I’ve seen in 23 years at Sari. We finally had a successful conclusion only because we brought in specialist lawyers. That is an option increasingly restricted for most people because of the cuts to legal aid. Without legal help, this would have been a situation in which no justice was done.”

Sophie Naftalin of the London solicitors Bhatt Murphy took on the case and brought a civil action against the police on behalf of the family. “The police were unable to see Deen as a victim despite blood pouring out of his head. It is inconceivable that if the roles were reversed and the police had arrived to see a white man with a serious head injury surrounded by a hostile crowd of black men, that the white man would have been perceived as the perpetrator,” she says. “This is about differentiation and discrimination. Deen was treated differently because he was black.”

She lists the failings of the first internal inquiry, failings subsequently accepted by the police. They include not logging or investigating Deen’s charge that he had been a victim of a hate crime despite having repeated opportunities. A failure to investigate a history of racial abuse on the estate. A failure to protect Jones and the children. Ignorance of the force’s own official policy on the treatment of hate crimes. Ignorance of the policy was also displayed by the officer from Avon and Somerset police’s department of professional standards who had conducted the internal inquiry. The whole thing, says Naftalin, amounted to, “a breathtaking systemic failure. If we have the policies on hate crime but the police don’t read them, never mind implement them, what’s the point?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sophie Naftalin of the London firm of solicitors Bhatt Murphy. ‘Deen was treated differently because he was black.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/Observer

According to the national hate crime strategy “the police service is committed to reducing the harm caused by hate crime by increasing the confidence of victims… to identify and, where appropriate, prosecute those who commit such crimes”. It notes that a failure to respond properly may result in “secondary victimisation”.

As a result of Naftalin’s intervention, a second far more rigorous internal inquiry was conducted. Three police officers were brought before a disciplinary panel. While the panel concluded that there had a been a breach of duty, they did not uphold the complaint of race discrimination.

PC Steve Faulkner was cleared because he had acted on the information that a black man had a knife. Another officer was given “words of advice” and the supervising officer, Gareth Starr, received a written warning for failing to record or investigate Jones’s allegations. Their careers continue. In October last year, Avon and Somerset police agreed to pay substantial damages to the family, including a payment for counselling. The force made a full admission under the Human Rights Act, now to be repealed by the Conservative government, that the family had been subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment by the police and that they had been discriminated against on account of Taiwo’s race. Such declarations rarely happen in civil cases brought against the police. Acting Chief Constable John Long wrote a personal letter of apology. “I fully understand why Tajudeen felt ignored, disbelief, helpless and in despair; we failed,” he wrote. “I accept responsibility for the failing of my officer and apologise unreservedly to you all.”

Long is the prime mover on taking a fresh approach to tackling racism and discrimination among his officers. His career includes 18 years in the Metropolitan police, a period of service that included the murder of PC Keith Blakelock at Broadwater Farm and the Brixton riots. He says: “Police cannot express the prejudice and bias that other people may have. When we do get that wrong, we should be open and contrite and learn from our mistakes. I am frustrated, angry and disappointed about what happened to the family. Now and in future, we can make a difference by how and whom we select to become police officers in the first place and by seeing training as a continual piece of work. Vigilance must be maintained and fair play and integrity ensured.”

He adds: “Deen is very affected by his experience but he has a passion about bringing something good out of it and I admire that. The film will remind us that compassion matters. If we are not taking on board the impact of what happens to people then as police we are not doing our job.“

Naftalin says: “John Long realises there is a serious problem and he’s showing commitment in trying to tackle it. However, while the force accept that the family were victims of discrimination overall, the individual officers received what amounted to a slap on the wrist. And that happens too often. The whole process of making a complaint about police behaviour is opaque, illogical and unaccountable and has little investigative rigour. It is up to the complainant to fight his or her way through a procedure that is completely stacked against him or her.

“In other public services such as the NHS, there is a recognition that practitioners who fail the public should be removed. That rarely happens in the police. The complaints procedure in the main fails to root out unacceptable behaviour. In Deen’s case, we have a situation where the notion of institutional racism means the organisation is culpable but individual officers are not. That cannot be right.”

Naftalin also expresses concern about the government’s intention to replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights. “This family obtained accountability for their experience through bringing a claim against the police under the Human Rights Act, resulting in a full admission that their human rights had been breached,” she points out. “The Tories have made clear their intention to repeal the Human Rights Act, which places in serious question whether a family like the Taiwo family would be able to obtain the same result under a Tory bill of rights. I think it is fair to say that the Tory proposals, together with the ongoing sabotage of legal aid, are a disaster for access to justice.”

In March, Theresa May announced that police disciplinary hearings would be held in public “to ensure that the robust response the police take to misconduct is visible and open”. Raikes and Naftalin believe the reforms do not go nearly far enough. “The police complaints procedure needs external scrutiny from the start,” Raikes says. “We have seen complaints made involving racism in hate crimes where the same officers come up again and again. We know there is something wrong when in 24 years of Sari being in business and despite a multitude of complaints on behalf of our clients, Sari has seen only a few cases that acknowledge racial discrimination. Surely they can’t all be unfounded?”

Andy Mundy-Castle, who like Taiwo is of Nigerian origin, says he knows how racism can work to undermine a person’s sense of self. “You begin to question your own right to complain.” The film, he says, won’t change institutional racism in the police, “but if it’s done right, it will make officers think twice before they make assumptions when they visit the scent of a crime. That matters.”

Psychiatric reports testify to the continuing impact on the family. Three months after the event, Taiwo and Jones and their children were rehoused. Taiwo’s daughter was diagnosed with an acute stress reaction. She wet the bed, refused to go to the childminder and her eczema flared up. “She says she wants to be white because nobody likes brown people,” Jones says. She intends to set up a support group for mixed-race families. “My daughter is very aware of the word racism. Recently, she was talking to her white friend in the car about the Victorians. She said, ‘In Victorian days, I would have been murdered or your slave.’” For months after the event, Scott, now a youth support worker, received racist online threats. Another Brue Close neighbour accepted a caution for making malicious communications.

“Have I got justice?” asks Taiwo. “Everybody tells me that I have but I don’t see it that way.” Jones says: “Until you experience racism, until you know what it’s like to be treated unfairly again and again not because of what you do but because of the colour of your skin, you can’t begin to understand the anger and frustration. Twelve months ago, I wanted Deen to drop the struggle so we could get back to normal and get on with our lives. I could see how he was deteriorating. Now, as the mother of two mixed-race children, I know that the fight to get justice has been right. We have to fight on.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/13/theresa-mays-counter-extremism-proposals-are-fraught-with-difficulties,"Analysis: previous objections from Tory ministers such as Greg Clark and Nicky Morgan may account for some notable omissions from the latest proposals

Don’t make the mistake of thinking it was only the Liberal Democrats who were opposed to Theresa May’s counter-extremism proposals when she first floated them before the general election.

David Cameron to unveil new limits on extremists' activities in Queen's speech Read more

When the home secretary showcased them in her party conference speech in October Dominic Raab, then a backbench MP and now a justice minister, described them as “eroding basic principles of freedom that won’t make us safer”. He even suggested that her extremism disruption orders could be abused to slap down “monarchists, communists and even Christians objecting to gay marriage”’.

He was not alone. Senior Tories such as Lord Lamont and John Selwyn Gummer, or Lord Deben as he is now known, voiced serious free speech concerns over her plans for ministers to order universities to ban extremist speakers from campuses.

But opposition to her plans also ran right across government. The Financial Times reported that no fewer than seven Conservative cabinet ministers had by March raised objections to some of the proposals which are now to be fast-tracked in the Queen’s speech. Some of those ministers, such as Greg Clark, Nicky Morgan, Theresa Villiers and Sajid Javid are still in the cabinet.

Indeed their previous opposition may account for some notable omissions from the list of proposed measures published by Downing Street on Wednesday. Missing, for example, is the still-promised plan to ban extremist speakers from campuses and an inquiry into the application of sharia law in Britain.



The key change that May is advocating is to take action against “extremists who spread hate but do not break existing laws”. That means going beyond existing policy that targets violent extremists of all stripes to taking action against non-violent extremists, and the “full spectrum of extremism” – not just the “hard end” that has been the target of counter-terrorism policy up to now.

The difference is spelled out in the detail of the policy, where it says that it is intended to catch not just those who spread or incite hatred on grounds of gender, race or religion but also those who undertake “harmful activities” for the “purpose of overthrowing democracy”.

This is an area fraught with difficulties that could see non-violent political activists in all sorts of areas deemed to be “anti-democratic”. The Conservatives already say that the policy would catch neo-Nazis, raising questions about whether the EDL or the BNP would be banned under the measure.

But the official definition of non-violent extremism is already wide-ranging and, as Big Brother Watch has pointed out, the national extremism database already includes the names of people who have done little more than organise meetings on environmental issues.

So what would the measures that are being proposed mean in practice?",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/17/france-launches-major-anti-racism-and-hate-speech-campaign,"French government to invest more than £70m in three-year plan, while tightening the law on hate crime and cracking down on racism online

The French government has launched a major campaign to contain the country’s steep rise in racism and hate speech, using the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks to tighten the law on hate crime and crack down on racism online.



“Racism, antisemitism, hatred of Muslims, hatred of foreigners and homophobia are all rising in an unbearable way in our country,” the prime minister, Manuel Valls, said.

After January’s terror attacks at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and at kosher supermarket, which left 17 people dead, the French president, François Hollande, vowed to make the fight against racism one of his main personal causes.

The government will spend €100m (£72m) on a three-year plan, including the setting up of a new unit to monitor and fight “hatred online”.

“Passivity on the internet is over,” Hollande said. Teacher training will be reinforced, headteachers will be encouraged to report incidents and pupils will be taken to visit memorial sites.

There will also be tougher penalties for crimes deemed to have been fuelled by racism and antisemitism. Hate speech, already a criminal offence, will be moved to France’s general penal code. It will no longer be part of a separate specialist criminal code dating back to the 19th century that deals with freedom of expression issues and offences such as incitement to racial hatred and libel.

This has caused consternation among anti-racism groups, which argue that the move was unnecessary and sent a message that “repression” would end racism when in fact there should be broader work to promote equality and end discrimination across society.

Placing hate speech into the general penal code means that suspects can be fast-tracked through the courts for immediate sentencing, which has also raised concerns among rights groups.

Campaigners had already expressed fears about the crackdown on speech deemed to “glorify terrorism” announced after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which has seen cases rushed through the courts for immediate sentencing and resulting in long jail terms, including for people who had drunkenly insulted police officers.

Dominique Sopo of the campaign group SOS Racisme told the Guardian: “Although we’re waiting to see the detail, the anti-racism plan is positive in that the government is at least now talking about this. For years we’ve seen a rise in hate speech against blacks, Roma, Arabs, Muslims and Jews and often the government’s words have been lacking.”

He said action must be taken to specifically combat the high level of inequality, discrimination and racism faced by young French people from minority ethnic backgrounds in high-rise suburbs.

In the first three months of this year, 226 Islamophobic acts were recorded by France’s Islamophobia watchdog, a sixfold increase on the same period in 2014. The number of antisemitic attacks in 2014 was double that of 2013.

The government announced its anti-racism plan in the Paris suburb of Créteil, the site of a brutal antisemitic attack last year in which a young Jewish couple were held hostage in their home, the woman was raped and the attackers ransacked the flat, saying: “You Jews, you have money.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/16/facebook-policy-nudity-hate-speech-standards,"Facebook has updated its community standards guidelines to provide “more detail and clarity” on the content it allows or bans on its service.

The social network stressed in a blog post that its policies are not changing, but that “we have heard from people that it would be helpful to provide more clarity and examples”.

Nudity, hate speech, self-harm, dangerous organisations, bullying and harassment, sexual violence and exploitation, criminal activity, violence and graphic content are among the areas covered by the updated guidelines.

Facebook’s definition of hate speech, for example, covers content that directly attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, sex, gender or gender identity, or serious disabilities or diseases.

“Sometimes people share content containing someone else’s hate speech for the purpose of raising awareness or educating others about that hate speech,” explain the revised guidelines.

“When this is the case, we expect people to clearly indicate their purpose, which helps us better understand why they shared that content. We allow humour, satire or social commentary related to these topics, but we may ask Page owners to associate their name and Profile with any content that is insensitive, even if that content does not violate our policies.”

In its blog post that announced the changes, Facebook’s Monika Bickert and Chris Sonderby admitted that keeping one global policy for hate speech remains “particularly challenging ... we know that our policies won’t perfectly address every piece of content, especially where we have limited context, but we evaluate reported content seriously and do our best to get it right.”

When it comes to nudity, Facebook apologises in its guidelines for policies that “can sometimes be more blunt than we would like and restrict content shared for legitimate purposes” due to its desire to maintain uniform policies across the world.

“We remove photographs of people displaying genitals or focusing in on fully exposed buttocks. We also restrict some images of female breasts if they include the nipple, but we always allow photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring. We also allow photographs of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures.”

Breastfeeding has historically been an issue for Facebook, with protests about its censorship of breastfeeding photos in 2008, and then again in 2012.

At a time when organisations like Isis are making greater use of social media, Facebook’s clarified policy on dangerous organisations lays out what it bans: organisations engaged in terrorist activity, organised criminal activity, or promoting hate against people based on the same factors as its hate speech definition.

“We also remove content that expresses support for groups that are involved in the violent, criminal or hateful behaviour mentioned above. Supporting or praising leaders of those same organisations, or condoning their violent activities, is not allowed.”

When it comes to public figures, Facebook maintains that it allows “open and critical discussion” of celebrities and people featured in the news, while warning that it will remove “credible threats to public figures, as well as hate speech directed at them – just as we do for private individuals”.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/02/mohammed-emwazi-university-of-westminster-islamophobia-homophobia,"Former secretary of University of Westminster’s LGBT society says complaints about speakers booked by Islamic society were not treated seriously enough

The London university attended by Mohammed Emwazi, who was last week identified as the Islamic State militant known as “Jihadi John”, has been accused of sometimes turning a blind eye to extremist views on campus because it does not wish to offend its large number of Muslim international students.

Jamie Wareham, secretary of the University of Westminster’s LGBT society until last year, said he believed complaints about homophobic speakers organised by the Islamic society were sometimes not treated with sufficient seriousness.

In the past they’ve been prepared to be homophobic in order to not be Islamophobic Jamie Wareham

“What I think makes the University of Westminster particularly difficult with the line they draw is because they derive a lot of their money from international students, and a lot of these are Muslim students,” Wareham said. “It’s seemed clear to me that they are very careful about not upsetting the Muslim community. They certainly get a lot more money from them than they do from gay students.”

Emwazi graduated in information systems and business management in 2009. In the wake of the news about him the Islamic society cancelled a planned address by Sheikh Haitham al-Haddad, a preacher who has reportedly described homosexuality as a “scourge” and “criminal act”. The university has since suspended all “sensitive” student events.

The Islamic society has declined to comment.

Mohammed Emwazi graduated in 2009 with a degree in information systems and business management from the University of Westminster. Photograph: University of Westminster/IS grab

Last year, Westminster’s LGBT society carried out a study that found 39% of members had experienced prejudice at the university, with some respondents giving anecdotal evidence that Muslim students were the source of this.



Wareham said that while he now believed the university was taking this seriously, before the Emwazi revelation its policy could be characterised as “institutional homophobia”. He said: “It’s desperately frustrating, as the university don’t want to be homophobic and they don’t want to be Islamophobic, but their fear of being Islamophobic is greater.

“In the past they’ve been prepared to be homophobic in order to not be Islamophobic. And that’s our entire point – we don’t want any type of hate.”

Westminster, where almost a third of students are from overseas, said it had just hosted National Student Pride, attended by 1,500 people. It said in a statement: “The University of Westminster is clearly very supportive towards the LGBT community and has had many years of continuous and ongoing dialogue with student and staff groups.”

Ibrahim Ali, of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), said there was no evidence so far to show Emwazi had been radicalised at Westminster. He said Islamic societies were often held to tougher standards than other student group over speakers, with groups specifically monitoring who they invite and looking for damaging previous statements: “Of course, speakers should be accountable for what they say,” he said. “But if that same pressure isn’t placed on other groups, then it contributes to a discriminatory environment.”

The issue of balancing robust expression among student groups while not permitting hate speech is a difficult one for universities, not least as the 1986 Education Act compels them to ensure “freedom of speech within the law”, including for visiting speakers. In late 2013, Universities UK produced guidance to members on the subject, which runs to 40 pages.

Westminster’s Islamic society, one of the biggest among UK universities, is not affiliated to FOSIS, But Ali said he would have had advice for them on inviting someone with homophobic views to speak. “My advice would be to probably not invite a speaker like that. But at the same time, if they do go ahead with it, I think it’s fundamentally important that they have a right to do so.”

• This article was amended on 5 March 2015 to clarify that Ibrahim Ali’s advice in the last paragraph did not relate to Sheikh Haitham al-Haddad.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/15/guardian-view-week-of-terror-threat-freedom-north-carolina-copenhagen,"The attacks were in different continents and on people of different faiths and of none, but in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, it was freedom itself that was the intended target. On Tuesday, three young Muslim students were gunned down in their Chapel Hill flat, apparently by a neighbour, Craig Hicks, who claimed their faith was an affront to his atheistic principles. The attack on Saturday in the Danish capital was wider. To judge from the chilling audio of a prolonged volley of shots in which one man died, it seems to have been meant as a massacre of people at a debate on free speech, where the controversial Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks and the French ambassador were present. From there, the gunman escaped and resurfaced to attack party-goers at a bat mitzvah, apparently with the simple objective of murdering Jews and terrorising the Jewish community. He was stopped only by the bravery of two police officers and a volunteer security guard, Dan Uzan, who was shot dead. The freedoms essential to democracy risk being slowly undermined by what the Jewish writer Natasha Lehrer has called a narrative of polarisation.

What now for Europe’s Jews after Copenhagen and Paris? | Letters Read more

There can be no league table of victimhood in these acts of terrorism, but in the Scandinavian countries, which see themselves as uniquely fortunate in their social cohesion – “our fairytale country”, as one Danish mourner put it on Sunday – they have a shattering impact on self-belief. Five years ago the rightwing extremist Anders Breivik slaughtered more than 70 children at a Labour party camp in Norway. Now the Danes are experiencing the pain. Like France after the Charlie Hebdo attack last month, they are paying a high price for protecting the right to free speech. As in France, it is a right controversially exercised in Denmark with the publication of a series of cartoons in September 2005 depicting Muhammad. But all of Europe is engaged in an unprecedented struggle to balance the fundamental rights that are its priceless postwar inheritance with the most cherished beliefs of its new citizens. The right to free speech has to be weighed alongside the importance of respecting difference. In protecting one, there is always the risk of undermining the other. The same is true in the search for balance between freedom and security. On one hand, it seems that the Danish killer was already known to the security services. That suggest there is no prima facie case for greater powers of surveillance. But it is salutary that he was tracked down and shot dead by police because of the widespread availability of images from security cameras that other European countries, Germany for example, regard as an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

Freedom of speech is only one of the freedoms under attack. So is the freedom of worship, indeed the freedom to be different. After Amedy Coulibaly murdered four shoppers in a kosher supermarket in Paris last month, and the earlier deadly attack on the Brussels Jewish museum, it is clear that Jewish communities across Europe are under threat from a hatred that may claim its origin in opposition to Israel and Zionism, but whose form resembles all too closely the dark history of antisemitism. The Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, made an important statement in defence of the valued place of Denmark’s small Jewish community in her country, but it is understandable that some complain that it has come too late. Though that does not justify the ill-judged call from the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu for “massive immigration” to his country, it is clear that, for too long, too little attention has been paid to the sharp rise in attacks on Jewish communities.

In a different context, a similar insensitivity to the threat to a religious community is apparent in the US. The killing of the three Muslim students by a gunman whose Facebook page contained violent threats against all organised religion, including Islam, was initially described by local police as a dispute over a parking place. The FBI remains reluctant to confirm whether or not it is investigating a hate crime. Surely, the point is that every American Muslim believes that it was. And that we must all relearn an old lesson: that only eternal vigilance can protect all our freedoms.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/three-sentenced-mississippi-death-hate-crime,"Hate crime inquiry after death of James Craig Anderson revealed a group of white people had been coming to Jackson to assault African Americans

Three people were sentenced to federal prison on Tuesday, following a hate crimes investigation stemming from the death of a black man who was beaten and run over by a truck in Mississippi.

US district judge Carlton Reeves on Tuesday sentenced Deryl Paul Dedmon to 50 years; John Aaron Rice to 18½ years; and Dylan Wade Butler to seven years. They were charged in the June 2011 death of James Craig Anderson.

The inquiry that followed Anderson’s death revealed a group of young white people had been coming to Jackson to harass and assault African Americans.

The three pleaded guilty in March 2012 to one count of conspiracy and one count of committing a hate crime.

Dedmon pleaded guilty to two state charges in 2012 and received life sentences on each.

The judge said Dedmon’s federal sentence will run concurrent with his state sentence.

Seven others are awaiting sentencing.

Reeves will sentence Joseph Paul Dominick, William Kirk Montgomery and Jonathan Kyle Gaskamp on 25 February. Dominick pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2013 and faces five years in prison. Montgomery, who pleaded guilty in 2012, faces life in prison on a hate crime charge and five years on conspiracy. Gaskamp, who wasn’t present the night Anderson died, pleaded guilty in 2012. He faces five years in prison for conspiracy and 10 years on a hate crime charge.

US district judge Henry T Wingate will sentence four people:

• Sarah Adelia Graves, who pleaded guilty in December, faces five years in prison on a conspiracy charge at sentencing on 9 April.

• Shelbie Brooke Richards, who pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy and concealing the crime by lying to police, faces eight years in prison at sentencing on 16 April.

• John Louis Blalack, who pleaded guilty on 7 January to two hate crimes charges, faces 20 years in prison at sentencing on 23 April.

• Robert Henry Rice, who pleaded guilty on 7 January to one hate crime charge, faces 10 years in prison at sentencing on 30 April.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/09/hate-crime-social-media-internet-asbos,"CPS asked to examine whether prevention orders could be imposed to bar determined perpetrators from sites such as Facebook

Social media users who persistently spread racial hatred online should be given “internet asbos” blocking them from sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an MPs’ report that examines the rising levels of antisemitism in Britain.

The Crown Prosecution Service has been asked by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism to examine whether prevention orders, similar to those used to restrict sex offenders’ online access, could be applied to hate crimes.

The MPs suggested the orders could be imposed to bar determined perpetrators from social media.

The request follows an alarming rise in incidents against Jews, which occurred during battles in Gaza and Israel last July and August. The report says that “Hitler” and “Holocaust” were among the top 35 key words used on Twitter last summer.

Highly abusive posts on Twitter were singled out, including the hashtag “Hitler was right”, which was trending in July, and the “presence of Hitlerian themes and imagery on Facebook”.

The report says: “There is an allowance in the law for banning or blocking individuals from certain aspects of internet communication in relation to sexual offences. Informal feedback we have received from policy experts indicates that this is a potential area of exploration for prosecutors in relation to hate crime.

“If it can be proven in a detailed way that someone has made a considered and determined view to exploit various online networks to harm and perpetrate hate crimes against others then the accepted principles, rules and restrictions that are relevant to sex offences must surely apply.”

The suggestion comes after Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo, admitted that the company had failed to deal with abuse and so-called trolling, vowing in an internal memo to “start kicking these people off right and left”.

The report says: “Given the scale of social media content produced on a daily, let alone minute by minute, basis, we have some, albeit limited, sympathy for the companies responsible for hosting it.

“Whilst there is rightly an expectation on those companies to act, as there is on government, police and prosecuting authorities, so too civil society has a crucial role to play.”

Last week figures from the Community Security Trust, a charity that monitors antisemitism and provides security for the Jewish community in Britain, revealed a record number of antisemitic hate incidents in the UK last year.

Data from the Metropolitan police supplied to the MPs’ panel showed there were 306 antisemitic incidents and 236 offences in London between April and November 2014.

The issue has come under renewed scrutiny following the Paris terror attacks, when a Jewish supermarket was targeted.

Other proposals in the report include a government fund to cover security costs at synagogues, an independent council on antisemitism, and guidance for teachers talking about the Middle East conflict in the classroom.

Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband, said the Paris attacks were a “stark reminder of the evil that antisemitism can create”, adding that the report was timely and raised “important areas for action to eradicate this awful form of hatred”.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met police commissioner, said the force had taken steps to provide additional reassurance for Jewish communities in recent weeks.

He said: “The best way of helping police is to report all hate crime. However, as this report indicates, we need a wider response than the police and criminal justice system can deliver alone. We need society to become as vocally intolerant of faith hatred as it is of other forms of discrimination, and a clearer understanding of where freedom of speech oversteps the mark.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/07/labour-blacklist-hate-crime-uk-antisemitism-islamophobia-homophobia,"Shadow home secretary to unveil strategy to tackle the soaring rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and abuse of people with disabilities

People convicted of homophobic, transgender or disability hate crime would be put on a “blacklist” to warn future employers of past misdemeanours under new proposals by Labour.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, will on Monday unveil a strategy to tackle the UK’s soaring rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and abuse of people with disabilities. The package includes making homophobic and disability hate crimes an aggravated criminal offence, ensuring that police treat such offences in the same way as racist hate crimes.

Cooper will outline changes to the criminal records framework whereby such offences will be clearly marked on the criminal records of perpetrators. Currently, records checks do not highlight homophobia, disability or transgender identity as a motivating factor in a conviction, and do not automatically appear in police data used for vetting applicants in sensitive vocations, such as those working with vulnerable people, including the disabled.

Labour’s move comes as a new breakdown of police figures reveals an escalation in hate crimes since 2012, with a steep rise in abuse reported by the transgender community alongside the well-documented rises in antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Measures to combat the role of social media in disseminating and perpetrating hate crime will also be unveiled. These include a review of police and guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that crimes such as antisemitism on social networks such as Twitter are covered. The review follows high-profile online attacks, including abuse targeting prominent British Jews and Muslims.

Hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales reveal a rise across all five recording categories – race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender – with the number of offences rising from 43,927 in the 12 months to April 2013 to 46,919 in the following 12 months.

Last week it was revealed that antisemitic incidents in the UK had reached their highest-ever level, more than doubling in the past year. Incidences of Islamophobia are reported to have risen since the Charlie Hebdo killings. Cooper said: “Hate crimes have no place in modern Britain. No one should fear being attacked because of their religion, their sexuality, the colour of their skin, or their disability. Much more needs to be done to ensure those who commit these serious crimes are brought to justice, and this includes looking at where the law needs to be strengthened.”

Cooper said companies such as Twitter must do more to tackle repeat offenders and monitor individuals who are the target of repeat abuse. On Thursday, Twitter’s chief executive acknowledged that the company “sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform, and we’ve sucked at it for years”.

The shadow home secretary said: “Too often industry has been slow to respond to reports of their social media platforms being used to bully and abuse people or spread abhorrent ideology.”

Amid the rise in hate crimes, the coalition government has been accused of failing to respond to a Law Commission report on hate crimes that recommends changes to the criminal records system. Labour would introduce programmes in schools to tackle antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobic bullying and targeting of disabled children. “We need to look at what more we can do to prevent discrimination, bigotry and hate taking hold in the first place,” said Cooper.

Between April 2013 and April 2014 hate crimes over race in England and Wales rose from 35,889 to 37,484; offences involving sexual orientation increased from 4,261 to 4,622; and transgender hate crime escalated from 361 to 555 – a 54% increase. During the same period, disability hate crimes increased from 1,843 to 1,985, while criminal offences linked to religion grew from 1,573 to 2,273, a rise of 45%.

Labour’s special envoy on LGBT issues, Lord Cashman, said: “These wide-ranging measures will signal to everyone that such behaviour is unacceptable in a civilised society.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/13/disabilty-hate-crime-vigilance-crown-prosecution-service,"The Crown Prosecution Service has a new disability hate crime action plan to ensure we correctly identify and deal with these toxic crimes that can be easily missed

We are lucky to live in a safe, just and tolerant country and the public rely on prosecutors, law enforcement and the criminal justice system to help keep it that way. That is a fundamental element of our role, and never more so than when we’re tackling hate crime.

Hate crimes are toxic. They ruin lives, create fear and undermine people’s trust in society and its institutions. Recently we have seen worrying examples of islamophobia and antisemitism. Homophobia, transphobia and racism continue to require our vigilance.

However, it is disability hate crime that requires a new, considered approach. Almost 85% of all hate crime prosecutions now result in a conviction. Yet, while disability hate crime convictions went up from 77% to 82% between 2012-13 and 2013-14, the number of completed prosecutions fell from 640 to 574. So we were, in effect, prosecuting fewer cases, more successfully. The numbers we are dealing with cannot possibly represent the scale of the problems disabled people face. A police statistic gives a telling insight: forces believe that one in four allegations of race hate crime are brought to their attention, compared with just one in 30 disability hate crimes.

Hostility can be less explicit with disability hate crime. A perpetrator, for example, may “befriend” the victim but show contempt by stealing their money, knowing the victim may be desperate for company, and won’t report the matter. For a prosecution of hostility on the basis of disability to be successful there needs to be evidence that the offence was motivated by hostility, or that there was hostility towards an individual at the time of, immediately before, or after the offence taking place.

It is important that disability is not confused with a person being vulnerable. With disability hate crime, while vulnerability can be an aggravating factor, there needs to be evidence that an individual was targeted because of their disability. Prosecuting these cases requires extra vigilance to ensure the disability is properly identified and evidence of hostility is not missed. So, we need to probe and question and also understand that the term hostility includes ill will, contempt, unfriendliness, resentment and dislike.

I suspect that the element of hostility we haven’t given sufficient attention to is contempt and the exploitative behaviour that this generates.

As part of our recent disability-hate-crime action plan, a best-practice model is now available to aid prosecutors in decisions related to disability hate crime and we have just introduced an assurance regime to improve the quality and consistency of case handling.

We are not doing our job as prosecutors unless we correctly flag offences as hate crime, identify the supporting evidence, and apply for a longer sentence. We need to assist the courts in dealing with this issue. Often a judge will indicate that the harm caused to a disabled victim can be taken into account when sentencing for the offence. There is also an important issue of justice being seen to be done. Unless the issue of hate crime is properly raised and openly addressed, justice won’t be seen to have been done, especially for the victims.

The public need to know too that we regard disability hate crime as totally unacceptable. By making these applications in open court, publishing data on how often we do so and promoting successful cases, we can drive up confidence in our ability to deal with it.

Our action plan will help us to do this, and so help protect those who may fall victim to these toxic crimes.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/26/transphobic-transgender-hate-crime-rise-uk-police-figures,"Forces reveal number of offences against transgender people while charity warns real figure could be much higher

Some of the UK’s biggest police forces have recorded a rise in transphobic hate crimes this year, with victims subjected to assaults, verbal abuse and harassment on the street.

But there are fears the number of offences could be much higher after a leading charity warned crimes against transgender people were “massively under-reported”.

Eleven forces revealed they recorded more transphobic hate crimes between January and November than the whole of 2013, according to figures released to the Press Association under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Metropolitan police, the country’s largest force, saw offences against transgender people soar by 44% in 2014, with 95 crimes recorded – up from 66 last year and 59 in 2012.

They included 53 harassment offences this year, 17 common assaults, seven grievous bodily harm offences and seven assaults with injury.

Rape, robbery, criminal damage and burglary were also recorded by the force.

Avon and Somerset police recorded 38 transgender hate crimes between January and November, up from 22 in 2013 and 12 in 2012.

Meanwhile, Merseyside police recorded 32 hate crimes that were classed as transphobic or motivated by a person’s gender between January and November, double the number of offences reported in the previous year.

In Suffolk, where police have recorded 63 transphobic hate crimes since 2012, a group of children aged seven to nine verbally abused a transgender person, a rock was used to smash the sunroof of another victim’s car and an assault was carried out with a blunt object.

In South Yorkshire, where 16 transphobic hate crimes were recorded since 2012, a transgender person had a brick thrown at them in the street and another victim was punched in the face after having their wig and earrings pulled off.

Meanwhile, in Lincolnshire, where police have recorded 15 transphobic hate crimes since 2012, incidents included two people who were spat at and verbally abused for being transgender and another where transphobic graffiti was sprayed on a house.

Greater Manchester, South Wales, Durham, Kent, Norfolk, West Mercia police, Northumbria and Gloucestershire police forces also saw transphobic hate crimes rise between January and November compared to last year.

Nottinghamshire police – which provided figures covering both transgender hate crime and offences motivated by a person’s sexual orientation – recorded 67 offences between January and November, compared with 61 in 2013 and 47 in 2012.

And the Police Service of Northern Ireland said eight transphobic hate crimes were recorded in 2013/14, up from six in 2012/13 and three in 2011/12.

Serge Nicholson, from the charity Galop, which supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, said transphobic hate crimes recorded by police were a “tiny fraction of the true number”.

“A third of trans people in the UK go through transphobic abuse every year,” he said. “That’s the second highest of any EU country. Yet only a few hundred transphobic crimes get recorded by the police each year. That has got to be a tiny fraction of the true number.

“As much as 80% of transphobia is not reported. So the rise in transphobic police recording can be viewed as encouraging, though it leaves us with mixed feelings. One transphobic hate crime is one too many.

“It is encouraging that more trans people feel able to come forward to seek help and to report that they are the victims of unacceptable illegal transphobic abuse.

“Trans people are entitled to respect and dignity at home, on the street, from the police and in court.”

The Association of Chief Police Officers has encouraged victims to report transphobic hate crimes, which it acknowledged had been “significantly under-reported”.

Chief constable Jane Sawyers, the national policing lead for LGBT issues, said: “Targeting someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is totally unacceptable. This abuse affects people’s fundamental right to feel safe, secure and confident about themselves.

“Police forces across the UK are committed to reducing all forms of hate crime and bringing offenders to justice. Traditionally, homophobic and transphobic hate crime has been significantly under-reported and we are working hard to ensure the LGBT community feels confident to come forward and report incidents.

“Many police forces have also introduced LGBT liaison officers with specific responsibility for building community links and providing support to victims and witnesses of homophobic and transphobic hate crime.

“We strongly encourage anyone who has experienced transphobic hate crime to report incidents to the police.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/05/fbi-probes-possible-hate-after-kansas-city-teen-is-run-over-by-suv,"Police say 15-year-old’s death near Somali community was deliberate; suspect arrested with weapons in vehicle

Authorities say a teenager was deliberately run over and killed by a man driving an SUV outside a Somali community centre in Kansas City, Missouri. A spokeswoman said on Friday that the FBI was investigating whether the crash was a hate crime.

The 15-year-old’s legs were nearly severed in the Thursday evening crash, and he died later that day in a hospital. Another person was injured and was taken to a hospital with injuries that weren’t life threatening.

A 30-year-old suspect was arrested when he tried to run away following the crash. Police said he had a machete and other weapons in the vehicle.

The identities of the victim and the suspect have not been released.

Kansas City police spokeswoman Kari Thompson said early on Friday that the death was being investigated as a homicide.

Federal agents are assisting in the investigation and “also have opened this matter as a federal civil rights investigation as a potential hate crimes violation”, according to FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton.

Patton said she couldn’t release any information on why the case could be considered a hate crime, but Muslim leaders called for such an investigation.

The Kansas City Muslim community is “deeply shocked” by the death, Zulfiqar Malik, a board member with the Heartland Muslim Council, said in a news release.

A phone message left for the director of the Somali Center of Kansas City wasn’t immediately returned.

Khadra Dirir, the victim’s aunt, told TV station WDAF that the family was “destroyed” by what happened.

“He’s a sweet, loving kid,” Khadra Dirir said. “He doesn’t deserve this.”",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/02/-sp-missouri-killing-dionte-greene,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/16/george-galloway-israel-free-speech-no-charges,"Respect party MP says investigation into him has been ‘an extremely expensive waste of police and CPS time’

George Galloway will not face charges over a speech he made in August declaring Bradford an “Israel-free zone”.

The Respect MP for Bradford West was interviewed by police under caution over claims that his statements in Leeds had incited racial hatred.

The Crown Prosecution Service said on Wednesday night it had decided not to charge Galloway, who labelled the allegations “an extremely expensive waste of police and CPS time”.

He added: “My comments were aimed at the state of Israel which – I repeat what I said at the time – is an illegal, savage and barbarous state, and had nothing whatever to do with race or religion.

“I take back not a word and I will continue to forcefully condemn Israel.”

Chief Supt Paul Money, Leeds district commander, said West Yorkshire police received several complaints about Galloway’s speech on 2 August and a full investigation was carried out as a result.

“A file was submitted to the CPS for advice on whether any offences had been committed and they have now concluded there is insufficient evidence to support any charges,” he said.

“West Yorkshire police have recorded this matter as a hate incident.

“A hate incident is any incident, which may or may not constitute a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by prejudice or hate towards a person’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Deborah Walsh, of the CPS special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: “Given the context and setting in which the speech was made, including its overall content and the audience discussion which followed, we have determined that the speech did not indicate a desire to encourage others to hate a racial group.

“There is also insufficient evidence to show, in all the circumstances of this case, that it was likely that people would have been motivated to hate people of Israeli origin as a result.”

She said the CPS determined that the comments “were not made in a threatening manner, nor could they be considered abusive, to which case law has attached a high criminal threshold by defining as ‘extremely offensive and insulting’.

“Furthermore, case law is clear that any offending behaviour must actually have occurred within the sight or hearing of someone likely to be caused harassment, alarm and distress, and that it is insufficient that someone might or could have seen or heard the offending behaviour.”

Walsh added: “Having considered the evidence in relation to the audience at the public meeting, its reaction and the fact that Mr Galloway does not appear to have made the speech more widely available, we have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute.”

Galloway won the seat in a 2012 byelection with a 36% swing from Labour, giving Respect a majority of more than 10,000.

In the runup to the byelection, he had called for British troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan.

Galloway’s speech prompted Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, to visit Bradford and tweet pictures of himself holding an Israeli flag next to a sign welcoming visitors.

The act was described as a “deliberate provocation” by Zulfi Karim, secretary of the Bradford Council for Mosques, who called on both Galloway and Taub to stop using Bradford for their own political ends.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/ignorance-islam-isis-hate-crimes,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/08/-sp-trans-pride-brighton-lgbt-equality,"This summer Brighton hosted Europe’s first ever trans pride march as part of its second annual Trans Pride weekend.

Traditional pride events encompass transgender people by default under the LGBT umbrella. However, there has been a growing frustration that at such celebrations, the T – as well as coming last in the acronym – is usually the last thing on anyone’s mind.



This year I wanted to see for myself what exactly trans pride is and why it exists now. I am trans and have trans friends, but I’ve only become acquainted with the UK trans community in the past year. I wouldn’t count myself as an activist nor even a very engaged member.

I arrived on Friday afternoon to stay with Fox Fisher, a south coast native and one of the key organisers. He is the softly-spoken co-chair of the event, as well as graphic designer, documenter and unofficial arbiter of occasional communal strife. He’d hate the idea, but he seemed like the event’s figurehead.

Admittedly, I hadn’t been fully convinced of the need for Trans Pride, in addition to Brighton Pride, London Pride and the rest. London Pride this year felt like my event too; a day for queers and gender variant folk as well as – if not as much as – conventionally attractive, middle-class gay men.

The trans community does have unique things to celebrate. We are more visible and a few trans individuals now have positive public profiles. The most famous of these is probably Laverne Cox, one of the stars of Netflix’s darkly comic prison drama, Orange is the New Black.

Time magazine recently featured her as their cover star, with a headline proclaiming the “trans tipping point”. The implication being that trans people aren’t just more visible, they are on verge of a victory, close to securing the same legal rights and social equality as their LGB comrades. Yet, those in the community know this isn’t true. The majority of trans people still face a daily struggle just to lead comfortable and safe lives.

This is not for want of campaigning since the very dawn of the LGBT rights movement. The 1969 Stonewall riots were spearheaded by gender variant people – most notably Sylvia Rivera – as well as gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Yet ever since that watershed moment, trans people have been sidelined. In the UK, advocacy heavyweight Stonewall – named after those very riots – is still simply “the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity”.

However, proving the accelerating pace of change this year, just last week, Stonewall’s new CEO Ruth Hunt began consulting with trans activists on this issue. Opening this meeting with an apology to the trans community, Hunt seems utterly sincere in wanting to find a way for Stonewall to work for or alongside trans people in future.

So, the trans community isn’t at a tipping point yet. We lack victories to celebrate and equality in which to luxuriate. Perhaps this is the biggest impetus for Trans Pride – an event for celebration but also demonstration and organisation.

This year it fell a week before Brighton Pride, or as Trans Pride attendees affectionately referred to it, “big pride”. Not complete affection though. “Big” doesn’t just refer to size and attendance. It is also shorthand for corporatised and expensive – an event that might have had too much to drink and lost its soul.

At first, I wondered if Trans Pride would be this community’s boozy equivalent. With so much work to be done on the equality front, was it really the best use of our energies? But I soon learned this event didn’t fit the pride stereotype. Trans Pride, so went the refrain, feels like big pride used to feel; a politically engaged and community orientated party.

Friday

The weekend began on Friday night with a packed programme of shorts at Duke of York’s cinema.

I had first became aware of Fisher via the 2011 Channel 4 documentary, My Transsexual Summer (MTS). He and his co-contributors, who included aspiring filmmaker Lewis Hancox, became minor celebrities in the LGBT world after it aired.

However, Fisher was frustrated with the production company’s final cut and so he and Hancox formed Lucky Tooth Productions.

They were premiering their Patchwork series that night – artistically shot profiles of gender variant people from across Britain. Where MTS was documentary by checklist of transgender tropes: family turmoil, dramatic surgery, laddish banter and ladies applying makeup, Patchwork is a sincere attempt to capture the reality and diversity of trans lives.

Within a few years, the pair have gone from subjects to storytellers. Their transformation is a microcosm of the wider community. Moreover, Channel 4 supported Patchwork in part, perhaps in tacit acknowledgment of having missed the mark with MTS.

