Killing of Indian student in the UK stirs up racism debate

On Monday 26 December, 2011, Anuj Bidve, a 23 year old Indian student from Pune, was shot dead at point blank range, as he walked with friends near their hotel in Salford, Greater Manchester, UK. Witnesses reported that the killing was without provocation; apparently, the killer had stopped Anuj and had asked him the time and despite a polite response shot him in the head and ran away. Anuj's father said that the family first got to know of the terrible tragedy, via facebook.

This incident has created racism debate in the UK as it is believed killing was due to racism.

Is Racism Becoming a Growing Problem in English Football?

Recent racist incidents in British football are alarming and shocking. It seems British football is going back to its historical racist period again. Please read the full article here investigating recent racist incidents in English football.

Fatal Realities of "Fortress Europe"

Since 1993, UNITED for Intercultural Action is documenting the deadly results of the building of 'Fortress Europe' and regularly publishes a list of those who die at Europe’s borders or in detention camps awaiting their deportation. More than 15550 dead refugees and migrants have so far been documented by UNITED for Intercultural Action, with the help of a wide range of network organisations. If the death of over 15551 people does not wake up Europe's conscience, what will?

This unique network cooperation shows that these deaths are not just 'isolated incidents' and creates a strong lobby document for use at national and international political level. Unfortunately, in some cases, cause of deaths was due to racist abuses in Europe particularly in the UK.

This list can be downloaded from here. 

A Survey conducted by New Statesman Magazine: UK media has racist attitude

Ethnic minorities are “largely absent” from opinion pages, senior management roles and staff works in the UK press, shows a new survey conducted by New Statesman Magazine, which was published on 11/01/2012.

 

According to the research, no national newspaper and political editors is non-white, indicating that the British media has a problem with racial discrimination.

Inspecting the comment pages of some selected newspapers published between December 5 and 11, the survey found that three newspapers did not even have a single non-white writer on their comment pages, including the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, the Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph, and the Daily Express/Sunday Express.

“To coincide with a special report on race in the British media for this week's magazine, we have compiled shocking statistics which show ethnic minorities are still largely absent from opinion pages, senior executive roles and staff jobs in the media,” said the survey.

The magazine's chief political commentator Rafael Behr, raised the question whether the Westminster lobby could report fairly on issues related to race when they are “almost exclusively white, forty-something men”.

Expressing concerns over the research findings, the New Statesman's senior editor Mehdi Hasan said, “In 2012, 64 years after the arrival of the Empire Windrush on our shores, 36 years after the passage of the third Race Relations Act, 19 years after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, the great British commentariat is, in effect, a mono-racial, monocultural closed shop.”

 

The survey can be read here. 

The British Prime Minister David Cameron admits UK ‘still has problem with racism’

Trial over the killing of the black teenager has driven the British Prime Minister David Cameron to acknowledge that the country still has a problem with racial prejudice. Interviewing with Sky News's Boulton & Co, Cameron admitted that people from minority ethnic backgrounds still face disadvantage.

Following the conviction of two men for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, who was attacked by a racist gang in south east London in 1993, Cameron said Britain is a "less racist country" than at the time of 18-year-old Stephen's killing, but it still suffers problems with racism.

British politicians are being severely criticized for the widespread racism problem in the UK, following the publication of a report by Britain's Home Office, which shows 51,187 racist cases were reported to the police in England and Wales in 2010-11. Furthermore, the Institute for Race Relations (IRR), which is a British anti-racism charity, has revealed that since the racial murder of Stephen Lawrence 19 years ago, at least 96 people have been killed due to racial violence. 

Meanwhile, a new Mirror investigation has found that complaints of racism against the police forces in England and Wales have increased by nearly a third (32%) in recent four years, from 687 in 2007 to 904 in 2010. 

The full article's references can be seen here and here.

Racism is still real in the UK, but no longer speaking its mind?

National figures show stop and search is still used disproportionately against black people. Unemployment in Seven Sisters is higher than the national and the London average, as are the numbers of people on benefits. Jobless rates for black Britons are higher than for whites, nationally, and a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research showed African-Caribbean youth unemployment growing faster than for other groups.

"They keep stopping innocent people for no reason at all. They still can't tell the difference between one black person and another," Scott said in the interview. The full interview can be read here.

Institutional Racism and the British Police

Read the full article regarding a close relation between Institutional Rasicm and the British Police here.