Green Party letter in support of National Hate Crime Awareness Week 2016

10 October 2016

We are writing on behalf of the Green Party to express our support for this year’s National Hate Crime Awareness Week.

It is now 13 years since the concept of hate crime was embedded into criminal law, with the aim of protecting us from other people’s hatred – and their fear. And that law is an important tool in holding people to account, even if – as the Law Commission has suggested – there is still room for improvement: in 2015/16, the Crown Prosecution Service completed 15,442 hate crime prosecutions, the highest number to date.

However, that very figure, and the deeply disturbing rise in racial abuse, assaults and other hate crimes during the EU referendum campaign and its aftermath, including the horrific murder of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow in August, confirm the ongoing challenge that we face. And, of course, we know that most hate crime goes unreported – research by the University of Leicester found that only 24% of victims reported their most recent hate crime experience to the police.

Indeed, we fear that years of steady progress towards a more respectful, tolerant, and cohesive society is now being eroded. Yet this process did not start on 23 June – what we are witnessing is the culmination of successive failures by governments, and by our press and media, to make the positive case for free movement, and to stand up for migrants’ rights.

As the Institute for Race Relations has noted, the victims of this most recent wave of hate crime come from all communities, and from the very young to the very old. White people have been attacked for looking Polish, or Muslim. And people who have lived here for many years and/or were born here have suffered racial abuse for what they report as the very first time.

So as we mark Hate Crime Awareness Week, we remember all those whose lives are made unbearable because of this kind of crime; all those who have been killed or have taken their own lives because of hate crime; and all those bravely standing up against hatred and being counted – in their community, in their school or university, in their workplace, or online

And we say enough is enough. We all should be able to live our lives free from fear – and we all have the right to do so.

Jonathan Bartley & Caroline Lucas MP – Green Party Co-leaders

Alice Hooker-Stroud - Wales Green Party Leader

Amelia Womack – Green Party Deputy Leader

Jenny Jones – Green Party member of the House of Lords

Sian Berry & Caroline Russell, Green Party London Assembly members

Aimee Challenor, Sarah Cope & Rashid Nix – Green Party Equalities spokespeople