Trailer for the documentary series by Lucky Tooth and All About Trans

The cinema audience applauded every short and, where possible, turned to congratulate personally those who had come to see themselves on the big screen. One film, about nine-year-old Kai and his mum, sent waves of intense empathy through the audience, tearful one minute, laughing the next.

We finished the night at the Marlborough pub, from where Saturday’s march would depart. It was described to me as “the hub of the LGBT scene in Brighton”. The raucous crowd was mixed and overlapping; part regular queer clientele, part transplanted cinema audience. The celebratory mood spilled out on to the pavement and side streets.

Being jostled with my pint of Guinness, I was reminded why the LGBT acronym makes sense. Aside from both campaigning for equality, many trans people came up through gay, lesbian and bisexual scenes. In gathering there, we weren’t engaged in a marriage of convenience, but celebrating among friends, lovers and allies whose histories and identities often interweave.

Saturday

At 7am on a hot summer morning, I headed to the seafront, intending to pass Brighton police station. There was something I had to see. When I got there I couldn’t quite believe it. The station really was flying the trans flag.

I encountered police officers in person not long after. I had arrived so early that the park was almost empty. A man approached me while I set up my camera, to ask why a stage was being erected. I’m not sure he understood “Trans” but clearly, he was not a fan of “Pride”.



Why can’t they keep it in the bedroom? It’s not natural is it? After all, it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

He wasn’t directing his ire at me personally, but only because I was careful to pretend that I was just another press guy. Whenever he said something awful, I mumbled in a way that sounded supportive. I felt ashamed of my reaction but felt I should avoid any escalation without others nearby to back me up.

Afterwards, I was taken aback when Sarah from the organising committee called the police community liaison. The officer, with whom Sarah was on first name terms, explained why he wanted to log this as a hate incident.

Diverse communities live cheek by jowl in Brighton, so the police constantly assess the lie of the land, hoping to identify trouble spots and makers before they become a threat to peaceful coexistence. When the officer asked if I’d felt threatened, I hesitated before realising the honest answer was “yes”.

For the rest of the day the police were only visible on their stall alongside other community groups in the park, offering advice and solidarity. They weren’t called upon again for anything more serious than steering marchers out of the way of traffic.

I headed down to the start of the march with Fisher at midday. As we approached the Marlborough, hundreds of people appeared, many more than we had anticipated. There were banners, whistles, megaphones, union reps, music makers, pushchairs and pets; a sea of festive faces and raised voices.



I remembered what someone had said that morning,

It’s a march, not a parade.

Celebration and demonstration in equal measure. We set off and wound our way down one of Brighton’s busiest streets.

Bystanders looked on, almost as numerous as the marchers. There was no protest. Most seemed to know what the march was for and offered jolly support. Others seemed bored of yet another street closure.

When I asked a police officer about the calm atmosphere he said: “People are used to it. If it’s not one march it’s another.” The trans focus clearly wasn’t scandalous, but I couldn’t tell how much of this acceptance was Brighton and how much of it a sign of wider changing perceptions.



At the park, some non-marchers accepted free wristbands and joined the swelling, sweaty rumpus of punk music, standup comedy and spoken word inside. All ages and abilities were represented, though unlike at other pride events I’ve attended recently, the crowd was very white.



Local MP Caroline Lucas pitched her keynote speech somewhere between celebration and call to action. The audience was most animated by news that she is lobbying in parliament for Brighton to have its own gender clinic.

As things stand, adults in London and south-east England who approach their GP with questions about gender are referred to one clinic in west London. Unsurprisingly, this clinic is on its knees.

An estimated 2-5% of the population is gender variant and more than 16m people live in London and the south-east. This means that approximately half a million people have just one clinic to potentially turn to.

Mid-afternoon, I met a bookish young Chinese man called Theodore, looking hot and slightly flustered. He passed me a clipboard and explained he was collecting signatures to support his appeal to stay in the UK, in order, he said, to continue living as the man he knows himself to be.

To transition from female to male in China, he’d have had to take black market hormones or get consent from his parents to seek legal treatment, even as an adult. But, he said, they would never give him this.

He also described being “touched” by an employer because the ‘F’ marker on his passport didn’t match with his masculine presentation when he arrived to start an internship. He said his life in China had been hell.

At 6pm the sun finally dipped below the Georgian terrace beside the park. People splayed on the grass to talk numbers. The march had attracted 450 people, several hundred more than they’d expected. The park had seen almost 2,000 unique visitors throughout the afternoon, way up on last year.

Later that evening, people reassembled for the official after party.

When we arrived at the after party around 9pm, the Brighton Arts Club was crowded and sweltering. Fisher told me that the venue used to be a transvestite bar. Inside it had the vibe of a European squat.

Outside, I found Fisher talking to a woman whose sharp bone structure was accentuated by piercings and tattoos. They were discussing an argument that was, at that moment, causing a schism between parts of Brighton’s queer and feminist communities.

Sunday

On Sunday evening, Trans Pride 2014 would end with an event I’d been looking forward to, not as a reporter, but as a deprived swimmer. It would be my first chance to don swim shorts and dive in to a public pool in more than a decade. Before that though, a few dozen of us gathered for a BBQ on the beach.

Swimming is probably the most anxiety-inducing social activity a trans person can face. Public semi-nakedness can compromise a person’s sense of self along with their identity in the eyes of others. No one is crazy about swimwear, but for most the trade off is worth it. For trans people the stakes are too high. And if feeling comfortable means staying covered up, at most pools you aren’t welcome.

One Brighton pool has held trans inclusive swim sessions for the past year or so. Friends and family are also welcome. The dresscode is flexible and the lifeguards given awareness training. One has become so committed to the sessions, he’s spoken of in almost heroic terms by regular swimmers. He was one of many non-trans attendees at other events over the weekend.

It didn’t attract the same crowds as the park event on Saturday but the pool party seemed to me a more precise indicator of why Trans Pride is important. On an individual level, it isn’t about celebration or demonstration, but rather about feeling at ease, dare I say normal.

Trans Pride 2014 felt united and purposeful, with celebration as a means to an end, not the end in itself. Its novelty indicates how recently the community felt safe enough to be proud in public.

On a micro level, the weekend was about a kid feeling able to swim in a public pool with his family. The largely unspoken hope being that such small victories will accumulate to become paradigm shifts.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/07/greek-laws-anti-discrimination-racist-homophobic,"Nearly three years after it was first brought to parliament, Greek MPs are poised to pass an anti-discrimination bill which human rights groups say still falls far short of dealing with an epidemic of racist and homophobic violence in the country.

Ahead of this week's vote, gay rights protesters have taken to the streets to denounce the conservative-dominated government's refusal to extend protective rights, including domestic partnerships, to same-sex couples.

Rightwing MPs have resisted introducing legal protection for gay people despite an alarming rise in homophobic attacks in Athens, claiming that such measures could take Greece down a dangerous path.

""In Holland there are parties that recognise paedophilia; what are we going to do, adopt it too?"" asked Anastasios Nerantzis, an MP with the ruling New Democracy party, as debate raged in the 300-seat house.

""There are also brothels that allow bestiality; what are we going to do, adopt that too? Since the third century marriage has been defined only between man and woman,"" he railed. ""As such, there is no place for civil unions in Greece.""

With debate at such levels, there is concern that far from curbing hate crimes, the law will allow violence to flourish.

Anna Hatzisofia, who represents the radical left Syriza party, the main opposition, said it was appalling that Greece had come up with an anti-discrimination law ""in name only"" when more than 400 racially-motivated assaults had been recorded since 2012.

Petros Tatsopoulos, a left-leaning independent MP, said the refusal to protect gay people was an alarming omission.

""Greece has been condemned by the European court of human rights on the issue of [same-sex] civil unions and yet is doing nothing to fix it,"" he told the Guardian.

""This law, in effect, allows people to think that homosexuals in this country are second-class citizens who do not have the same rights, and that will pave the way to discrimination through the back door.""

International consternation has been exacerbated by the recent surge of attacks on men and women in Greece's gay community – often by black-shirted supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

Piling the pressure on the government, Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, urged Greek authorities to move forward with the adoption of wide-ranging anti-discrimination laws.

In a statement, he said: ""The reported rise of homophobic attacks and the continuing racist hate crime in Greece signal the urgent need to adopt and effectively implement comprehensive legislation in order to eliminate intolerance, hate speech and violence in the country.""

Over the summer, assailants have not only targeted dark-skinned immigrants but also appear to have singled out gay people for attack. Some have been so brutally beaten they have required extensive surgery after being set upon in public.

One man, a schoolteacher who would only give his name as Kostas, told the Guardian how he and his Kashmiri partner were savagely beaten up two weeks ago as they sat on a bench in a square in central Athens.

The 39-year-old, speaking from his bed after his left leg was broken in three places above the ankle, said: ""First, two men on a motorcycle drove by and threw a bucket of filthy water all over us – we were just sitting there laughing and enjoying the cool late-night air.

""Then, a group of between 12 and 15 men with shaved heads and black shirts came and put the bucket over my head and started punching and kicking us. It went on for about 10 minutes and when the police eventually showed they said we had only suffered minor scratches, when I ended up being operated on in the hospital for three hours,"" added the victim, who previously lived in London where he studied art before returning to Greece.

Greek security forces have been accused of complicity in racist violence. Officers who were discovered to have been collaborating with the neo-fascist Golden Dawn have been removed from their posts. After six years of withering economic crisis, the party is the country's third-biggest political force despite most of its leadership being detained in pre-trial custody on charges of running a criminal operation that sowed terror on the streets of Greece.

Senior MPs have openly hailed Hitler as ""a great personality"", questioned the Holocaust and denounced homosexuality as ""a sickness"". In comments before the Greek parliament, the few Golden Dawn representatives who have escaped prison described the anti-racist bill as a ""satanic plot"" and an ""insult to Greek history"".

The bill, which seeks to reinforce legislation drawn up in the 1970s, will toughen criminal sanctions for those inciting hatred, discrimination and violence. Deniers of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity will also be penalised. But human rights groups said with widespread opposition from rightwing forces and the church, it still failed to encourage the reporting of violent hate crimes or guarantee appropriate action by the police and judiciary.

""It is tragic that people like me now feel at risk,"" said Kostas, adding that he would be moving to a new neighbourhood. ""My home is three streets away from the square and I don't feel safe. But is the law going to protect me? Am I, after the attack and all this hullaballoo in parliament, really going to feel secure anywhere in this country?""

• This article was amended on 8 September 2014. An earlier version described Nils Muiznieks as the EU's commissioner for human rights. He holds that post for the Council of Europe.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/07/antisemitism-rise-europe-worst-since-nazis,"In the space of just one week last month, according to Crif, the umbrella group for France's Jewish organisations, eight synagogues were attacked. One, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob. A kosher supermarket and pharmacy were smashed and looted; the crowd's chants and banners included ""Death to Jews"" and ""Slit Jews' throats"". That same weekend, in the Barbes neighbourhood of the capital, stone-throwing protesters burned Israeli flags: ""Israhell"", read one banner.

In Germany last month, molotov cocktails were lobbed into the Bergische synagogue in Wuppertal – previously destroyed on Kristallnacht – and a Berlin imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, called on Allah to ""destroy the Zionist Jews … Count them and kill them, to the very last one."" Bottles were thrown through the window of an antisemitism campaigner in Frankfurt; an elderly Jewish man was beaten up at a pro-Israel rally in Hamburg; an Orthodox Jewish teenager punched in the face in Berlin. In several cities, chants at pro-Palestinian protests compared Israel's actions to the Holocaust; other notable slogans included: ""Jew, coward pig, come out and fight alone,"" and ""Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.""

Across Europe, the conflict in Gaza is breathing new life into some very old, and very ugly, demons. This is not unusual; police and Jewish civil rights organisations have long observed a noticeable spike in antisemitic incidents each time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict flares. During the three weeks of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009, France recorded 66 antisemitic incidents, including attacks on Jewish-owned restaurants and synagogues and a sharp increase in anti-Jewish graffiti.But according to academics and Jewish leaders, this time it is different. More than simply a reaction to the conflict, they say, the threats, hate speech and violent attacks feel like the expression of a much deeper and more widespread antisemitism, fuelled by a wide range of factors, that has been growing now for more than a decade.

""These are the worst times since the Nazi era,"" Dieter Graumann, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, told the Guardian. ""On the streets, you hear things like 'the Jews should be gassed', 'the Jews should be burned' – we haven't had that in Germany for decades. Anyone saying those slogans isn't criticising Israeli politics, it's just pure hatred against Jews: nothing else. And it's not just a German phenomenon. It's an outbreak of hatred against Jews so intense that it's very clear indeed.""

Roger Cukierman, president of France's Crif, said French Jews were ""anguished"" about an anti-Jewish backlash that goes far beyond even strongly felt political and humanitarian opposition to the current fighting: ""They are not screaming 'Death to the Israelis' on the streets of Paris,"" Cukierman said last month. ""They are screaming 'Death to Jews'."" Crif's vice-president Yonathan Arfi said he ""utterly rejected"" the view that the latest increase in antisemitic incidents was down to events in Gaza. ""They have laid bare something far more profound,"" he said.

Nor is it just Europe's Jewish leaders who are alarmed. Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called the recent incidents ""an attack on freedom and tolerance and our democratic state"". The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has spoken of ""intolerable"" and clearly antisemitic acts: ""To attack a Jew because he is a Jew is to attack France. To attack a synagogue and a kosher grocery store is quite simply antisemitism and racism"".

Police at the site of a shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, where four people were killed. Photograph: Eric Vidal/REUTERS

France, whose 500,000-strong Jewish community is one of Europe's largest, and Germany, where the post-war exhortation of ""Never Again"" is part of the fabric of modern society, are not alone. In Austria last month, a pre-season friendly between Maccabi Haifa and German Bundesliga team SC Paderborn had to be rescheduled after the Israeli side's previous match was called off following an attempted assault on its players.

The Netherlands' main antisemitism watchdog, Cidi, had more than 70 calls from alarmed Jewish citizens in one week last month; the average is normally three to five. An Amsterdam rabbi, Binjamin Jacobs, had his front door stoned, and two Jewish women were attacked – one beaten, the other the victim of arson – after they hung Israeli flags from their balconies. In Belgium, a woman was reportedly turned away from a shop with the words: ""We don't currently sell to Jews.""

In Italy, the Jewish owners of dozens of shops and other businesses in Rome arrived to find swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans daubed on shutters and windows. One slogan read: ""Every Palestinian is like a comrade. Same enemy. Same barricade""; another: ""Jews, your end is near."" Abd al-Barr al-Rawdhi, an imam from the north eastern town of San Donà di Piave, is to be deported after being video-recorded giving a sermon calling for the extermination of the Jews.

There has been no violence in Spain, but the country's small Jewish population of 35,000-40,000 fears the situation is so tense that ""if it continues for too long, bad things will happen,"" the leader of Madrid's Jewish community, David Hatchwell, said. The community is planning action against El Mundo after the daily paper published a column by 83-year-old playwright Antonio Gala questioning Jews' ability to live peacefully with others: ""It's not strange they have been so frequently expelled.""

Studies suggest antisemitism may indeed be mounting. A 2012 survey by the EU's by the Fundamental Rights agency of some 6,000 Jews in eight European countries – between them, home to 90% of Europe's Jewish population – found 66% of respondents felt antisemitism in Europe was on the rise; 76% said antisemitism had increased in their country over the past five years. In the 12 months after the survey, nearly half said they worried about being verbally insulted or attacked in public because they were Jewish.

Jewish organisations that record antisemitic incidents say the trend is inexorable: France's Society for the Protection of the Jewish Community says annual totals of antisemitic acts in the 2000s are seven times higher than in the 1990s. French Jews are leaving for Israel in greater numbers, too, for reasons they say include antisemitism and the electoral success of the hard-right Front National. The Jewish Agency for Israel said 3,288 French Jews left for Israel in 2013, a 72% rise on the previous year. Between January and May this year, 2,254 left, against 580 in the same period last year.

In a study completed in February, America's Anti-Defamation League surveyed 332,000 Europeans using an index of 11 questions designed to reveal strength of anti-Jewish stereotypes. It found that 24% of Europeans – 37% in France, 27% in Germany, 20% in Italy – harboured some kind of anti-Jewish attitude.

So what is driving the phenomenon? Valls, the French prime minister, has acknowledged a ""new"", ""normalised"" antisemitism that he says blends ""the Palestinian cause, jihadism, the devastation of Israel, and hatred of France and its values"".

Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust, a London-based charity that monitors antisemitism both in Britain and on the continent, also identifies a range of factors. Successive conflicts in the Middle East he said, have served up ""a crush of trigger events"" that has prevented tempers from cooling: the second intifada in 2000, the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, and the three Israel–Hamas conflicts in 2009, 2012 and 2014 have ""left no time for the situation to return to normal."" In such a climate, he added, three brutal antisemitic murders in the past eight years – two in France, one in Belgium, and none coinciding with Israeli military action – have served ""not to shock, but to encourage the antisemites"", leaving them ""seeking more blood and intimidation, not less"".

Experts said anti-Jewish attacks were not only down to Israel-Palestinian conflict. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

In 2006, 23-year old Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured and left for dead in Paris by a group calling itself the Barbarians Gang, who subsequently admitted targeting him ""because he was a Jew, so his family would have money"". Two years ago, in May 2012, Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah shot dead seven people, including three children and a young rabbi outside their Jewish school. And in May this year Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman of Algerian descent thought to have recently returned to France after a year in Syria fighting with radical Islamists, was charged with shooting four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels.

If the French establishment has harboured a deep vein of anti-Jewish sentiment since long before the Dreyfus affair, the influence of radical Islam, many Jewish community leaders say, is plainly a significant contributing factor in the country's present-day antisemitism. But so too, said Gardner, is a straightforward alienation that many young Muslims feel from society. ""Often it's more to do with that than with Israel. Many would as soon burn down a police station as a synagogue. Jews are simply identified as part of the establishment.""

While he stressed it would be wrong to lay all the blame at the feet of Muslims, Peter Ulrich, a research fellow at the centre for antisemitism research (ZfA) at Berlin's Technical University, agreed that some of the ""antisemitic elements"" Germany has seen at recent protests could be ""a kind of rebellion of people who are themselves excluded on the basis of racist structures.""

Arfi said that in France antisemitism had become ""a portmanteau for a lot of angry people: radical Muslims, alienated youths from immigrant families, the far right, the far left"". But he also blamed ""a process of normalisation, whereby antisemitism is being made somehow acceptable"". One culprit, Arfi said, is the controversial comedian Dieudonné: ""He has legitimised it. He's made acceptable what was unacceptable.""

A similar normalisation may be under way in Germany, according to a 2013 study by the Technical University of Berlin. In 14,000 hate-mail letters, emails and faxes sent over 10 years to the Israeli embassy in Berlin and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel found that 60% were written by educated, middle-class Germans, including professors, lawyers, priests and university and secondary school students. Most, too, were unafraid to give their names and addresses – something she felt few Germans would have done 20 or 30 years ago.

Almost every observer pointed to the unparalleled power of unfiltered social media to inflame and to mobilise. A stream of shocking images and Twitter hashtags, including #HitlerWasRight, amount, Arfi said, almost to indoctrination. ""The logical conclusion, in fact, is radicalisation: on social media people self-select what they see, and what they see can be pure, unchecked propaganda. They may never be confronted with opinions that are not their own.""

Additional reporting by Josie Le Blond in Berlin​, Kim Willsher in Paris, John Hooper in Rome and Ashifa Kassam in Madrid

• This article was amended on Friday 8 August to correct the name of the Madrid Jewish community leader David Hatchwell. This article was further amended to correct the numbers of Jews who left France for Israel in 2013.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/01/sharp-rise-uk-antisemitic-attacks-gaza-conflict,"Figures show hate crimes against Jewish people rose by 36% to 304 in first half of 2014, followed by 130 in July alone

Antisemitic hate crime rose by more than a third in the first six months of the year and spiked to a five-year high in July, figures show.

The Community Security Trust, which records attacks on the Jewish community in the UK, found there had been a 36% rise in the total number of antisemitic incidents, which include violent crime and vandalism, to 304 between January and June. This was followed by 130 incidents in July alone, which coincided with the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

CST spokesman Mark Gardner said: ""There is no excuse for this wave of racist intimidation and violence and we call upon all good people to unequivocally condemn it.""

The Israeli invasion of Gaza has so far left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, many of them civilians, including children, and has led to widespread condemnation of Israel's government.

The CST said many of the those carrying out the antisemitic attacks in the UK in the past few weeks referenced the situation in Gaza.

Nick Lowles, of Hope Not Hate, which helped organise support for British Muslims after the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby in London, said it was crucial to defend Jewish people.

""Fear is gripping Britain's Jewish community but sadly few organisations have stepped forward to offer support, and some of those who have made statements have only done so after they have been asked,"" Lowles said. ""Whatever one's views on the Gaza conflict, taking it out on Britain's Jewish community is clearly wrong and more people need to start saying it.""

In the first six months of 2014, the CST recorded 304 antisemitic incidents across the UK, including 22 violent assaults, 27 attacks on property, 19 antisemitic threats, 232 incidents of abusive behaviour and four cases of mass produced antisemitic literature.

The number of violent attacks actually dropped between 2013-14. The overall rise in the first six months of this year was because of a big jump in the amount of abusive behaviour.

But as the conflict in the Middle East intensifies, John Mann, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, said attacks on the Jewish community were only likely to get worse.

""This is troubling news and from the feedback we are receiving, it is likely that the volume of antisemitic incidents will increase significantly before the year's end.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/28/women-targeted-attacks-muslims,"Hotline figures reveal an average of two Islamophobic incidents every day since the murder of Lee Rigby

More than half of Islamophobic attacks in Britain are committed against women, who are typically targeted because they are wearing clothing associated with Islam, new data reveals.

The figures of anti-Muslim attacks, compiled in the nine months following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013, come days after Saudi Arabian student Nahid Almanea was stabbed to death in Essex, with detectives believing that she may have been attacked because she was wearing traditional Islamic clothing.

In a study of calls to the Tell Mama hotline, which records Islamophobic crimes, academics at Teesside University found there were on average two incidents every day over the period.

Victims reported a total of 734 incidents to the hotline between the start of May last year and 28 February 2014, broken down into 599 incidents of online abuse and 135 offline attacks – an increase of almost 20% on the same period the previous year.

One aspect of the figures indicates an apparent lack of trust in police to deal with Islamophobic incidents, with one in six victims choosing not to report the incident to authorities.

The Teesside report, published by the first research unit in Britain dedicated to the study of the far right and its opposition, says more effort is required to foster greater trust between the Muslim community and authorities.

""Supporting victims and encouraging them to come forward to report a hate crime remains the highest priority,"" the report says. ""Alongside addressing under-reporting, authorities should be encouraged to disaggregate hate crimes by strand, and to take seriously the increased incidence of anti-Muslim hate crime.""

The data also revealed that – unlike most incidents of hate crime, which overwhelmingly involve male perpetrators and victims – 54% of the victims of Islamophobia were female.

One theory is that Muslim women are more ""visibly"" Muslim because of traditional clothing such as the hijab or abaya. The figures show that four in five victims attacked in the street or elsewhere were females wearing visibly Muslim clothing; almost the same proportion of alleged perpetrators offline were young, white men.

Incidents reported to Tell Mama leapt after the murder of Rigby, with nearly four times more reports during the week following the attack than the previous week – although the number of incidents reduced in the months thereafter.

However, the report says that Islamophobia and its negative impact on community relations remains an ongoing concern. ""Throughout spring 2014, there were heightened levels of both online and offline incidents reported to Tell Mama. At this time, many people in Britain felt frightened and victimised,"" it says.

Overall, the data are in contrast to the trend for hate crime, with government figures showing the number of reported attacks falling.

Other findings from the report confirm that a significant number of incidents reported to the hotline involved a link to far-right groups such as the English Defence League. A far-right connection was traceable in almost half of reported Islamophobic online abuse.

An online link to the far right was readily detected through recognisable slogans such as the EDL's ""NFSE"" (No fucking surrender ever), hashtags linked to far-right groups, avatars or recurring far-right phrases including neo-Nazi phrases.

In a previous report by the Teesside University centre, it was claimed that a small number of far-right activists were responsible for a significant proportion of online hate incidents targeting British Muslims.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/swiss-court-rules-nazi-salute-personal-statement-not-racism,"Switzerland's federal tribunal argues that gesture made in public is a crime only if it is being used to spread racist ideology

A Nazi salute is not illegal racial discrimination provided that it is intended as a personal statement, Switzerland's top court ruled .

The federal tribunal's ruling, entitled Hitler salute in public not always punishable, said on Wednesday that the gesture was a crime only if someone was using it to spread racist ideology, not simply declaring one's own conviction.

The ruling by the Lausanne-based court overturned the conviction last year by a lower court of a man who was charged with racial discrimination after he took part in an August 2010 demonstration with 150 participants.

The demonstration took place a week after Swiss National Day was marked on the Rütli meadow above Lake Lucerne where, according to legend, the Swiss Confederation was born in 1291.

The court said the man substituted the Swiss oath with a 20-second Nazi salute. But it said the gesture was only punishable if it was being used to spread, advertise or propagate racist ideology with the intention of influencing others.

The gesture is a criminal offence in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. A Swiss law in 1995 forbids racist symbols to be displayed to promote racist ideologies.

For more than a decade, the Swiss have grappled with right-wing extremists disrupting Swiss National Day celebrations on Rütli with Nazi symbols.

The August 2010 incident occurred two months after the Swiss federal council of seven ministers, including the president, decided not to ban the Nazi salute and swastika symbol in Switzerland. A federal anti-racism commission called that a bad decision that would have ""serious consequences"",

In another ruling on racism issues, the court said earlier this year that calling someone ""foreign swine"" or ""filthy asylum seeker"" may be insulting, but because the expressions are widely used insults in the German language, they do not constitute racist attacks.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/may/13/alan-gibbons-gay-character-in-hate-lgbt,"Teen author Alan Gibbons was inspired to write his book Hate by the horrific murder of Sophie Lancaster who was assaulted and killed because of the way she dressed. In his new book a gay character is under threat of a hate crime – here's why Alan wrote it that way

My new novel Hate, inspired by the murder of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster in Bacup, Lancashire because she dared to be different, addresses the impact of a hate crime. In Sophie's case, she was assaulted and killed because she belonged to a sub-culture, dressing in ""Goth"" and alternative clothing.

The moment I met Sophie's mother Sylvia and heard her story I felt an immediate affinity with Sophie. I wore my hair long in the Sixties, was a punk in the Seventies and, like many youngsters, faced my fair share of ridicule, though nothing like the horrific hostility meted out on Sophie and her boyfriend Rob.

When I was Sophie's age in the early Seventies it was much more dangerous to be gay than it is now. I had gay friends who had been assaulted because of their sexuality. I once joined a campaign to force a pub in Manchester not to exclude gay and lesbian customers. Homophobia could be vicious and ""gay-bashing"" was common.

The portrayal of gay people in popular culture often legitimised the widespread bigotry in the community, but there was a growing refusal to put up with the situation. Alongside protests against racism and sexism, there was a movement in support of gay equality. I remember one turning point. I was a supporter of the Rock Against Racism movement and the Tom Robinson Band featured in many of its gigs. In 1976 Tom wrote ""Glad to be Gay."" I can remember being part of a huge crowd punching the air with our fists and singing along to the lyrics. You know what? Ninety per cent of us must have been straight. It is hard to imagine now, but back then BBC Radio 1 wouldn't broadcast the song on its Top 40 Chart Show! The much more liberal attitude to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people we experience now owes a lot to those days.

This experience informed the way I structured the novel Hate. Anthony is the ""Bad Samaritan"" who witnesses the murderous attack in the park, but fails to do anything to stop it. I needed him to face a moral dilemma to give him the chance to change and achieve some kind of redemption. This led me to the character of Oli, intelligent, confident, slightly cocky. A planned homophobic attack on Oli leads Anthony to re-examine his values and act.

Oli is not just a plot device however. I was keen for him to be a fully realised character, a loved brother and son, not a two-dimensional symbol. Hopefully one day nobody will care in the slightest whether you are gay or straight.

Fiction will routinely feature gay characters who are organic to the plot as people and not included to illustrate an issue. If my novel contributes to that outcome, Hate will have achieved its purpose.

Need another reason to read Alan Gibbons' book Hate? Check out 2Kool4Skool's review of Hate here.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/12/victimised-blind-body-worn-cameras-abused,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/05/poland-envoy-concerned-attacks-belfast,"Jerome Mullan to hold talks with Police Service of Northern Ireland over rise in assaults and hate crimes

Poland's diplomatic representative to Northern Ireland has expressed concern over a spike in xenophobic attacks on Polish families in Belfast.

The Polish consul is to hold talks with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on Tuesday over the rise in assaults and hate crimes directed at the Polish population in the city. Three homes where Polish families lived were attacked in east Belfast over the weekend with windows smashed and graffiti sprayed on hoardings with the words ""locals only"".

The PSNI has blamed the Ulster Volunteer Force for orchestrating the attacks which have also been directed at Africans and Romanians in recent months.

According to police figures, there has been a 40% in increase in race and hate crimes in the region but mainly focused on greater Belfast.

The PSNI has set up Operation Orion, a new police unit to target those behind hate crimes.

Jerome Mullan, the Polish consul, condemned those responsible for the attacks. ""The families are frightened and they don't understand why this has happened to them. I'm concerned about where we are going and we have to get it stopped,"" he said.

""It is very sad when you have these continued attacks taking place, they've been going on for far too long now.""

Polish community worker Eva Grossman said: ""Yet again, Northern Ireland is gaining the reputation as the hate crime capital of Europe.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/28/what-crime-data-doesnt-tell-us,"A worrying omission from the headline figures in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (Fall in murder and violent crime, but increase in rape, survey finds, 25 April) are those relating to religious and race hate incidents. This category is absent from the survey report and enquirers to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are instead pointed in the direction of the Home Office, whose ""overview"" of hate crime wraps up together religious, race hate, homophobic and disability hatred and comes to the conclusion that there has been a steady fall over the past five years.

Contrast this with the Metropolitan police crime statistics, which show a slight but continuing upward trend in religious and race hate crime in the capital but with Islamophobic incidents rocketing by 65% in the year to March 2014.

At a time when Ukip's vile posters are degrading streets throughout the country, certain tabloid newspapers are stepping up their vitriolic and frequently inaccurate attacks on migrants, and public discourse on the subject of immigration is poisoned by politicians of most parties trying to ""out-tough"" one another on the subject, is it not time that the authorities paused from patting themselves on the back over the fall in crime and gave more attention to this worrying specific increase and its causes?

Phillip Cooper

Hammersmith and Fulham Refugee Forum

• While the reduction in crime is clearly welcome, it is regrettable that the ONS data is not organised in such a way as to extract percentage changes for both domestic violence and hate crime, since these are incorporated into the more generic crime headings. For the victims of such crimes, their daily experiences of oppression, name-calling, personal violence and attack dominate their lives. Any reduction in overall crime offers no solace at all to them, and until these are recognised as discrete and heinous acts, nothing substantial will be done about them.

Andy Stelman

(Retired assistant chief probation officer), Bishops Castle, Shropshire

• The class-refracted conflicts that John Harris recalls (Britain's bootboys may be gone, but are we really more at peace?, 25 April) have given way to new patterns of crime reflected in Cardiff University's latest violence and society research (Report, 23 April). This must surely have some connection to the class realignment if not transformation John alludes to, especially as they are common across ""post-industrial"" societies.

Indeed, the division of knowledge and labour between the traditionally manual working class and the non-manual middle class has been eroded by the applications of new technology in successive work reorganisations. As a result, the polarising postwar pyramid has gone pear-shaped, with a new middle-working/working-middle class intermediate between the upper or ruling class and a section of the formerly unskilled working class relegated to underclass status. The consolidation of this new Americanised class structure may have been marked in England by the 2011 riots that John also recalls but everyone else has forgotten.

Patrick Ainley

University of Greenwich

• John Harris's piece was most perceptive, but I feel he and other commentators have missed a key factor in the decline in violent crime: ecstasy. From the late 80s to mid-90s an entire generation who would have been brawling in pub car parks was getting off its face on E at raves, and instead of scrapping were hugging complete strangers and telling them they loved them. This largely broke the intergenerational transmission of the macho street brawl culture and closed or changed the nature of the places that used to provide the arenas for it; it has never recovered.

Ian Simmons

Monkseaton, Tyne & Wear

• How interesting that as crime falls, everyone seems reluctant to give any credit to a range of positive, evidence-based policies introduced post-1997, which were designed to create a fairer society and a better future for young people. National drug and alcohol strategies, a brilliant youth justice system, the well-targeted Connexions services for young people, education maintenance allowances to encourage young people to stay in education, the teenage pregnancy strategy, a great ""New Deal"" for young jobseekers, and many other initiatives were all designed to look holistically at disadvantaged young people and help them become useful pro-social citizens. The Labour party is particularly guilty of not realising how good they were in government, and not making the obvious case for retaining these well-researched, cost-efficient policies.

Sheila Hutchins

Tregony, Cornwall",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/us-attorney-general-eric-holder-kansas-city-mourners,"Eric Holder joined religious leaders at interfaith memorial service at the Jewish Community Center, the site of one of two shootings

All Americans stand with the mourners of three people killed at Jewish community sites in suburban Kansas City, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday, adding that all hate crimes are ""an affront to the nation.""



Before an overflow crowd of more than 1,000, Holder joined Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and several religious leaders at an interfaith memorial service at the Jewish Community Center, the site of one of two shootings that stunned the city on the eve of Passover.

Avowed white supremacist Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, is charged with the killings Sunday of Dr William Lewis Corporon and his grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. Cross shouted ""heil Hitler"" at television cameras as he was arrested after the shootings.

Cross is also accused of killing Terri LaManno at a nearby Jewish retirement complex. Her funeral is scheduled for Thursday. All three victims were Christian.

""Every alleged hate crime, no matter who the intended target, is an affront to who we are both as a country and a people,"" Holder said.

""Although our hearts are truly broken, all Americans stand with the people of Overland Park, of Leawood, and of Kansas City. We are united in our condemnation of this heinous act and our commitment to see that justice is served.""

Federal prosecutors say there's enough evidence to warrant putting the case before a grand jury as a hate crime, but US Attorney Barry Grissom said Tuesday that federal charges were likely a week or more away. Cross' state case would have to be resolved before he could be moved to a federal trial.

Corporon and Underwood, a high school freshman, were at the JCC for the ""KC Superstar"" competition, an American Idol-like singing contest for high school students. LaManno, who had two college-age children, worked as an occupational therapist at the Children's Center for the Visually Impaired.

Mindy Corporon, mother of the boy and the daughter of William Corporon, did not attend the service because she felt it too soon to return to the community center, said Rev Adam Hamilton, the Corporon family's minister.

Michael Peck, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Overland Park, attended the service and said the shootings ""ripped a hole in the fabric of our community.""

""I think it's important that we get together ... and recognize that our bonds go deeper than cultural differences and religious differences,"" he said.

As federal prosecutors pursue their investigation, Cross, who is also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, already faces two counts of murder in Kansas.

One of the narrow circumstances in which capital murder cases are pursued in Kansas includes the intentional killing of more than one person in ""the same act or transaction or in two or more acts or transactions connected together or constituting parts of a common scheme or course of conduct.""

In this case, a single charge was applied to the deaths of Corporon and his grandson because the deaths occurred in a very short period of time as part of the same act, prosecutors said. LaManno's death doesn't meet the standard for capital murder, prosecutors have said without elaborating on the evidence leading to that conclusion.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/12/muslim-lee-rigby-murder-video-murder-youtube-glorify,"Royal Barnes uploaded YouTube clips that hailed attack as 'brillliant day'; he also admitted inciting murder during Old Bailey hearing

A British Muslim who associated with one of Fusilier Lee Rigby's murderers today pleaded guilty to posting videos on YouTube glorifying the killing.

Royal Barnes, 23, of Hackney, east London, and his wife, Rebekah Dawson, 22, recorded and uploaded three videos shortly after the murder in Woolwich, south London, in May 2013.

In one of the videos posted under his account, Musa Real Talks, Barnes hailed the murder as a ""brilliant day"". In a follow-up, he mocked the outpouring of public grief, laughing uncontrollably as he drove past floral tributes.

On Facebook, Barnes, who knew one of the murderers, Michael Adebowale, also posted the offer of a reward for avenging the rape of an Iraqi woman. None of his 500 friends replied.

The post, on 12 June, 2013, stated: ""Any1 who kills an invading soldier in Muslim land I will give them a Vauxhall Astra 3door and money (French British American any kaffir soldier take ur pick).""

He pleaded guilty to three counts of disseminating a terrorist publication and one of inciting murder during a hearing at the Old Bailey. His wife, who had insisted on wearing her veil in court, had admitted disseminating a terrorist publication at a previous hearing and is awaiting sentence.

Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, will be sentenced this month after they were found guilty of murdering Fusilier Rigby. The British Muslim converts ran the soldier down in a car before hacking him to death with a meat cleaver and knives. They dumped his body in the middle of the road near Woolwich Barracks.

Barnes's lawyer, Naeem Mian, said: ""Mr Barnes makes three postings on YouTube immediately after the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby which are to say the very least untasteful.

""About a month or so later, Mr Barnes posted on Facebook following on from a posting which details the rape of an Iraqi woman, saying he would reward anybody who murders an allied soldier with a Vauxhall Astra.""

Prosecuting, Kate Wilkinson told the court that before the postings, Barnes had been involved with a sharia law patrol of London streets, ordering women in short shirts to cover up and telling people to stop drinking alcohol.

He was also a member of extremist group Al-Muhajiroun – or Muslims Against Crusades – taking part in demonstrations advocating sharia law in the UK, including one on 24 December 2012, outside St Paul's Cathedral with Adebowale.

The court was then shown all three videos and some other examples of earlier videos that Barnes had posted on YouTube, which were found in a police search of his home. The first video includes a clip of one of the Woolwich murderers talking with a knife in his hand in front of Fusilier Rigby's body. What follows is an on-camera diatribe by Barnes filmed by his wife, Dawson. The video lasts for seven and a half minutes.

In it, Barnes described the murder as a ""brilliant day"" and warns the prime minister, David Cameron, and the public that the attack will not be the last. He says: ""You are not safe here, do you understand? British soldiers, you are not safe on the streets of London.""

The second video shows Dawson in a face veil behind a title: ""British troops kill Muslims so they will die on London streets.""

She says: ""Obviously now this guy who has been killed, Joe Bloggs or whatever his name is, was killed, this is the lion, the tiger fighting back... We are fighting back and sharia, obviously the Islamic law, will dominate the entire world … don't worry, it is coming Inshallah [God willing].""

The third video shows Barnes being filmed by his wife driving past the scene of the Woolwich murder to a loud musical soundtrack. They are heard to laugh repeatedly as they take in the floral tributes to the soldier lining the street.

As Dawson asks him to drive around again, Barnes says: ""Now they turn it into a shrine where they are worshipping his flippin' shrine … Obviously the death of Lee Rigby is something to be ridiculed at, because these kuffar [non-believers], they fail to realise that their foreign policy is the reason why this Lee Rigby is no more [hysterical laughing] … he got chopped up in Woolwich …""

The first and second films were on YouTube for two to three days, while the third remained online for two weeks. Only the first video was removed by YouTube itself.

Another video clip retrieved by police showed Barnes at Finsbury Park tube station pretending to be a suicide bomber on the platform in front of other passengers.

The court was shown a further video of Barnes secretly filmed in the dock at Westminster magistrates' court being sentenced for a public order offence after an English Defence League demonstration.

Outside the court, he is seen on camera mocking British justice, and bragging that he is ""free as a bird"".

The last video shown in court was of a vigilante-style sharia muslim patrol in east London. Barnes covers his face in a scarf to rant about sharia law on the streets before a clip of a drunken man falling asleep at a bus stop with sound effects of guns being cocked.

Barnes, wearing a tunic, trainers and scarf, spoke in a clear voice in the dock as he entered his guilty pleas. The judge, Brian Barker, adjourned sentencing to a date to be fixed while reports are carried out.

He told Barnes it was in his interests to co-operate with the reports, to which Barnes replied ""undoubtedly"".",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/27/uk-anti-muslim-hate-crime-soars,"Forces report a surge in the number of reported incidents after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby by Islamic extremists in May

Hate crimes against Muslims have soared in the UK this year, figures show.

Hundreds of anti-Muslim offences were carried out across the country in 2013, with Britain's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, recording 500 Islamophobic crimes.

Many forces reported a surge in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby by two Islamic extremists in Woolwich, south-east London, in May.

But the figures could be much higher as nearly half of the 43 forces in England and Wales did not reveal how many hate crimes had targeted Muslims. Some forces admitted they did not always record the faith of a religious hate-crime victim.

Freedom of Information requests were sent by the Press Association to every police force in England and Wales. Of the 43 forces, 24 provided figures on the number of anti-Muslim crimes and incidents recorded.

Tell Mama, a group which monitors anti-Muslim incidents, said it had dealt with 840 cases since April, with the number expected to rise to more than 1,000 by the end of March. This compared with 582 anti-Muslim cases it dealt with from March 2012 to March 2013.

Fiyaz Mujhal, director of Faith Matters, which runs the Tell Mama project, said the reaction to the murder of Rigby had caused the number of Islamophobic crimes to jump significantly.

""The far right groups, particularly the EDL [English Defence League], perniciously use the internet and social media to promote vast amounts of online hate,"" he said.

Mujhal said tougher sentencing was needed to tackle Islamophobic crime and that guidelines by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to monitor social media were not fit for purpose.

""They raised the bar of prosecution significantly. Now, unless there is a direct threat to somebody on Twitter or Facebook, the CPS will not prosecute. The CPS is just plainly out of sync with reality.

""We also need more robust sentencing. In one case, a pig's head was left outside a mosque and the perpetrator came away with a community sentence. When you target a mosque, you are targeting the whole community.""

Tell Mama has called for police forces to improve monitoring of Islamophobic crimes.

""There are three problems we come across,"" Mujhal said. ""Firstly, there is a lack of understanding of the language of Islamophobia thrown at victims in any incidents. Secondly, there is very little training on how to ask relevant questions to pull out anti-Muslim cases.

