News

I am deeply sorry that my good friend Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has sought to pander to the Far Right by racialising the predatory acts of a group of Asian men.

More than 50,000 hate crimes were reported across England, Wales and Northern Ireland last year, of these, more than 43,000 were race-related crimes, figures showed today.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said the figures, published for the first time today, showed a more than 12% rise in hate crimes from 46,300 in 2008.

Devonand Cornwall Chief Constable Stephen Otter, the Acpo lead for equality, diversity and human rights, said he hoped publishing the figures would "encourage victims and witnesses to come forward".

Two police forces have been warned that they could face enforcement action over their "disproportionate" use of stop and search powers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has written toThames Valley Police and Leicestershire Constabulary, claiming neither could justify their tactics.

Merlene Carrington reports on the OBV and BASSAC Birmingham civic and political empowernment roadshow.

Against the background of the student protests and anti-cuts demonstrations, a band of determined people have decided that the way to fight the planned spending cuts to services is to get ‘tooled up’.

In response to a BBC Panorama programme which claimed children in some Muslim schools are being exposed to extremism, the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) carried out what they described as a ‘warm’ protest yesterday by distributing specially produced educational packs outside the BBC Headquarters for the programme makers.

The iERA say their action was to counteract the negative image that the programme attempted to portray of Islam and Muslims.

MEP Sajjad Karim (pictured) has been given 24 hour security protections after becoming the target of a campaign of intimidation by an anti Islam group which started up after the British National Party began an online campaign highlighting his decision to vote against an EU regulation on the compulsory labeling of both Halal and Kosher meat.