""Thirdly, recording processes are not in line with each other. One force will allow an officer to flag an incident as anti-Muslim, another force will flag it as religious hate crime. There is no uniformity.

""There must be guidelines for all forces so we can know the level of the problem.""

A CPS spokeswoman said: ""Online communication can be offensive, shocking or in bad taste.

""However, as set out in CPS guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media, content has to be more than simply offensive to be contrary to the criminal law.

""In order to preserve the right to free speech the threshold for prosecution must be high and only communications that are grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false are prohibited by the legislation.""

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has previously said 71 incidents were reported to its national community tension team over five days after Rigby's murder on 22 May.

Superintendent Paul Giannasi, Acpo's spokesman on hate crime, said: ""The police service is committed to reducing the harm caused by hate crime and it is vital that we encourage more victims who suffer crimes to report them to the police or through third party reporting facilities such as Tell Mama.

""Acpo has played a key role in improving reporting mechanisms, including through the development of our True Vision website. This provides information to victims and allows people to report online.

""We would obviously want overall crime levels to reduce and to see fewer victims, but we welcome increases in reported hate crime, as long as they are a sign of increased confidence of victims to report.

""We are working with local police forces, to help improve the way we respond to hate crime and to provide robust and transparent hate crime data.""

A justice ministry spokesman said: ""These are despicable crimes that devastate lives and communities.

""The courts already hand out tougher punishments where race or religion are found to be aggravating factors. The number of people receiving a custodial sentence for these appalling crimes is higher than ever before.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/dec/17/how-prevalent-hate-crime-england-wales,"There are an average of 278,000 hate crimes a year with 40% being reported, according to a victims survey. However, the number of crimes reported to police seems much lower than that. How does hate crime break down? And why do the differences exist?

Is hate crime a much bigger problem than it seems? While the police record just under 43,000 hate crimes a year - about 1% of all recorded crimes - another source suggests that the real figure could be more than six times that amount.

There are two main methods for testing the amount of hate crime each year, with one of those being the offences recorded by police. The other is the Crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which tries to gauge the number of crimes both reported and unreported.

The Home Office published a report today looking at both of these sources. They are not directly comparable as the police figures are based on financial years and the sample sizes of the CSEW are so small that they have to combine 2011-12 and 2012-13 figures to give a yearly average.

Nevertheless, the CSEW suggests that there are actually about 278,000 hate crimes a year, which is way above the number recorded by the police.

Admittedly, the CSEW says that only 40% of these crimes are being reported, which is a similar level to most crimes. However, 60% of 278,000 is much more than 43,000. So what's going on?

What is hate crime and how does it break down?

When police are recording an offence they have the chance to tick a box saying one of the five ""strands"" of hate crime was a motivating factor. Those five-strands are race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and gender-identity.

The CSEW figures at first glance suggest that the police figures do not reflect the true spread of hate crime. While in both sources race is the predominant hate crime motivation, the disability and religion numbers take up a much bigger proportion of crimes in the CSEW.

Religion is particularly interesting because if the CSEW figures were to be believed, the prevalence of religious hate-crime would have increased from 39,000 a year to 70,000 between 2009-10 and 2012-13.

How does hate-crime break down?

The single biggest source of hate-crime offences reported by victims in the CSEW was assault with minor injury or no injury, responsible for 40% of all crimes.

The report suggests that its dominance may be the reason that the proportion of crimes being reported to police has dropped by 11 percentage points since 2007-8 and 2008-9. Assault with minor injury or no injury tends to have a much lower reporting rate than other forms of crime.

The breakdown of crimes actually reported to the police is very different. Over half of those that were handled by officers last year were public order offences, such as causing fear, alarm or distress.

This points out a further difference between the CSEW and the police figures; as the report explains:

A key difference for hate crime offences is the coverage of public order offences in police recorded crime but generally not in the CSEW, as many of these offences will not involve a specifically identifiable victim. As previously shown, around half of all police recorded hate crime is for public fear, alarm or distress, a public order offence.

Why do discrepancies between the reports exist?

It's first worth pointing out that those estimated crime figures could be quite far off the mark. This is primarily because it is based on such a small sample size, the people surveyed in the CSEW who said they were victims of hate crime.

Because of this, the report's authors estimate that there could be 66,000 more or fewer hate crimes than the 278,000 total given.

The report also points out that a victim could view a crime as both religiously and racially motivated, while police mark it down as one or the other.

There are three other big reasons they give for the numbers differing so much:

Misunderstanding of survey questions by the victim. For example, a disabled victim who felt vulnerable because of their disability may have said the crime was down to that

Discrepancy between what victims thought was a crime and what was recorded by the police as a crime

Police might not have asked whether the victim thought the crime was motivated by hate

This data reveals the huge challenges in trying to figure out the reach of hate crime in the country especially with so much of it going unreported. However, like with most crime, the official police figures underestimate the extent to which it exists.

Get the data here and tell us what you think in the comments below.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/dec/13/raceandreligion-scotland,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/01/observer-editorial-hate-crime-disabled-harassment,"It is shameful that in the 21st century people are still being tortured and killed because they do not fit a mythical norm

The names of Albert Adams, Stephen Hoskin and Sean Miles may not be immediately familiar, but their common fate is that they suffered years of harassment because of difference and disability. For them, as in the horrific case of Bijan Ebrahimi, whose murderer, Lee James, was sentenced last week, a false allegation of paedophilia or sexual violence had become a dangerous and ultimately murderous part of their bullying.

In 2011, Katharine Quarmby published Scapegoat: Why we are failing disabled people, the first large-scale investigation into the growing number of violent deaths of disabled people in Britain. In case after case, victims had also been wrongly accused of sexual crimes. Quarmby is now a founder member of the Disability Hate Crime Network, which last week wrote to Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, urging him to review the sentences handed down to James and his associate, Steven Norley. The network argues that Ebrahimi's murder should be viewed as a hate crime that requires longer sentences.

A hate crime is defined as any ""… that is motivated by hostility towards someone based on his or her disability, race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation"". Two years before Ebrahimi's death, Hidden in Plain Sight, a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, drew attention to a ""systemic failure by public authorities to recognise the extent and impact of harassment and abuse of disabled people"".

The report points out that public authorities are often aware, as in the Ebrahimi case, of earlier, less serious incidents but take no or little action. This has the potential to escalate into more extreme behaviour. When action is taken, it is frequently against the victim, not the perpetrators. Responses by services are often fragmented and unco-ordinated.

The report adds: ""Disability is rarely considered as a possible motivating factor in crime and antisocial behaviour. As a result the incidents are given low priority."" The report points out that, for numbers of disabled people, harassment is accepted as inevitable. Often, the harassment takes place in view of others without being recognised for what it is. ""A culture of disbelief exists around this issue.""

It will be 2014 before the Independent Police Complaints Commission publishes its report into the circumstances leading to Bijan Ebrahimi's death. It is shameful that in the 21st century people are still being tortured and killed simply because they do not fit a mythical norm. The ""culture of disbelief"", the downplaying of acts of intimidation, the essentially racist abuse endured by Bijan Ebrahimi and the underestimation of the psychological impact of a life lived in fear of the unpredictable and irrational were all elements in the day-to-day experience of a quiet family man who asked only for time with his relatives, his garden and his cat. That such modest ambitions ended in savage death is damning for any society that claims to be civilised.

The campaigning work of Quarmby and the Disability Hate Crime Network is vital to keep the issue alive, ensure that effective action is taken and to monitor the impact of change.

""The biggest challenge,"" the EHRC report rightly concludes, ""is to transform the way disabled people are viewed, valued and included in society.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/25/fbi-us-hate-crimes-drop,"Race accounted for half of 5,796 hate crime incidents last year, which was down 400 from 2011, according to the FBI

The FBI has recorded a slight drop in hate crime incidents in the United States, with race accounting for almost half of the cases.

Statistics released on Monday recorded 5,796 hate crime incidents in 2012, compared to 6,222 in 2011.

After race the main motivations were sexual orientation and religion, each accounting for almost a fifth of incidents. “The numbers show that we as a nation still have a way to go toward alleviating these crimes that have such a devastating impact on communities,” the agency said in a note accompanying the statistics.

The number of hate crime victims, a category which includes individuals, businesses and institutions, dipped from 7,713 in 2011 to 7,164 in 2012. Of the 5,331 known offenders, 54.6% were white, 23.3% black.

All but six of last year's hate crime incidents had a single bias, meaning the victim was targeted for one particular reason.

In 48.3% of cases the reason was race. There were 1,805 anti-black incidents, 657 anti-white. Sexual orientation accounted for 19.6% of incidents and religion for 19%. Jews comprised 62.4% of the latter category and Muslims 11.6% In just over a tenth of cases, 11.5%, victims were targeted because of ethnicity or national origin, a joint category. Disability accounted for 1.6%.

Almost 40% of the victims suffered simple assaults, 21% suffered aggravated assaults and 37.5% were intimidated. Three quarters of the crimes against property involved vandalism, damage or destruction.

The slight dip in hate crime incidents continues a trend. There were 6,604 reported incidents in 2009 and 6,628 in 2010. The proportion attributed to race, sexual orientation and religion also remained largely stable.

The findings are based on numbers submitted by law enforcement agencies to the FBI's uniform crime reporting programme.

Hate itself is not illegal but under a 2009 law named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr, two murder victims, a hate crime is defined as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation”.

Earlier this year the FBI bowed to pressure from civil rights groups and expanded hate crime reporting data to formally track incidents involving Sikhs, Hindus and Arabs.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/kristallnacht-anniversary-germany-child-refugees-nazis,"The horrors of the Nazi pogrom carried out 75 years ago across Germany and Austria retain the power to shock

One afternoon, five-year-old John Izbicki woke from a nap to find the streets outside his Berlin home curiously quiet and empty. As the trams had stopped and there was no one to be seen, he decided to indulge himself and began skipping down the road with three dangerous words on his lips. ""I'm a Jew,"" he shouted. ""I'm a Jew.""

The sense of liberation afforded him by what turned out to be an air-raid drill was, he remembers, quite spectacular.

""There was I thinking, as a wee lad, 'This is marvellous – I can now say I'm a Jew without fear'.""

Less amused was his father, who rushed out of his haberdashery shop to scoop up his son and ask him if he was trying to get them arrested.

""That,"" says Izbicki, ""was the beginning for me.""

Three years later – and 75 years ago tomorrow – Izbicki stood on the balcony of his home on Invalidenstrasse and watched as the pogrom that would come to be known as Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – gathered its hateful momentum. It was the morning after his eighth birthday and the mob beneath him had turned its attention to the Jewish-owned leatherware shop opposite. Very soon its window, like thousands of others that day and night, had been smashed.

It was the assassination in Paris of a Nazi diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, allegedly by a young German-born Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, that became the excuse for Kristallnacht. The destructive orgy that ensued left at least 91 Jews murdered, 30,000 arrested, and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged over the 9 and 10 of November 1938 in co-ordinated attacks against Jews in Germany and Austria.

Izbicki remembers that the violence seemed to particularly delight one old woman who limped past a Jewish-owned shop, screeching: ""Dirty Jews! They should kill the lot of you!""

So shrill and so loud were her screams that they brought down a jagged piece of glass that had clung on to the top of the window.

As Izbicki looked on, the falling shard split the old woman's head open, killing her instantly.

""There was blood everywhere and I vomited,"" he says. ""And when I'd finished vomiting, I believed in God.""

Izbicki's newfound faith was put to the test a few hours later when a Hitler Youth marching band came to Invalidenstrasse and began throwing bricks at the window of his parents' shop.

Although an acquaintance, who also happened to be a member of the Nazi party, had rung their doorbell at 7.30 that morning and warned them that their business was due to be attacked that evening, Mr and Mrs Izbicki had refused to be intimidated and had gone to work as normal. They did, however, move the goods from the window and put them in the storeroom at the back of the shop.

Izbicki, left in the care of his grandmother, stood on the balcony once again and watched as the Hitler Youth swarmed around the family business.

When the thick, curved glass of the haberdashery windows frustrated their bricks, the teenagers headed for a nearby butcher's and asked him to hand over his heavy weights. As soon as the butcher, who was not Jewish, found out why they wanted the weights, he told them, ""in no uncertain terms, to fuck off"". They beat him up and took the weights anyway and within minutes, the windows had been smashed.

""I saw them picking up glass and throwing it through the broken window,"" says Izbicki. ""I knew that my parents were in there and I was terrified and I started screaming. And I screamed and screamed and screamed, so much so that it did something to my vocal cords, which I still have today.""

Although the police stood by and did nothing, he recalls seeing some of the people in the street crying. Others whistled their disapproval.

After perhaps half an hour, the teenagers marched off to find another target and his parents emerged from the storeroom where they had been hiding.

""Eventually they came back home and gave me a big cuddle. They were in a bad state. Both of them were weeping openly – though they tried to hide their tears from me because it wasn't done to let your son see you cry.""

Izbicki, whose voice retains a mild rasp to this day, tried to speak but found he couldn't.

His father managed to escape the subsequent Gestapo sweeps by hiding in a local synagogue that had survived the flames of Kristallnacht. When he came home every couple of days to change his shirt and take a bath, his son would keep watch for Gestapo officers from the balcony.

By the next year, the Izbickis had realised they had to get out. On 1 September 1939, Izbicki and his mother and father caught a train from Berlin to the Netherlands and then took a ferry to Harwich, arriving in England to see the British navy silhouetted against the dark coast. Within two days the country was at war with Germany.

The rest of the family had no such luck: while one of his aunts and her daughter survived because they were Catholics, his grandmother, his two uncles and his other aunt were murdered along with their families in Auschwitz and other camps; his mother's side of the family was completely wiped out.

Izbicki, who went on to spend 23 years as a Daily Telegraph journalist and has written about his life in a memoir entitled Life Between the Lines, tries not to think about Kristallnacht too much.

But each year he finds it hard to unshackle his birthday from the events he witnessed on his Berlin balcony and on Sunday he will speak at a service in Westminster Abbey to mark the 75th anniversary.

While three-quarters of a century has passed since the pogrom, Izbicki fears human nature has changed little over the same interval.

""I'm rather surprised that there is still antisemitism,"" he says. ""At the moment, people seem to be anti- all sorts of other things: anti-Asian; anti-Muslim. Normally one picks on minorities – if it's a minority, you can go against it because they're not going to start defending themselves.""

The one thing he simply cannot understand is those who deny the existence of the Holocaust.

""The proof,"" he says, hoarsely, ""is from people like me whose relations have perished.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/antisemitism-rise-european-survey,"Poll of 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states finds three-quarters say problem has escalated over last five years

A survey of discrimination and hate crimes against Jewish people in Europe, released to mark the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), suggests that antisemitism is on the rise, with three-quarters of those polled reporting an increase in the last five years and growing fears over online abuse and hate speech.

Two-thirds of those polled for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) felt antisemitism was a problem, 76% thought the situation was getting worse and that antisemitism had increased over the last five years, and 46% said they worried about being verbally assaulted or harassed in public because they were Jewish.

A third were worried about being physically attacked, and 57% said they had heard or seen someone claim over the last year that the Holocaust was a myth or had been exaggerated.

Almost 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states – Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the UK – took part in the survey. The eight nations are home to 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

The FRA, which provides expert advice to the institutions of the EU and its member states, noted that 75% of respondents felt online antisemitism was a problem, and 73% felt it had increased over the last five years.

""In almost all EU member states included in the survey, antisemitic comments on the internet emerge as an issue of primary importance to the respondents,"" it said. ""These results need to be taken very seriously. They prompt further questions on how to effectively protect fundamental rights in the sphere of the internet while giving due attention to freedom of expression.""

It concluded that online antisemitism could be contributing to Jewish people's fears of becoming victims of hate crime.

One British respondent said there was now a ""phenomenal"" amount of antisemitic material on the internet, adding: ""This is in some ways setting us backwards as now young people are circulating content like the [antisemitic hoax] Protocols of the Elders of Zion which had, prior to the internet, pretty much died out.""

The report said that although acts of antisemitic violence and vandalism gained political and media attention, Jewish people also faced discrimination in schools and the workplace.

""This should serve as a reminder of the need to address discrimination against Jews – both by ensuring effective implementation of existing laws, as well as ensuring that Jewish people are aware of the relevant protection, redress and support mechanisms and measures designed to assist people who have been discriminated against, such as national equality bodies,"" it said.

The FRA called on politicians and opinion-makers to refrain from making antisemitic statements and urged them to condemn any such statements when made in public debates.

This week the US and the World Jewish Congress criticised the far-right Hungarian Jobbik party for unveiling a statue of the wartime leader Miklós Horthy, who allied Hungary with Nazi Germany.

John Mann, chair of the UK's all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, said he was shocked by the survey's results. ""It is extraordinary that 75 years after the terrible events of Kristallnacht, Jews are again living in fear,"" he said. ""The inaction of the European commission in combating antisemitism is inexcusable.""

Mann said the EU had to do more to co-ordinate Holocaust education work and to crack down on online antisemitism. ""The internet is a classic EU territory because it crosses borders and the EU could have a huge impact – if it had a thorough approach to antisemitism and other hatred and abuse on the internet,"" he said.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides security for the UK Jewish community, said the research showed that much more needed to be done to protect Jewish people across Europe.

""In some countries, including Britain, politicians and police are trying to deal with the problem, but these efforts are sorely needed everywhere,"" the spokesman said.

""Jews also require basic anti-racist solidarity in all of this – solidarity that has been partial, or deliberately denied, far too often since the year 2000.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/07/bijan-ebrahimi-disability-lynch-mob-false-accusation-paedophilia,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/kristallnacht-anniversary-germany-child-refugees-nazis,"The horrors of the Nazi pogrom carried out 75 years ago across Germany and Austria retain the power to shock

One afternoon, five-year-old John Izbicki woke from a nap to find the streets outside his Berlin home curiously quiet and empty. As the trams had stopped and there was no one to be seen, he decided to indulge himself and began skipping down the road with three dangerous words on his lips. ""I'm a Jew,"" he shouted. ""I'm a Jew.""

The sense of liberation afforded him by what turned out to be an air-raid drill was, he remembers, quite spectacular.

""There was I thinking, as a wee lad, 'This is marvellous – I can now say I'm a Jew without fear'.""

Less amused was his father, who rushed out of his haberdashery shop to scoop up his son and ask him if he was trying to get them arrested.

""That,"" says Izbicki, ""was the beginning for me.""

Three years later – and 75 years ago tomorrow – Izbicki stood on the balcony of his home on Invalidenstrasse and watched as the pogrom that would come to be known as Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – gathered its hateful momentum. It was the morning after his eighth birthday and the mob beneath him had turned its attention to the Jewish-owned leatherware shop opposite. Very soon its window, like thousands of others that day and night, had been smashed.

It was the assassination in Paris of a Nazi diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, allegedly by a young German-born Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, that became the excuse for Kristallnacht. The destructive orgy that ensued left at least 91 Jews murdered, 30,000 arrested, and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged over the 9 and 10 of November 1938 in co-ordinated attacks against Jews in Germany and Austria.

Izbicki remembers that the violence seemed to particularly delight one old woman who limped past a Jewish-owned shop, screeching: ""Dirty Jews! They should kill the lot of you!""

So shrill and so loud were her screams that they brought down a jagged piece of glass that had clung on to the top of the window.

As Izbicki looked on, the falling shard split the old woman's head open, killing her instantly.

""There was blood everywhere and I vomited,"" he says. ""And when I'd finished vomiting, I believed in God.""

Izbicki's newfound faith was put to the test a few hours later when a Hitler Youth marching band came to Invalidenstrasse and began throwing bricks at the window of his parents' shop.

Although an acquaintance, who also happened to be a member of the Nazi party, had rung their doorbell at 7.30 that morning and warned them that their business was due to be attacked that evening, Mr and Mrs Izbicki had refused to be intimidated and had gone to work as normal. They did, however, move the goods from the window and put them in the storeroom at the back of the shop.

Izbicki, left in the care of his grandmother, stood on the balcony once again and watched as the Hitler Youth swarmed around the family business.

When the thick, curved glass of the haberdashery windows frustrated their bricks, the teenagers headed for a nearby butcher's and asked him to hand over his heavy weights. As soon as the butcher, who was not Jewish, found out why they wanted the weights, he told them, ""in no uncertain terms, to fuck off"". They beat him up and took the weights anyway and within minutes, the windows had been smashed.

""I saw them picking up glass and throwing it through the broken window,"" says Izbicki. ""I knew that my parents were in there and I was terrified and I started screaming. And I screamed and screamed and screamed, so much so that it did something to my vocal cords, which I still have today.""

Although the police stood by and did nothing, he recalls seeing some of the people in the street crying. Others whistled their disapproval.

After perhaps half an hour, the teenagers marched off to find another target and his parents emerged from the storeroom where they had been hiding.

""Eventually they came back home and gave me a big cuddle. They were in a bad state. Both of them were weeping openly – though they tried to hide their tears from me because it wasn't done to let your son see you cry.""

Izbicki, whose voice retains a mild rasp to this day, tried to speak but found he couldn't.

His father managed to escape the subsequent Gestapo sweeps by hiding in a local synagogue that had survived the flames of Kristallnacht. When he came home every couple of days to change his shirt and take a bath, his son would keep watch for Gestapo officers from the balcony.

By the next year, the Izbickis had realised they had to get out. On 1 September 1939, Izbicki and his mother and father caught a train from Berlin to the Netherlands and then took a ferry to Harwich, arriving in England to see the British navy silhouetted against the dark coast. Within two days the country was at war with Germany.

The rest of the family had no such luck: while one of his aunts and her daughter survived because they were Catholics, his grandmother, his two uncles and his other aunt were murdered along with their families in Auschwitz and other camps; his mother's side of the family was completely wiped out.

Izbicki, who went on to spend 23 years as a Daily Telegraph journalist and has written about his life in a memoir entitled Life Between the Lines, tries not to think about Kristallnacht too much.

But each year he finds it hard to unshackle his birthday from the events he witnessed on his Berlin balcony and on Sunday he will speak at a service in Westminster Abbey to mark the 75th anniversary.

While three-quarters of a century has passed since the pogrom, Izbicki fears human nature has changed little over the same interval.

""I'm rather surprised that there is still antisemitism,"" he says. ""At the moment, people seem to be anti- all sorts of other things: anti-Asian; anti-Muslim. Normally one picks on minorities – if it's a minority, you can go against it because they're not going to start defending themselves.""

The one thing he simply cannot understand is those who deny the existence of the Holocaust.

""The proof,"" he says, hoarsely, ""is from people like me whose relations have perished.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/antisemitism-rise-european-survey,"Poll of 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states finds three-quarters say problem has escalated over last five years

A survey of discrimination and hate crimes against Jewish people in Europe, released to mark the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), suggests that antisemitism is on the rise, with three-quarters of those polled reporting an increase in the last five years and growing fears over online abuse and hate speech.

Two-thirds of those polled for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) felt antisemitism was a problem, 76% thought the situation was getting worse and that antisemitism had increased over the last five years, and 46% said they worried about being verbally assaulted or harassed in public because they were Jewish.

A third were worried about being physically attacked, and 57% said they had heard or seen someone claim over the last year that the Holocaust was a myth or had been exaggerated.

Almost 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states – Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the UK – took part in the survey. The eight nations are home to 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

The FRA, which provides expert advice to the institutions of the EU and its member states, noted that 75% of respondents felt online antisemitism was a problem, and 73% felt it had increased over the last five years.

""In almost all EU member states included in the survey, antisemitic comments on the internet emerge as an issue of primary importance to the respondents,"" it said. ""These results need to be taken very seriously. They prompt further questions on how to effectively protect fundamental rights in the sphere of the internet while giving due attention to freedom of expression.""

It concluded that online antisemitism could be contributing to Jewish people's fears of becoming victims of hate crime.

One British respondent said there was now a ""phenomenal"" amount of antisemitic material on the internet, adding: ""This is in some ways setting us backwards as now young people are circulating content like the [antisemitic hoax] Protocols of the Elders of Zion which had, prior to the internet, pretty much died out.""

The report said that although acts of antisemitic violence and vandalism gained political and media attention, Jewish people also faced discrimination in schools and the workplace.

""This should serve as a reminder of the need to address discrimination against Jews – both by ensuring effective implementation of existing laws, as well as ensuring that Jewish people are aware of the relevant protection, redress and support mechanisms and measures designed to assist people who have been discriminated against, such as national equality bodies,"" it said.

The FRA called on politicians and opinion-makers to refrain from making antisemitic statements and urged them to condemn any such statements when made in public debates.

This week the US and the World Jewish Congress criticised the far-right Hungarian Jobbik party for unveiling a statue of the wartime leader Miklós Horthy, who allied Hungary with Nazi Germany.

John Mann, chair of the UK's all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, said he was shocked by the survey's results. ""It is extraordinary that 75 years after the terrible events of Kristallnacht, Jews are again living in fear,"" he said. ""The inaction of the European commission in combating antisemitism is inexcusable.""

Mann said the EU had to do more to co-ordinate Holocaust education work and to crack down on online antisemitism. ""The internet is a classic EU territory because it crosses borders and the EU could have a huge impact – if it had a thorough approach to antisemitism and other hatred and abuse on the internet,"" he said.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides security for the UK Jewish community, said the research showed that much more needed to be done to protect Jewish people across Europe.

""In some countries, including Britain, politicians and police are trying to deal with the problem, but these efforts are sorely needed everywhere,"" the spokesman said.

""Jews also require basic anti-racist solidarity in all of this – solidarity that has been partial, or deliberately denied, far too often since the year 2000.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/07/bijan-ebrahimi-disability-lynch-mob-false-accusation-paedophilia,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/oct/14/us-minority-report-un,"Policies abroad have led to rising violence at home. Could a review before the UN human rights committee be the reminder the US government needs to protect the rights of all people?

On 21 September Dr Prabhjot Singh, a Columbia professor, was viciously attacked by a group of 20 young men near Central Park in New York City. Like all practising Sikh, Dr Singh had a beard and was wearing a turban. His attackers had set upon him on bikes, yelling ""Get Osama"" and calling him a ""terrorist."" They did not see him as an American, a physician from the neighbourhood, or someone deserving dignity; they only saw the manifestation of the ""other.""

Such attacks are not isolated incidents. They are symptomatic of larger structural problems in the US, often fuelled by government policies, both foreign and domestic, that arouse suspicion and animosity towards specific minority communities.

If the government is unable or unwilling to protect those most vulnerable, can international law, and the US's upcoming review before the United Nations human rights committee remind us of our obligation to be ""exceptional""?

Political scientist, Seymour Martin Lipset, grounded this unique ideology of ""American Exceptionalism"" on two central principles: egalitarianism and individualism. We want to focus on the US government's move away from the principle of egalitarianism and the human rights impact on vulnerable communities domestically, and ask, whether in the face of such violations, can we as Americans call ourselves ""exceptional""?

When looking at the conception of America as an exceptional nation, a paradigm shift has occurred from a core principle of egalitarianism to that of superiority. The US foreign policy (eg drone strikes, border security, NSA global surveillance) prioritises US interests to the detriment of other nations and marginalised communities with the unintended consequence of embedding the notion of superiority at home. This can be seen through the vilification of minority communities who are deemed unworthy to be considered American or uphold American values.

Many of the human rights concerns before the UN committee focus on violations directed at minority communities. A delegation of American NGOs will be travelling to Geneva to provide direct testimony to the committee on behalf of communities that have been surveilled, profiled, tortured, denied access to basic services, and have suffered from bias-motivated attacks to name just a few human rights violations.

Many may react negatively to the notion of the US being reviewed by a UN body. But itis important to understand that 167 countries, including the US, voluntarily bound themselves to it. Many in the US believe they were not subject to international norms although the country has been the chief architect for numerous international human rights treaties.

The US, like most other countries in the world, will have to answer for falling short of its commitment to uphold its human rights obligations. The review process is not meant to shame the American government, but to offer introspection into how we as a society can work to improve our human rights record.

Take, for example, the recent Shadow Report on Hate Crimes submitted by the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD). The report discusses how the collective trauma of 9/11 still persists and how triggering events (also known as ""vicarious retribution"") make Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, and south Asians susceptible to hate crimes more than a decade later. The report also focuses on bias-motivated violence against LGBT and Latino communities that are triggered by debates around marriage and immigration reform.

In citing key data from federal government agencies, such as the FBI's documenting of 7,713 victims of hate crimes versus the national crime victimisation survey (NCVS) which found an average of 259,000 victimisations per year from 2007-2011, the report is able to show the unconscionable variance in how government statistics have concealed the full scale of the problem, leaving policy makers, advocates, and law enforcement paralysed. In essence, the US captures just 3% of all hate crimes, 86.7% of all reporting agencies documented zero hate crimes in their jurisdiction, and 64 of those jurisdictions have a population of over 100,000 people. Combating hate crimes is further compromised by the mistrust between minority communities and law enforcement that has deepened by surveillance, profiling, and fear of deportation.

Ultimately, the report furthers ICAAD's mission to map system failures (gaps in the law) that perpetuate discrimination globally. This data-driven process seeks to find effective interventions for advocates and provides transparency and accountability for government compliance with international human rights norms.

Crudely put, the current notion of American exceptionalism at home spreads the ideas that: Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, and south Asians are not American (and are often terrorists), Blacks and Latinos are suspect (and unintelligent), and gays are going to hell (and before they do, they will destabilise the very foundation of American society). The question remains, will the review before the human rights committee make us reflect on the structural problems that reinforce discriminatory behaviour towards minority communities, or will we arrogantly shrug and refuse to grapple with the complex problems we face within?

Ultimately, America's compliance with human rights obligations will rest on how we begin to redefine or recapture the essence of American exceptionalism rooted in egalitarianism.

Hansdeep Singh is the co-founder and director of legal programmes at International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD). Jaspreet Singh is also a co-founder, and director policy & advocacy. They tweet @ICAADglobal. Hannah Shirey is an associate adviser. She tweets @hannahshirey

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, sign up free to become a member of the Global Development Professionals Network",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/13/one-in-six-gay-people-hate-crimes,"Some 630,000 people have been victims in past three years says poll, which calls for police to take the problem more seriously

One in six gay or bisexual people – about 630,000 individuals – has been victim of a homophobic hate crime or incident in the past three years, according to a report to be published this week.

The alarming findings, based on a YouGov poll of 2,500 gay people and published in the Gay British Crime Survey 2013, will reinforce calls for the problem to be taken more seriously.

The poll, commissioned by gay rights charity Stonewall, found that two-thirds of victims of hate crime did not report the incident to anyone. More than three-quarters did not report it to the police. Fewer than one in 10 victims who did report hate crimes to the police said it led to a conviction. And half of victims who reported a hate crime to police said it was recorded with no further action taken.

There are also concerns about the attitude of the wider criminal justice system to homophobic hate crime.

Just a quarter of those who reported a crime or incident to the police were referred to a support group. And only one in five gay or bisexual people said they were confident that their police and crime commissioner would do something to address the problem in their region.

""No one should live in fear of verbal or physical violence just because of the way they were born,"" said Stonewall's deputy chief executive, Ruth Hunt. ""Despite radical steps to make police forces more accountable to the public, these figures show the disturbing levels of violence and intimidation faced every day by lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Britain. Most victims don't report abuse and, if they do turn to the police, they have low expectations that anyone will listen or act.""

However, in a sign that the police are keen to be seen to be taking the problem seriously, the survey will be launched at a seminar on Tuesday at New Scotland Yard by the Metropolitan police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe. The seminar will also see the launch of a guide to help police and crime commissioners tackle homophobic hate crime.

The Stonewall survey found that one in 10 of those who had experienced a homophobic hate crime or incident had been physically assaulted. Almost a fifth of victims had been threatened with violence. One in eight experienced unwanted sexual contact. Half of hate crime perpetrators were said to be strangers and aged under 25.

The picture that emerges from the survey is of a society in which many lesbian, gay and bisexual people feel unsafe in their homes and in their community. Two-thirds said that they felt at bigger risk of being insulted or harassed than heterosexual people. A quarter said they had felt a need to alter their behaviour so as not to be perceived as gay in order to avoid being the victim of crime.

Many are repeat victims. Just over a third who had been insulted, intimidated or harassed said it had happened on four or more occasions.

A burgeoning concern is the rising level of online abuse directed at gay, lesbian and bisexual people. One in 20 said they had been the target of homophobic abuse online in the past year, including 7% of those aged 18 to 24. Almost half of those aged 18 to 24 had encountered homophobic abuse directed at someone else.Stonewall is calling for better training of police officers and control room staff to identify and record hate crimes. It also said there was a need for both the police and crime commissioners to engage more meaningfully with the gay community.

""Britain's gay taxpayers contribute some £700m a year to the cost of policing,"" Hunt said. ""While there's been some real progress in tackling hate crime in recent years, this evidence demonstrates starkly just how much more needs to be done.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/harlow-mosque-hit-by-arson-attack,"Members of an Islamic centre in Essex said they were ""very saddened"" by a fire at their mosque, which appears to have been targeted in an arson attack, one of a string of recent attacks on mosques and religious centres.

The damage was discovered when people arrived for prayers at 4am on Monday morning at the mosque in Harlow. Although the damage was limited, a determined attempt seems to have been made to destroy the building, with the police reporting that the doors had been sealed with foam.

Community leaders and the police appeared with the chairman of the Harlow Islamic Centre, Ajaib Hussain, at a press conference to denounce the attack.

Zia Rehman, vice-chairman of the centre, said: ""We have been working very hard within the local community, building bridges, and we were hoping we wouldn't have this kind of problem but in the current climate there are elements within society that are not happy and there are issues. It's unfortunate and we are very saddened.""

The mosque held a funeral last year for Dr Sabah Usmani, and her five children, aged three to 12, who died in a fire at their home. Her husband, Dr Abdul Shakoor, who survived by jumping from a window but was unable to save his family, still attends the mosque. A spokeswoman for Essex police said that their investigations into the fire continued and that, although a local man had been bailed, nobody had so far been charged.

Chief Inspector Ed Wells praised the calm response from the members of the centre and promised police would work tirelessly to identify those responsible.

The building was placed under police guard all day as services and children's lessons resumed. A forensic investigation involving the Essex fire service got under way and CCTV footage was being studied.

""I want to thank Mr Hussain and the rest of his team who remain very dignified and calm despite this very concerning attack,"" Wells said. ""I join him in being very pleased that there has been virtually no disruption to the activities of the prayer centre. This crime affects not just those who are part of the prayer centre, but the vast majority of residents who are equally appalled at this crime.""

Rod Truan, the deputy leader of Harlow council, described it as ""an extremely concerning incident"", adding: ""We are in contact with the police and the Islamic centre to offer whatever help we can. If this is in fact an arson attack, I know Harlow and all its faiths will stand together to deplore an act of this nature.""

A surge in attacks on Islamic centres has been reported since soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death outside Woolwich Barracks on 22 May: two men are currently in prison awaiting trial for his murder.

The first attacks, in Essex and Kent, were reported on the night of his murder. Within weeks, petrol bombs, which failed to start a fire, were thrown at a mosque in Grimsby while people were inside praying: three local men are on remand, charged with intent to endanger life. In June, a Somali centre and mosque in Muswell Hill, London was destroyed by fire. The letters EDL, the initials of the English Defence League, were scrawled on a wall. Later in the month, two men were charged with plotting to set fire to a mosque in Gloucester, where petrol was poured around the door and set alight.

• This article was amended on 27 August 2013 to clarify that a man arrested in the inquiry into the fire which killed Sabah Usmani and her five children has not been charged.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/03/twitter-trolls-threats-lucy-mangan,"It is a truism that you can't lie on Twitter. Micro-posts don't allow for artifice, evasion or subtle modulations of tone. If you're boring in real life, you'll be boring on Twitter, however hard you try. If you're exuberant, charming or funny in real life, it will shine through, however little you try. If you're essentially a neurotic, leading a life forever circumscribed by incessant second-guessing, your tweets will be, to use the technical term applied recently to my own Twoutput by someone we shall refer to only as an unloved relative, timid and pointless crap. And so on.

The only thing you can do is lie about your name. This, alas, is when people feel able to be their truest selves. And so, if you are a violent-minded women-hater, say, or a man so insecure about himself and his sex's position in the world that you cannot bear the slightest scintilla of an iota of a shadow of a speck of a threat to that position, you can go online and issue threats so vile that anyone who wants to write or talk about them is semi-silenced before he or she even begins, because they cannot be safely quoted in any other public context.

So it was and has been with Caroline Criado-Perez, journalist, founder of thewomensroom.org.uk (an online database of XX-chromosomed experts, set up in response to the BBC's claim last year that it could never find any to be on the Today programme) and, most recently, campaigner to keep women – or at least a woman – on our currency after the Bank of England said it was replacing its single laydee, Elizabeth Fry, with Winston Churchill.

Criado-Perez succeeded, but on the day it was announced that Jane Austen would be gracing our tenners from 2017, Twitter trolls launched a barrage of rape and death threats against her. I say trolls. I mean men, of the aforementioned violent-minded women-hating kind. Labour MP Stella Creasy was subjected to more of the same when she publicly supported Criado-Perez after a man was arrested in relation to the tweets.

In the days that have followed, just about every aspect of this alternately distressing, frightening, enraging situation has been examined – both on its own terms and, of course, in terms of how it compares to all the other recent cases in which women (such as classics don and presenter Mary Beard, who insists on appearing on television to share a lifetime's knowledge with us despite having grey hair; and Lucy-Anne Holmes, who began the No More Page 3 campaign last year when she realised that… well, that it was 2012 and we still have Page 3) who speak up and have to brave the abusive wrath of men who cannot bear to see them take up a fraction more of the mental, aural, cyber or any other kind of space than those men deem appropriate.

What distresses and frightens me most, though, is how little it takes to trigger these avalanches of hatred. It seems to show that the gains we thought we'd made, the lives we think we lead, are built on a veneer of civilisation so thin that none of us – man, woman or child – can depend on it to bear any stress at all. I hope, I hope that Twitter can lie.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/02/sikhs-hate-crime-oak-creek-shooting,"The Justice Department will begin keeping numbers on hate crimes committed against Sikhs and six other groups, in connection with Monday's one-year anniversary of the killing of six Sikh worshippers in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

The attorney general, Eric Holder, made the announcement on Friday in a blog post which the Associated Press obtained ahead of its official release. Holder said the FBI director, Robert Mueller, had approved a recommendation from the agency's advisory policy board to track hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus, Arabs, Buddhists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Orthodox Christians.

""Having accurate information allows law enforcement leaders and policymakers to make informed decisions about the allocation of resources and priorities – decisions that impact real people, and affect public safety in every neighborhood and community,"" Holder wrote. ""Today, I am proud to report that we have taken steps to collect this information.""

The addition had long been sought by members of the Sikh community. Holder also announced a $500,000 grant for mental health and trauma services to those affected by the Oak Creek shooting, including survivors and family members.

A year ago on Monday Wade Michael Page, who had ties to white supremacist groups, walked into the Milwaukee-area Sikh Temple of Wisconsin and opened fire. He killed six priests and worshippers and wounded five others, and then fatally shot himself after he was wounded by a police sniper. Holder Friday called the attack a ""heinous act of hatred and terror"".

Pardeep Kaleka, son of the former temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka, who died in the massacre, said he appreciated anything that could draw attention to people being victimized for things like their race, religion or gender. ""Progress is sort of a climb, and it takes a step at a time. This is one of those steps toward progress,"" he said.

Amardeep Singh, program director of the Sikh Coalition, said that while he welcomed the announcement as a ""critical first step"", the underlying conditions that caused the killings remain. ""The last year has once again seen violent shootings and beatings of Sikhs throughout the country,"" he said. ""It will take more than tracking hate crime statistics to stem the tide.""

Holder wrote that since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the Justice Department has investigated more than 800 incidents involving violence, threats, assaults, vandalism and arson targeting Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs, South Asians and those perceived to be members of these groups.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/23/suspicious-item-mosque-hate-crime,"Dozens of homes evacuated in Walsall and road cordoned off after bomb disposal experts were called to the scene

An incident in which a suspicious item was found near a mosque in Walsall is being treated as a hate crime, police have said.

Almost 40 homes near the scene were evacuated after bomb disposal experts were called. West Midlands police said the discovery was reported on Saturday night and about 150 people were told to leave their homes as a ""precautionary and temporary"" measure.

The item had been found on Friday and taken inside the mosque in Rutter Street by a well-meaning member of the public, a police spokesman added.

Supt Keith Fraser, the head of crime and operations for Walsall police, said the incident was being treated as a hate crime but the motive for placing the item near a mosque remained unclear. He added: ""The force are taking this extremely seriously.

""We have launched a full investigation into the suspicious item that has been found, and what's going to be the key to this is the public's help in relation to helping us to understand why that suspicious item was in the area.""

He added: ""Officers are continuing to work hard to establish what the item is and how it got there but the incident is being treated as a hate crime, although the motive for placing the item near to the mosque remains unclear.""

Fraser, who confirmed that the item was now safe and was being examined by experts, also appealed for the media not to speculate about what had been found.

He said: ""There are going to be a number of hypotheses around this suspicious item, what I would ask is that we work with what we know at the moment. The investigation is at a very, very early stage.

""Hypotheses which raise people's concern about what may or may not have happened would not be helpful at this stage. I would ask that we keep things in perspective.""

Police said officers have increased patrols in the area and around all places of worship, although the incident is believed to be isolated.

Ali Mahmood, the chairman of the local traders' association, said residents had been given no details of the nature of the suspicious item. ""It's a very big shock for the community,"" he said. ""To see the road cordoned off like this is shocking.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/05/islamophobic-hate-crime-getting-worse,"From online abuse to fire bombs thrown at mosques, there has been a spike in anti-Muslim attacks. While many incidents are not reported to the police, groups such as the Tell Mama project paint a worrying picture of rising Islamophobia and violence

""I don't really want to go out now,"" Rizwan Ali says anxiously. ""If I needed something I used to just go to the shops, but I've been staying in."" On 24 May the father of four had been to Friday prayers at his local mosque. On his way home he popped into Pound Stretcher to look at gardening equipment. As he browsed he noticed another customer staring at him.

""He was looking at me, as though I had done something,"" Ali (not his real name), explains. ""Then he started shouting: 'You are a Muslim, you are a soldier killer.' I was shocked and scared. It was very upsetting. I moved to the front of the shop, but he kept following me.""

Since the brutal murder of drummer Lee Rigby earlier this month, campaigners say that such anti-Muslim incidents have been repeated across the country. Monitoring groups have recorded the targeting of 11 mosques, while women wearing hijab have complained about being spat at, or having their headscarves pulled off. This week, a community centre and mosque was destroyed in a fire and police are investigating whether it was firebombed, after reports that fire crews saw the letters EDL scrawled on the side of the building. Online, activists say there have been shocking levels of vitriol unleashed. But the attacks have also revitalised the argument over whether Islamophobia, and the targeting of Muslims, is being overstated. The Metropolitan police's head of counter-terrorism, Cressida Dick, calls the wave of attacks ""horrible"" and agrees there has been an increase, but says ""compared to previous times we have had slightly less"".

Yet monitoring groups and campaigners point out that hate crime is often under-reported, with Muslims in particular reluctant to contact the police for fear they won't be taken seriously. Some campaigners point out confidence in the police may also be low in the wake of counter-terrorism strategies such as Prevent. And they say harrasment that is not violent, such as verbal abuse or spitting, can still spread fear and make communities feel under siege.

For the imam of Grimsby mosque the answer to whether Islamophobia is a problem, is clear. Dr Ahmad M Sabik says his mosque has always had a good relationship with its neighbours, pointing to regular schools visits and an active interfaith network. But days after the Woolwich killing, bricks were hurled through the window, narrowly avoiding worshippers. A group of teenagers were arrested and the community shrugged off the incident. But three days later things became more serious.

""It was about 10pm and one of the brothers was leaving,"" Sabik recalls. ""Just as he was opening the door fire was thrown at it. We realised it was a petrol bomb. Another one had been thrown at the fire exit – can you imagine? And there was a third that they had tried to throw on the roof. There were children inside. Everyone was frightened.""

Two ex-soldiers have since appeared in court, charged with arson with intent to endanger life, but Sabik worries that such incidents are not being taken seriously enough. ""What happened in London was nothing to do with Islam, and what happened in Grimsby was nothing to do with British culture – but both are terrorist acts.""

Fiyaz Mughal, director of conflict resolution charity Faith Matters, says many Muslims feel the same. The organisation runs the Tell Mama project, mapping Islamophobic incidents around the country. The idea for Tell Mama (the acronym stands for Measuring Anti Muslim Attacks) was sparked by the government's desire for more information – and a growing perception among British Muslims that Islamophobia was underestimated.

After the Woolwich killing was linked to Islamist extremism, the number of incidents the project recorded skyrocketed from an average of about eight a day to 221. Mughal says their numbers are higher because people do not always report cases to the police, and Tell Mama records Islamophobic incidents as well as crimes. The figures from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which is more cautious, also recorded a spike in incidents – with 71 hate crimes or incidents reported between 22-27 May, compared with 27 reports of anti-Muslim activity in the seven days before the killing. The police's online reporting facility for hate crimes, True Vision, had 136 complaints, including physical offences and internet material (but say some of these may be duplicates). The Metropolitan police force, meanwhile, says it has had eight reports of potentially Islamophobic crime each day in London since the Woolwich murder compared to an average of one a day in the past 12 months.

The police says it takes such crimes seriously, with Sir Peter Fahy from ACPO saying there had been: ""enhanced monitoring of local tensions … enhanced patrols and high-visibility police presence at vulnerable locations … and proactive investigations of any incidents reported, including hate crimes"". The Met, meanwhile, insists: ""We want communities to have the confidence to come forward and report hate crime when it happens. Hate crime is not ignored – we will take positive action, we will investigate, we will support victims and we will work hard to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.""

But Leon Moosavi, a sociologist at the University of Liverpool who specialises in Islamophobia, says problems remain: ""A lot of people think Islamophobia is exaggerated but actually minorities generally under-report. Someone might be called a Paki or a terrorist but most people won't even tell anyone.""

An English Defence League march in response to the Woolwich attack. Photograph: David Whinham/Demotix/Corbis

Not everyone is convinced, however. Last weekend Andrew Gilligan took Tell Mama to task, accusing it of exaggerating the problem. He pointed out that only a small proportion of the incidents it had recorded involved physical violence against an individual: many were online attacks, or at the ""lower end of seriousness"", and that while the ""Islamophobia industry"" says the problem is getting worse, it has actually calmed down.

In the light, airy London offices of the project, Tell Mama's young workers say the criticisms are unjustified. While the spike seemed to be short-lived (Tuesday saw only six incidents reported), the attacks created a real atmosphere of anxiety in communities around the country, which cannot be quickly forgotten, they say. The organisation fielded calls from hijab-wearing women who were scared to go out, while those who had experienced ""low-level"" harassment, such as Ali, were often deeply affected.

Case worker Amani El Sehrawry flicks through some recent reports to show me what the project is dealing with: a woman has emailed to flag up the verbal abuse of Muslim stallholders in Brixton market; a man has sent in a screenshot of an EDL member posing with a gun and tweeting about how he will exact a ""violent revenge"" against Muslims; a woman has rung in extremely distressed because dog excrement has been smeared on her house.

Meanwhile the 11 confirmed attacks on mosques, says Mughal – which include graffitti, arson, and even bacon being left outside – could have a huge impact on how safe Muslims feel. ""When a mosque is attacked, it may be an attack on an institution not an individual,"" he says, ""but it affects hundreds of people, and leads to the perception within the community that their identity is under seige. I think if it was 10 churches or 10 synagogues attacked there would not be this undermining of our work.""

Abuse on social media should not be underestimated either, he insists, pointing out it can lead to offline attacks. ""When we started the project we would pick up social media chatter by far-right groups saying, 'We should go and put a pig's head, or pig's trotters, outside a mosque,' but we had not had anything like that reported.

""But in the past few months we have seen eight of these incidents – a shift from talking about it online to doing it in real life.""

El Sehrawry says she had to phone the police several times last week to report direct threats, something she has not had to do in the project's 14-month lifespan. ""We have had people online using someone's name directly and saying 'why not stab them?'. There have been people saying we need a repeat of the Norway massacre to make a statement. It's really disgusting.""

Moosavi too, believes that monitoring online Islamophobia is important. ""It causes great injury and can inspire real-life hatred and discrimination:

""Online Islamophobia reflects more hidden attitudes than those that circulate in society.""

And while he thinks Muslims may fear Islamophobia more then they should, dismissing hate crimes against any groups, is counterproductive, he believes. ""There is a strong movement of those who strongly dislike Islam dismissing Islamophobia, and that is a shame because their dislike of Islam prevents them from realising that Muslims are often discriminated against because of their faith.

""The same attitude is still taken towards antisemitism and racism more generally. Academic research is entirely certain that Islam and Muslims are often percieved in negative terms and this should not be dismissed as irrelevant if we want to be a society based on fairness and equality.""

For Moosavi the resurgence of the EDL is particularly worrying, as they stoke up hatred against Muslims. ""A few weeks ago a lot of experts would have said the EDL were at their weakest,"" he says. ""They had a march in Manchester and there were less than 100 people. But after the [Woolwich] attack more than a thousand people came to their demonstration in Newcastle.

""The EDL's main rallying point is Islam. They may say they are not against all Muslims, but the stereotypes they use suggest otherwise.""

Yet the picture is far from unremittingly bleak. EDL protesters last weekend were outnumbered by counter-demonstrators, while politicians' (including David Cameron and Nick Clegg) condemnation of far-right violence and attacks on Muslims, has been impressive, Moosavi says.

""There's a level of maturity in the recognition that Muslims and terrorism are not the same thing, which I hope means we are on the way to a more moderate conversation.""

Others are even more hopeful that the attacks might have unexpected consequences. Shabir Subar is the director of the Zainabiya Islamic Centre in Milton Keynes. A day after the killing of Lee Rigby a petrol bomb was thrown on to the roof of the centre, as worshippers left for the night. On the Friday following the murder, a woman driving to the mosque was chased, verbally abused and had rubbish thrown at her car, Subar recounts. Yet, he insists, the murder and subsequent attacks have sparked an important change in community responses.

Recording incidents at the Tell Mama helpline. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

""It has made Muslims, who may have kept quiet in the past, speak out against terrorism and dissociate ourselves from such attacks – these men don't belong to Islam and Islam doesn't belong to them.

""In the past Muslims just wanted to keep their heads down, but we realised we have to stand up and be counted.""

At the same time the outpouring from the wider community has been ""humbling"", he says. ""The response has been overwhelming. It's been really reassuring to the community that we are not all being tarred with the same brush as these mindless thugs.""

In Grimsby, Ahmed Sabik feels the same. ""I am hopeful that Muslims won't feel less welcome in the UK, but instead it will encourage us to build more relations with others. I think now people are more receptive to hearing about our religion so this could be a positive turning point. A huge number of people have sent cards or emails. People have been saying 'we support you' and 'these crimes don't represent us' and 'you are welcome here'. We were so happy because it shows we are all united against these people who wanted to destroy our harmony.""

Yet groups set up to monitor Islamophobia say more needs to be done. Shenaz Bunglawalla, from the group iEngage, which encourages media awareness and political participation among British Muslims, says that to ensure official recognition of the problem, accurate figures are essential. They want anti-Muslim attacks recorded seperately, something the Met currently does, although elsewhere in the country such recording is patchy with many forces recording all such incidents under ""religious hate crimes"".

Mohammed Khaliel, who advises the Met and reported on Islamophobia for BBC Newsnight, says the force's latest comments would not help in the drive to encourage Muslims to come forward. ""The issue is people are not reporting these crimes to the Metropolitan police force, they are reporting them to mosques or other places. I have had reports of four incidents myself [since Newsnight was aired on 30 May] of altercations, including one with a taxi driver and EDL supporters, where the driver said he feared it would become violent. People think the police won't do anything about it. Even if it is not violent, people do feel terrified by these incidents.""

Forces in areas with the largest Jewish communities already dis-aggregate hate crime figures, according to the Community Security Trust, established to ensure the safety of the British Jewish community. Mark Gardener from the group points out that having accurate figures, and breaking them down, is an essential first step towards taking action and showing communities the police, politicians and civil servants are doing their utmost to tackle the problem.

ACPO says it is something forces are working on. ""Driving up reporting is absolutely vital in helping us to reach those affected by hate crimes,"" says its hate crime spokesman, Paul Giannasi. ""Local forces are already recording different forms of hate crime, including those which target Muslims. Work is under way to ensure a more detailed breakdown of reported hate crimes is available, so that we have the most accurate picture possible of the nature and scale of the issues.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/21/stop-lgbtq-hate-crimes,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/19/new-york-stonewall-hate-crime,"NYPD police chief Ray Kelly says fatal shooting of Marc Carson, 32, could be linked to a string of other anti-gay attacks

The fatal shooting of a gay man just blocks from New York's historic Stonewall Inn was a hate crime and could be linked to a rash of recent homophobic attacks, police said.

Before opening fire early Saturday, the gunman confronted the victim and his companion in Greenwich Village, yelling: ""What are you, gay wrestlers?"". The suspect then asked if the pair ""want to die here"" before shooting victim Marc Carson in the face.

Carson, 32, was taken to hospital but died of his wounds. The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Elliot Morales, fled but was chased by officers and arrested. Morales appeared on Sunday in Manhattan criminal court and was charged with murder as a hate crime and with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.

The incident follows a series of recent hate attacks on gay men in New York, but this was the first deadly one. NYPD chief Ray Kelly said police were looking into possible links between Saturday morning's killing and other incidents.

The shooting took place in Greenwich Village, a neighbourhoods long-associated with the gay-rights movement.

It took place just streets from the Stonewall Inn – the site of a celebrated 1969 riot by patrons being harassed by police due to their sexuality. That riot is seen as a key moment in the evolution of the modern gay-rights movement.

About 15 minutes before the shooting, the gunman in Saturday's attack was seen urinating outside an upscale restaurant in Greenwich Village.

He went inside the restaurant and asked if someone was going to call the police about him. Morales told both the bartender and the manager: ""If you do call the police, I'll shoot you"" and opened his sweatshirt to reveal a shoulder holster with a revolver. He also made anti-gay remarks, Kelly said at a press conference Saturday.

Minutes later, the gunman and two others approached Carson, who was with a companion. One of the three men yelled out: ""What are you, gay wrestlers?"" according to Kelly.

The two men stopped, turned and, according to Kelly, replied ""What did you say?"" before continuing walking.

""There were no words that would aggravate the situation spoken by the victims here,"" the commissioner said. ""This fully looks to be a hate crime, a bias crime.""

Witnesses saw Morlaes and another man approach the victim from behind while repeating anti-gay slurs.

Kelly said: ""We believe that the perpetrator says to the victim, 'Do you want to die here?'"" before producing the revolver and firing one shot into Carson's cheek.

The gunman ran off but was caught a few streets down by an officer who had heard a description of the assailant on his radio, Kelly said.

Authorities said they could not immediately identify Morales because he was carrying forged identification. But investigators learned his name after the forged ID was submitted to the department's Facial Recognition Unit.

According to the New York Times, the suspect has previously served more than 10 years in jail for robbery.

The incident is the latest in a string of homophobic attacks in New York. Last week, also in Greenwich Village, a 35-year-old man was beaten up after leaving a bar. He told police the attacker used anti-gay slurs.

Meanwhile in May, a brace of separate incidents saw two couples in midtown Manhattan beaten up by groups of men in attacks in what is thought to have been anti-gay attacks.

Responding to the latest incident, Christine Quinn, the New York City Council speaker who is bidding to be the city's first gay mayor, said that the city had moved on from the timw when same-sex couples could not walk down the street arm-in-arm without fear of harassment.

""We refuse to go back to that time,"" she said, adding: ""This kind of shocking and senseless violence, so deeply rooted in hate, has no place in a city whose greatest strength will always be its diversity.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/11/emo-hate-crime-arrests-manchester,"Greater Manchester police has received its first report of a hate crime under a new category connected to alternative subcultures after an assault on a teenage emo.

The 16-year-old boy was assaulted at 6.30pm on Monday in the centre of Ashton-under-Lyne, east of Manchester.

A 14-year-old boy and a 44-year-old man from Manchester were arrested and released on police bail until 7 May, pending further enquiries. The assault has been reported as an alternative subculture hate crime and will be investigated as such.

Assistant chief constable Garry Shewan said: ""Officers will be reviewing CCTV and speaking to witnesses in order to investigate this attack thoroughly… the fact we were able to identify this as a hate crime is very positive. Just last Thursday we announced that we will now record alternative subculture as a hate motivation. We hope this encourages victims to continue to come forward so we can take positive action against offenders.""

Last week GMP became the first UK force to recognise alternative subcultures such as goths, punks and emos – the latter group shares fashion influences from the former two – as a recordable motivation for hate crime.

The new category will be recorded in the same way as hate crimes against people on the basis of disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity to provide better support to victims.

The police made the decision in consultation with the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a charity named after a 20-year-old goth who died in 2007 after she and her boyfriend were attacked as they walked home through Stubbeylee Park, Bacup. Lancaster suffered severe head injuries and never regained consciousness.

Her killers were sentenced in 2008, and the judge recognised her death as a hate crime because they were targeted for being goths.

The Sophie Lancaster Foundation on Facebook",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/05/goths-emos-punks-we-all-same,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/04/violence-against-goths-hate-crime,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/21/disability-hate-crime-victims-report,"Report says attacks against people with disabilities are not properly recorded and support for victims is often inadequate

Victims of disability hate crime are being let down by the criminal justice system and attacks are not being properly recorded, according to a report by three official inspectorates.

A joint study by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the National Probation Service argues that there is under-reporting of offences but acknowledges there is no ""clear and uncomplicated definition"" of what constitutes disability hate crime.

Michael Fuller, the chief inspector of the CPS, said the Law Commission had been asked to consider whether there should be a specific offence of disability hate crime.

The issue has received widespread publicity through several high-profile cases such as that of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled daughter Francecca in 2007 after Leicester police failed to investigate the years of torment they endured.

The figures assembled by the inspectorates suggest there is a lack of awareness of the problem and inconsistent reporting standards. The report said: ""Many police forces do not have in place an approach that supported disabled victims from the point of call through to the case being considered at court.

""CPS lawyers display a lack of clarity in identifying and analysing offences, and sometimes fail to obtain sufficient evidence from the police in order to identify disability hate crimes.""

Fuller, a former chief constable of Kent, said: ""This report finds that in many ways disability hate crime is the hate crime that has been overlooked. The criminal justice system must therefore change to provide an improved service for those with disabilities.""

Under section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act, which came into effect in 2005, courts can increase sentences for those found to have carried out an attack or crime that involved the aggravating factor of being a disability hate crime.

Of 810 CPS files flagged as involving disability hate crime issues, however, only seven recorded that an offender's sentence had been increased on those grounds – suggesting the powers are being used insufficiently.

Broken down by region, the CPS files suggest that the north-west of England experiences almost three times as much disability hate crime as other areas of the country, with 174 cases. The report's authors, however, caution that such a disparity is more likely to be a reflection of different recording practices.

Among the recommendations the report makes are:

• Agreement on a ""single, clear and uncomplicated definition of a disability hate crime that is communicated effectively to the public and staff"".

• Increased reporting of disability hate crimes.

• Improved training for police officers, prosecutors and probation staff in dealing with disability hate crimes.

The report, Living in a Different World, does not contain examples of the types of offences commonly associated with such crimes nor does it assess whether the problem is becoming more severe.

One difficulty, the report suggests, is that police officers are often reluctant or too embarrassed to ask members of the public whether they are disabled. Incidents may therefore be missed.

Fuller said he believed most forces now had systems in place to record when victims are being repeatedly targeted – a precaution aimed at ensuring that the circumstances that drove Pilkington to her death do not recur.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/08/amish-beard-cutting-ringleader-sentenced,"Prosecutors had sought life sentence for Samuel Mullet Sr, found to have committed a hate crime over religious differences

The ringleader in a series of unusual hair- and beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish religious followers in the US was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

Before his sentencing, Samuel Mullet Sr told the judge that he had been blamed for running a cult and was ready to take the punishment. The judge also sentenced 15 other members of the deeply traditional group to prison terms ranging from one to seven years.

Amish believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards once they marry. Cutting it would be offensive to the group.

The defendants were charged with a hate crime because prosecutors believe religious differences brought about the attacks.

""The victims were terrorized and traumatized,"" US district court judge Dan Aaron Polster said. He added that the defendants had violated the constitutional rights protecting religious practice that had benefited them as Amish.

The 10 men and six women were convicted last year in five attacks in Amish communities in 2011. The government said the attacks were retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced Mullet's authoritarian style.

The 67-year-old Mullet, his ankles in chains and a white beard down to mid-chest, said if his community is seen as a cult, ""Then I'm going to take the punishment for everybody.""

Defense attorneys have indicated that appeals are likely.

The government had asked for a life sentence for Mullet. The defense asked for two years or less.

Nine of 10 men who were convicted have been locked up awaiting sentencing. The six women, who all have children, have been free on bond.

In a rare interview last week, Mullet's unmarried 19-year-old grandson, Edward Mast, discussed the family's attitude. He said they are steadfast in the belief that the attacks didn't rise to the level of a hate crime.

""The beard, what it stands for me, what I know about it, once you're married, you just grow a beard. That's just the way the Amish is,"" Mast said.

As for the victims, he added, ""They got their beard back again, so what's the big deal about it?""

Arlene Miller, 48, whose husband, an Amish bishop, was among the victims, thinks Mullet deserves a tough sentence and the others should get less time if they get cult deprogramming counseling.

""It's a cult,"" she said. ""Their minds were programmed in the wrong way by Sam Mullet, so we feel like these people are very deceived and they are actually victims of Sam Mullet.""

She said there were no winners in the ordeal. ""There's no happy ending to this,"" she said.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/31/britain-disabled-paralympics-cuts,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/29/woman-charged-murder-queens-subway,"Police say Erica Menendez made statements implicating herself in death of Sunando Sen, who was pushed in front of train

A woman accused of pushing an immigrant from India to his death in front of a subway train was charged on Saturday with murder as a hate crime.

Police arrested Erica Menendez on Saturday after a passer-by on a street noticed she resembled the woman seen in a surveillance video.

A spokeswoman for Queens district attorney Richard A Brown said Menendez told authorities she hates Hindus and Muslims.

Subway shoving victim Sunando Sen was from India, but it's unclear if he was Muslim or Hindu.

Sen, who lived in the borough of Queens and ran a printing shop, was killed on Thursday night. Witnesses said a muttering woman pushed him on the tracks as a No. 7 train entered a Queens station and then ran off.

Menendez was in custody on Saturday and couldn't be reached for comment. It was unclear if she had an attorney.

It was also unclear whether the woman who pushed Sen had any connection to him. Witnesses told police the two did not interact on the platform as they waited for the 7 train, which runs between Manhattan and Queens.

Police released security camera video showing a woman running from the station where Sen was killed.

On Saturday, a passer-by noticed a woman who resembled the woman in the video and called police. Police responded and confirmed her identity and took her to a police station, where she made statements implicating herself in the crime, police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The attack was the second time this month that a man was pushed to his death in a city subway station. A homeless man was arrested in early December and accused of shoving a man in front of a train in Times Square. He claimed he acted in self-defence and is awaiting trial.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/nov/28/met-police-domestic-violence-crackdown,"Week-long campaign targeting violence within the home and hate crime has led to 320 arrests so far

Police in London have carried out dawn raids across the capital as they pursue a week-long crackdown on domestic violence that has led to 320 arrests.

Scotland Yard said officers engaged in Operation Athena were targeting violence within the home as well as hate crime. Ten per cent of all calls made annually to the Metropolitan police are related to domestic violence.

Assistant commissioner Simon Byrne, in charge of territorial policing said: ""The scale of the violence and abuse caused by those in domestic relationships is shocking. About one-third of all women will suffer some form of physical or sexual abuse at the hands of their partners. Suffering behind closed doors should not and cannot be ignored. We all have a responsibility to put a stop to domestic violence.""

Within the first 36 hours of the operation, which began on Monday and runs until Friday, police had made 230 arrests. By Wednesday afternoon that figure had risen to 320, with offences ranging from harassment to rape and threats to kill.

The campaign is being led by specially trained officers and is being accompanied by outreach work, victim-focused workshops and multi-agency drop-in centres, the Met said in a statement.

""We are committed to tackling all of forms of violence, and will make sure we play our part in supporting and protecting victims of both sexes. It is also importantly about demonstrating to abusers that their actions have legal, and in some cases, long-lasting consequences,"" said Byrne, who claims the drive will send a message to both offenders and victims that police will take reports of domestic violence seriously.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/nov/14/fa-society-black-lawyers-ill-informed,"David Bernstein has attacked comments from the Society of Black Lawyers over its record on racism as ""ill-informed and unhelpful"". The Football Association's chairman was responding to remarks made by the pressure group's chair, Peter Herbert, following a police decision to drop their investigation into allegations against the referee Mark Clattenburg.

Although Chelsea made a complaint to the FA in October alleging the referee had used inappropriate language towards Mikel John Obi, they did not contact the police. The SBL did make a complaint to the police, based on media reports of the alleged incident.

Scotland Yard announced on Tuesday that no action would be taken ""because no victims had come forward"".

Herbert said on Wednesday: ""It would appear that there is a cosy little agreement between Chelsea FC and the FA not to report these matters to the Metropolitan police but to have them dealt with solely by the FA.

""The FA have a dreadful record of indifference on hate crime generally; failing to challenge anti-Semitism at Tottenham Hotspur and at other grounds; eventually finding John Terry made a racist remark but remarkably found him not to be a ""racist""; whilst the derisory penalty of a four- or eight-match ban [Luis Suárez] is believed to be a suitable punishment for what in any other industry would be summary dismissal for gross misconduct.""

Herbert also claimed on Sky Sports News that the FA were ""institutionally racist … They don't even implement what the Stephen Lawrence inquiry [MacPherson Report] recommendations were about how to report a racial incident, whether the victim or any other person believes it is.

""You will not find that on the FA website or any of the training given to referees, managers, coaches or players. It isn't there. It should be.

""If an institution fails to follow 14 years after the MacPherson Report's recommendations and it has a history of under-reporting race hate, what would you call it? We would call it institutionally racist.""

Reacting to the statements, Bernstein said: ""These ill-informed and unhelpful remarks are at odds with the progressive and responsible approach being followed by the game with the support of government to deal with these serious issues.

""The FA will continue working to strengthen processes to eradicate all forms of discrimination in football.""

Clarke Carlisle, chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, defended Chelsea and the FA. ""I think it would have been better if it remained within the remit of Chelsea and the FA to put any subsequent case to the Met,"" he said.

""If we reported all incidents from third-party evidence, there would be many investigations the police would have to go through. We have to have faith Chelsea have reported the incidents in good faith and that the FA will deal with it accordingly, and report it to the police if necessary.""

The FA is expected to announce the outcome of its investigation into Chelsea's complaint within 48 hours.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/nov/14/chelsea-fa-cosy-agreement-clattenburg,"Chelsea and the Football Association have been criticised by a campaigning group after the police announced no action will be taken over alleged comments made by the referee Mark Clattenburg.

Chelsea made a complaint to the FA in October alleging the referee had used inappropriate language, understood to have been interpreted as a racist remark, to their midfielder Mikel John Obi.

Although the club did not involve the police, the Society of Black Lawyers made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police based on media reports of the alleged incident. Scotland Yard announced on Tuesday, however, that no action would be taken ""because no victims had come forward"" – and that has prompted criticism of Chelsea and the FA by the SBL chair, Peter Herbert.

Herbert said in a statement: ""It would appear that there is a cosy little agreement between Chelsea FC and the FA not to report these matters to the Metropolitan Police but to have them dealt with solely by the FA.

""The FA have a dreadful record of indifference on hate crime generally; failing to challenge anti-Semitism at Tottenham Hotspur and at other grounds; eventually finding John Terry made a racist remark but remarkably found him not to be a ""racist""; whilst the derisory penalty of a four- or eight-match ban [Luis Suárez] is believed to be a suitable punishment for what in any other industry would be summary dismissal for gross misconduct.""

The FA is expected to announce the outcome of its investigation into Chelsea's complaint within 48 hours.

Scotland Yard said an investigation was launched into alleged comments made during a match between Chelsea and Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on 28 October.

Police said in a statement: ""Inquiries were made and no victims have come forward. The matter will remain as a recorded incident.

""Without a victim and/or any evidence that any offence has been committed, the matter cannot currently be investigated. If the situation changes and a victim and/or evidence to support an allegation of a crime comes to police attention, then further inquiries will, if appropriate, be made.""

Clattenburg, 37, returned to training with the top-flight Select Group of referees last weekend for the first time since Chelsea's complaint to the FA.

Neither the FA nor Chelsea would respond to the criticism though it is understood the governing body rejects the claims made by the SBL. Chelsea also acted in the belief that the FA was the appropriate organisation to deal with their complaint rather than the police.

Herbert said he would raise his views with the sports minister Hugh Robertson, though the minister said he could not issue orders to Chelsea to involve the police.

Robertson said: ""They are welcome to approach me but I cannot instruct Chelsea to make criminal complaints, that is an argument he needs to have with Chelsea.""

He added: ""We had the Downing Street summit [on racism in football] earlier in the year and the FA are coming back to us before the end of the year and as soon as we have that response we will assess what to do next.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/aug/14/disability-hate-crime-benefit-scrounger-abuse,"It was karaoke night at the Weaver's Arms when Chantelle Richardson was attacked by a stranger because of her disability. The 23-year-old, whose face has been disfigured since she was 14, had already left one pub that night after comments about her condition. Now drinking with mates at her local in Oldham, it happened again.

""Is your friend wearing a mask?"" said the woman who'd just stopped singing as one of Richardson's pals approached the mike. ""Your friend's face is disgusting."" The woman repeatedly told Richardson: ""Take off your mask,"" before punching her in the face. The blow was so strong it could have been fatal and left Richardson hospitalised for weeks. For months, she was depressed and afraid to go out in public. Her attacker, brought to court in March last year, was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Richardson's story is shocking, but it is not unique. Disability hate crimes are under-reported by the media, and under-investigated by the police. But it's a problem that is getting worse not just behind closed doors, as happened at the private care home Winterbourne View, near Bristol, but on streets and in public spaces across Britain.

In a fortnight London hosts the Paralympics where the sporting achievements of more than a thousand disabled athletes will be rightly celebrated. But beyond the Olympic Park a more unpalatable view of how Britain treats people with disabilities exists, where disability hate crime is at its highest level ever recorded. In 2011, there were close on 2,000 recorded disability hate crimes in England and Wales, double the number in 2008 when records began.

Deteriorating situation

In March, the Home Office estimated that 65,000 disability hate crimes occur each year. And disability charities say it could be as high as 100,000. They have little doubt that the deteriorating situation is being driven by ""benefit scrounger"" abuse.

The Department for Work and Pensions has been accused of irresponsible rhetoric, in particular for its suggestion that three in four people claiming incapacity benefit are faking disabilities. It now estimates that only 0.3% of the incapacity benefit budget is overspent due to fraud. A DWP spokesman says it is ""absolutely committed to supporting disabled people"", but he acknowledges that ""we need to work together and do more to change negative attitudes"".

Yet Katharine Quarmby, author of Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People, warns: ""Unless the government decouples reducing benefits from hinting strongly that most disabled people are scroungers, then we're going to see more attacks.""

That is what happened to Emma Round, 28. In 2009, nerves in Round's abdominal cavity became badly damaged, making walking extremely painful. Unable to leave the house without help, she became effectively trapped for nine months until a doctor decided to give her a wheelchair. The change revolutionised her independence, but also made her a target of abuse.

Sitting outside a local shop not long after getting her wheelchair, she was approached by a well-dressed stranger. ""He lent over, looked me in the eye and said, 'It's a good scam. Someone your age shouldn't be in a wheelchair ... You're just doing it for the benefits, aren't you? Scum.' Then he walked off. I just sat there crying,"" Round says.

That incident was not a one off. ""Since then I've been called lazy frequently and had people grab my wheelchair and tell me to get out and walk. I've been called a scrounger, a sponger, a faker and other words you wouldn't be able to put in print.""

Round's story is replicated every day across the UK. Disability charities receive a constant flow of reports – accident victims spat on and punched, wheelchair users pushed into oncoming traffic, injured army veterans told they are exaggerating their injuries.

A closer look at last year's crime figures, obtained, under freedom of information requests, for every police force in England and Wales, and published by the Guardian today in full for the first time online, reveals the gap between reality and how many incidents are being recorded and lead to convictions. Only 1,942 of the estimated 65,000-100,000 disability hate crimes were recorded in 2011, and just 523 people were convicted in 2011.

In Lincolnshire and Warwickshire, two counties with a combined population of 1.2 million people, not a single person was convicted of disability hate crime last year. In half of the 42 police authorities in England and Wales, the number of guilty offenders did not reach double figures. This is in contrast to the 10,000-odd people successfully prosecuted each year for racial hate crimes.

Hidden scandal

The underlying causes for the gap are complex and often obscured, but charities agree that the failure of the criminal justice system lies at the heart of this hidden scandal. Campaigners had hoped the case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed her disabled daughter and then herself in 2007 after police failed to heed calls for help after years of harassment from local youths, would be a turning point in the policing of disability hate crime.

Police have been required to collect and report instance of disability hate crime in a standardised way since 2008. But Clive and Heidi Cox certainly feel the system has failed them. Back in June, during the rainy jubilee weekend, they mourned the third anniversary of the death of their son David, who was autistic. David, 18, was killed by a punch to the face after getting into a scrap with a gang of youths. His parents claim that it was a disability hate crime. South Yorkshire police disagree. Three years on, no one has been prosecuted.

David was diagnosed at the age of 11 with Asperger's syndrome and mild attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ""He was cheeky,"" Heidi recalls. ""He'd probably want to be the centre of attention, but sometimes he'd go about it the wrong way."" That naughty streak kept him out of full-time education for much of his childhood. By his late teens, the family decided to move to Doncaster in the hope of a fresh start.

At first, the switch was a success – ""the best 18 months of his life"", according to Heidi – but then came the incident on 1 June 2009. Returning home from a kickabout with his brother, David walked past a group of local lads outside a shop and asked for a header. ""Fuck off, you freak,"" one of the boys allegedly said, later calling him a ""weirdo"". The scuffle that ensued saw David receive a punch to the jaw so hard that it tore an artery and caused a brain haemorrhage. He collapsed and was rushed to hospital. At 3.47pm the following day his life support machine was switched off.

The origins of the incident remain contested – South Yorkshire police insist there was an element of self-defence in the boys' behaviour and David may have been an ""aggressor"". But the Cox family feel that the five 18- and 19-year-olds targeted David's disability. ""They called him a freak and a weirdo,"" Heidi says. ""Why would that boy choose those names?""

Three years on, the Cox family are still pursuing the case and have written to the prime minister, David Cameron. But coming to the end of a long line of appeals, they are left only with the gnawing feeling that justice has not been done.

It is the same conclusion – that the justice system still treats people with disabilities differently – which others have come to. In particular, there is a problem around the perceived unreliability of evidence given by people with learning disabilities, be it victims or witnesses. According to a Mencap spokesman, if a lawyer thinks that a disabled witness will underperform on the stand, they will not take the case to court.

Last month, the government ratified most of the recommendations of an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into disability-related harassment. The coalition promised to oversee the creation of more accessible justice, better frontline training and stronger accountability from administrators. But there was a line in the response that dismayed some charities. ""Ownership for tackling disability-related harassment and hate crime is primarily the responsibility of the local authorities,"" it read. ""Central government's role is not to be prescriptive but to lead, advise and encourage."" To campaigners, it had the familiar ring of responsibility being shirked.

It has now been more than a year since Richardson's attacker was sent to prison for punching and abusing her. In one important way, her story is unusual – we know what happened to Richardson. For most disability hate crime victims, their suffering remains hidden.

• This article was amended on 15 August 2012. The original said that in 2001, there were close on 2,000 recorded disability hate crimes in England and Wales. The date has been corrected to 2011. The article was further amended on 17 August 2012. The original said between one in 50 and one in 100 people claiming incapacity benefit were faking disabilities. The Department for Work and Pensions' preliminary estimates for 2010-11 suggest the figure is much lower and that only 0.3% of incapacity benefit spending is overpaid because of fraud.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/06/wisconsin-shooting-sikh-leaders-urge-caution,"Executive director of Sikh Coalition warns against assumption that shooting in Oak Creek was hate crime

Sikh leaders in the US urged people of all faiths to come together following the latest attack on its community, cautioning against jumping to the conclusion that it was a hate crime.

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, members of the Sikh faith were targeted in isolated incidents of violence by racists who blamed them for the atrocities conducted by a handful of extremist from a different religion.

Occasional attacks continue to take place. But Sikh leaders urged followers of the faith to wait until the police investigation before making any assumption as to the gunman's motive.

Sapreet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition – the faith's largest civil rights organisation in the US — said: ""There have been multiple hate crime shootings within the Sikh community in recent years and the natural impulse of our community is to unfortunately assume the same in this case.""

""As new facts emerge, the dialogue can change,"" Kaur said, adding: ""Americans died today in a senseless act of violence and Americans of all faiths should stand in unified support with their Sikh brothers and sisters.""

The Sikh Coalition noted that the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin has been on site since 1997 and has over 400 members.

During those 15 years, the temple has made a valued contribution to both the Sikh and the wider community, the civil rights group said.

Oak Creek alderman Dan Jakubczyk said there has never been any problem involving members of the temple, adding: ""They've been a plus to this city and to my district.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2012/jul/11/disability-related-hate-crime-social-housing,"Disability related hate crime is rising, partly due to the welfare reform agenda. What can be done to tackle the problem?

Some of the most profound impacts of the government's welfare reform agenda will be felt by people with a disability.

Figures have shown an alarming rise in disability related hate crime – up 14% over the past 12 months – and unsurprisingly, links have been established between the increase and the negative media sentiment and scathing political rhetoric focusing on so-called ""benefit scroungers"".

While housing providers begin to take steps to support tenants to prepare for welfare changes, they are also uniquely placed to help tackle disability related harassment. In 2007, an Ipsos/Mori poll commissioned by the Disability Rights Commission found that one-third of adults with a disability did not feel safe in their communities.

The current climate can only have made things worse. 46% of social housing tenancies involve a person with a disability, so the daily interaction between housing staff, tenants and agencies puts housing professionals in a good position to support and empower disabled people in their homes and communities.

Some of the most severe cases of crimes against disabled people took place within social housing communities according to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and their report rightly makes recommendations for action within the sector. Exploring the issue with landlords, we've identified some innovative responses already taking place.

Ocean Housing Group now provides training on harassment, disability hate incidents and use of language to all staff. Tenant representatives are also given training to make them aware of the challenges facing people with a disability.

As part of its award-winning approach to tenant scrutiny, Salix Homes' disability focus group has developed a protocol for contractors and disability awareness training. It places disabled people at the heart of service design and delivery and has been adopted by other housing organisations across the country. Magna Housing Association has developed a third-party helpline so people experiencing harassment or hate incidents can call a member of the antisocial behaviour team if they are afraid to talk to the police directly.

Having disabled people on staff and governance bodies can be a valuable confidence builder for organisations, as can an inclusive and proactive approach to tenant involvement.

South Essex Homes are working to transform public attitudes towards disabled people. They recently staged a disabled people's conference and, with the support of the police and Mencap, produced a DVD illustrating the experiences of disabled people to take into local schools to support a culture shift in the way in which disabled people are perceived by wider society.

As austerity bites and attitudes harden towards disabled people in some fringes of society, housing providers, as community anchors, can take a lead in challenging prejudice and combating discrimination.

Housing providers have an important role to play in facilitating better joined-up working between different community partners to ensure disabled people are safe and their needs and aspirations are met.

Finally, they can actively support and positively strengthen disability confidence in communities.

John Thornhill is senior policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), Paul Gamble is chief executive at Habinteg and Graham Findlay is positive action for disability manager at CIH

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Join the housing network for more news, views and best practice direct to your inbox",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/22/justice-dharun-ravi-lenient-30-day-sentence,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/may/01/society-daily-email,"Sign up to Society daily email briefing

Today's top SocietyGuardian stories

• Stroke survivors 'missing out on recovery services'

• David Miliband: austerity measures put UK and Germany on the back foot

• Girl injured at birth awarded £11m in compensation

• Blood test could detect breast cancer risk

• London mayor race is too close to call

• Local elections: 'Not voting is not English'

• Israeli negotiation expert has NHS workshop cancelled after union protests

All today's SocietyGuardian stories

In tomorrow's SocietyGuardian section

• Heather Wood, who exposed catastrophic failings at Stafford hospital, says she fears that the Care Quality Commission would not have picked up the problems at the NHS trust

• At at time when families housed by councils are being told to relocate, independent housing advice has been axed, writes Tom Clark

• Disability living allowance is being replaced with personal independence payment assessments, and private companies are queueing up to cash in, claims Clare Allan

• The response to Claire Squires's death shows it's not the cause but the connection with the person asking that is the main inspiration for sponsors

• The growing number of bookmakers' shops is compounding gambling problems in Chinatown, says campaigners

• Unite is offering legal, debt and benefits advice for out of work people in their local communities to win new followers to its cause

• Instead of giving the dwindling workforce the required tools to tackle reform and cuts, our public servants are left to rely on searching the internet for help

On the Guardian Professional Networks

• Live Q&A from 1pm: How charities can cut costs and protect quality

• NHS gets first data breach fine as £70,000 penalty handed down

• How Well London is helping deprived communities to better health

• How repossessions reveal the hidden truth about modern housing

• Funding cuts should not mean a return to outdated models of commissioning and service design in social care. Personalised services do not have to cost more, writes Steve Scown

On my radar ...

• An impassioned Huffington Post blog from campaigning journalist and author Katharine Quarmby on the Leveson inquiry's rejection of a request by disabled peoples' organisations and individuals to hear evidence about the way the press writes about people with disabilities. She asks:

Why is it not important when disabled individuals are attacked in the street, partly because of pernicious stories put about by newspapers? Why is wheelchair user Peter Greener's experience of three months of harassment because his neighbour had once seen him walking and branded him a scrounger not important? I believe that journalists, including myself, have a responsibility to report accurately and, crucially, to contextualise. I believe that some journalists are over-hyping the extent of disability benefit fraud and are getting away with it while disabled people are paying the price.

I believe that Lord Justice Leveson, and his tax-payer funded inquiry, should do something about it. This inquiry should not merely hear the famous victims of newspaper harassment, or those who have become famous, unwillingly and in great pain, because of individual tragedy. This inquiry should also hear those silenced and fearful voices from a whole community which is trying to speak out - of the disabled victims who just make it into the local newspapers because they have been tipped out of their wheelchairs or shouted at in the street because of irresponsible newspaper reporting using the dangerous rhetoric of ""scroungers"" and other pernicious untruths. Leveson owes it to those individuals, who are not famous, who won't necessarily make the headlines, but who deserve justice, to hear their stories - to honour their pain, and to question those reporters who are, at least, partly responsible.

(thanks to Nicky Clark for the link)

• Jacqui Smith, who responds on the Progress blog to news that the already delayed social care white paper may not be included in the upcoming Queen's speech. The former home secretary says the issue of care is a key concern for her constituents:

People were both genuinely interested – and genuinely worried. They fretted about how their parents would cope now and how they'd cope in the future; why the hospital didn't seem to talk to the local authority about their mum's care when she came home from hospital; how they could judge the quality of a care home; why they couldn't stay at home for longer with a bit of practical support or the clever use of technology. And most of all, they worried about how and whether they would be able to afford the sort of care they wanted for themselves and their families.

Labour proposed a National Care Service while still in office, but it was too close to the general election to build consensus for long-term funding options. The coalition government set up the Dilnot commission which proposed a cap on lifetime care costs and raising the assets threshold above which people cannot receive any support with care. Labour supported the proposals and has taken part in cross-party talks to determine the long-term financial settlement.

... The ball is in the government's court. Labour is taking a long-term and politically mature approach to finding a solution. The other two parties are in the government, for goodness' sake. If they can't produce a long-term social care white paper, we will know conclusively that the rot has set in and omnishambles has turned to policy paralysis.

• An eye-opening account of life without the Employment Support Allowance from Lisa J Ellwood, aka the Creative Crip. Ellwood is one of an estimated 40,000 – 100,000 recipients set to lose this benefit under the government's welfare reforms, which impose a time limit:

Life #afterESA isnt worth living if I'm going to end up homeless again. There is still no genuine support whatsoever. I immediately lost Housing & Council Tax Benefit. I re-applied to Vale of Glamorgan Council as self-employed with £0 income – which they don't seem to understand is entirely possible, especially when just starting out. I can't afford to remain where I moved to to cut expenses or to move out of the area because business funding etc focused on S. Wales Valleys.

... People expecting me to work free or very cheap aren't helping either (ironically friends & acquaintances with strong opinions about why ""someone supposedly so talented can't make a living""). Access to Work is proving to be just another #ukgov scam with me caught between the JobCentre & private corps they outsource to all over the UK, including Remploy for horrible mental health support (which I've written about in the blog). The Jobcentre aren't happy with the reports they are getting from the independent disability assessor because they ""don't give a clear idea of what my disabilities are"". This pissing contest has been going on since February 15. It's worth noting that despite my exhaustive documentation for ESA and DLA, Access to Work insist my medical records aren't necessary because they ""aren't as rigid as other parts of the JobCentre.""

I've done everything I was asked and told to do. I've been treated like garbage as an ethnic foreign national who's domiciled here & only paid 40% tax until my problems with disability & illness forced me down a road I never dreamed I'd have to take.

Meanwhile, on the Public Finance blog, Claudia Wood, head of public services and welfare at Demos, writes that the introduction of the time limit ""marks a watershed in the history of the welfare state"":

... there is a greater reason why we should all vociferously oppose the time limitation of C-ESA. It is because it breaks the reciprocity principle. It removes the 'insurance' from 'national insurance' by replacing a contributory benefit with a means-tested one.

All of us pay national insurance so that we are insured against illness and inability to work. From tomorrow, it doesn't matter that you've 'paid in' for 40 years. You only get one year back in return. The average amount we pay over our working lives (of around 40 years) in national insurance is £78,040.

• The big society. On the Beanbags and Bullsh!t blog, David Floyd argues that what was once a flagship Conservative policy has been ""killed by its contradictions"". He concludes:

the government could have led from front and helped to give Big Society the momentum to succeed. It's chosen not to do so and, as a result, it may be too late to save Big Society as the label for a set of ideas.

What's not going anywhere is the need to respond to growing social needs with decreasing resources. The people who want to get on with doing that are still there, at least for the moment, but if Big Society's dead there's a gap in the market for a set of ideas to explain what they're doing and how it can best be supported.

• The world's first Centre for the Study of Missing Persons, which has opened at the University of Portsmouth. The centre aims to be a comprehensive resource for the study of missing persons, and will share its knowledge with researchers and professionals in the field such as social services, charities and the police, as well as the friends and families of those who are missing.

Other news

• BBC: Inquiry blames Good Shepherd centre over Erskine Bridge deaths

• Children & Young People Now: Youth offending chief loses post in service restructure

• Independent: NHS staff reject pension reforms

• Inside Housing: Public spending cuts drive down housing starts

• Public Finance: Ministers spin off civil service pension scheme as mutual

• Telegraph: Archbishop: youth obsession is harming elderly

• Third Sector: Tax relief cap should be replaced with higher-rate Gift Aid scheme, says IoF

Events and seminars

Managing volunteers

Tuesday 15 May, Kings Cross, London

Engaging with volunteers is an increasingly challenging task. This half-day seminar will help you explore what 21st century volunteers want and what you need to do to involve them effectively. Delivered by leading expert Rob Jackson, this session is a must for anyone building a long-term volunteer engagement strategy.

Digital engagement surgery

Thursday 17 May, Kings Cross, London

This engaging and participatory workshop will look at real-life scenarios and how charities are using digital techniques to collaborate and communicate. Attendees will be asked bring challenges in with them (submitted advance), which will be shared in a workshop format to collectively tackle common themes running through the sector.

Successful bid writing

Friday 18 May, Kings Cross, London

Bid writing is an essential skill in voluntary sector organisations. This interactive seminar will help you create applications and bids that demonstrate your organisation's strengths and priorities, how you differ from other projects, what the benefits are for your clients and the community and how you'll be able to measure them.

Social media for health and social care

Thursday 31 May, Kings Cross, London

With massive changes facing health and social care provision the need for clear, open and accessible communication channels is greater than ever. Whether you are looking to improve engagement with patients, clients and peers, promote your services or increase media coverage, this practical, interactive seminar tailored for health professionals will show you how social media can help you do it.

Identifying, measuring and demonstrating social value

Tuesday 12 June, Kings Cross, London

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 highlights the need for the public sector to ensure suppliers can demonstrate social, economic and environmental concerns are at the heart of public sector contracts.This seminar looks at the importance of measurement and assessment techniques, embedding social values through tendering and contract management, and a variety of evaluation and monitoring tools.

Scrutiny: making an impact

Tuesday 26 June, Kings Cross, London

This interactive seminar challenges traditional approaches to scrutiny, demonstrating in-depth questioning techniques and exploring the use of video evidence. It also considers the difference between a finding and a recommendation, how to word recommendations so they can't be ignored and work through good practice to evaluate each scrutiny process.

Making the most of social media for social housing

Friday 29 June, Kings Cross, London

This overview of social media channels will show you how to use them to maximum effect, with clear, practical examples of ways to save money, improve your communications and form a social media campaign

SocietyGuardian blogs

Patrick Butler's cuts blog

Sarah Boseley's global health blog

SocietyGuardian on social media

Follow SocietyGuardian on Twitter

Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter

Follow Clare Horton on Twitter

Follow Alison Benjamin on Twitter

SocietyGuardian's Facebook page

SocietyGuardian links

SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Guardian cutswatch - tell us about the cuts in your area

Public Leaders - the Guardian's website for senior managers of public services

The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page

Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs

SocietyGuardian editor: Alison Benjamin

Email the SocietyGuardian editor: society@guardian.co.uk",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/13/oklahoma-murder-hate-crime-charges,"Oklahoma prosecutors filed murder and hate crime charges Friday against two men arrested in an Easter weekend shooting spree that left three people dead and terrorised Tulsa's black community.

Jake England, 19, and his roommate, Alvin Watts, 33, each are charged with three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of shooting with intent to kill and five counts of malicious harassment. The harassment counts allege the victims were targeted because of their race.

Police say the men, who were arrested early Sunday after a two-day manhunt, appeared to have chosen their victims at random. Under state law, first-degree murder is punishable by death or life in prison. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the men's execution.

Court documents say both men have confessed in the shootings, England to shooting three people and Watts to shooting two. All the victims were black and police have said one motive might have been England's desire to avenge his father's fatal shooting by a black man two years ago.

England's father, Carl, was fatally shot in 2010 by a man who had threatened his daughter and tried to kick in the door of her home. The man was black, and police say England's son may have been seeking vengeance.

Family and friends say Carl England's death sent his son into a downward spiral - Jake England apparently wrote a Facebook post marking the second anniversary of his father's death and lamented that ""it's hard not to go off.""

The shootings gripped the city's predominantly black north side with fear over the Easter weekend. Residents said the north side has seen its share of crime problems, but they have never faced a series of random killings like these.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/28/husband-iraqi-woman-murdered-motives,"Kassim Alhimidi appeals for help in finding person who bludgeoned Shaima Alawadi to death in suspected hate crime

The husband of an Iraqi-American woman who was found bludgeoned to death with a threatening note left beside her has made his first public remarks and demanded to know what motivated her killer.

Kassim Alhimidi addressed reporters at a mosque east of San Diego, California, after a memorial service for 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi on Tuesday.

""The main question we would like to ask is what are you getting out of this and why did you do it?"" Alhimidi said in Arabic as his 15-year-old son Mohammed translated.

Alhimidi urged anyone with information to contact the police and thanked the Iraqi government for flying his wife's body to Iraq. He declined to answer reporters' questions.

Alawadi, a mother of five who volunteered at her mosque, was taken off life support on Saturday, three days after her teenage daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family home in El Cajon, one of the nation's largest enclaves of Iraqi immigrants. Her daughter told a television station that a note beside her said: ""Go back to your country, you terrorist.""

El Cajon police have declined to disclose the contents of the note but said it had led investigators to regard the killing as a possible hate crime. Chief James Redman said on Monday there was other evidence and called the killing an isolated incident.

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions. He spoke to reporters at the mosque after meeting the police chief and getting assurances from the FBI and the department of homeland security they were committed to solving the crime.

""We don't know the facts of this case,"" Marayati said. ""We don't know if it's a hate crime. We don't know if it's not a hate crime.""

He urged the public to grieve for a family that fled persecution in Iraq and found tragedy in the US.

The victim and her family left Iraq in the early 1990s after a failed Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein, living in Saudi Arabian refugee camps before coming to the US, said Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Centre in Dearborn, Michigan. Saddam's troops hanged Alawadi's uncle.

The family arrived in the Detroit area in 1993 and later moved to San Diego. Alawadi was a religious Shia Muslim who wore a hijab, Husainy said.

Alawadi's father, Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, is a cleric in Iraq, said Husainy, who described himself as a close family friend.

Alawadi's body was taken to San Diego airport on Tuesday en route to Najaf in Iraq, said Imam Sharif Battikhi of the American Islamic Services Foundation.

The FBI, which is assisting El Cajon police in the investigation, defines a hate crime as an offence motivated by a bias against race, religion, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation. There were 1,409 hate crimes in the US based on religion during 2010, including 186 targeting Muslims. There were 1,040 based on ethnicity or national origin, including 359 targeting groups other than Hispanics.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/25/california-iraqi-mother-murder-hate-crime,"Killer beat Shaima Alawadi to death in family home and left note that said: 'Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist.'

California police say an Iraqi-born woman who was beaten to death may have been the victim of a hate crime. The killer of Shaima Alawadi, 32, left a note reportedly reading: ""Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist.""

Alawadi, an immigrant, died on Saturday after the attack last Wednesday. Police said her 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, found her unconscious in the dining room of the family's home in El Cajon, California at about 11:15am. Alawadi, a mother of five, died soon after being taken off a hospital life support machine, police said.

Fatima told a local television station that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tyre lever, and that the note said ""go back to your country, you terrorist"". The police confirmed a note had been found but did not release the details.

The daughter had reportedly been sleeping upstairs. She found her mother in a pool of blood with a sliding glass door into the house broken.

According to El Cajon police lieutenant Mark Coit, the family told the police that another threatening note had been found earlier this month outside their home. But they told police that they had not reported it after dismissing it as a prank.

""During the initial stages of this investigation, a threatening note was discovered very close to where the victim was found. The victim's family stated they had found a similar note earlier this month, however did not report it to authorities. Although we are exploring all aspects of this investigation, evidence thus far leads us to believe this is an isolated incident. No additional information is being released at this time,"" the police said in a statement.

The investigators have so far made no arrests and have not said whether they have any leads to the assailant.

The attack had been a shock to the Muslim community in the area, said Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of Cair, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group. He had been speaking to the family. ""The family is still numb. They are trying to figure it all out,"" he said. He said there had been an outpouring of support for the family from across California and the nation.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist strikes, Islamophobic incidents were reported in several US cities, with attacks on people and mosques. But Mohebi said there had been little evidence of escalating tension in the area recently and there had been no incident comparable to this attack. He said a taxi driver had been severely beaten in the area a few years ago but he could recall no other recent severe physical attacks on Muslims.

El Cajon is a conservative city of 100,000 people 15 miles from San Diego that has become popular with Iraqi immigrants. The city is home to some 40,000 Iraqis, the second largest such community in the US after Detroit.

""Obviously our community is worried about this but we want to make sure we get all the facts before we do anything. Our community is pretty much in shock at this point. Hopefully the police department will bring these people responsible to justice as soon as they can,"" Mohebi said.

The family had only recently moved from Michigan to a house on a suburban street in El Cajon. A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, told a San Diego newspaper that the attack apparently happened after Kassim Al Hamidi, Alawadi's husband, had taken the couple's younger children to school. Alzaidy told the newspaper that Alawadi had been a ""respectful, modest muhajiba,"" meaning she wears the traditional hijab headscarf.

Al Himidi and Alawadi migrated from Iraq to the United States in about 1993, according to local reports. Al Himidi had worked as a defence contractor in San Diego, serving as a cultural adviser to train soldiers preparing for duty in the Middle East.

""There have been hate crimes in the past but I have not seen anything like this,"" said Mohebi. ""At the end of the day there are a very small number of people who act upon such ignorance. In general our neighbours are supportive of the community.""

The murder comes at a sensitive moment for race relations in the US following the killing of a black teenager by a self-styled neighbourhood watch volunteer. Unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed after being chased by George Zimmerman, 28, last month in Sanford, Florida, sparking a national debate about gun laws and race and calls to prosecute Zimmerman under hate crime laws.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/16/tyler-clementi-dharun-ravi-hate-crime,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/feb/28/hatecrime-disability-bolton-i-mnotlaughing,"Conference in March will beat the drum for an energetic, pro-active approach to encourage disabled people to enjoy town centre life to the full

Bolton's I'm Not Laughing campaign against disability 'hate crime', which attracted a lot of attention when the Guardian Northerner featured it last year, is spreading its wings.

The campaign launch, which was the subject of our post, was followed up efficiently on the ground, winning support from venues all over the town. One of its particular merits was clear communication of a simple message – that disabled people are not and should not be the butt of discrimination and patronising (or much worse) comments.

That was recognised a fortnight ago when I'm Not Laughing won Greater Manchester Police's annual excellence award for outstanding communication. The next step is a conference in Bolton on 29 March for other authorities and agencies to see if a similar exercise would be helpful to them.

The event at the Victoria Hall from 11am to 3pm will explain how the moving letter from a young disabled woman about her victimisation in Bolton – quoted in full in our last post – galvanised the town. The neighbourhood policing team, the council's community safety department and central Bolton business partnership all got together and agreed a robust response.

That pro-active element will be the central message of the conference, as Rachel White of Bolton community safety says:

The campaign is unique in that it challenges disability hate crime in a proactive manner, rather than waiting for incidents to occur before encouraging reporting and providing support to victims. I'm Not Laughing therefore aims to stop the incidents before they occur so that Bolton town centre can be a safe and welcoming environment for all. As part of that, it encourages people with disabilities to visit and enjoy town centre's pubs and clubs, without fear of being verbally or physically abused. That part has involved developing an awareness raising training package for bar staff and door staff at Bolton town centre pubs and clubs.



Delegates will be taken through the project, which the Association of Chief Police Officers is considering including in its long-awaited hate crime manual as an example of good practice; then a debate and exchange of information will be followed by the handing out of a 'Bolton toolkit' to help get similar schemes under way elsewhere.

There's more on the campaign's Facebook page and £15 places at the conference (max four per authority/agency) are bookable on 01204 331081 or email daniel.ladd@bolton.gov.uk

",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/feb/21/nicky-clark-accidental-disability-activist-ricky-gervais,"Nicky Clark came to activism by chance, and discovered a knack for it. Had life turned out differently she might have been an actor, rather than a carer and an articulate disability rights campaigner: ""It's been very organic, but I suppose I have always been someone who got cross,"" she says.

Clark's campaigning, powered by Twitter (@mrsnickyclark) and blogging, has included carers' rights, the invisibility of physically disabled actors, and the toxicity of disability hate speech. The last thrust her into the limelight last year, when she publicly took to task the comedian Ricky Gervais about his use of the word ""mong"" – with spectacular consequences.

Her experience of the brutal reality of everyday abuse came as her two daughters grew up. Lizzy, now 17, and an actor, has Asperger's; Emily, 14, has autism with learning disability and epilepsy. Strangers would come up to them in the street and vent their fury at Clark's ""inconvenient"" offspring, or her ""lack"" of parenting skills. People behind them in the supermarket queue would say: ""That child needs a good slap,"" she recalls. Others would simply stare, point, or jeer.

""Hate crime always begins with hate speech,"" says Clark. The systematic bullying, ignorance and institutional neglect that, for example, led Fiona Pilkington to kill herself and her disabled daughter, began because that behaviour was ""normalised"", she believes, by the casual acceptance of disablist abuse.

When Gervais started to use the word ""mong"" on Twitter last year Clark, whose daughters had in the past been on the receiving end of the term, argued passionately that it was abusive (as a reference to Down's syndrome). Gervais argued that in its modern accepted usage it simply meant ""idiot"".

The debate went viral on Twitter and was picked up in the press. Clark got abusive tweets from hundreds of Gervais's 400,000 twitter followers. ""I got bombarded for 10 days by people who thought I was Mary Whitehouse,"" she says. But she prevailed.

Gervais called Clark to apologise, and agreed to a Twitter interview with Clark in which he explained why he had changed his mind. ""He was genuinely apologetic. He talked to me for an hour, he talked to Lizzy. His whole attitude was, 'I'm not going to use that word any more.'""

Clark then took on the writer Caitlin Moran, who used the word ""retard"" in her autobiography. Moran promptly apologised and had it deleted from the book's next print run. ""It's not the language people use, it's how they respond to being asked not to use it. That's the real test of someone's humanity,"" says Clark.

The welfare reform bill is also in Clark's sights. She expects that her daughters will lose their disability living allowance. ""We are lucky, my husband is working. But if it happened when he was unemployed for two years we would have lost the house.""

Her latest project is a series of short films for the Guardian in which she interviews celebrities who are either disabled or carers: DJ Jo Whiley, actor Warwick Davis, Sally Bercow, the wife of the Commons Speaker, and former paralympian Lady Tanni Grey-Thompson. ""Warwick and Tanni had amazing parents who said to their children, 'Get out there and do anything.' That's our job as carers,"" says Clark.

""Don't wrap your children in cotton wool: raise them right and let them go.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/feb/09/police-race-hate-crime-rochdale,"White victims claim they were set upon by Asian men in second alleged hate crime under investigation in Greater Manchester

Police in Greater Manchester say they are investigating a second suspected hate crime in which white victims claim they were set upon and assaulted by a group of young Asian men.

The police said a 21-year-old man was chased and hit with a bottle in Rochdale before being repeatedly kicked and punched in the head and body as he lay on the ground. His 16-year-old friend was also punched in the face during the unprovoked attack on a canal towpath.

It follows reports of an unconnected incident in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in which the trainee chef Dan Stringer-Prince was repeatedly kicked and punched by a mob of up to eight people after he was chased down a street.

Stringer-Prince, 17, has undergone surgery following the attack on Saturday in which his skull, eye sockets and cheekbone were fractured. His vision may be impaired as a result of nerve damage. His 17-year-old friend, Kevan Brown, was also injured.

A 21-year-old man, Ali Haydor, from Hyde, has been charged with assault in connection with the incident and will appear before Tameside magistrates on Thursday. A 17-year-old boy who was also arrested on suspicion of Section 18 assault has been bailed, pending further inquiries, until 23 April.

The assault in Rochdale happened at about 8.15pm on Saturday 28 January, police said.

Police said both victims, who have not been identified, were walking with friends towards a canal towpath off Sandbrook retail park when they were approached from behind by three men.

The trio ran at them, causing a number of their friends to run off, while the two victims continued to walk along the towpath.

Their attackers are reported to have run off towards Deeplish. One man is described as being Asian, in his mid-20s, around 5ft 10in, with black hair. He wore a long white coat with two pockets over the knees.

The second man is described as being Asian and of stocky build. He wore a black jacket with bright orange stitching on the shoulders and arms. A third alleged attacker is described as being Asian but no further information is known about him.

Police are investigating both incidents as hate crimes, as perceived by the victims, though no racist or other comments were directed at either victim.

Detective Constable Ben Harris from Rochdale CID said: ""This was a completely unprovoked and relentless attack that has left both victims shocked by their ordeal. The 21-year-old man needed hospital treatment for his injuries and the 16-year-old boy was left with visible facial injuries.

""I can understand why this has caused concern within the community. However, we cannot speculate why they were attacked and I do not want anyone to presume this has happened for a specific reason.

""I would urge anyone who was in the area at the time of the attack or may have seen the offenders running in the direction of Deeplish, near to the towpath, to contact police.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/20/three-muslims-convicted-gay-hate-leaflets,"Jury rules that men who handed out leaflets calling for gay people to be killed breached hate crime legislation

Three Muslim men from Derby have become the first people in Britain to be convicted of inciting hatred on the grounds of sexuality after they distributed leaflets calling for gay people to be killed.

In a landmark case, a jury at Derby crown court ruled that Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed had breached hate crime legislation by handing out the leaflets outside the Jama mosque, in Rosehill Street, Derby, in July 2010, as well as putting them through nearby letterboxes.

Sentencing was adjourned until 10 February. Two other men, Mehboob Hussain and Umar Javed, were found not guilty of the same charge.

One leaflet, entitled ""Death Penalty?"", showed an image of a mannequin hanging by the neck from a noose, accompanied by references to homosexual sex.

""The death sentence is the only way this immoral crime can be erased from corrupting society and act as a deterrent for any other ill person who is remotely inclined in this bent way,"" it said. The only dispute among ""the classical authorities"" of Islam was the method employed to carry out the death penalty, the leaflet claimed.

The men had admitted distributing the leaflets but pleaded not guilty to the charges. During the trial, the court heard that Ahmed had told police he did not believe that the views expressed in the Death Penalty? leaflet were wrong, but rather that they expressed what Islam says about homosexuality.

One witness told the jury he felt he was being targeted and feared he would ""be burned"".

After the verdicts, Sue Hemming, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: ""Everyone has a right to be protected by the law and we regard homophobic crimes, along with all hate crimes, as particularly serious because they undermine people's right to feel safe.

""This case was not about curtailing people's religious views or preventing them from educating others about those views – it was that any such views should be expressed in a lawful manner and not incite others to hatred.""

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which came into force in 2010, made it an offence to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The CPS said it had had to establish not only that the leaflets were insulting and abusive, but also that they were threatening and had been distributed with intent to stir up hatred.

A second leaflet distributed by the men showed the word gay laid out as an acronym to read ""God Abhors You"". A third, called ""Turn or Burn"", showed an image of a person who appeared to be burning in a lake of fire, accompanied by the word homosexuals with a red line drawn through it.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/16/derby-muslim-gay-hate-crime-charge,"A 28-year-old man has told a court he felt he was doing his duty as a Muslim by handing out leaflets alleged to have been threatening to gay people.

Kabir Ahmed said he handed a leaflet called ""Death Penalty?"" to a passing policeman and put them through letterboxes around the Madeley Street area of Derby in July 2010 because he was spreading the word of God as taught through Islam.

He said: ""My intention was to do my duty as a Muslim, to inform people of God's word and to give the message on what God says about homosexuality.""

Ahmed, who is married with a nine-month-old daughter, is on trial at Derby crown court charged with stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010.

At the opening of the trial last week the jury of seven men and five women were shown the Death Penalty? leaflet, which shows an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and saying homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty under Islam.

The leaflet states: ""The death sentence is the only way this immoral crime can be erased from corrupting society and act as a deterrent for any other ill person who is remotely inclined in this bent way.""

It continues: ""The only dispute amongst the classical authorities was the method employed in carrying out the penal code,"" and then goes on to offer burning, being flung from a high point such as a mountain or building, or being stoned to death as suitable methods.

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told the court the leaflet was not educational or informative but was simply ""threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty"".

Four other Derby men – Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, and his brother Razwan Javed, 28 – are also charged with the same offence. All five deny the charge.

Giving evidence to the court on Monday, Ahmed said he had handed one of the Death Penalty? leaflets to PC Stephen Gregory on 2 July as he was passing the Jamia Mosque in Rosehill Street following Friday prayers.

Ahmed told the court he said to the officer: ""Something along the lines of 'Is everything OK?' and he said something like, 'Yes, fine,' and I said 'I'm not trying to offend anyone.'""

Ahmed's barrister, Zacharias Miah, asked him whether, if Gregory had told him he was doing something wrong, he would have handed over the bag of leaflets. Ahmed replied: ""Of course, without a shadow of a doubt.""

He also told the court he felt it was his duty as a Muslim to inform and advise people wherever they may be committing sins, and that he would be failing if he did not.

""My duty is not just to better myself but to try and better the society I live in,"" he said. ""We believe we can't just stand by and watch somebody commit a sin, we must try and advise them and urge them to stay away from sin.""

Ahmed said he had studied the texts of many religions, including the Bible and the Torah, to compare what Islam says about subjects such as drugs, alcohol, prostitution and relationships.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/10/muslim-anti-gay-leaflet-hate,"Five men go on trial over leaflet calling for gay people to face death penalty in first prosecution of its kind under new law

Five Muslim men from Derby have gone on trial for allegedly handing out leaflets calling for gay people to be killed in the first ever prosecution under new legislation making such actions a hate crime.

The men, Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, are accused of handing out to passersby and posting through letterboxes a leaflet calling for gay people to be given the death penalty, and stating that gay sex is a great sin that leads to hell.

They are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, the first prosecution under new legislation which came into force in March 2010. They deny the charges.

A jury at Derby crown court heard that the five men had handed out a leaflet entitled The Death Penalty? outside and near the Jamia mosque in Rosehill Street, Derby, in July 2010, as well as putting it through nearby letterboxes. The pamphlet showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose.

The leaflet was one of several that the men were distributing, but the charges relate only to one called The Death Penalty? the jury heard.

Bobbie Cheema, opening the case for the prosecution, said: ""The leaflets you will see are not educational or simply informative. They are, we suggest, threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty.""

A fourth leaflet, entitled Dead Derby, had been found but not distributed, she told the court. It described homosexuality as a ""vile, ugly, cancerous disease"" and stated: ""Gay today, paedophile tomorrow?""

""A word of warning,"" she told the jury of seven men and five women. ""This case is not about, and we must not make it about, an interference with the defendants' freedom of religion or freedom to express their religious views in an attempt to educate or inform people.

""The vast majority of Muslim, and indeed other religious people, or people with no religion but who have strong views about homosexuality, are able to express their views if they wish in a critical but lawful, moderate and self-controlled way. That's one of the rights we have.""

Ali, of Fairfax Road, Derby, faces four counts while Hussain, of Rosehill Street, Normanton, and Umar Javed, of Whittaker Street, Derby, are charged with two counts each. Razwan Javed, of Wilfred Street, Derby, and Kabir Ahmed, of Madeley Street, Derby, are charged with one count each.

The Crown says Ali was charged with four counts because he was the person responsible for the distribution of the leaflets.

Each of the five men admits distributing the leaflets, but Cheema said they would probably put forward various lines of defence.

In police interviews, she told the court, Ahmed had said he did not feel that the views expressed in The Death Penalty? leaflet – which suggested three different ways to murder gay people – were wrong and simply expressed what Islam says about homosexuality, adding that it was his duty as a Muslim to condemn it.

Razwan Javed, Cheema said, had also admitted distributing the leaflets but said it was only to raise awareness about what Islam says about homosexuality and not to frighten or threaten anyone.

Cheema said Ali had approached police a few weeks before a planned Gay Pride parade in Derby to discuss a counter-protest by members of the Muslim community, and was advised that any placards, flyers or speeches that were made should be carefully worded to avoid committing a criminal offence.

He had shown police an A4 page of slogans intended for use on placards with some crossed out by his solicitor and asked police to check out the remaining ones, she said.

Cheema said they contained slogans such as: ""Stay gay and you will pay,"" and ""Adam and Eve, not Steve"".

His request for permission for a counter-protest was eventually refused because he had not applied to the council with enough time before the parade.

""You will have to assess quite how much Mr Ali wanted to carry out a lawful and legal protest and quite how much of what he wanted was a shield he could hide behind from the consequences of what he really hoped to achieve,"" she said.

The trial continues.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/29/anul-bidve-shooting-treated-hate-crime,"The murder of an Indian student who was shot in the head at point-blank range on Boxing Day is being treated as a suspected racist hate crime, police have revealed.

Micro-electronics postgraduate Anuj Bidve, was murdered in the early hours of 26 December as he made his way with nine friends from his hotel in Salford to central Manchester to queue up early for Christmas sales.

Investigators say that although there is no specific evidence of the crime being racially motivated they are responding to those affected by the crime who believe it to be a hate crime.

Five people aged between 16 and 20 remain in police custody on suspicion of murder, including a 17-year-old who handed himself in to police on Tuesday evening, in what police have described as a fast-moving investigation.

Police have found no previous link between 23-year-old Bidve and those involved in the killing, believed to be two white males, which took place at 1.35am.

The ""straight-A"" student from Pune, India who was studying at Lancaster University, had a ""very short conversation"" with the two males before a gun was drawn and aimed at Bidve's head.

The gunman and his associate are thought to have fled to towards the Ordsall estate near the scene of another fatal shooting in September and which has been described by locals as rough.

A Home Office pathologist has confirmed that Bidve died after suffering gun trauma to the head.

Police also said they were working with the Indian high commission and other agencies to help fly the victim's family from India to Manchester in the next few days.

Chief Superintendent Kevin Mulligan, divisional commander for Salford, said: ""We have not established a clear motive for the senseless murder of Anuj, and there is no definitive evidence pointing to it being racially motivated. However, we are treating this as a hate crime based on the growing perceptions within the community it was motivated by hate.

""What I want to stress is that regardless of the motive, it does not change the way detectives from our major incident team are investigating this murder and from day one we have pursued every possible line of inquiry to identify who is responsible for this despicable crime, including CCTV trawls, detailed forensic and ballistic investigations, witness statements and house-to-house inquiries.

""Thanks to the work of staff across the whole of Greater Manchester police, we have made five arrests and all five remain in custody. I cannot comment for obvious reasons about the progress of the investigation but I would like to again take this opportunity to thank people in our community who have come forward and given us information. ""

Police said they were duty bound to investigate crimes as hate crimes if they are reported as such. A police source added that the classification also allowed officers to pursue other avenues and leads which would not otherwise be open to them later on in the investigation.

Mulligan confirmed that no murder weapon has been recovered. ""We really need that support to continue and I want to urge anyone who knows something to call us. As yet, we have not recovered the murder weapon and I want to implore people to be brave and come forward if they know the whereabouts of that weapon.""

Dr Bharati Kar, the general secretary of the Greater Manchester Bengali and Hindu cultural association, said racism was far less of a problem now that it was two decades ago and that her own children had not reported any racist incidents to her recently.

Kar said that she was very pleased that Greater Manchester police were taking the reports that the crime was racially motivated seriously.

""I'll be glad if the actual cause is discovered [along with] the killer,"" she said.

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, local resident Susan Wilson, 57, said: ""This lovely young man has come here to further his education and people whose lives revolve around violence have killed him. For this to happen in our neighbourhood is devastating and we're all very upset about it. It's like the whole country is looking at Ordsall now because of this.

""The area doesn't have a great reputation but we want people to know what's happened doesn't represent this area or the people living here.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/29/anuj-bidve-shooting-hate-crime-police,"Detectives investigating the murder of the 23-year-old Indian student say it may have been racially motivated

The murder of an Indian student who was shot at point-blank range on Boxing Day is being treated as a hate crime, police have said.

Anuj Bidve, 23, was shot in the side of the head as he walked with friends near their hotel in Salford, Greater Manchester, in the early hours of the morning.

Five people have now been arrested over the incident.

A 20-year-old man was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning, Greater Manchester police said.

A 16-year-old boy, two boys aged 17, and a 19-year-old man are also being held on suspicion of murder.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Chief Superintendent Kevin Mulligan said detectives were not ruling out that the shooting might have been racially motivated.

He said: ""A racially motivated crime is when there is actual evidence to show that it is the actual motivation for the crime.""

He said a hate crime ""by definition, is something that a community or anyone perceives is racially motivated"".

Bidve was in a group of nine male and female Indian students visiting Manchester for a short break over the Christmas holidays.

Police said the students, who had not been drinking, were walking from their hotel towards the city centre and became aware of two men on the other side of the street.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/08/transgender-disabled-murder-harsher-penalty,"Starting point for sentencing to double under first government strategy to tackle prejudice against transgender people

Murderers who kill disabled or transgender people in hate crimes are to face much longer prison sentences under government proposals.

The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, said the ""starting point"" for judges sentencing in disability and transgender murder cases was to double from 15 to 30 years.

The move will bring sentencing in these cases in line with murders in which race, religion or sexual orientation is an aggravating factor.

It follows the jailing in September of Leon Fyle, 23, for life for the murder of Destiny Lauren, a transgender woman who worked as a prostitute. Fyle, who was convicted after a retrial, was given a 21-year tariff.

The proposal is part of the government's first strategy to tackle transgender prejudice in England and Wales. The equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, said the strategy included support for transgender pupils in schools, measures to tackle discrimination in accessing public services and greater steps to protect transgender people's privacy, including not having their transgender identity revealed at work without their consent.

Ministers are to introduce amendments to the legal aid, sentencing and punishment bill now going through parliament to double the starting point in murder cases. It will also allow judges to pass tougher sentences for any crime in which hostility towards transgender or disabled people is an aggravating factor.

Clarke said that hate crime left sections of society living in fear and at risk of unprovoked violence. ""The courts already treat hate crime seriously and aggravate sentences accordingly,"" he said. ""These proposals make clear offenders should be in no doubt that they face a more severe sentence for these unacceptable crimes.""

The ""starting points"" for sentencing killers are laid down in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, which provides judges with guidance on determining the minimum term under a life sentence for murder. Any aggravating or mitigating factors present in the case are then taken into account by the judge before reaching the final minimum term or tariff.

Featherstone said the first transgender equality plan was needed because statistics showed that 70% of children who were uncertain about their gender were subject to bullying. The official figures also show that 88% of transgender employees experienced discrimination or harassment at work, and that hate crime against transgender people had recently risen by 14% to 357 incidents last year.

""Too many transgender people still face prejudice at every stage of their lives, from playground bullying, to being overlooked for jobs or targeted for crime,"" said Featherstone. ""Like everyone else, transgender people have the right to be accepted, to live their lives free of harassment, and to be free to achieve any ambition they choose.""

The action plan includes reforms to health services, including clearer guidance to doctors; changing how gender identification is represented in passports; and new steps to protect privacy at work.

April Ashley, who became the first Briton to have sex reassignment surgery in 1960, said: ""I think there are so many support groups out there unlike when I did my transition 51 years ago when there was no help at all. Today's announcement shows we are moving forward to breaking down barriers and educating people.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/23/amish-arrested-haircut-attacks,"US authorities have raided the compound of a breakaway Amish religious group and arrested seven men on federal hate crime charges in haircutting attacks against Amish men and women.

Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the traditional Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry. Several members of the breakaway group forcefully cut the beards and hair of Amish men and women in September and October, authorities said.

Among those arrested Wednesday were the group's leader, Sam Mullet, and three of his sons, said Mike Tobin, a spokesman for the US attorney's office in Cleveland. He said authorities were planning to hold a news conference on Wednesday afternoon to explain why they charged the men with hate crimes.

The attacks struck at the core of the Amish identity and tested their principles.

The Amish strongly believe that they must be forgiving in order for God to forgive them, which often means handing out their own punishment and not reporting crimes to law enforcement.

The Amish have a modest lifestyle and are deeply religious. Their traditions of travelling by horse and buggy and foregoing most modern conveniences distance themselves from the outside world. Ohio has an estimated Amish population of just under 61,000, second only to Pennsylvania in the US.

Mullet told the Associated Press in October that he did not order the haircutting, but didn't stop his sons and others from carrying it out. He said the goal was to send a message to local Amish that they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they were treating Mullet and his community.

""They changed the rulings of our church here, and they're trying to force their way down our throat, make us do like they want us to do, and we're not going to do that,"" Mullet said.

The seven men were sleeping when the FBI and local police showed up at their homes before dawn Wednesday, Jefferson County sheriff Fred Abdalla said. All were arrested without incident, he said.

The attacks came amid long-simmering tension between Mullet's group, which he established in 1995, and Amish bishops. Arlene Miller, the wife of one victim, said several bishops had condemned Mullet's decision to excommunicate several members who previously left his community, saying there was no spiritual justification for his action.

Five men were charged in state court last month in Holmes County, the heart of Ohio's Amish country, in an attack on an Amish bishop and his son. They allegedly were held down while men used scissors and a clipper to cut their beards. Similar alleged attacks were under investigation in Amish communities in eastern and northeastern Ohio.

Two of the men arrested Wednesday, Mullet's sons Johnny and Lester, were among the five charged last month. The charges are pending.

Authorities have said some Amish refused to press charges, following their practice of avoiding involvement in the courts.

One couple refused to press charges even after acknowledging that their two sons and another man came into their house, held them down, and cut the father's beard and the mother's hair. But others have said they decided to press charges to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/22/zakia-jafri-india-narendra-modi,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/nov/20/teenage-football-fan-sectarian-violence,"John Hynd, 16, received death threats after speaking out against the rising incidence of hate crime in Scotland, where the religious divide goes far beyond the Old Firm terraces

John Hynd has received death threats simply for joining a website campaigning against the sectarian divide in the west of Scotland. ""I used to be a bigot,"" he says. ""I'd go to the game – I'm a Rangers fan – and happily be singing Billy Boys along with my dad and his friends. Then I just thought, 'Hold on a minute. I've got Catholic friends. I'm going out with a Catholic. I don't want to be up to my knees in Fenian blood like the song says. I don't want this.'""

His stand has not only estranged him from his staunchly Protestant family but, after posting his phone number in a message on the site, he received calls from a man threatening to kill him. Hynd is only 16.

New figures released this weekend by the Scottish government show that religious hate crime in Scotland rose by 10% in the past year, with 60% committed by under-30s. A third of the charges related directly to football and 58% were against Catholics, 37% against Protestants.

On Tuesday the Edinburgh parliament will begin to debate controversial new legislation, nicknamed the ""Football Act"", which will give police more powers to clamp down on the sectarian chanting at matches that has landed both Rangers and Celtic in trouble with football's authorities this year.

On Monday two men will appear at Glasgow's high court accused of sending explosive devices to three people, including the Celtic manager, Neil Lennon, and to the Glasgow offices of Cairde Na h'Éireann (Friends of Ireland).

Defending one of the men is Donald Findlay, one of Scotland's leading lawyers, who had to resign as a director of Rangers after being filmed singing the sectarian song The Sash, and who has faced censure from his professional governing body over sectarianism.

The new crime statistics mean that almost 3,000 people have been charged with religiously-motivated crime since 2003. The Catholic church has described ""entrenched hostility"" to its members – 16% of Scotland's population.

Others have blamed the church for keeping Scotland's schools segregated along faith lines. But while the political debate rages, a grassroots fightback is quietly gaining traction.

At Hynd's school, Calderside Academy in Blantyre, a town eight miles south of central Glasgow, Yvonne Donald, 26, is showing him and his classmates a photograph of another 16-year-old, Mark Scott.

""Mark was walking home from a game, not an Old Firm game, at 5.15 in the afternoon,"" she tells them. He had tucked his Celtic scarf into his jacket as his mum had told him to. It wasn't enough to stop a group of Rangers fans heckling him. Then one of them cut his throat through to his spine in an unprovoked attack. The next picture is of Mark's white-faced schoolfriends carrying his coffin.

Mark's killer, Jason Campbell, now 37, who was released from jail this year, came from a family steeped in hatred – his father and uncle had both served prison sentences for their involvement in a Ulster Volunteer Force explosives conspiracy in Glasgow.

""This is a full-on example of sectarianism,"" says Donald, an education officer with the anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth. ""For Mark it all ended because of that shirt."" Nil By Mouth was founded by Mark Scott's friend Cara Henderson in 1999 as the only charity dedicated to fighting sectarianism. It almost closed due to lack of funding last year.

Its campaign director, David Scott, is optimistic, however, about the impact they can have. ""Two centuries of sectarianism in Scotland and it took a 15-year-old schoolgirl to stand up to it. That's something and it is the young who will change this.""

Scott talks to the class briefly before Donald asks if they think he is a Catholic or a Protestant. All hands go up for him being a Protestant. ""He's just got that look about him,"" says one boy.

It's the kind of response that Alison Logan knows well. ""You will ask children, what is a Catholic? What is a Protestant? And we've had answers like, 'A Catholic is ginger and aggressive,' and, 'Protestants are people who don't go to church,'"" said Logan, social inclusion officer at Glasgow City Council's Sense Over Sectarianism project, aiming to unpick religious bigotry through twinning between denominational and non-denominational schools as well as drama and art workshops. ""They are astonished when they go into each other's schools and find the classrooms look the same. Suddenly they realise they can be pals.""

Football shirts feature in their work too. ""We get them to try on the other team's shirt, and you do get situations where they'll say, 'I'm not wearing that,' with adults as well as kids. So it's about showing them it's just a shirt, showing them that when you're too busy screaming abuse at the other team's fans you've forgotten to support your own team.""

Logan is optimistic about the future. ""Teachers and parents are seeing a difference. When we started we were told sectarianism isn't a problem in Scotland; it's people like you stirring it up. It was a big taboo that we kept a lid on. Scotland remained one step behind in dealing with its bigotry, perhaps 10 years behind where we are with racism.

""Now there are debates happening up and down the country. There's guys talking about it in the pubs. We're having the conversation about the rights and wrongs. There's a real change. There's a real growing commitment, a groundswell of grassroots behaviour.""

Hynd believes that his generation can bring change . ""People that are spouting all this nonsense, they're just following their dad, who's following their grandfather, who's following his. Football is football. I love Rangers, but I'm not up to my knees in anyone's blood.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2011/sep/13/gemma-hayter-disability-hate-crime-abuse,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/12/disability-hate-crime-benefits-police,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/10/christian-mp-inquiry-religious-discrimination,"A select committee-style inquiry on Christianity is to be held in order to clarify how the law affects believers, amid increasing claims of religious discrimination and persecution.

The public hearings, scheduled to last for about three months this autumn, will invite peers and politicians to examine legislation on hate crime and equality and evaluate whether changes are needed.

The inquiry is the idea of Gary Streeter MP, a Christian who chairs the cross-party group Christians in Parliament. He said that, while there was religious freedom in Britain, some groups were ""whipping up an alternative view and generating fear"" where there did not need to be any. He said: ""That fear is growing, that voice is growing. There is a particular problem. In the last 12 months, we have had legal cases that provoked concern. These now need to be tackled.""

Christian Legal Centre, which is at the forefront of representing those who feel they are being discriminated against in the workplace because of their beliefs, said earlier this year it had about 50 cases on its books and received up to five calls a day from Christians seeking to take action against employers for failing to respect their faith.

Their clients have included Colin Atkinson, an electrician who wanted to display a crucifix in his van, and Owen and Eunice Johns, who refused to tell foster children in their care that homosexuality was acceptable.

Streeter said the panel would invite submissions from legal professionals, businesses, individuals and social policy groups from faith and non-faith backgrounds.

""The outcome of our inquiry might be that the law needs to be nudged back in certain areas and we won't shy away from saying so,"" he said.

""The public at large don't care what we do but, in the Christian community, there is a measure of concern about the issue. They will be pleased to see Christian parliamentarians doing something. They will be pleased to receive some reassurance that the fear whipped up is not necessary.

""It's only people of the Christian faith running up into the law; secularists aren't doing that. We are not putting one group of people above one another.""

The MP's move came as the Church of England grappled with the issue of religious freedom at this weekend's General Synod meeting in York.

The chair of its public affairs council, Dr Phillip Giddings, told the legislative arm of the Church of England that some employers had ""interpreted the law in ways which seem to assume that reasonable respectful expressions of faith, are, almost by definition, offensive"".

He said: ""This is a cause of great concern. We shall continue to monitor the emerging case law on how far employers can lawfully limit the ability of Christians to manifest their faith in the workplace.""

Synod member Alison Ruoff asked if he was aware of an increasing marginalisation of Christians, leading to persecution. Giddings replied: ""I am well aware that many Christians believe that to be the case. We are reflecting those views in our dealings with government.""

The bishop of Bradford, Nick Baines, welcomed the inquiry: ""It will be a good thing to have people in parliament doing this kind of thing. They can nail down some of the myths.

""I don't believe Christians are being persecuted. Having said that, I do think there is still a degree of religious illiteracy which is prejudiced against Christians in some circumstances. To say we're being persecuted is nonsense.""

Trevor Phillips, who chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed last month that the person most likely to ""feel slighted"" because of their religion was an evangelical Christian.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he said there were a lot of Christian activist voices who appeared ""bent on stressing the kind of persecution that I don't think really exists in this country"".",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/28/us-death-penalty-victim,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jun/01/disability-hate-crime-keith-philpott,"Keith Philpott was killed by so-called 'mates' because of his learning disability. In a new book, Katharine Quarmby asks what can be done to prevent this type of hate crime

He was a lovely lad, peaceful and quiet, says Pauline, his mother, looking at a photo of Keith Philpott as a baby with his twin brother Kevin, in her neat sitting room in Billingham, near Middlesbrough.

The twins were born prematurely, in November 1968, into a close-knit family with four older siblings, Carol, Stephen, Michael and Christine. They were diagnosed at around one with learning difficulties, and attended specialist schools throughout their childhood. Both left school unable to read or write much, but were prized locally for their handiness in repairing bicycles for children.

Christine tells me that Keith wanted to live independently after he came back from a spell in London, where he had attended college and lived with their brother, Stephen. Keith's flat seemed perfect. It was just 15 minutes' walk from his mother, and near other family members.

Keith was unemployed and filled his days with cleaning, cycle rides and visits to relatives, eating tea at his mother's house every night as he couldn't cook. But this tranquil existence was cut short in March 2005.

On 24 March, Pauline recalls, she had prepared one of Keith's favourite meals, sausages and mash, for his tea. But Keith never came. She, and other family members rang Keith's phone, again and again. Christine recalls: ""It just went to voicemail, and he was never without his phone, it was his lifeline, so we knew something was wrong.""

The family went to his flat and peered in through his bathroom window. They saw that the door was off its hinges and phoned the police. Officers broke the front door down to gain entry.

Inside, they found Keith's dead body. During the trial of Sean Swindon and Michael Peart for his murder, prosecutor Graham Reeds, said: ""It is the pathologist's opinion that the deceased has first been intimidated or physically overwhelmed, then gagged and bound, then placed on the floor and assaulted by multiple punches, kicks, stamps to the head and face. Once reduced to unconsciousness or near death, he has then been stabbed in the abdomen in a peculiar manner producing a large, gaping abdominal wound. Bleeding may well have been the proximate cause of death.""

The attack had stretched over several hours. Eventually, the two men left Keith dying on the kitchen floor. They had stolen the ring off his finger and his bicycle.

So what had provoked this vicious attack? Several months before his murder, Swindon's teenage sister had become friendly with Keith, who was 36. Reeds stressed that there was no evidence of any sexual element to the friendship, but that Swindon's sister complained to her family that Keith was sending sexually suggestive texts to her.

She, meanwhile, continued to go round to Keith's flat, to which she had been given a key, and sometimes ""dossed there"", according to witnesses. She smoked there, and brought boys and girlfriends to the flat.

The defence counsel for Sean Swindon, Aidan Marron, agreed with the prosecution that his sister's allegations were pivotal in the attack. He said in court: ""They were accusations which were uppermost and at the vanguard of the defendant's mind when he went there on that particular occasion … [Her] accounts, did, in fact, fuel the mind of her brother.""

The family had warned Keith not to associate with his new ""friend"" and her family, but had never thought that the nasty texts he was getting from her brother were anything but silly. They were worried that Keith was buying the sister beer, with what little money he had, and had said it would be best if she didn't have a key. But because he wanted to be independent there was a limit to how much they felt they could step in.

Swindon and Peart were convicted of Keith Philpott's murder. Swindon's sister was never charged, and there was no suggestion that she was involved in the violent attack that killed him. She lives four streets away from the Philpott family.

Over the last four years I have examined many similar cases to that of Keith Philpott, as part of an investigation into what has become known as disability hate crime.

In Scapegoat: how we are failing disabled people in Britain, published next week, the results of this investigation show that there is an even smaller sub-set of crimes – called ""mate crimes"" – where people with learning difficulties are groomed and exploited by so-called friends – who then go on to assault them and, in the worst cases, murder them.

There are striking similarities in many of the cases. In eight similar crimes – the murders of Steven Hoskin, Laura Milne, Andrew Gardner, Sean Miles, Albert Adams, Michael Gilbert, the torture and imprisonment of Kevin Davies and the manslaughter of Shaowei He – the people who befriended their victims stole from them, and the false friendship and the scapegoating of the victim was usually for a sexual offence (and, in all the cases above, falsely). Many cases involve women as instigators of violence. All too often the assaults were dismissed by social care agencies before they culminated in murder.

Social isolation

Scapegoat analyses many such crimes and the motivations behind them. Many come about because people with learning difficulties living independently become socially isolated. They yearn for friendship – with fatal results. Keith Philpott had a loving family, unlike many others. But, as Reeds said, ""he wanted to be friends with everyone"" and was ""very trusting of people"".

David Grundy, who runs the Safety Net project in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, an initiative that supports people with learning difficulties to live independently, says that knowing the difference between real and false friendship is key. ""There is a sense"", Grundy observes, ""for many people with learning disabilities that any kind of friendship is better than no friendship at all. We are having to teach people to recognise the difference between friendship and exploitation.""

And there is another problem too. Many people with learning difficulties find it hard to navigate the etiquette of everyday encounters, leaving them vulnerable to unfounded accusations. In addition, I found when I looked back in history that folk memories of pernicious stereotypes of people with learning difficulties and their sexual proclivities, are proving very hard to shift.

So where do we go from here? Our society is poisoned by discrimination and prejudice against disabled people. But there are concrete steps that we can take. One would be to profile perpetrators, so that we can understand who they are, their motivations and identify danger signals earlier.

Chief constable Stephen Otter of Devon and Cornwall police, who speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers on equality, would welcome this. He says: ""You realise how little the authorities still know about the motivation that leads people to do such horrible things to other human beings.""

The government should also fund an offending behaviour programme for disability hate crime offenders, as it does for those convicted of racial and sexual violence, that disabled people should be involved in running.

There must be better support for disabled people living alone, particularly those with learning difficulties or mental health conditions who are most likely to be targeted.

As David Congdon, head of campaigns and policy at learning disability charity Mencap says no one wants to go back to the bad old days when many disabled people were locked up in institutions, but poorly funded care in the community is not good enough either.

""To pretend that some people with learning disabilities don't need support is frankly immoral. I can think of people I know, with a moderate disability, they can survive well, but if someone targeted them, I think they could be in trouble,"" he says.

Later this month Mencap is launching a three-year campaign on disability hate crime, saying that it blights lives and leaves people afraid to participate as citizens in everyday life.

We need to understand the markers of disability hate crime, acknowledge that it occurs and charge it as such.

As the Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into the case of Fiona Pilkington found last week (Fiona killed herself and her disabled daughter Frankie after years of targeted harassment), the police failed to view what was happening to her as disability hate crime, dubbing it antisocial behaviour instead.

Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, told me in an interview for the book: ""You have got to mark the behaviour [as a disability hate crime] because if you don't it sends out the worst possible message, that that part of the case doesn't matter.""

We need better training too, but using the information the police already have and deploying it better is key. Putting cases together and pulling out the common themes through perpetrator analysis and victim risk assessment is crucial.

And the law needs to be reformed so that murders motivated by hostility towards a victim's disability are sentenced as such. Section 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which advises the judiciary on the sentencing tariff, provides for sentence uplift for murders motivated by hatred of race, religion or homophobia – but not disability.

Back in Billingham, Christine Philpott says of her brother's murder: ""They wouldn't have preyed on him if he was non-disabled, they knew he was an easy target.""

• Scapegoat: how we are failing disabled people in Britain, is published by Portobello Press on 6 June, priced £14.99. To order a copy for £12.79 with free UK p&p go to theguardian.com/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846. Katharine Quarmby is speaking on June 1 at the Hay Festival.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/24/diability-hate-crime-fiona-pilkington,"A combination of government cuts and a sluggish official response to tackling disability hate crime means it is inevitable there will be future cases like that of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her severely disabled daughter after years of abuse from local youths, experts warn.

Speaking ahead of the publication of the Independent Police Complaints Committee's (IPCC) report into the Pilkington case on Tuesday, which is expected to heavily criticise Leicestershire police, campaigners and academics say hate crime motivated by disability remains greatly under-reported and, all too often, ignored or underplayed by some forces.

""There's a whole series of problems stacking up. There will be other Pilkingtons, sadly,"" said Professor Alan Roulstone, an expert on disability hate crime at Northumbria University.

Pilkington, then 38, died alongside her severely disabled 18-year-old daughter, Francecca, in October 2007 after driving to a layby and setting the car on fire.

An inquest two years later heard how the family had been kept virtual prisoners in their home in Barwell, Leicestershire, by local youths who threw stones and kept up a relentless stream of abuse. The jury ruled that failings by police, who Pilkington contacted 33 times during seven years of torment, contributed to the deaths.

The case highlighted the apparent failure of many police forces to track, record and respond properly to crimes motivated by victims' disabilities, particularly involving people with learning difficulties. However, despite many protestations of change, too little has been done since then, Roulstone said.

""The police are beginning to address the problem at a strategic level, that's for sure. What is less clear is how that is translating into operational policing."" A key issue, he said, was money to train officers to recognise and respond to disability hate offences: ""With the current cuts, hate crime is slipping down the agenda. It wouldn't be right to name police forces, but certainly more than one force has said to me they don't have the money for training updates. Police officers understanding disability is a challenge, and very few forces manage to roll out training which makes sense to officers at the ground level.""

The result is that many disabled people are still reluctant to go to the police, and when they do, they struggle to be taken seriously, he said: ""There's something unique to disability-related politics, that people might be perceived to actually be the problem rather than the victim.""

Mark Gale, a policy officer for Mencap, which is releasing a major report on disability hate crime next month, said: ""I've been speaking to focus groups and some are saying they are still very disappointed with the police. In one case a man told me he called police several times to report incidents and was eventually told by a call centre that he was being recorded as a nuisance caller.

""Police don't seem to be taking the low-level incidents, as they would see them, seriously. And we know from Fiona Pilkington and other cases that these can escalate.""

Gale added: ""People tell us the police don't understand how to communicate with people with a learning disability. They don't even necessarily know how to recognise what a learning disability is, or what sort of support they can give. There are some improvements but at the moment it doesn't seem to be going far enough or quick enough.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/may/18/scotland-hate-crime-figures-rise,"Religious and racist bigots will face zero intolerance, warn country's first minister and solicitor general

One of Scotland's most senior prosecutors has said there will be ""zero tolerance"" of religious and racist bigots after the latest hate crime figures showed a 10% increase in charges for sectarianism.

Frank Mulholland QC, the solicitor general, said religious bigotry was being tackled by an ""extremely robust"" prosecution policy after the number of cases reported to prosecutors increased to nearly 700 last year, the highest level in five years.

The latest statistics, which also showed that charges of racism reported to prosecutors fell by 3.6% to 4,165, follows the dramatic escalation in sectarian attacks and disputes in recent months centred on Glasgow's Celtic and Rangers football clubs.

Two men were arrested last week for explosives offences after allegedly being involved in a parcel bombing campaign against Celtic manager Neil Lennon and other prominent Catholics, including Lennon's lawyer, and an Irish republican group.

Rangers and Celtic fans are being prosecuted for alleged bigotry and racist offences on the internet and at football matches.

Earlier this week it emerged that the former Rangers' director and prominent lawyer Donald Findlay QC was sent a knife in the post.

Alex Salmond, speaking in the Scottish parliament as he was confirmed as first minister of Scotland, said the country should be proud of its reputation for hospitality and religious and racial tolerance, not for bigotry.

Clearly shaken by the damage caused to his party's message that Scotland is inclusive and multi-ethnic, he told the parliament that being Scottish included those Catholics who fled famines in Ireland.

""Modern Scotland is also built on equality. We will not tolerate sectarianism as a parasite in our national game of football or anywhere else in this society,"" he said.

Salmond's government has been accused of neglecting anti-sectarianism. Until a series of violent on- and off-the-field disputes involving Celtic and Rangers earlier this year, anti-bigotry charities faced closure due to funding cuts.

The first minister has since promised a renewed crackdown on sectarianism, including tougher legal sanctions and policing of online bigotry.

The last five years of figures show no decline in sectarianism offences; the highest annual number of prosecutions hit 704 in 2005/06, dropping slightly to 699 in 2006/07.

The figures also included the first full year for reporting of a new offence of homophobic and anti-disabled bigotry: there were 448 charges reported aggravated by sexual orientation, 50 charges aggravated by attacks on a person's disability, and 14 with an aggravation of transgender identity.

Mulholland said that last year 94% of sectarian offences detected by police were prosecuted.

""I hope this sends a strong message to anybody who still feels that such behaviour is acceptable – there is no place for them in a modern Scotland,"" he said. ""They can expect to be met with a zero-tolerance prosecution policy.""

The Crown Office, Scotland's prosecution agency, is carrying out a study into the religious content of bigotry offences after the Catholic church insisted that Catholics were bearing the brunt of sectarianism in Scotland.

The last study, in 2006, found two-thirds of reported offences were anti-Catholic in nature and a third were football related.

The church said those findings showed that, based on overall population, Catholics were six times more likely than Protestants to be a victim of bigotry.

That figure is contested by Professor Steve Bruce, an expert on loyalism and sectarianism at Aberdeen University.

He argues the figures are much less clear since there was no evidence about the identity of the victims, and many offences took place in areas with large Catholic populations.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/25/gay-rights-new-jersey,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/apr/01/uefa-poland-ukraine-2012-hate-crime,"A Uefa-sponsored investigation has uncovered nearly 200 serious hate crimes at recent football matches in Poland and Ukraine, heightening fears that the 2012 European Championship finals could be marred by racist incidents.

The report, which was compiled by the Uefa-sponsored East European Monitoring Centre, discloses disturbances including antisemitic chants and banners, hooligans abusing their own team's black players and violent attacks against anti-racist groups.

The report will be released on Sunday, 15 months before the two countries host Euro 2012 and a week after an international match between Poland and Lithuania ended with clashes between supporters and police. There have been 133 reported incidents in Poland over the 18 months, according to the report, 56 of which related to the open display of racist or fascist symbols.

In March 2010, at a first division match between Polonia Warszawa and Arka Gdynia, hooligans unfurled one banner featuring a Totenkopf skull and crossbones symbol identical to that used by the Nazi SS, and displayed another which read: ""Stop Islamizacji Europy"" (""Stop Islamisation of Europe"").

Black players in Poland have experienced hostility at many grounds and there have been 20 reported ""anti-black"" hate crimes, according to the report. Supporters of Lechia Gdansk demanded last year that the Brazilian Luiz Carlos Santos Deleu be the last black player at the club, according to the report.

There were 36 reported antisemitic incidents at Polish football matches. One of the most shocking took place during a third division derby between Stal Rzeszow and Resovia Rzeszow. Resovia fans exhibited a giant banner showing a silhouette of a man wearing a characteristic yarmulke in the blue and white colours of Israel. Another banner was displayed above the caricature, carrying the words: ""Death to hook noses"".

While Ukraine has had fewer – 62 – serious hate crimes reported at football matches, it has seen some of the most violent incidents. In August 2010, around 30 Arsenal Kyiv supporters, known for their left-leaning views, were attacked by 50 neo-Nazi fans of Dynamo Kyiv. The attackers shouted ""Heil Hitler"" and ""white power"" and an Arsenal Kyiv fan was stabbed three times in the back. Others suffered multiple injuries.

Uefa's director of Euro 2012, Martin Kallen, told a conference last week that Polish fans have a ""huge image problem"".

""What we saw at last Friday's match [between Poland and Lithuania] was not a very good picture to see that happening in a stadium. We and the Polish government are concerned. They are taking this seriously and will have changes in the next month.""

After Poland's friendly in Lithuania 60 fans were detained after bottles, flares and benches were thrown at police. The Uefa president, Michel Platini, said in October that hooligans would be treated with ""zero tolerance"" at Euro 2012.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/28/gay-hate-crime-pair-charged-derby-first-prosecution,"Two men have been arrested and charged with stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, in the first prosecution of its kind. Razwan Javed, 30, and Kabir Ahmed, 27, are accused of handing out a leaflet headed The Death Penalty? outside the Jamia mosque in Derby in July 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service said. The leaflet is understood to have called for gay people to be executed. It was also put through letterboxes the same month. The pair are expected to appear at Derby magistrates court today. CPS lawyer Sue Hemming said: ""This is the first ever prosecution for this offence.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/dec/22/merseyside-police-sex-workers-protect,"The force declared crimes against sex workers as 'hate crime' in 2006, and the results have been dramatic

Temperatures at night in Liverpool have fallen as low as -16C this week, but that hasn't deterred the city's street sex workers from going out to earn enough money for their next fix of drugs.

""You never know when you get into a car with a man whether you're going to be raped or paid,"" said Julie, a woman in her 40s who has sold sex on the streets of the city intermittently for more than two decades.

Similar scenarios are repeated across the UK. But something different is happening in Liverpool. Between 2000 and 2005 there were six sex worker murders in the city, two of them still unsolved.

Liverpool had the highest sex worker murder rate after London and Glasgow, and police decided that something radical had to be done to reverse the trend.

They realised that sex workers had a wealth of intelligence about violent criminals, but for as long as they mistrusted the police they wouldn't pass it on.

So the police began to build links with projects supporting sex workers, notably Armistead, an NHS project providing support and healthcare to sex workers, which is part of Liverpool community health NHS trust.

While minor offences such as soliciting are still pursued, the police shifted their focus to protecting sex workers and building relationships of trust with them.

In 2006, Merseyside police was the first and so far only force in the country to declare crimes against sex workers as ""hate crime"".

The results have been dramatic. In the five years before the new way of working began to take effect in 2007, there was just one conviction for a series of assaults against sex workers.

Now the overall conviction rate for crimes against sex workers is 84%, with a 67% conviction rate for rape. The national average conviction rate for rape is just 6.5%.

Last year in Liverpool there were 10 convictions for rape and several more men have been charged and are awaiting trial in 2011, some for multiple rapes as well as other violent offences.

Detective Superintendent Tim Keelan said: ""These women are very vulnerable, and our priority is to protect them. We are seeing interest from a number of other police forces in our model and we have set up a Unity team – the only joint police and CPS team in the country – to help prosecute offenders.""

Julie was a victim of rape earlier this year and is deeply traumatised by what happened to her. Her evidence has helped to charge her attacker with rape.

""I thought I was going to die during the attack. Since I reported the rape, I've had so much support from the police and Armistead. Without them I don't think I'd be able to go through with testifying when the case comes to court, because I'm absolutely terrified of facing that man again.""

""Sadly, this model isn't being replicated in many other areas of the UK,"" said Rosie Campbell of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects. ""The proactive approach we're seeing from Merseyside police is needed across the UK.

""Many of the laws surrounding sex work make it difficult for sex workers to trust the police. Soliciting laws directly criminalise them so the people who are there to protect them can also arrest them.""

Armistead, in common with other sex-work projects, uses a system of ""ugly mugs"" where women can report attacks and give a detailed description of their attacker. With their permission this information is passed on to the police.

Ugly mug reports in Liverpool have been key to catching offenders. But these reports, which contain vital intelligence, are not shared nationally. As a result, crucial information about offenders who move around the country is missed.

The Association of Chief Police Officers is backing calls from the UK Network of Sex Work Projects to make the system national. Members of the network are about to submit research to the Home Office about the benefits of making the scheme national.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/03/alice-spring-murder-racism,"When an Aboriginal man was killed by five white youths in Alice Springs last year, it was the latest race-hate crime in an area plagued by violence. But the lenient sentences handed down to the ""Ute 5"" have sparked alarm that there will be a racial backlash in the Australian outback

One after the other, the photographs of the dead man fall. There is Kwementyaye walking Waffles the dog on the beach; there he is on the platform of Alice Springs station; there he is blowing his birthday candles out, ""surrounded by girls,"" says his fiancée, Jade. ""And smiling. He was always smiling."" And then I see it – the saddest picture of all. It's Jade with Kwementyaye just a few weeks before his death. It's shocking to see how different she looked before he died; before she knew the full story of the beating, the racist taunts and the firing of the gun; before all the rage and injustice that was to follow the phone call on that cold Saturday morning last July.

The problem with sadness is that it is invisible. I couldn't see it, two hours ago, when I walked into the house that Jade Keil and Kwementyaye Ryder thought they'd spend the rest of their lives in. I couldn't see it as she pottered about making coffee, fussed over her uneaten carrot cake and talked me through the events of his death and the subsequent trial. Of course, misery is detectable only in its works, and I manage to grasp something of the sorrow and bedlam that Jade has been through when I glimpse the old photograph of her. She's slim, 30kg lighter, and her face shows none of the strange damage that bereavement has inflicted – the lines beneath her eyes like bruises, the blemishes and whorls like cuts.

The phone call came on 26 July last year. It was Kwementyaye's elder brother Darryl. He was sobbing. ""Where are you? You don't know, do you? Get round here now. It's my bros. They've found him at the bottom of Anzac Hill. He's dead.""

The first feeling was no feeling at all. Jade simply put the phone down. She'd met Kwementyaye two and a half years earlier, in Bojangles bar in Alice Springs. She was a relative newcomer to Alice. She was 28 and had travelled all over Australia, but she liked it here and she definitely liked the look of the handsome Alice-born native in the flashy cowboy hat. Protected from shyness by an armour of beer, she walked up and pinched his bum. They got together immediately. They made plans. They would work, save and marry. They would travel to southeast Asia.

How can all of that disappear in the space of a phone call? For Jade, it was simply too much to grasp.

The last time Therese Ryder saw her son Kwementyaye, he was dancing to country music. He'd just returned from Trephina Gorge, where he worked as a trainee ranger and was singing and clapping to his favourite tunes before a beery night out. The next morning, an old school friend of Kwementyaye's knocked on the door. Therese laughed when she saw him – he was dressed as a policeman.

""Why are you dressed like that?"" she said.

""I'm a police officer now, Mrs Ryder.""

When he told her why he'd come, she screamed.

It was the sight of Therese and her family, sitting on the floor wailing and crying, that finally triggered Jade's tears. But there was mystery, too. How did Kwementyaye come to have abrasions and swelling on his face, arms, forehead and leg and a 3cm laceration on the back of his head? He wasn't the violent kind. He'd never been in trouble with the police. Perhaps, they thought, he'd been in a car crash. Soon, the police came with darker news: they believed Kwementyaye had been murdered.

In the streets and pubs and dusty camps of Alice Springs there were whispers and dread and fury; some heard rumours of white men fleeing the scene; others warned of riot and revenge. Bloody memories began to rouse themselves from the floor of the town's collective conscious. Worried, the police announced that race was not a motive in the crime. When reporters asked how they could know this when they didn't have any suspects, they replied: ""That's just what we're saying.""

On the morning of Kwementyaye's death, local artist Matty Day saw something horrific. He was walking his dogs by the Todd river – a wide, dry, sandy bed that runs through the centre of town on which, for generations, indigenous people have camped out on – when a white 4WD Toyota Hilux drove at high speed at a group of Aboriginal people.

""I couldn't believe what I was seeing,"" he tells me when we meet in a coffee shop. ""There was one old guy who was struggling. If he hadn't got up he would've been run over. It was like they were driving at a flock of birds – like they were little animals that could be disposed of. The respect for life was just not there.""

""Was there a lot of space around the group?"" I ask. ""They were definitely aiming for them?""

""Yeah, there was the whole river,"" he says.

Concerned, Matty approached the group and saw Kwementyaye, who told him the car had already tried to run over a couple of elderly people further down the river. As they spoke, the 4WD did a turn and stopped so that the driver's window was facing the Aboriginals. Before Matty could witness what would happen next, his dogs ran off and he gave chase.

The disabled old man who struggled to get up lives in one of the Aboriginal town camps that have existed on the physical and psychic fringes of Alice Springs for as long as the town has been here. Behind a coach base and a furniture depot in a bright, clean industrial estate is a scene from a hundred years ago. Few white people see Namatjira Camp, a grim nest of iron sheds and outdoor mattresses whose only obvious sign of modernity is a single electric light and a government sign listing everything the inhabitants can't do. I'm here to ask Tony Cotchilli how close he came to being run over.

He sits up from under his layers of blankets and eyes me nervously through his white hair and beard. Dogs bark. Other Aboriginal people watch silently as the freezing winter wind blows off the ranges and fusses among the crumpled beer cans and scorched cooking pots. ""Went fast. Really fast,"" he says. ""I was scared.""

""How close did the car go to your blanket?""

He traces a rectangle, in the dirt, with his finger: ""My blanket."" Then he draws a line right across the centre of it.

Matty Day went to the police with what he saw and before long, local men Scott Doody, Timothy Hird, Anton Kloeden, Joshua Spears and Glen Swain, all in their late teens or early 20s, were charged with murder and eight counts of recklessly endangering life.

The news crackled through the streets of Alice. Black worried to black and white worried to white. Nobody knew what would happen next. There were short-lived rumours that a memorial to Kwementyaye had been deliberately burned. Kwementyaye's mother feared a riot and the family issued a public appeal for calm. Two hundred and fifty locals paid for a full-page advert in the Centralian Advocate calling for peace.

It was a call not heard by the resident who began selling ""Alice Springs White Power"" T-shirts for $25 each, or by the authorities who initially ignored complaints about him from the public. When his trade became national news, he was finally charged and later pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour. To protect his identity, the judge has suppressed publication of his name, but we can know something of his views thanks to an earlier interview he gave to the media. Admitting that he'd ""done time for flogging the fuck out of some coons,"" he insisted that ""a lot of my friends are Aboriginal,"" before adding, ""go and see the fucking coon camps, the coon creeks… they couldn't invent the fucking wheel.""

There are few better ways of tasting the minds of a community than reading their local papers. The stories and letters – their content, length and order – are like revelations from a therapist's notepad: you discover what trips the residents into anger and which of the hundreds of minor conflicts that buzz around a town on any given week they hold to be most important. Back in Jade's kitchen, I browse a couple that happen to be lying on her table as she makes another coffee. The Centralian Advocate leads with a story about an argument that resulted in a shooting. Buried on page two is the startling detail that, prior to the disagreement, the armed men approached the victim happily, saying: ""You're [all] right, mate – we thought you were blackfellas and we were going to shoot you."" Alice Springs News runs with the council's attempts, prompted by complaints from a white gallery owner, to stop Aboriginal artists selling their work on the grass outside a church. This ""crackdown on hawkers"" is front-page news. On pages two and 11 they have reprinted a lengthy reader's letter concerning the trial of the five killers of Ryder. Its author raged at the ""excessively harsh sentences imposed on these boys"".

Jade sees me reading it and allows herself a rueful smile. ""Once all the evidence came out during the trial and we found out everything that happened that night, I thought, 'They're screwed.'""

During my time in Alice Springs I quickly realised that before I could truly understand the events surrounding the killing of Kwementyaye Ryder, I'd first have to learn something of the history of the town itself. Marooned in the centre of an impossible universe of sand and heat, it has the air of an abandoned space station – alien and stagnant; desperate and defiant. If it feels lost in space, it also feels lost in time. Here, as everywhere, the truth leaves a breadcrumb trail through tiny, incidental details: the police's premature insistence that race wasn't a motive; the weekly paper leading with the ""crackdown"" on black ""hawkers""; the 250 people calling for calm; the man selling ""White Power"" T-shirts. To the outsider, these are shocking glimpses, reminiscent of 1960s Mississippi. They speak of a hostility between black and white that is fraught, active and building.

The story behind the friction begins in 1860, the year the first white man passed through the district. By 1881 the whole of Central Australia was held by pastoralists or under lease application. Of course, the Arrernte people already lived here, and had done so for more than 50,000 years. They mounted a brief insurgency and suffered disease, gunfire and rape. The last major atrocity was triggered by a fight about an indigenous woman that lead to a white dingo trapper being murdered. The Europeans' revenge was 1928's Coniston massacre, during which it is thought that around 100 men, women and children were slaughtered.

Having been forced off their land, and with nowhere to find food and water, the Arrernte gathered in camps around the nascent town. There were regular attempts to eradicate these settlements. They were frequently raided, their inhabitants denied basic services, such as water. Between 1928 and 1964 there were at least four round-ups and forced evacuations and indigenous people were banned from entering Alice Springs. Today, Aboriginals from remote communities are still drawn here, to visit family, collect welfare or seek medical attention. Many sleep, as they did then, on the Todd. The camps remain, as does much of the dangerous energy. Eighty-two per cent of the local prison population is black. Alice Springs is reportedly the most heavily policed town in Australia – while the national average is one police officer per 375 citizens, Alice Springs's ratio is 1:135.

The survival of these fringe settlements is thanks, partly, to black activists such as Geoff Shaw who, in 1997, fought resistance from white organisations such as Citizens for Civilised Living who wanted to see them demolished. Today, thanks in part to Shaw, indigenous people can formally lease land off the government. His daughter Barb still lives in the modern brick house Geoff built in Mount Nancy camp. When I meet Barb to discuss the tensions surrounding Kwementyaye's death, I'm amazed to learn that they still want for basic services. The approach road isn't illuminated and the streetlights in the camp itself were damaged by a plumber 11 years ago and never repaired. They don't even have a door-to-door mail service – even the elderly have to collect their post from a council office, 6km away.

For Barb, Alice is more racist today than when she was growing up: ""It's gone backwards,"" she says. Partly, she thinks, the Howard government's controversial 2007 ""intervention"" – instituted after allegations of widespread child abuse in Aboriginal communities – has ""given permission to people to treat us differently"". But it was an event 12 weeks before the killing of Ryder that, Barb feels, had a more menacing effect: the violent death of a white local man. Two Aboriginal men have since been ordered to stand trial for the alleged murder that shook the town and threatened, in the minds of some, to wake the ghosts of the Coniston massacre.

""Rumours started going around that something bad was going to happen, that they were going to target Aboriginal people,"" says Barb. ""There's been a lot of incidents. Frozen eggs started getting thrown at us, car chases. My sister-in-law got spot-lit by a car and chased home. People have had heavy tools thrown at them. I know that in some of the camps, whitefellas would drive through and throw stuff at the houses – rocks, bottles, rubbish. Cars started going up and down the Todd river, teasing, tormenting. It all essentially started because of that death.""

That afternoon I hear a different view of the recent troubles from local Greek-Australian art dealer Marilena Hippis. ""It's always been a very racist place, but tensions are rising,"" she tells me. ""What's frustrating for white people is that we've got to fight for everything and they get $35 a week and here's a grant and here's a place in uni – just wake up in the morning and go to work. And they won't. You know what I mean? It shits me that they spit in the street. It shits me that they piss in the street. It shits me that they go to the pub in a filthy state."" She adds that she's finding herself increasingly intimidated by drunk indigenous people. ""I used to walk down the Mall and the Todd River at night, but there's no way I'd do it now. Things just seem a little more sinister, more dangerous.""

Marilena's attitude is fascinating because she's not someone who can be easily accused of racism – her husband is Aboriginal. And through this local's view of feckless and hostile black inhabitants, perhaps we can sense something of how the world might have looked to those five young men as they climbed into their Hilux that freezing July night. On the Todd river, the battle against campers that had been squalling along for more than a century was gathering force once more, with rangers confiscating blankets or soaking them with water and making them unusable. Just two days prior to the tragedy, Alice Springs News reported a wider crackdown. The headline: ""Littering, swearing, camping, begging: ALICE FIGHTS BACK"".

The trial of the ""Ute Five"" began in the middle of December 2009. The Centralian Advocate was there and reported with titillating colour: ""Defence lawyers had quiet words with the parents of the men, while a row of pretty young things, with painted nails and highlights in their hair, shared nervous giggles as they waited for the court to open… Mr Ryder's family slipped in the back. Scrutinising their every move was a line of journalists – some from out of town.""

With each eyewitness that testified, another mystery retreated and the truth, in all its halting savagery, began to assemble itself in the minds of Kwementyaye's family.

When they motored to the Todd river, all of the defendants except driver Kloeden were drunk. Despite the recent troubles in town and the men's subsequent actions, the defence claimed their intention was not to harass Aboriginals, but to check if it was possible to drive to the old Telegraph Station, 6km upriver. Kwementyaye – who'd returned home from a night out only to discover that he had run out of cigarettes – visited the Todd to see if he could blag one from the campers. Falling into conversation with a group, he decided to stay.

The first time Kloeden drove at the campers he missed Tony Cotchilli's blanket by around a metre. Reaching the Telegraph Station, and finding himself unable to exit the river, he turned back. The second time he drove at the campers, he ran straight over Cotchilli's blanket, the old man scrabbling to hide behind a tree. Two campers testified that the men were swearing at them, shouting ""niggers"" and ""black bastards"" and that they ""stink"". In retaliation, one woman threw a burning log at the disappearing 4WD. Kloeden drove on for a few hundred metres and stopped. The men shouted more racist abuse. Then they drove home to fetch a gun – a replica of a Colt 45 – and some blank ammunition and returned. En route, Hird fired out of his window. The car stopped so he could unjam the gun. Job done, he pointed it at the campers and fired again.

Terrified, the Aboriginal people scattered. Driving on, the 4WD passed Kwementyaye. Enraged, he threw a bottle at the vehicle. It hit. Kloeden braked. He did a U-turn and drove directly at him, stopping just in time, with Kwementyaye grabbing the bull-bars. Realising he was in serious trouble, he ran.

All four passengers jumped out of the car and chased Kwementyaye, who fell at the spot where his memorial can now be found. Hird ran up and kicked him in the head. Swain joined in, kicking him twice more in the head. Spears hit him over the back of the head with a bottle. ""Don't fuck with us,"" one of them shouted. Then, car headlights startled them. They noticed Kwementyaye wasn't moving. ""Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!"" shouted Swain. They fled and concocted an alibi in an attempt to fool the police.

The pathologist who examined Kwementyaye's body said he'd died from a haemorrhage at the base of the brain. While he had no evidence of a pre-existing aneurysm that was sensitive to rupture, he considered it likely that Kwementyaye had one because the physical damage to his body didn't appear acute enough to cause death.

The defence seized on this, positing that this theoretical aneurysm could have ruptured when Kwementyaye fell, rather than when he was beaten about the head. Despite this, the evidence seemed clear and devastating. Things, for the five young men, looked grim.

Throughout the trial, Kwementyaye's mother, Therese, couldn't draw enough strength to sit in court. ""I couldn't face those fellas,"" she says. ""But I went on the day of sentencing. They walked in all dressed up neatly, the star attraction of the court. I burst out crying. I had to get out. I sang out to them, 'You all look good on the outside, but inside there's bloody racism, straight out'.""

It became obvious that something extra-ordinary was going to happen when Chief Justice Brian Martin began his pre-sentencing remarks. Strewn among the clauses are the stentorian admonishments you'd expect – words like ""drunk"", ""stupid"", ""violent"" and ""aggressive"" – but in almost every moment that matters, Martin excuses the ""relatively minor violence"" he found took place.

He accepted that their motive for driving up and down the Todd was not to harass black people. Of Kloeden's terrorising of campers, he said, ""As your counsel put it, you were hooning. Another word is lairising"" and that he ""aimed to miss"". He absolved everyone but the driver for this, saying, ""Mr Kloeden, I pause in this sequence to observe there is nothing in the material before me to suggest that anyone in the car suggested that you drive at or close to the camp. This was your decision alone."" He accepted the defence's claim that there was ""no sinister purpose"" in their driving home to fetch the pistol: ""You only wanted to have fun by firing it and making a loud noise as you drove around."" The racist abuse they shouted was downgraded to mere ""abuse"". He accepted the defence's bold claim that all of Ryder's physical injuries could have been caused when he fell. Although he initially acknowledges that ""it's not known precisely what caused the bleeding"" that killed Ryder, in the crucial ""sentencing factors"" section, he becomes absolute, saying: ""The deceased was susceptible to dire consequences from minor trauma by reason of a pre-existing aneurysm. But for the bursting of the aneurysm, the deceased would have suffered relatively minor injuries and the offenders would have been guilty of an assault at the lower scale of seriousness for offences of assault."" He said: ""None of you intended to cause serious harm""; that ""each of you has always got on well with Aboriginal people. However, on this occasion your normal attitudes and standards of behaviour were pushed to the background.""

Before the trial, an editorial in the Centralian Advocate acknowledged the importance of what was about to happen: ""Everyone knows this is a test case of Australian justice; a case where justice must be seen to be done. And in the Northern Territory a life sentence means life."" And life was exactly what Therese Ryder wanted: ""I know blackfellas who have got 10 years for domestic abuse. I wanted them in prison for a long time.""

Because Justice Martin decided that none of Kloeden's passengers had encouraged him to drive at the Aboriginals, he alone was found guilty of recklessly endangering life. Having already had their charge reduced from murder to manslaughter by recklessness, Martin found the five guilty of the even lesser crime of manslaughter ""by negligence"". Announcing a further ""reduction of your sentence by reason of your guilty plea and genuine remorse"", he gave them between 12 months and six years. With parole, they'll be out in no more than four.

Alice Spring News revelled in the relief and glory that was reflected on their town: ""Chief Justice Brian Martin's findings on the 'racial overtones' of the killing of Kwementyaye stop well short of the 'race crime' treatment of the story by many media."" And they were right – his comment on the matter reads like a masterpiece of stuttering reticence: ""It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the actions of some offenders were influenced… at least to some degree, by the fact that the deceased was an Aboriginal person.""

According to Therese, it's only lucky that the Ryders are peaceful, practising Catholics: ""If this happened to [notoriously fierce] Warlpiri people, they'd have been coming in in busloads, with spears and boomerangs. They'd have rushed into the courtroom and started fighting people.""

Today, Therese finds it very hard to sleep. She gets up in the early hours and cries. ""I pray to Jesus to look after me, but I can see no future. There are no happy times any more.""

And there's since been a further calamity. Devastated over the death of his ""bros"", Darryl Ryder has disappeared. ""The last time we heard from him was October,"" says Therese. ""I think, 'Don't say I've lost another son now.' We've got blackfella culture. When things like this happen, they go for revenge.""

""Do you think, when they're released, the five will be at risk?"" I ask.

She looks unblinkably at her hands and says very quietly: ""That's not up to me. It's up to other families.""

Back in July, when the crime scene police tape was finally removed, Jade walked along the road that leads up from the Todd river and curls around the base of Anzac Hill. She thought she was OK, but suddenly fell into sobs when she reached a certain area. Two weeks later, she would discover that this was the exact spot where the killing had taken place.

For months following the death, Jade just sat and stared at the walls of her house, obsessing about everything she'd lost. At Christmas, her grieving became so acute she was hospitalised for two weeks. She's working again now, and that's been helping. But on the really bad nights, she'll leave the house to go and hide up in the bushes on Anzac Hill. She'll think and cry and look down at the place where Kwementyaye died. She likes it up there in the dark, where no one else can see her.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/sep/26/ncamisa-kiss-the-women,"Two weeks ago, four men escaped from the regional magistrate's court in the sprawling township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. They, along with five other suspects, are accused of the 2006 murder of Zoliswa Nkonyana, a 19-year-old who, it is alleged, was stabbed and beaten to death with golf clubs for being a lesbian. A police sergeant at the jail was arrested for allegedly helping the prisoners escape.

On the day this took place, Pam Ngwabeni was on the other side of South Africa, performing Ncamisa! Kiss the Women, a one-woman play that explores the experience of black lesbian women in townships, drawing on Ngwabeni's own experience of discrimination and violence, including the brutal killing of Nkonyana, who was her friend.

The play – which comes to the UK next month as part of the Afrovibes festival of South African theatre, music and visual art – is written and directed by Peter Hayes, who has occupied an important place in South Africa's gay theatre landscape for two decades. Struck by the gap between the country's progressive post-apartheid constitution (first in the world to outlaw sexual discrimination, first in Africa to legalise same-sex marriage) and the reality of life for its gay citizens, Hayes is ""concerned with telling stories that aren't being told"".

Having made a great deal of theatre about the gay men, Hayes was interested in exploring the experience of the black lesbians in South African townships – and, in particular, the emergence of a horrific new hate crime known as ""corrective"" rape, whereby lesbians are assaulted as a ""cure"" for their homosexuality. It is notoriously difficult to obtain accurate statistics on violence against women in developing countries, but Triangle Project, South Africa's largest lesbian and gay rights organisation, reported in 2008 that it was dealing with 10 new cases of ""corrective"" rape a week in Cape Town alone; and that 86% of black lesbians living in the Western Cape lived in fear of sexual assault. South Africa is not an easy place to be gay.

When Ngwabeni came out in 2005, at the age of 17, she was studying drama in Cape Town with Jacqueline Dommisse, co-artistic director of Hayes's company, Hearts and Eyes Theatre Collective. Hayes knew that the success of the project he wanted to make depended on ""finding an actor who was brave enough and fierce enough to tell this story"". Ngwabeni – who had been thrown out of her mother's home for being gay, had spent time on the street and had tried to kill herself – was the obvious choice.

Speaking via Skype, I ask Ngwabeni if she has ever been a victim of violence. ""Fortunately for me, no,"" she says. ""Not even once."" After a pause, Hayes says, ""What about that guy who came at you?"" and Ngwabeni casually replies, ""Ooh, ya. Now I remember. I was once. I remember now: this guy almost killed me."" While Ngwabeni was living in Khayelitsha, a neighbour began to harass her for being gay. She ignored his taunts for several weeks, but then one day, when Ngwabeni was on her way to work, he pulled a knife and attempted to stab her. She escaped by using her handbag as a shield and enlisting the help of a passerby.

Ncamisa! (which translates as Kiss!) doesn't concern itself solely with the violent and painful aspects of life for black lesbians, though. ""It's really important for me,"" says Hayes, ""that lesbians who see this play see their lives affirmed and celebrated – that it's not just stories of rape and murder and attempted suicide and your mother throwing you out. Yes, that's the reality, but within that reality safe spaces are created where women are in loving relationships.""

The play takes the form of a series of linked fragments, some chilling, some uplifting, that tell the story of Ngwabeni's journey from football-loving tomboy to self-assured performer and gay activist. The challenges of coming out in an intolerant society, and the struggles encountered by black township lesbians, are explored in dance, monologue and song. After most shows, says Ngwabeni, ""people come to me and say, 'I'm also a lesbian, I've been in the closet for a couple of years now', and then some will tell me their stories. They finally feel like there's someone out there who feels the same way they feel.""

Brian Merriman, who runs the International Dublin Gay Theatre festival, where the play appeared earlier this year, is full of praise for how well Ngwabeni blends the horrific with the hopeful. ""She really moved people in a joyous way – and one should not be joyous in the face of such a burden.""

There are moments, however, when even a person as brave and forward-looking as Ngwabeni finds it difficult to remain positive. I contacted her a few days after our interview to get her response to the news of the escape of her friend's alleged killers. By the time she replied, the four had been tracked down, but Ngwabeni was full of anger and despair – and convinced there would never be justice for Nkonyana. The trial has, after all, already been postponed 20 times.

""Sometimes I think there is no hope,"" says Ngwabeni, ""but then my director reminds me what we are doing: for many lesbians in the townships, I am living a dream. I am out, I am proud and I am talking about our lives – travelling all over the world doing this. This is another way to show my sisters what life can be.""

• Ncamisa! Kiss the Women is at the Albany, London SE8 (020-8692 4446), 7, 9 and 10 October. Then touring to Birmingham and Manchester. Details: ukarts.com

• The name of this play was spelt incorrectly online and in the paper. This has now been amended.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/jul/05/hate-crime-criminal-justice-sentencing,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/12/disability-hate-crime-david-askew,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/05/antisemitism-uk-racism-combat,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/jan/15/hate-crime-bnp-local-council-elections,"Reports of racial and religiously motivated crime rose following the election of British National party councillors in several far- right strongholds, police statistics have revealed.

Complaints of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member, in spite of declines in reported hate crime in the wider police areas. In other wards race crime reportedly rose in the runup to BNP election victories, according to the figures, obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

The findings came as the party stepped up its campaign to win its first seats in the House of Commons with a ""weekend of action"" in Barking and Dagenham, where the culture and tourism minister, Margaret Hodge, faces a challenge for her Labour seat from BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Hodge said the new figures cast doubt on police assurances that there is no link between racially motivated crime and a BNP presence.

Yesterday, BNP member Terence Gavan was jailed for 11 years after police found nail bombs and 12 firearms at his home in the borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, where the BNP has councillors. The Old Bailey heard that Gavan harboured ""a strong hostility"" towards immigrants.

One of the biggest increases in hate crime came in Barking's Eastbury ward, where racially motivated violence, theft and criminal damage more than doubled in the year after Jeffrey Steed won a council seat for the BNP in May 2006. A year later, hate crime rose again and 45 racial incidents were reported in 12 months.

In several other BNP wards, race crime fell in line with declines in the wider areas, but anti-fascist campaigners believe rises may be linked to BNP election wins. ""Voters have been emboldened in their racist views by seeing the BNP in power and that could have led to the increases in racist attacks in some areas,"" said Sam Tarry, campaign organiser for the Hope Not Hate campaign, set up by the anti-fascist group Searchlight.

""The figures suggest that if the BNP wins more seats, people from ethnic minority and gay communities could face greater persecution because racist and bigoted views will have been further legitimised.""

The BNP denies that increases in hate crime are related to its activities and blames the rises on increased immigration. Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser said: ""This is due to an increase in the ethnic [sic] population. There are more people who are prepared to go to the police complaining they are victims.""

The Guardian has analysed data from 11 police forces covering 29 wards across England where voters have elected BNP councillors in the past six years. In eight wards reports of hate crime rose following BNP election wins despite a wider decline across the police force area. It declined in 14 wards, in line with force-wide reductions, and there was no change in four and an insignificant amount of data in three.

In Essex, complaints of race crime rose after the election of BNP councillors in parts of Epping Forest, while in Chelmsley Wood, a suburb of Birmingham, the ­average annual incidence of race crime almost doubled after George Morgan won a seat for the BNP in May 2006.

In the four years before his election, there were an average 11 incidents a year rising to an average of 21 a year in the following four years. West Midlands police said some cases involved assault, while most were incidents of verbal abuse in shopping centres, taxis and in the police station with white and Asian victims.

Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Goosen said: ""None of the offences reported in the area since 2006 can be directly attributed to an elected member or political organisation.""

The BNP is understood to be planning to field more than 1,000 candidates in local elections and 300 candidates in the general election. Griffin and the BNP deputy chairman, Simon Darby, who is standing for Stoke Central, are considered to have the best chance of winning seats at Westminster.

Additional reporting: Holly Bentley",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/nov/04/disability-hate-crime-victims-survey,"Almost one in 10 disabled people in the UK have been the victim of a hate crime, according to a leading disability charity.

For the first time, the 2009 version of an annual survey carried out by Leonard Cheshire Disability asked respondents whether they had faced a crime which they felt was motivated by their disability, with 9% saying they had.

""Even without a comparison for previous years, this is a shocking figure,"" said Eleanor Gore, from Leonard Cheshire, who compiled the review. ""It's often hard to know how big a problem disability hate crime is as it tends to be very under-reported, and sometimes police and councils don't recognise it properly.""

The charity said it had included the question after high-profile incidents in which disabled people had been targeted, notably the case of Fiona Pilkington and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca. In September, an inquest jury criticised police and a council in Leicestershire for failing to help Pilkington after her family suffered years of abuse from gangs of youths. Pilkington killed herself and Francecca by setting the family car alight in a layby near their home.

The inquest heard that police and council antisocial behaviour officers failed to recognise the family's torment as a potential hate crime, and did not know that Pilkington was caring for a severely disabled daughter and a son with more moderate learning difficulties, even though Pilkington rang police more than 30 times over the course of a decade.

The Disability Review, based on responses from 1,253 people, found 12% of disabled people had been the victims of a crime, although not necessarily a hate-motivated offence, over the last year.

It recorded evidence of increased financial hardship and discrimination faced by disabled people – 42% said they were finding it hard to live on their income. A similar percentage believed they had been turned down for a job because of their disability, a rise of seven percentage points from 2008, while more than half felt they had been discriminated against in a place of work.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/sep/28/fiona-pilkington-inquest-disability-hate,"Campaigners hope case will be a turning point, like the Stephen Lawrence murder was for the policing of racist crime

There are few concrete statistics on the level of hate crime against the 1.2m people in Britain with a learning disability. In a survey by the charity Mencap, nine out of 10 said they had been bullied in the past year. Two-thirds of those questioned said they were bullied on a regular basis, and a third told of being bullied daily or weekly.

Official attempts to gather data about such crimes against disabled people generally only started last year. Experts and campaigners regard this as the most stark evidence of the failure by the authorities, and in particular the police, to take seriously the routine suffering of those with learning disabilities.

A few high profile cases, such as that of Steven Hoskin, have been widely reported. The 39-year-old, who had severe learning difficulties, was tortured and drugged before being forced over the edge of a viaduct. After two of his tormenters were convicted of murder and one of manslaughter, a serious case review revealed that police, social workers and other agencies had missed dozens of chances to intervene.

It tends to take a death to gain any serious attention, says David Congdon, the head of campaigns and policy at Mencap. What he calls ""low-level harassment and bullying"" goes largely unnoticed unless it drives someone to such depths of despair as it did Fiona Pilkington.

""Often people with learning disabilities aren't believed, which is a major, major problem,"" he said. ""And they can be frightened to report incidents because they fear it will make it worse.""

Victims have told the charity of offhand and dismissive reactions from police, and am impression that crimes are less serious if they are committed against a disabled person.

Ruth Scott, of the charity Scope, said: ""Disabled people still find they report something to the police and nothing gets done, or the paper gets lost.

""But incidents can start at a low level and get much worse if they are not checked.""

Where police fail to take action it is often because they lack the training to recognise learning disabilities and understand the impact of bullying.

Disability hate crime was recognised by law in 2005, but Leicestershire police's policy on hate crime did not even mention disability as a possible spur for abuse until it was rewritten in the wake of the Pilkington case.

Because the family's vulnerability was not recognised the endless attacks were not linked.

""That sort of failure of recording is quite widespread,"" Congdon said. ""We only see the tip of the iceberg and that's very serious.""

A similar lack of awareness pervades public opinion, according to Scope. It likens the situation to the general ignorance of race hate crime before Stephen Lawrence's death.

Last year 1,412 incidents classed as having a disability aspect were successfully prosecuted, compared with 6,689 racial incidents.

Since April last year police have been required to collect and report instances of disability hate crime in a standardised way. Congdon said awareness of the issue was growing among senior officers but it would take time to filter down to frontline police.

He would like to say the Pilkington case will be a turning point – just as Lawrence and the subsequent Macpherson report were a watershed in the treatment of race hate crime – but fears there is still some way to go.

""I hope it's a step on the way to a turning point. There's a very painful message for the police here, but the other agencies have got to ask themselves a lot of questions as well.

""Fiona and Francecca did not need to die.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/sep/18/eduardo-diving-tackling-foul-play,"The psychologist who tackles football's divers

Maybe for once the Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger can be persuaded to keep his mouth shut. The ""yes he did, no he didn't"" Eduardo-diving controversy might soon be a thing of the past if Uefa reads new research from the University of Portsmouth. Dr Paul Morris, an expert on the embodiment of emotions and intentions in the department of psychology, has studied footballers' behaviour on the pitch and says referees could be helped to spot the tell-tale signs of cheating, sometimes even in the split seconds in which they occur. The research shows that there are distinct actions that footballers use – either individually or in any combination – when faking a fall. These include: clutching their body where they haven't been hit, taking an extra roll when they hit the ground, taking fully controlled strides after being tackled before falling, and holding both arms up in the air, with open palms, chest thrust out, legs bent at the knee in an ""archer's bow"" position. ""In most dishonest tackles the deception is revealed in the timing and co-ordination of the behaviours,"" said Dr Morris. Eduardo please note.

A fine line between race hate and harassment

New research by Dr Neil Chakraborti and Jon Garland of the University of Leicester's department of criminology challenges existing stereotypes about the nature and impact of hate crime. Though the term conjures up images of violent acts committed by hate-fuelled extremists, the research suggests that many hate crimes are in fact lower-level forms of harassment committed by so-called ""normal"" people who may not necessarily ""hate"" their victim. It's hard to know whether to be pleased that most Brits don't feel that strongly about a person's race, or disturbed that even though they aren't that bothered, they still want to have a pop.

Back to the womb with hydrogen sulphide

Kids who let off stink bombs in class may be in need of counselling sessions rather than detention. Speaking to a medical conference on hydrogen sulphide in Shanghai, Dr Ray Carson of the University of Leicester said that the gas, most commonly associated with stink bombs, plays an important role in relaxing smooth muscle in the body. So far it has been shown to relax the uterus and can be produced by the placenta, uterine tissue and the amniotic sac. So for kids, the smell could be the equivalent of a Proustian madeleine.

If it's on video, it must be true

Dr Kimberley Wade from the department of psychology at the University of Warwick has found that fake video evidence can dramatically alter people's perceptions of events. In the study, Dr Wade found that almost 50% of people shown fake footage of an event they witnessed first hand were prepared to believe the video version rather than what they actually saw. The research team filmed 60 subjects, unknowingly seated next to a member of the research team, as they took part in a computerised gambling task. After the session, the video footage was doctored to make it look as if the researcher was cheating. One third of the subjects were simply told that the person sat next to them was suspected of cheating. Another third were told the person had been caught on camera cheating, and the remaining group were actually shown the fake video footage. All subjects were then asked to sign a statement only if they had seen the cheating take place. Nearly 40% of the participants who had seen the doctored video complied. A further 10% added their signatures when asked a second time. Of those who were told the incident had been caught on film but were not shown the video, only 10% agreed to sign, and about 5% of the control group who were just told about the cheating signed the statement.

Size does matter – just ask Ricky Ponting

Forget the Ashes; Aussie cricket skipper Ricky ""Punter"" Ponting really does have something to moan about. According to a new study based on the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) survey of nearly 20,000 people, an Aussie male of Punter's height (1.78m or 5ft 10in) would be earning an extra $950 a year if he was 5cm (2in) taller. According to the report's co-author Professor Andrew Leigh, the reason for the discrepancy is because taller men are considered to be more intelligent and powerful than their shorter counterparts.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/17/transgender-hate-crime-murder,"A jury today convicted a man of killing a transgender woman he shot outside a house party in Syracuse, New York last year.

Dwight DeLee was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter for shooting 22-year-old Lateisha Green outside a house party in November because of anti-gay bias. He becomes just the second person in the US convicted of a hate crime that involved the death of a transgender victim.

The Onondaga county court jury delivered its verdict after deliberating for about six hours over two days. DeLee faces additional prison time because he was convicted of a hate crime.

Green, who was born Moses Cannon but began living as a woman at age 16, frequently dressed in women's clothing but was wearing jeans and a T-shirt the night she was killed.

During three days of testimony, DeLee's attorney, Clarence Johnson, denied prosecution claims that his client hated homosexuals. Johnson contended prosecutors presented no evidence showing DeLee had a history of anti-gay bias before the shooting.

But several witnesses said they heard DeLee refer to Green as a ""faggot"" just before Green was shot with a .22-calibre rifle while sitting in a parked car outside the party. But Johnson noted that other witnesses attributed the slur to others at the party.

The US Senate yesterday approved legislation to extend current federal hate crimes protections to gays and other groups. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, named after the gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998, was proposed as an amendment to a $680bn (£416bn) bill to approve defence programs.

The bill would expand federal hate crimes currently defined as those motivated by race, national origin or religion to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The US House of Representatives passed a similar hate crimes bill in April.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/12/christian-group-sues-burn-gay-teen-novel,"In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be ""explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian"".

The offending book is Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.

Their suit says that ""the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library,"" and that it contains derogatory language that could ""put one's life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.""

""The word 'faggot' is very derogatory and slanderous to all males,"" the suit continues. ""Using the word 'Nigger' is dangerously offensive, disrespectful to all people. These words can permeate violence."" The suit also claims that the book ""constitutes a hate crime, and that it degrades the community"".

""They've filed a claim against the city of West Bend and the city has to decide if it is valid,"" said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's office for intellectual freedom. ""Their insurance company is evaluating the claim, but I would be very surprised if they found any merit in it ... Should they find any merit in this claim, we would certainly support the library in fighting it.""

The legal challenge follows a lengthy campaign by some West Bend residents to restrict access to teenage books they deemed sexually explicit from library shelves, which was eventually thrown out at the start of June.

""Obviously we were really pleased with the outcome to that – there was a unanimous vote to keep the books in the library and we thought the matter should be over,"" said Larry Siems, director of the Freedom to Write programme at PEN America.

Siems said there was clearly ""a bit of theatre"" in the lawsuit which followed. ""They've filed a lawsuit which has little possibility of going forward legally, and they're asking for damages which include the right to burn a book. It does seem more to gain publicity than a real serious challenge."" But, he said, PEN remained very concerned about the impulse behind the claim. ""This is a group of people trying aggressively to rid the library of these books and that's very serious - it needs to be fought.""

The claimants, he said, ""have a right to continue to express their views, and this in a way is a creative attempt to express those views"". But it's ""also a dangerous game when you're talking about something like book burning, calling on the law to burn books. It's certainly completely un-American, and if they paused, I think they would agree.""

It was not possible to reach the Christian Civil Liberties Union for comment.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/mar/18/equality-gino-meriano-gay-rights,"Gino Meriano, the author of a new book on civil partnerships, never intended to become a campaigner for gay rights. But, he tells Mary O'Hara, marriage was not the motivation for his fight against discrimination and hate crime

Rather than sipping champagne and celebrating in the way most couples would on their first anniversary, gay rights campaigner Gino Meriano and his partner Mike found themselves outside No 10 Downing Street handing in a petition about the appointment of Ruth Kelly, a staunch Roman Catholic, as equalities minister.

As one of the first couples to sign on the dotted line after the Civil Partnerships Act became law in 2005 and as joint founders of the Gay Wedding Show, both have been in the public eye in recent years. However, it is Meriano, whose outspoken campaigning style periodically goes against the mainstream gay rights grain, who attracts most attention. He explains: ""Mike is quite the placid guy. I'm the more fiery one.""

Meriano has been on the frontline of some of the most heated debates around gay marriage. He says he was ""slaughtered"" by critics in the US recently when he started advocating that gay rights campaigners in Arizona - he spends a lot of time there - give up on gay marriage and opt for civil partnership along the same lines as the UK. ""While you still get a pocket that say we've still got to fight for marriage, personally, I say no,"" he says. ""You have your rights, then you're sorted. From that point, whether you want to fight other issues, go for it. That's someone else's battle. Mine has never been about marriage. Mine has been about legal rights.""

Meriano also took some flak from other campaigners when he suggested that registrars who didn't want to conduct civil partnership ceremonies shouldn't be required to do it. ""There were registrars resigning because they didn't want to do civil partnerships,"" he says. ""I said that if someone would rather do funerals, let them do funerals. The last thing you want is someone standing there doing your civil partnership when you can tell they don't want to be there. Why would you do that?""

He says there was a ""lot of hoo-ha"" in response to his stance, but defends it as being an attempt at short-term compromise. Once the Equalities Act was passed in 2006, Meriano says, there was ""no excuse"" for registrars allowing their own beliefs to interfere with their work.

Politically correct

Referring to Lillian Ladele, a registrar in Islington, north London, whose victory in a tribunal case contesting the council's expectation that she perform civil ceremonies was overturned on appeal, Meriano says: ""Three years down the line ... you can't turn round and say you won't do a civil partnership.""

Meriano is frequently called upon to comment on issues such as hate crime and usually does so under the auspices of the charity he chairs, Gay Surrey. ""Because we do so much profile-raising in Surrey, the press in Surrey know that if they want a comment they will get one from me,"" he says. ""But it's not necessarily going to be the comment you expect. It's not always going to be politically correct. I don't have a problem with that.""

His lack of concern about whether or not others agree him is illustrated by some of his views on Stonewall, which represents the interests of gay people. Referring to a recent Stonewall advertising campaign, he says: ""Bright red billboards saying, 'Some people are gay, get over it'. We didn't need that. You don't need to throw gay/straight in your face all the time. It really is tiresome."" He is also critical of Stonewall's index of the most ""gay friendly"" employers. ""It's good PR. It's almost like catnip to a cat. A company goes, 'Ooh, maybe we should be in that list.' To me, it's a tick box.""

Meriano's latest venture is a book, co-authored with Mike, that pools their experiences of organising ceremonies for gay couples - they are joint owners of the company, Pink Weddings, and have organised more than 3,000 ceremonies since it was launched in 2001. Civil Partnership: A Guide to the Perfect Day is a slim volume packed with practical tips on how to plan a ceremony and navigate the legal minefields that might lie ahead. The motivation for writing the book at this time is that Meriano believes people still don't fully understand their rights.

""Our publishers were looking for us to bring our own personal views to this,"" he says. ""They wanted a little bit of gay rights, but not too much.""

The fight for gay rights is acknowledged in the foreword to the book, where Meriano outlines why the word ""pink"" mattered so much when setting up Pink Weddings. ""The choice of this word reflects the struggle for gay rights and refers to the way in which gay people have been subjected to discrimination throughout history,"" it reads. The rest is an inherently pragmatic exercise - and deliberately so, Meriano says. ""We wanted it to be fun too.""

But the book has its roots very much in the sometimes difficult experience Meriano had of setting up a ""pink"" company at a time when the enactment of a civil partnership law seemed too far into the future to contemplate. Pink Weddings was his first departure from his career as general marketeer and businessman to running a company targeted exclusively at the gay community. The experience radicalised him.

He says: ""We called a hotel in Brighton and got told 'no'. And I was like, 'Oh my god,' and got so upset. They said they didn't want to upset their existing clientele. You've got to remember, this was 2000/2001. I was absolutely mortified. And then a florist turned round and said she wouldn't do flowers for my company because it was about gay weddings and she was a Christian and she doesn't believe in it. It literally was from the very first phone call. I got hell, absolute hell. I didn't understand why. To bring in your own personal beliefs was really unfounded. You're a service provider. Well, this was suddenly the whole campaigning bit.""

While always interested in gay rights, Meriano, 46, says that as a young man he did not anticipate becoming any kind of campaigner - let alone one with a reputation for becoming embroiled in controversial debates. He certainly did not expect the level of negative response from potential venues and suppliers when launching Pink Weddings.

""To be totally honest, I didn't expect it to explode like it did,"" he admits. ""There was no marketing plan, there was no structure for the company. Suddenly, it started to take over, and before you knew it I became the 'expert' in civil partnerships.""

Hate crime

He says it's hard to explain why he now devotes so much of his time to campaigning, especially as being discriminated against and even physically attacked was not the trigger many people might have expected it to be. Talking about his personal experiences of hate crime is the only time in the interview when Meriano's sunny demeanour fades. Probably because his face is known, he says, he deals with ""20 to 25"" incidents of discrimination or hate crime in any given year. ""I could be just walking down the street,"" he says with a resigned sigh.

So why does he repeatedly put his head above the parapet? ""When I have a low, low day, I'll stay in bed and I won't get up, and I'm completely depressed,"" he says. ""The next day, I'll get up and I'll be fine. But it does take its toll. Sometimes, I am genuinely so tired and I think, 'What the hell am I doing?' I feel guilty if I take a day off.""

There is an element of compulsion to his campaigning, Meriano concedes. He says the younger generation can be a bit complacent. ""People seem to think that once the Civil Partnership Act was passed we could all sit back and relax. And it's just not the case. It doesn't matter what it is, equal pay or whatever. It's really hard getting young people on board, and we need more. It's about recognising that it isn't all roses. We've got a long way to go before that happens.""

Curriculum Vitae

Age 45.

Lives Weybridge, Surrey.

Status Civil partnership.

Education George Abbott school, Guildford; Guildford College, evening courses in law, marketing and photography.

Career 2003-present: managing director, Pink Weddings Ltd; 2004-present: managing director, The Gay Wedding Show; 1998-present: managing director, Choices marketing and web design company, now Exoro Ltd; 1998-present: equalities and diversity consultant; pre-1998: retail management, ranging from fashion to music and entertainment.

Public life Chair of Gay Surrey and the Gay Business Association.

Hobbies/interests Watching CSI on television; good food; keeping fit; travelling.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/13/south-africa-corrective-rape,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/jan/21/auschwitz-racism-crime,"Can trips to Auschwitz help tackle racism and hate crime among troubled young people? Chris Arnot talks to three youths who have visited the former Nazi concentration camp

James Dakin has had a few vivid dreams since he came back from Auschwitz. Nightmares? ""Not really, but it has haunted me a bit,"" he admits. ""I thought it was going to be boring, but as soon as I got in there, it hit me. I was shocked by all that human hair behind the glass, and the bags and that - you know, the suitcases they carried their stuff in."" Wendel Moyo adds: ""And the pictures of all those people ... women were on one side, men on the other, and so many of them."" But for Liam Livermore, it was the taste that struck him. ""Like dust in the back of the throat,"" he says. ""And you could feel the pain and the suffering.""

Dakin, Moyo and Livermore are all 15 and live on the north-east edge of Coventry, on former council estates with traditionally high levels of deprivation. The vast majority of residents are white, but in recent years they have been joined by a few families with refugee status, Moyo's among them. He came from South Africa five years ago to join parents who had already settled here.

Moyo was the only black youth to travel to the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland earlier this month as part of Coventry's Youth Investment Project, an ongoing training scheme designed to counter behavioural problems among black as well as white youths. There are 10 youths involved, and three of them are black. On racial abuse issues - a major part of the project - they are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

None of the youths involved in the project has been convicted of any crimes, but they are from families where low educational attainment and antisocial behaviour have been identified, and children in some of these families are thought to be under racist influences.

Moyo's family have suffered some racial harassment. ""It was just knocking on the door, calling us names and running away at first,"" he recalls. ""But when we retaliated, the car windscreen was smashed. I've discovered that it's better to try to make friends.""

Part of the thinking in the youth project is to encourage integration through familiarity with each other. In Moyo's case, it helps that he's good enough at football to have been selected for Coventry City's academy. But you only have to watch the easy interaction between himself and the other two boys to realise that he is fully accepted - by them, at least.

It's equally evident that Livermore, Dakin and Moyo have been chosen to talk to the Guardian following their visit to Auschwitz because they are the ones who reacted most sensitively and positively. Indeed, Livermore was so moved by the experience that he has agreed to address 800 people on Sunday at a national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Coventry's Belgrade Theatre and tell them why he's going to ""stand up to hatred"".

Eight of the 10 involved in the Youth Investment Project travelled to Auschwitz, so I ask: ""Do they all feel the same as you three?""

There's some shuffling around, and eyes are temporarily downcast, focused on discarded sandwich wrappers and juice cartons on the table of the meeting room at Grace Academy school, where they are all pupils. ""Not really,"" says Livermore eventually. ""A few of them went for a holiday. There was no meaning behind it for them."" Dakin nods and says: ""You could tell that by the way they were acting and the things they were saying."" Moyo adds: ""They thought it was a joke.""

Andy Sykes, a freelance anti-racist worker, who has spoken with the 10 Coventry youths as part of this ongoing project, financed by the government's New Deal for Communities and by the city council, agrees that not everybody sees the trips to Auschwitz as a positive experience.

Far right terms

Sykes is a former British National party member from Bradford who, at considerable personal risk, exposed the party for the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and, later, for a BBC documentary called The Secret Agent. He says that on one of the trips to Poland, a boy ""was using terms only associated with the far right. He could quote from Mein Kampf and from [American white supremacist] David Lane."" It was also obvious, says Sykes, that the boy had been taken to see skinhead bands such as WhiteLaw.

So what happened when the boy visited Auschwitz? ""He was gloating and making fun of it, claiming it was all exaggerated and made up,"" Sykes says. ""At one point, he even said that Hitler didn't do the job right, that he should have shot them all in the head. But he got quite excited in the gas chambers, taking photographs and smiling.

""It was very disturbing. I've never heard anybody say things like that. When the guide from the Holocaust Education Trust took him on one side, he called him a 'dickhead' and a 'wanker'. The other lads on the trip were really uncomfortable.""

A lost cause then? ""No, we're not going to give up on boys like him,"" Sykes insists. ""You can't.""

Alison Quigley, Coventry city council's hate crime reduction officer, agrees that, for some, the trips are ""never going to be a road to Damascus experience"". But she adds: ""My view is that people are not born to hate. It's learnt behaviour, and we want to challenge and change that.""

The Youth Investment Project was Quigley's idea. As funding for trips to Poland dries up, she plans to use the Holocaust Centre near Newark, Nottinghamshire, to help show how racial hatred can ultimately lead to genocide.

Meanwhile, in Bradford, Sykes is being called upon to teach lessons of history to Muslim youths in danger of being pushed into extremism by Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Training on the youth project in Coventry has included sessions with the anti-racist organisation Rewind, which is based in Sandwell, West Midlands, and a trip to Liverpool to visit the International Slavery Museum.

""That was a mellower experience,"" Livermore suggests. ""Auschwitz seemed much more real. It was so different from looking at pictures in books. You could sense what had happened there. There was an atmosphere about it.""

This comes from a pupil who had not studied any history since he was 12. ""These are not the most academically gifted students,"" says Grace Academy principal Steve Allen. ""Some of them could easily have become disengaged.""

So has the Auschwitz trip made a difference to them? ""It's difficult to judge whether it has been life-changing,"" Allen says. ""But some of them have definitely come back as more grounded and thoughtful individuals. It has definitely made an impact on their thinking. That's why we support any project with educational benefits for young people.""

He gestures beyond the window. Out there are 7,000 bulbs planted by supervised children, and timed to come into flower on Sunday. Many more are planted throughout the city to bloom for Holocaust Memorial Day. ""One for every hundred people who died,"" Allen says.

There will be Holocaust survivors among the audience at the Belgrade Theatre on Sunday, and the plan is for some of the teenagers from the Youth Investment Project to meet them. ""It'll be weird,"" Dakin says, ""but I'd shake hands with them and say, 'Sorry for all the pain you went through.'""

And what about the rather more difficult issue of standing up against hatred out on the streets? ""If someone was shouting racist things at Wendel,"" Livermore says, ""I'd step in and say, 'What's your problem?' Then I'd try to put my point across.""

Everyone's fight

""I feel that as well,"" Dakin says. ""I didn't used to. I used to think it wasn't my problem. But, basically, it's everyone's fight to stop racist abuse. If Wendel was getting it, I'd step in and say: 'You haven't been to Auschwitz. You should go. Then come back and say what you're saying now.'""

It's not always easy to tell whether these are words that they think adults want to hear, but these two seem genuine enough.

Certainly, Quigley is beaming happily at their response. When they've returned to their classrooms, she points out: ""This has been about broadening horizons and widening self-esteem as well as raising awareness. They also went to Krakow, saw the old Jewish quarter and the ghetto where Schindler's List was filmed. And they've seen Polish people in their homeland, so they have some idea of the culture of the ones they see over here. For most of these lads, it's the first time they've been abroad.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2009/jan/19/disability-hate-crime,"A conference today looks at the radical changes that need to be made within the criminal justice system to tackle disability hate crime

Would you call yourself a ""vulnerable"" person?

You probably wouldn't but if someone labelled you ""vulnerable"", how would it make you feel? In need of protection, worthy of pity, inferior or, perhaps, incapable of attracting hatred?

Disabled people are often described as ""vulnerable"" – by the government, legal system and media. The government definition of a vulnerable adult is: ""An adult who is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness and who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation"".

The legal definition of vulnerability is wider and includes those targeted because of their ""age, youth, disability or the job they do"".

While I appreciate the need for definitions in government policy or the law, these particular descriptions put forward a view of disabled people as intrinsically vulnerable.

As a disabled person myself I would argue that vulnerability is situational, not innate. I am not vulnerable because I use community care services (although I might be if I didn't get the services I needed). I could be vulnerable in circumstances where someone wishes me harm, but this vulnerability does not extend to every aspect of my life. Aside from the fact there is something inherently disempowering about the word ""vulnerable"", its use – or indeed misuse – becomes more sinister in the context of disability hate crime.

The government defines hate crime as ""any incident which constitutes a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice and hate"". A disability hate crime is a criminal offence motivated by hatred or prejudice towards a person because of their actual or perceived disability. Disability hate crime is not a separate offence but is recognised under section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 2003, which imposes a duty on the courts to increase the sentence for any offence aggravated by hostility towards the victim based on their disability.

There is no official government data on the prevalence of disability hate crimes – statistics are collected on racially and religiously aggravated offences but not specifically on disability hate crimes. In addition, until April 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) did not collect disability hate crime prosecution data separately. However, anecdotally, disability hate crime seems to be widespread and there is a significant gap between reported crime against disabled people and their experiences.

Failure to recognise disability hate crime when it occurs is the biggest barrier to tackling it. A report published last August by Scope, UK Disabled People's Council and Disability Now, entitled Getting Away with Murder showed that the language used to describe crimes against disabled people was a key factor in this. Disabled crime victims were usually described as ""vulnerable"" or attacks detailed as ""senseless"" or ""motiveless"" – in many cases these terms were used as an explanation for crimes motivated by hostility towards disabled people.

Routine use of the word ""vulnerable"" often masks the real motivation for such crimes and undermines the gravity of the offence. This confusion between vulnerability and hostility means that disability hate crimes are not always identified, and so are not prosecuted and punished for what they are.

The importance of language in all this cannot be under-estimated – it influences the way we view ourselves and others. Just look at the recent furore over how Prince Harry described an Asian colleague. ""Paki"" is associated with abuse and violence against Asian communities and we are right to be shocked.

Likewise, disability hate crime has its origins in wider disablist attitudes ingrained in our society where disabled people are often viewed as inferior, and where derogatory terms such as ""spaz"" or ""window licker"" are casually employed without any thought to the offence they cause.

As Sir Ken Macdonald, former head of the CPS, has pointed out: ""Section 146 (of the CJA) requires evidence of hostility and this is not the same as taking advantage of vulnerability.""

But as ""vulnerability"" is applied practically wholesale to disabled people, making this distinction is more challenging.

At a conference today, Scope, Disability Now and the UK Disabled People's Council, will be highlighting this and other issues that foster disability hate crime – such as the considerable barriers for disabled people in the criminal justice system.

We do not believe these issues can be addressed without our active involvement. As disabled people we have a key role to play in working alongside members of the criminal justice system to tackle them.

This process has to involve radical cultural change within the criminal justice system – and beyond. Employing the right language to tackle disability hate crime is not enough – but it would be a good place to start.

• Alice Maynard is chair of disability charity Scope. Scope, Disability Now and the UK Disabled People's Council are hosting a conference on disability hate crime today",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/18/the-hate-game-stephen-lawrence,"An online viral advertising campaign against hate crime has taken inspiration from computer games and virtual reality worlds such as Second Life to tell the story of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust ad campaign takes the form of six viral films recreating real-life hate crime incidents from the UK, and uses the concept of a fictional computer game to push the message ""Stand up to hatred"".

Each of the two-minute viral ads, created by creative production company Knifedge, opens as if the viewer is playing an interactive virtual reality title called ""The Hate Game"".

The first 80 seconds of the Stephen Lawrence film, which has the backing of his mother Doreen, tells the story of his death, viewed from the point of view of the teenager as he is attacked while waiting for a bus with his friend.

As the animated Lawrence's life force, represented by a heart symbol, stops, the viral ad cuts to a 40-second clip of Doreen Lawrence. ""This isn't a game. This happened to my son Stephen,"" she says.

She goes on to say: ""We all must recognise when hate crime is taking place and report it.""

Three other viral ads tell animated versions of real-life stories involving homophobia, Islamaphobia and anti-semitism in the UK. The remaining two virals tell stories related to the holocaust and Nazi persecution.

The viral ads have been launched to raise awareness about Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January – the anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1945. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust campaigns for racial and religious harmony.

""The issues addressed in these films are occurring every day across the UK and it is vitally important we begin to recognise the dangers that unchecked hatred presents to us,"" said Jack Gilbert, a trustee of HDMT, of which the Queen is a patron. ""Every day people in the UK stereotype, discriminate, exclude, bully, persecute and attack because of race, religion, disability or sexuality.""

The animated clips will be used as support material for teachers, youth and community workers and local groups. They will also be made available on DVD with guidance notes.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly ""for publication"".",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2008/dec/18/the-hate-game-stephen-lawrence,"See an online film created by the Holocaust Memorial Trust telling young people to 'Stand up against hatred'. Part of a series called The Hate Game, the viral tells the story of the Stephen Lawrence murder in the style of a computer game. It was put together by creative production company Knifedge",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/oct/07/disability.hate.crime,"Police and prosecutors are failing to tackle an epidemic of hate crime against disabled people, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales said last night.

Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of public prosecutions, said that too many disabled people live in fear because the criminal justice system is letting them down. He told the Bar Council: ""Disability hate crime is widespread. At the lower end of the scale there is a vast amount not being picked up. The more serious offences are not always being prosecuted as they should be.""

Macdonald said examples of hate crimes included stones, yoghurt and bad eggs being thrown at the windows of disabled people. They were subjected to offensive remarks, including that they should have been ""put down at birth"".

There had also been serious assaults in which disabled people were ""treated like animals [and] subjected to sustained, violent and viciously degrading treatment"".

Macdonald said that police and prosecutors must stop thinking of disabled people as inherently weak and easy targets. ""This approach is wrong. It means that the opportunity to condemn the prejudice and hostility of the offender is missed.""

He added: ""Where there is evidence of hostility, police and prosecutors must ensure it is put before the court. It is our duty to give effect to the law which supports the struggle for disabled people to live as full and valued members of society. These offences represent a crude assault on their human rights.""

The law was strengthened five years ago to make the courts regard hostility to disabled people as an aggravating factor in any crime, requiring stiffer penalties.

Macdonald said the police should look harder for evidence of prejudiced attitudes that could support a prosecution for disability hate crime.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/11/ukcrime.gayrights,"On a normal Saturday night, the G Bar, Liverpool's most popular gay club, is so rowdy you have to shout yourself hoarse to be heard. But midway through last Saturday's revelry, the dancefloor fell silent after a message went out over the club's PA: a popular local teenager had died after being brutally beaten in what police believe to be a homophobic attack.

Michael Causer, 18, had been in hospital for nine days on a life support machine before he died on August 2. As the teenager lay in a coma, his friends and family had kept vigil by his bedside, kissing and holding him, singing his favourite songs.

This weekend, these same tunes, including We've Got Tonight by Ronan Keating and Lulu, were played at venues throughout Liverpool in Michael's memory. The gay teenager, a trainee hairdresser who changed the colour of his hair as often as his socks, had been a regular at the club. In the days leading up to the attack, he had told anyone who would listen how happy he was, having just got back together with his first serious boyfriend, George.

What exactly happened the morning Michael was attacked is unclear, but it seems that he had been out with friends, then gone back to a house party in a cul-de-sac in Huyton, Merseyside. Police say the initial assault on Michael took place there, but his body was found outside by the busy Tarbock Road at around 11am on Friday July 25. He was lying less than a mile away from where the body of black teenager Anthony Walker was discovered in 2005.

Michael's friends say that he had never been attacked before. ""If people had a go at him for being gay, he would just laugh,"" said Michael Donnelly, 18, a friend since primary school. ""He would just say, 'So what?' He was proud of being gay.""

Whether or not the attack on Michael was a hate crime, the case has heightened concerns about homophobia in Merseyside. ""There is an appalling level of endemic homophobia in Liverpool,"" said Steve Radford, a city councillor of 29 years standing, who is gay.

Radford cites the Stormbreak report, which was commissioned by Liverpool council and made public last year, which found 59% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people had experienced homophobic crime in Liverpool, compared with 47% in London.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, the gay equality charity, said: ""Given the level of homophobic crime that there is in this country, it is tragically not surprising that this is still happening.""

Research carried out earlier this year by YouGov on behalf of Stonewall revealed that one in five of the estimated 3.6 million gay and lesbian people in Britain had been a victim of hate crime, and three-quarters of those didn not report the incidents to the police.

According to Deborah Gold, chief executive of Galop, London's LGBT community safety charity, other research ""shows that people avoid public affection, talk differently, dress differently, avoid certain areas, avoid public transport to minimise risk. Without this behaviour it is likely the rate of attacks would be far greater.""

In the past week the LBGT community in Liverpool has voiced a determination that things change. At a highly charged extraordinary meeting on Wednesday night in the Quakers' meeting house in Liverpool city centre, a group of around 40 people, including representatives from the police and city council, discussed the way forward. They agreed various initiatives, including a vigil for Michael, to be held in the coming weeks.

Some saw homophobia as a particularly local issue. Gary Everett, artistic director of the gay theatre festival Homotopia, thought Liverpool's problem was its roots in Catholicism. ""The city is still shackled by religion,"" he said.

A disproportionate number (55%) of children in Merseyside attend faith schools. Some of these, Everett said, were reluctant to improve their teaching on LGBT issues despite Section 28, the controversial law which stopped schools ""promoting"" homosexuality, having been repealed in 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England.

But many gay Liverpudlians do not think their city is any more homophobic than anywhere else.

There was anger at the near-silence in the media in the first few days after Michael's death.

""When Rhys Jones was killed, there was uproar in all quarters. But when another young lad in the city has been viciously attacked, and dies as a result, the only uproar is coming from the LGBT community,"" said James Prendergast, a student.

Two men have been charged with grievous bodily harm in connection with the assault and are due to appear before Liverpool crown court on Tuesday. A third has been charged with witness intimidation.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/05/usa.ewenmacaskill,"Hate crimes have increased sharply over the last decade throughout Europe, according to a lengthy report by a US-based human rights group.

The 2007 Hate Crime Survey by Human Rights First, out tomorrow, records a rising tide of attacks against Muslims, Jews, gays and lesbians.

It notes rises in recent years in the UK, France, Germany, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. ""In France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, governments have made serious efforts to combat hate crimes in recent years, although more needs to be done,"" the report says.

Human Rights First, which is based in New York and Washington, adds that there was a dramatic rise in racist and religiously-motivated violence in the UK after the London bombings in 2005.

""Overall, in 2006, hate crimes in the United Kingdom continued at a historically high rate.""

On attacks on Jews, it says: ""Anti-semitism, a particularly pernicious form of racism and religious intolerance, has persisted at a high level throughout Europe and North America, while tending to surge in response to international events involving Israel.""

Anti-semitic incidents in the UK in 2006 rose dramatically, with the highest annual toll since the collection of statistics began in 1984.

Muslims too have suffered according to the data. ""In 2006, discrimination and violence against Muslims persisted throughout much of Europe. Though the number of registered incidents decreased from a peak level in 2005, after the subway bombings in London, the number of violent incidents remains high.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/mar/28/society.northernireland,"People in Northern Ireland at risk from hate crime are being offered extra protection - including personal and home alarms and 24-hour access to the police - as part of a government initiative responding to alarming rises in such incidents.

Attacks on immigrants, including petrol bombs thrown into homes, have highlighted what has become a growing problem. A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office says the new measures, collectively known as the Hate Incidents Practical Actions project, are designed to offer ""protection and reassurance"" to people who feel threatened or who have been victims of hate crime.

Those affected will be encouraged to report incidents, and the police will be responsible for assessing which measures best suit the individual concerned.

The authorities in Northern Ireland have been struggling to tackle the issue as the volume of attacks has risen year on year. While large numbers of sectarian hate crimes (1,470 were recorded in 2005/06) have been the norm for many years, recent increases in incidents and crimes related to race and homophobia in particular have led to calls from community groups for a fresh approach.

The latest available figures from the Police Service Northern Ireland show that race hate incidents rose by 15.1% in 2005/06 to 936, and racially motivated hate crimes jumped by 17.1% to a total of 746. Homophobic incidents have also risen, up 12.2% to 220, despite a 2% decline in recorded homophobic crimes.

· Email your comments to society@theguardian.com. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly ""for publication""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/feb/06/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation,"· Survey finds highest rate of burglary in the EU · Assaults and hate crime also near top of league

Britain has the highest rate of burglary in the European Union and is also nearly top of the league for assaults and hate crime, according to a recent survey.

The EU crime and safety survey names the UK as a ""high crime country"" and says the risk of becoming a victim of the 10 most common crimes is, with the exception of Ireland, the highest across the European Union.

London also emerges as the ""crime capital of Europe"" with the likelihood of becoming a victim - mostly of a range of petty crimes - said to be higher than all other EU capitals and even higher than cities such as Istanbul and New York.

The findings will dismay Home Office ministers who boast that the 35% fall in crime in Britain since 1995 has brought the risk of becoming a victim down to its lowest level for 40 years.

The survey acknowledges that crime has fallen in the UK since it peaked in 1995, but says it has not dropped as fast as crime rates across the rest of the EU.

The UK is named alongside Ireland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Denmark as the crime hotspots of Europe with crime victim rates that are at least 30% higher than the EU average.

It does, however, contain some positive news for Britain, saying that there is an extremely low chance compared with many other EU countries of becoming a victim of attempted bribery, while consumer fraud is not a cause for concern. It adds that despite the poor crime record British residents are reasonably happy with the performance of the police and are not overly concerned about burglary or safety on the streets.

The survey, carried out by Gallup Europe for the UN crime prevention agency and funded by the European Commission, says that no single factor can explain the drop in crime across Europe over the past 10 years but that a fall in the proportion of young males and improved security measures such as burglar and car alarms are probably more influential than tough sentencing policies or rising prison populations.

Its says that ""sentencing policies in Europe as a whole are considerably less punitive than in the US and yet crime is falling just as steeply in Europe as it is in the US"". The authors add that Britain and Ireland stand almost alone in Europe in jailing persistent burglars rather than using community service orders to punish them.

The findings of the survey, organised by the UN's crime justice research institute and based on polling representative samples in 18 EU countries about their experience of crime, show the UK to be one of the most protected countries in Europe but with a crime rate way above the average.

They show Britain: · has the highest level of assaults involving threats but not violence in the EU, with 5% of the public saying they have been a victim of assault

· is the most burgled country in the EU, with 3% saying their homes have been broken into

· has a high level of hate crime - 3% - and above-average rate of hate crimes that occur within the immigrant population

· has a high risk of theft from cars - 5% compared with EU average of 3.5%

· has an above-average level of pickpocketing and personal theft - one of only three countries in the EU, with Ireland and Estonia, to be above the average level.

The comparison of crime rates in individual capitals and major cities shows the 32% of the residents of London have been a victim of 10 categories of offences ranging from assault to sexual harassment to burglary. The comparable figures were 18% for Istanbul and 23% for New York.

But the Home Office minister Tony McNulty disputed the survey's findings, saying there were concerns about its quality. He said the report failed to recognise that burglary had fallen by 55% since 1997 in England and Wales.

The survey prompted the Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, to claim that Britain was now the ""sick man of Europe"" when it came to crime: ""The government should ask itself why the prisons are at bursting point and yet the level of several crimes are still higher than elsewhere in the EU. The present strategy must be rethought urgently.""

In numbers

30% The percentage above the EU average of crime victim levels in Britain

3% The percentage of British respondents who say their homes have been burgled

5% The risk of car crimes in the UK, well above the EU average of 3.5%",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/nov/08/crime.penal1,"Practical solutions to combat hate crime are being given to victims too afraid to go to the police

Rasheed Sadegh-Zadeh is worried. In the past two years, he has seen referrals of racially motivated crimes to Victim Support Enfield - where he is borough manager - increase by more than 70%. In the financial year to 2005, his team dealt with almost 150 racially motivated acts of vandalism, verbal abuse, property damage and physical attacks. In the year to 2006, that figure rose to more than 250.

As he is aware, the increase can be read in one of two ways: either people are coming forward to report such crimes in greater numbers - for which the area's approach of reaching out to victims must take some credit - or racially motivated crime in the north London borough is soaring.

Either way, Sadegh-Zadeh is taking no chances. Enfield shares its border with the Hertfordshire borough of Broxbourne to the north and Epping Forest to the east, which have six British National party councillors between them. Although he makes no direct link, Sadegh-Zadeh is under no illusions about the potential influence of such groups. ""It may be that in future, if we don't put up a robust fight against these elements, they will become stronger.""

Until recently, Sadegh-Zadeh was chair of Enfield's Racial Incident Action Group (Riag). Created in 1994, the group pioneered new ways of encouraging victims to report racial incidents, including third-party reporting sites in local community centres to cater for those who didn't want to deal directly with the police.

Six months ago, Riag joined forces with the Enfield Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network and Enfield Disability Action to become the Hate Crime Forum (HCF), of which Sadegh-Zadeh is chair.

All hate crimes reported in the borough, whether to police or through Enfield's five reporting sites, are now examined by a police officer and the HCF coordinator. If appropriate, they are referred to the HCF. The forum meets once a month, bringing together police, the local authority's education and social services, housing services and members of voluntary and community groups, who give their time freely to consider possible follow-up action.

""We find a way to offer practical help to the victim,"" says Sadegh-Zadeh. ""If there is racial abuse involving the children of housing association tenants, we will liaise with the tenants' representatives to oblige parents to take more charge of their children. If it's abusive graffiti in a playground, we will take it up with the school.""

The approach also helps build a fuller picture of the extent of victimisation. ""If five or six incidents occur around the same address, the police know there could be a persistent problem. Even if there is no identifiable perpetrator or victim, it can help them adjust their policing in that area,"" says a Victim Support spokeswoman.

Victim Support - whose recent research found that the majority of hate crime victims did not report their experiences to police for fear of not being taken seriously - is working on new guidance for staff that is due to be rolled out next year and is likely to draw heavily on HCF's approach.

Richard Cranston, 63, turned to Victim Support Enfield when he was racially abused by a neighbour. He says its support, which included dealing with the police, helped him through a difficult time. ""They helped me feel I was not so isolated in my worry. They helped me stand up for myself against a bully.""

www.victimsupport.org

· Any comments on this article? Write to society@theguardian.com",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/16/race.ukcrime,"Most victims of racist and homophobic crime do not report their experiences to the police and often suffer ongoing victimisation which they regard as part of everyday life, according to a report published today.

The research by Victim Support found most victims of hate crimes, which included verbal abuse, property damage and assault, suffered in silence. Only one in five who reported the offences felt supported by police and many criticised officers for failing to act, particularly over low-level harassment.

Some who experienced continued victimisation saw the abuse as part of daily life and even gave up leaving the house. Others lost their home or business because of arson, vandalism or having to move to get away from their abusers.

They gave fear of going to court, concern about revenge attacks and a lack of understanding from the police as reasons for not reporting what was happening.

Peter Dunn, head of research and development at Victim Support, said: ""Hate crime symbolises all the worst aspects of prejudice. Our research shows that it has a more profoundly damaging affect on victims that is often not fully understood by the criminal justice system.""

He said the report's findings, obtained through interviews with 107 hate crime victims and a survey of support organisations, would be shared to try to improve the help available. The organisation helps 30,000 victims of racist crime every year and the numbers are rising.

Maxie Hayles, head of Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit, said agencies needed to prioritise hate crimes.

""The fact is that people do not trust the criminal justice system and would rather suffer the terror than risk not being helped,"" he said.

Although the Home Office publishes figures for recorded racist incidents and racially or religiously aggravated offences - up 7% and 6% respectively last year - a spokeswoman said it did not break down figures for victimisation based on sexual orientation or disability.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/aug/16/crime.penal1,"A UK charity has spoken to the silent victims of hate crime to find out what can be done to help them. Ed Ewing looks at the findings

How much hate crime is there in Britain? How many people report it? How many people don't report it? And how do the police treat it when it is reported?

The simple answer is nobody knows, although Victim Support, a UK charity dedicated to helping victims of crime, has tried to answer at least some of these questions in a new report published today. The authors of the report, Crime and Prejudice, set out to interview victims of hate crime to establish what their experiences were.

""You can never know how much hate crime there is because it is under-reported,"" explains Victim Support press officer Lucy Winter. ""There is no clear picture because there is no systematic collection of hate-crime data that is easily comparable."" Racially motivated hate crime data has been collected since 1986, but other hate crime data is not uniformly recorded or even recognised in official figures.

Peter Dunn, head of research and development at Victim Support, led the research, which was funded by Co-operative Insurance. ""We were trying to establish four things,"" he says. ""First, the extent and nature of hate crime in England and Wales - trying to find out what happens to people. Secondly, how do we as support services work, and do we need to change the way we operate? Thirdly, to find out what services are available for victims of hate crime, and lastly, how to improve our own service.""

The report's authors interviewed 107 victims of hate crime in detail about their experiences. The interviewees came from four areas. Oldham, Stoke-on-Trent and Cardiff were selected because they are racially mixed and are all asylum dispersal areas. Lambeth in south London was chosen because it has a high lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population.

Hate crime, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, is ""criminal conduct motivated by prejudice"". It is crime fuelled by prejudice against a person's religion, sexuality, ethnicity, disability or gender.

According to Dunn, it can take the form of verbal abuse, bullying, harassment, assault, arson, vandalism or even murder. Last year the racist killing of 18-year-old Anthony Walker in Liverpool and the gay-bashing - to death - of 24-year-old Jody Dobrowski, in London, were two cases that hit the headlines.

""The experience of hate crime can be life changing,"" says Dunn. ""Being targeted for who you are sets hate crime apart from other types of crime. It can have a deep impact on the victim's culture, identity and self-esteem.""

Effects listed in the report include fear, depression, trauma for the family's children and financial loss.

""My house was burned down,"" said one interviewee. ""We had to close my shop and I lost a lot of money,"" said another. One other interviewee simply shut down emotionally: ""I thought, if I was going to get harassed when I go out, then I'd rather stay inside. It got to the point where I stopped working and started claiming benefits.""

Many interviewees said hate crime was a ""fact of life"" and something they experienced every day. ""There is nothing I can do about it,"" said one. Another said: ""I keep my mobile phone in my hand all the time so I can call the police because I know they will attack me.""

The report's authors were not only interested in the experience of the actual crime. They wanted to know about the experience of reporting it.

""There's a big problem with under-reporting,"" says Winter. As one respondent put it: ""Let's be blunt about it, there would be retaliation and I would get no support.""

A negative attitude from the police was a big reason for not reporting hate crime. ""What affected me more [than the crime] was the attitude of the police officer, who took it so lightly,"" said one respondent. ""Nothing was ever done, nobody went any further, nobody wanted to find out what actually happened,"" said another.

Both responses echo a common perception that police have a ""nothing we can do"" approach to low-level hate crime.

Of those who did report the crime, the report says only one in five felt they were well supported by the police. Dunn, however, cautions at taking that statistic at face value: ""It's a qualitative survey,"" he says, ""the numbers are too small to draw any concrete conclusions"".

As well as talking to victims of hate crime, Victim Support interviewed other support agencies such as gay and lesbian support groups, religious groups and race equality partnerships.

The report found many areas where agencies working together ""could do better"".

""We need to outreach better,"" says Dunn. ""That means more leaflets and posters in places like mosques, libraries or GP surgeries. And translated into minority languages."" Building better and more effective community contacts is also important, he says.

Support organisations also need to work more closely with each other, says Dunn, as well as with the police to ensure more prosecutions.

Third-party reporting - where a third party acts as liaison between the victim and the police - could also help boost reporting of hate crime, says Dunn. ""Not one of our interviewees had heard of it,"" he says, ""which is a shame because a lot of work has gone into it in the past few years.""

Perhaps predictably, the report calls for greater understanding from the police and crown prosecution service to record hate crime and to respond to the needs of victims. It also demands greater investment in support services for hate crime victims, calls for more ""joined up"" services, and greater promotion of services to at-risk communities. A national hate-crime telephone helpline would be a big step forward, says Dunn, although he admits such a service is ""a long way away"".

In the meantime, adds Dunn, there is still a lot of work to be done on making hate crime a more reportable and recordable offence.

""Hate crime damages whole communities,"" he says, ""not just the individuals who are targeted. It symbolises all the worst aspects of prejudice, and it creates a climate of fear.""

· Full report (pdf) available from www.victimsupport.com",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/aug/16/comment.race,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jul/20/inthenameofthefatherwhen,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/nov/11/raceintheuk.crime,"The number of race hate crimes in Britain has risen by nearly a third, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

The latest figures from the CPS, which do not include data from the period after the July 7 London bombings, show that racially aggravated offences in England and Wales rose by 29% compared with the previous year.

The CPS said it prosecuted 4,600 people for race hate crimes between March 2004 and March 2005, but it expects the number to increase next year once the effect of the July 7 London bombings is felt.

A spokesperson for the CPS said an initial look at cases currently in the justice system showed there has been a slight rise since July.

""We think they have gone up slightly, but that's the only indication we have at the moment. We will not see the full impact of the bombings until this time next year,"" she said.

Today's figures revealed the number of racist incidents given to the CPS by the police rose by 22%. Most were assaults, criminal damage or public order offences, but four murders were also included.

Of the 5,788 cases handed over to the CPS, 81% went to court, but there was a 5% increase in the number of race cases that had to be abandoned because witnesses refused to give evidence or failed to attend court.

The director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, said the CPS had worked hard to give victims confidence that their cases would be treated properly to encourage them to come forward.

""Last year many CPS areas moved to working with the police, giving on-the-spot legal advice and helping to construct trial-ready cases,"" he said.

""Compared to the last set of figures, 8% fewer racially aggravated charges were dropped because of insufficient evidence.""

The conviction rate for all race offences charged dropped by 2% to 84%.

The number of religiously aggravated cases dropped to 34 from 49 the year before. In 67% of religion cases the victim was Muslim.

""Racist and religious crime does not simply injure the victim or their property,"" Mr Macdonald said.

""It affects the whole family and erodes the standards of decency of the wider community. We are determined to prosecute robustly wherever and whenever we can.""

A survey released in December 2004 revealed nearly 80% of the 1.8 million Muslims in the UK had experienced discrimination because of their faith compared with 50% in 2000 and 35% in 1999.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/18/gayrights.ukcrime,"The murder at the weekend of Jody Dobrowski at a popular cruising area has raised again the ugly issue of anti-gay hate crime. Just how bad is the situation? Ed Vulliamy finds that for many gay people harassment remains part of daily life

It was supposed to be getting so much better. Long gone are the days of the convicted serial killer of gay men, Colin Ireland, when, in 1993, the police would not even acknowledge that his first three victims were homosexual and it took a call to the authorities from the then editor of Gay Times, Colin Richardson, to point out the almost exact similarities between the three murders. There were a further two to come before Ireland was caught and tried.

It was supposed to be getting so much better. But the savage battering to death this weekend of 24-year-old Jody Dobrowski, apparently accompanied by a cacophony of homophobic abuse, has provoked a moment of sudden, sober reflection among gay rights campaigners. Dobrowski, a bar manager, was murdered on Clapham Common in London, a popular gay cruising area, on Saturday night in an assault described by police as ""frenzied"". They are seeking two men in connection with the killing.

So how much violence really goes on against gay men and lesbians? Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, describes a landscape in which the gay population has to walk a high wire between recognising achievements and efforts made by both the police and society and the vicious intolerance of which this weekend's savagery was an expression.

Figures released by the Metropolitan police in 2001 showed that during the first six months of that year, 745 incidents were reported. There has been no statistical detail since. ""Hate crime in the capital has decreased by 4.3% over the past year, while homophobic crime has risen by 8.5% over the past year,"" says Summerskill, which, he emphasises, is ""people swinging their fists, not just shouting at people in the streets"". And this, he says, ""is London, not those places that might be even less tolerant. I don't know the statistics for Grimsby, Kettering or Shrewsbury, but indications are that in some places, people become socially withdrawn; gay people are becoming a social category rather like old people, who prefer not to go out at night out of fear of violence.""

This climate of fear is in spite of what Summerskill calls ""very clear efforts by the police. For instance, they now say that if you are the victim of an attack, you will be interviewed by a gay officer - so, good! You will be spoken to by someone who is friendly! - which in itself shows what they know about many of their own officers.""

Part of the problem, he says, is that casual homophobia is still acceptable in wider society, ""whether it's Richard Littlejohn in the Sun or kids calling each other 'batty boys' in the playground, which teachers do not feel able to challenge. And if these sort of things are happening generally, it validates people who start to swing punches and then the extreme case of those going out to kill people.""

Colin Richardson has now left Gay Times to work on a health programme in Camden and Islington. ""In the 80s and early 90s,"" he says, ""there was a lot of violence. There was a certain political climate, and the rise of HIV Aids. It seems better than 20 years ago - at least, it did until recently - but now there seems to be an upswing again. The word 'gay' is the worst insult in the playground. I think it's because however many laws have been passed, however beneficent and good, they have not been followed through in society. If you don't follow through in schools, in HIV funding, in anti-discriminatory behaviour, you will see these things recurring.""

In general, though, he admits that this kind of homosexual murder is unusual, and agrees that the police have made much progress, in London at least. Clapham, he says, ""is a particularly good local station. I can remember days when if the police were blazing their lights across Clapham Common, it was to intimidate the gay men who gather there. Now, it would be in pursuit of a case of violence against someone."" (A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police stresses that all the force's 32 boroughs have a dedicated community safety unit ""made up of officers trained to deal with specific offences such as homophobic crime, racist crime and domestic violence. A lot of energy goes into this training, into sensitivity on the issues.""

The police officer who now runs the Gay Police Association, Inspector Paul Cahill, was among those who offered to help with the Colin Ireland murders, ""because we thought we had something to offer. But they said, 'Oh no, we don't need your kind.' The turning point came after the 1999 nail bomb in Soho, when we from the Lesbian and Gay Police took over street operations from West End Central. The police realised they had been caught back-footed.""

Cahill sees the current upsurge of violence against gays as a particularly vicious ingredient in the general current mix of menace and antisocial behaviour, ""and comes at the point when you manifest yourself. Ninety per cent of attacks happen when there is some physical manifestation; often, if I am with my partner at a bus stop, there'll be occasions when I will not be able to touch him while saying goodbye at a bus stop. I'm afraid to say that I can see a very significant increase in homophobic attacks in the coming years. The legislation is so much better now, yes, but everything is just as unsafe.""

""We have come a long way,"" says Joseph Galliano, deputy editor of Gay Times, ""Yes, most of us now know someone who has come out of the closet, which makes it difficult to remain ignorant. It's hard to sound positive during the days after a murder, but we cannot be entirely negative. It was only in 1967 that homosexuality was decriminalised. This has been a very fast change in society, and acceptance has built up quite quickly. But it's a very thin veneer of respectability - there will always be people who lag behind, and people out there with violent and irrational hatreds. And in times such as now, who do these people go for? The Other, the minorities, people who are different.""

Tris Reid-Smith, editor of the Pink Paper, Britain's national gay newspaper, says it remains incredibly hard to gauge the present level of homophobic violence. On one hand, he says: ""We have made it easier for people to report hate crime: a lot of people are coming forward who would not have done in the past, anonymously or remotely."" On the other, though, ""there is a lot of homophobic violence that we don't know about; attacks, even murders, which are homophobic but are not reported as such on Sky News, in the Guardian or even the Pink Paper.""

The latest national statistics on homophobic crime were released by the Crown Prosecution Service last June. They show that between April 2004 and March 2005, the CPS brought 317 cases which had what it calls a ""homophobic element"". There were 190 guilty pleas, but only 34 convictions at trial. A quarter of the cases were dropped because the victim refused to testify.

All agree, however, that this is likely only to scratch the surface. The London-based Gay and Lesbian charity Galop counsels victims of homophobic harassment or violence; according to Tor Docherty, the organisation's chief executive, ""the level of hate crime is high, and the level of reporting is low. Very few homophobic attacks are reported - far lower than the level of reported attacks of general violent crime. People come to Galop about attacks they don't want to go to the police over, and we then refer them to the police.""

They are frequently told by callers that harassment is just a way of life. ""Whether it is being shouted at or pushed - it's almost an expectation of how they live. Someone said the other day that if they reported every incidence, they'd never be out of the police station"".",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/16/russia,"Racism and xenophobia are growing at an alarming rate in Russia, civil rights groups said yesterday, fuelled by economic hardship and the government's failure to come up with a plan for reducing ethnic tensions.

An EU-funded study by the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights said 10 people had been killed and another 200 victimised as a result of hate crime in the first half of 2005. The number of fatal attacks was nearly three times higher than last year.

A nationwide opinion poll, meanwhile, found that 58% of respondents either fully or partially supported the concept ""Russia for Russians"". A similar poll last year found 53% held that view.

Growing extremist sentiments are rooted in Russia's economic problems and the Soviet collapse, which sent thousands of migrants from poorer former republics to Russia seeking jobs. Experts also accused political parties of openly using racially tinged messages to appeal to voters sceptical of foreigners.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/18/religion.politics,,guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/18/race.religion,"The number of race hate crime allegations reported to prosecutors leapt by 13% last year, according to figures published today.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it dealt with 4,728 files between April 2003 and March 2004. Of these, 3,616 were taken to court - an increase of 2% on the previous year.

Separate figures on religiously-aggravated crimes showed there were 49 cases referred to the CPS during the period, only the second year for which the data has been published. Previously there were 18 cases during a 16-month period from December 2001, when the power to charge suspects with religiously-motivated crimes was introduced.

Of the 49 cases, all but five went to court, with Islam the ""actual or perceived"" religion of victims in exactly half of the cases. A further eight victims were Christian, five Jewish, three Hindu, two Sikh, one Jehovah's Witness and the remaining three unknown.

The overall conviction rate for religiously-aggravated crimes was 77%. Examples of offences included an attack on a 12-year-old Sikh boy by a 14-year-old Muslim boy who threw a lit aerosol at him, setting his hair and turban alight. The attacker was convicted of religiously-aggravated actual bodily harm, sentenced to a three-month action plan order and ordered to pay £200 compensation to his victim and £100 costs.

In another case, two youths claiming to be Satanists harassed a Christian minister and his family over a period of three months. Both were convicted, with one receiving a six-month restraining order and the other 12 months' imprisonment.

Another defendant, who subjected his Muslim taxi driver to racially and religiously abusive language, pleaded guilty to religiously-aggravated common assault and received four months' imprisonment.

The 3,616 race hate cases resulted in 4,710 charges, of which 3,247 were racially-aggravated. The conviction rate for all those charged with racially-motivated crimes was 86% - up from 85% in the previous 12 months.

Ken Macdonald QC, the director of public prosecutions, said: ""I am reassured that the conviction rate for racially-aggravated offences remains high but there is still work to be done. In this report, witness difficulties accounted for 26% of dropped charges.

""We have high hopes that the witness care units, which are being rolled out to all 42 criminal justice areas in England and Wales, will provide more dedicated care to witnesses to help them attend court for all types of case.""

A CPS spokesman said the majority of cases in both race hate and religiously-aggravated categories were public order offences dealt with in the magistrates' courts. Seamus Taylor, the service's equality and diversity director, said: ""Whilst there are comparatively few religiously-aggravated cases, these are still early days for this new offence.

""What is significant is that 50% of the 44 victims' perceived or actual religion was Muslim. To build awareness that we will prosecute this type of hate crime rigorously, we will build on our current work and deepen our engagement with all faith communities over the next year.

""This will include engaging with the Muslim community which should contribute to raising awareness and building confidence in this area.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/mar/25/theatre.students,"In 1998 Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student from Laramie, Wyoming, was brutally murdered for being gay. Rachel Platt reports on a play about the town's struggle to deal with the fallout of a hate crime which shook America

The American students performing The Laramie Project, at London's Cochrane Theatre, are almost the same age as its subject, Matthew Shepard, when he was murdered.

Matthew was a 21-year-old gay student from Laramie, Wyoming. In 1998 he was picked up by two local boys in a bar and lured to the outskirts of the town where he was brutally beaten and left lashed to a fence for 18 hours before he was found. He died of his injuries in hospital five days later.

His murderers were apprehended within 24 hours - both were local boys of about the same age - but it took Laramie a lot longer to deal with the murder. The town was branded a redneck community full of hatred.

The Laramie Project, the play about the aftermath of Matthew's murder, explores how the town came to terms with a crime that forced the whole of America to think about hate crimes and homophobia.

Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, which devised the play, first travelled to Laramie a month after the murder. Over the course of the next two years members interviewed 200 townspeople and turned 400 hours of transcripts into a play involving 79 characters. The Laramie Project became the second most produced play in America and this month got its London premiere.

The cast of eight students who are now appearing in the London production first performed The Laramie Project in 2001, at the end of their senior year at school in Greenwich, Conneticut. ""We had an overwhelming response from our classmates, from the faculty and from the Greenwich community,"" says 19-year-old Mary Birnbaum. ""People were visibly moved by our performance.""

But when the head teacher of the Greenwich Academy, Patsy Howard, was first approached about doing the play she did have some misgivings. Greenwich is an affluent, conservative community and she was concerned about the reception the play would receive, particularly as it was being performed at school.

""I felt this play was a step we needed to take but I assumed there would be some parents who would take issue with it as being too controversial and too sophisticated a subject matter for this young a group. In the end there were none. We had no complaints, nothing but praise,"" she says.

Then last year they travelled to the Edinburgh festival where they won the Fringe First award, one of the highest awards available at the festival. The director of the play, Linda Ames Key, who is also the students' high school drama teacher, says she knew right away she wanted to take the play to Edinburgh. ""These seniors were a special group. I knew they were mature enough, talented enough and brave enough to pull it off.""

After winning the Fringe First award the students went from performing in front of audiences of 10 or 20 to full houses of about 150 every night. This is a feat they have repeated here in London. Following a series of excellent reviews the Cochrane theatre is now selling out most nights.

For the young actors in this play it has been an emotional experience. Shula Grossman, 18, plays the only Muslim character in the play as well as a Catholic priest: ""Sometimes it can be hard because it's a very emotional play and we're performing it eight times a week. The sadness can get to you,"" she says.

Moises Kaufman was happy to give Linda Ames Key and her class the rights to the production because he was impressed by the involvement of a younger generation in facing up to the issues raised by the murder. The play makes no overt judgements on the crime, but lets the audience hear the facts and the opinions of those affected and come to their own conclusions.

Diedre Malynn, managing director of the Cochrane theatre, first saw the play at lunchtime on a cold Edinburgh day. ""I was completely moved by the piece. It's one of those pieces that works theatrically and immediately and engages both your heart and your head. Having no expectations about the piece and suddenly seeing people crying and deeply affected was a powerful experience for me,"" she says.

The Cochrane theatre is run by the London Institute the group o f arts colleges made up of London College of Fashion, London College of Printing, Central Saint Martins, and Chelsea and Camberwell Art college. With this in mind Diedre felt strongly that The Laramie Project was exactly the sort of play they should be putting on: ""It's what theatre should be about,"" she says.

Of all the performances these students have done, Linda Ames Key still believes the most difficult was their first performance in Greenwich. One lasting effect of the play has been the introduction of classes looking at the issue of hate crime. According to Patsy Howard the legacy of the play will inevitably last at least until the next generation of students come along and want to start all over again.

The Laramie Project runs until April 6 at London's Cochrane Theatre. Box Office: 020 7269 1606

· Rachel Platt is a student at Westminster University",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jan/12/gayrights.ukcrime,"Gay campaigners are demanding a fresh inquiry into why police failed to investigate the murder of Damilola Taylor as a homophobic hate crime as new details emerged about anti-gay bullying the boy suffered at school.

The family of 11-year-old Damilola spoke publicly of playground taunts against their son in the days after he was stabbed and left to bleed to death in a stairwell on the North Peckham estate in south London two years ago. The investigation, however, soon focused elsewhere.

Staff at his school, Oliver Goldsmith primary in Peckham, now believe Damilola was labelled as gay by other children because they misinterpreted the 'tactile' and 'exuberant' behaviour of his Nigerian background.

Peter Tatchell of gay human rights group OutRage! has written to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, demanding to know why the original investigation failed to consider a possible link between homophobic bullying and Damilola's death. He has also written to John Sentamu, the Bishop of Birmingham, who carried out an inquiry into the case, to ask why he did not mention homophobia in his report, published at the end of last year.

Immediately after Damilola's death on 27 November 2000, his parents, Richard and Gloria, claimed that he had been bullied at school the previous week, and called a 'gay boy'. He did not even understand the meaning of the word 'gay'.

Tatchell said: 'Damilola's mother said her son had been the victim of an anti-gay assault a few days before the fatal attack. The original police investigation and the bishop's inquiry into the failed prosecution ignored these crucial facts.'

The school governors' chair, Bola Ogun, said staff had tackled the problem of anti-gay taunts made against Damilola, and its anti-bullying policy had been praised by Ofsted inspectors.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/13/vikramdodd,"Police were yesterday trying to determine whether the murder of a gay trainee rabbi, whose body was dismembered, was a hate crime.

The butchered remains of Andreas Hinz, 37, were found on Wednesday, less than a mile from a north London gay pub he was last seen leaving in the early hours of July 3.

His body parts had been wrapped in black plastic, and dumped in and around a block of flats in Camden.

His decomposing corpse was found decapitated, with the limbs cut off. Forensic teams yesterday continued to scour the scene for evidence.

Detectives were last night questioning three people arrested on Thursday on suspicion of murder. They were a 27-year-old man from Kingston, Surrey; a 24-year-old man from Camden; and an 18-year-old woman, from Eltham, south east London.

The murder team have consulted Scotland Yard's specialist hate crime unit, and have met Jewish and gay groups.

Mr Hinz's last evening saw him go for a meal with a friend in central London on July 2. They parted at 10.30pm and Mr Hinz, a German national, went to the Black Cap pub in Camden Town.

Just after 2am he was seen leaving with a white man with a Scottish accent aged between 18 and 23.

Mr Hinz was in the second of a five year course to be a rabbi at the Leo Baeck centre for Jewish education in London.

Mr Hinz's mother and his cousin, Claudia Bobermin, had flown to London earlier this week for appeal for information.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/mar/28/3,"Hundreds of tenants are forced to become homeless or live in fear when they become the victim of a hate crime. Waltham Forest hopes its new support scheme will change all that. David Batty reports

When Michael Verrier and his partner were forced to flee their home three years ago after homophobic neighbours threatened to kill them, they were left homeless for a month while the council found them new accommodation.

But despite appearing as witnesses in the London borough of Waltham Forest's court case against their attackers, the couple felt they were the victims of rough justice. The north-east London council re-housed them in a decrepit flat where they were subjected to another two-and-a-half years of abuse, while their abusive neighbours were allowed to stay put.

""The flat was cold, damp and mouldy as the water pipes were broken and the central heating didn't work. We got rubbish and rotten fruit pushed through the letterbox, graffiti over the front door and our car was vandalised. But we got no support from the council - the only other property they offered us was opposite the ringleader of the kids harassing us. So when they asked us to give evidence in court a second time we said no,"" said Mr Verrier.

The couple's experience is not an isolated case. Hundreds of tenants are forced to become homeless or live in fear every year, but local authorities have no statutory duty to prioritise their housing needs. Waltham Forest council hopes to change that with a new support scheme for victims and witnesses of hate crimes, enabling them to be swiftly and safely relocated.

The witness mobility scheme, launched this month, was developed after the council successfully evicted nine households found guilty of breaching their tenancy agreements by perpetrating racial harassment in 1998 and 1999. The cases showed witnesses had to be re-housed quickly and safely, and offered practical and emotional support, if they were to give evidence in court.

In partnership with the Metropolitan police, registered social landlords (RSLs) and voluntary groups, the council provides rapid re-housing, benefit assessments within a week, a befriending service, access to other support services - such as counselling and childcare - and taxis to and from court.

Caroline Jones, Waltham Forest equalities manager for community services, said the scheme has helped victims of hate crimes, domestic violence, rape and child abuse. During the six-month pilot last year, the police re-housed two witness households, RSLs re-housed three and the local authority two.

""Local authorities are under increasing pressure to tackle these crimes. But before we started the scheme, there was no help for people involved in civil cases while support for those giving evidence in criminal cases was very ad hoc,"" said Ms Jones.

""We've published a pack outlining the scheme as several other councils are interested in adopting it, including Devon, Cornwall, Oldham and Trafford, as well as the Northern Ireland housing executive. But we want the government to make it a statutory duty to move vulnerable witnesses.""

Housing providers in the scheme give priority to harassed witnesses, offering them a property similar in size and quality to their existing home. Tenants can be re-housed in stock belonging to any of the agencies involved in the scheme, even outside of the borough - and London - if that is the safest option. Housing associations involved include Circle 33, Metropolitan, London and Quadrant, Family, Solon and Springboard.

Chief executive of Waltham Forest housing association, Linda Milton, who represents registered social landlords in the project, said: ""It was very difficult for a small organisation with limited housing stock like ourselves to re-house people quickly in suitable accommodation. Tenants suffering racial harassment often had to decide whether to put up with the abuse for some time or move to an area which meets few of their cultural needs.""

Thanks to the witness mobility scheme, Mr Verrier and his partner Phil Duscovitch-Davis were moved out of their grotty Walthamstow flat into a larger one in Lathamstow last November. Mr Verrier, a former civil servant, now volunteers on the project's befriending service.

""It's all about listening to the experiences of victims,"" he said. ""We were given counselling and the council made sure the flat was in a good state of repair. If they or the police came to us now we would be prepared to go to court.""",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/13/race.world,"Scotland Yard's racial and violent crime task force has stepped in to help Lancaster race hate victims Mal Hussein and Linda Livingstone who continue to suffer a nine-year campaign by racist council tenants well known to the local police, it emerged yesterday.

The head of the task force, deputy assistant commissioner John Grieve, responded to a request by Lancashire police and sent his staff officer, detective Inspector Howard Gosling, to Lancaster on Tuesday to meet the mixed race couple.

He met them again yesterday when he attended a local conference on tackling racial harassment. He was accompanied by Mike Franklin, vice chairman of the independent advisory group set up last year to monitor the task force.

It also emerged that senior Lancaster police officers were briefed last February in London by the task force on practices adopted by Scotland Yard following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.

These include a proactive prosecution policy involving injunctions and intelligence gathering and sharing with the local authority.

Mr Franklin said he and DI Gosling were concerned that local officers had still not informed Mr Hussein about the London briefing.

He also criticised other statutory and voluntary agencies for failing the couple. But he singled out the local authority and Lancaster police for ""colluding with the majority of tenants"" on Ryelands estate where Mr Hussein and Ms Livingstone have owned a corner shop and upstairs flat since 1991.

The couple, he said, were regarded by the local authorities as ""the problem not the victims"". And the two local Labour MPs, Hilton Dawson and Geraldine Smith, appeared ""very defensive"" about the record of the Labour group who controlled the local council when the worst attacks occurred between 1991 and 1997.

During the first six years the shop was regularly firebombed on Mr Hussein's birthday. He was also shot at twice and, said Mr Franklin, the police failed to properly investigate the incidents.

Mr Hussein,45, believes he was maliciously prosecuted by the police in 1991 for defending himself against two thugs trying to violently extort money from his newly-opened shop. The Pakistani-born shopkeeper was banned from his home and Lancaster city until his acquittal a year later. Since then he has documented over 2,000 racist attacks and brought more than 40 successful prosecutions against offenders.

There has, however, been no let up in the psychological and physical violence. Official council figures record that last year 37 of the 79 racial incidents recorded by the police in Lancaster related to the couple.

Last July Lancashire police apologised unreservedly to Mr Hussein for its ""damning"" and repeated failure since 1991 to investigate the racist attacks.

The apology followed an operational review by the Lancaster police which has never been shown to the couple in full.

The local police authority also called for a report from chief constable Pauline Clare last year. This, too, has not been disclosed.

A group of local lay advisers is reviewing Lancaster police's 12-point action plan. And an investigating officer has been appointed to identify and address any disciplinary offences in consultation with the local police authority.

During the conference, Mr Hussein criticised the action plan for still failing to support him as a repeat victim.

A scheme was launched last November by the National Assembly Against Racism to raise at least £120,000 to buy the property from the couple through a share issue that would allow then to rebuild their lives and relationship elsewhere.

Dr Richard Stone, an adviser to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, believes there is a ""conspiracy"" not to take Mr Hussein seriously. Whether this is motivated by racism, corruption and a desire to cover up past mistakes will only be established by setting up a ""truth commission"" in Lancaster, he said.

Mr Hussein said he was pleased by Scotland Yard's involvement. This follows a meeting last week in London with Nelson Mandela.

Next week Mr Hussein will send a critical report to the home secretary, Jack Straw, who called for it when they met earlier this month in Blackburn.

Mr Hussein will ask the home secretary for an independent public inquiry. He is already taking the government to the European court of human rights for the failure of the city council to protect him and Ms Livingstone.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/25/2,"Opening arguments begin today in the murder trial of a man accused of beating a gay Wyoming student and leaving him to die. The case has become a rallying point in the US among campaigners for laws against hate crime.

Aaron McKinney, 22, is the second man charged with murdering Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old university of Wyoming student, in October last year.

Police allege that Mr McKinney and his friend, Russell Henderson, already convicted, lured Shepard out of a bar in Laramie, pistol whipped him with a stolen .357 calibre handgun and drove him to a remote area of the countryside, where they tied him to a fence.

Shepard died in a hospital five days later. He never regained consciousness after suffering massive head wounds.

The Albany county district attorney, Cal Rerucha, is seeking the death penalty if Mr McKinney is found guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery.

The case has also put on trial the small college town of Laramie, as well as the state of Wyoming, where attempts to pass anti-hate crime laws have been unsuccessful.

It has also raised tensions among the 26,000 people of Laramie. While vigils and memorials have been held in Shepard's honour, there were anti-gay demonstrations when jury selection began two weeks ago.

""A lot of people will be happy when the second trial is over with, because I think a lot of people won't have closure until that happens,"" said Harry Woods, an administrator at the university of Wyoming.

In April, after a jury was already picked and just before opening arguments, Henderson pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping in an attempt to evade the death penalty. He is serving two consecutive life terms in a Wyoming prison and is expected to testify at Mr McKinney's trial.

Mr McKinney is alleged to have been the instigator of the attack. Henderson claimed that he had watched the beating and did nothing to stop it.

Mr McKinney's girlfriend, Kristen Price, said he had become incensed when he thought Shepard was trying to pick him up. But Mr McKinney, in a radio interview from jail, denied that he had anything against gay people.

At the start of jury selection two weeks ago, Mr McKinney's defence attorney, Dion Custis, admitted his client's involvement in the attack, but said he had acted under the influence of drugs and alcohol.",guardian.com,True
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1998/dec/30/marktran,"Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for two men accused of murdering the gay university student Matthew Shepard, a case that has revolted America.

The two, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, both aged 21, could receive lethal injections if found guilty. Police allege that the two men lured Shepard from a bar in Laramie, Wyoming, into their pick-up truck, drove to the edge of town and beat him with a pistol until his skull broke. Shepard was found bound to a log fence and died on October 12, five days after the attack.

His murder has reignited a debate on whether 'hate crimes' laws should cover attacks on gays and lesbians. Under federal law there are especially stiff penalties for those who intimidate or attack someone because of their race, religion or ethnic background. But neither federal nor most state laws include acts against homosexuals as hate crimes.

Wyoming, nicknamed the Equality State because it was the first to let women vote, serve on juries and hold public office, is one of nine states with no hate crime laws.

President Bill Clinton, in condemning Shepard's killing, renewed a plea that the federal laws should be extended to crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation, gender or disability.

Mr McKinney and Mr Henderson are charged with first degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery.

Prosecutor Cal Rerucha will have to prove one or more of the 12 aggravating circumstances set under Wyoming law. The list includes an 'especially atrocious or cruel' or 'unnecessarily torturous' murder, and one which took place during a robbery, burglary or kidnapping. The state's last execution was in 1992.

Mr Rerucha's decision to seek the death penalty was revealed in court papers filed this week. Mr Henderson is scheduled to go on trial on March 22 and Mr McKinney's will follow on August 19. Mr McKinney's girlfriend, Kristin Price, alleges that the two 'just wanted to beat him up bad enough to teach him a lesson'. Ms Price and Chastity Pasley, Mr Henderson's girlfriend, face charges of being accessories to the crime.

Shepard enrolled at the University of Wyoming to study international politics. He grew up in Casper and attended the American School in Lugano, Switzerland, when his family moved to Saudi Arabia.",guardian.com,True