Stand up to Racism, protest on UN Anti Racism Day!

JVL Introduction

Next weekend there will be demonstrations worldwide to mark UN Anti Racism Day.

In London and Glasgow on Saturday March 19 and in Cardiff on Sunday March 20, the Stand up to Racism coalition will be holding major protests under the slogan ‘World Against Racism & Fascism’.

(Join the Jewish Bloc on the London demonstration meeting 11.45am-12.15pm outside Cafe Nero, 273 Regent Street W1B 2EZ, corner of Great Castle Street. We will then join the rally  outside the BBC in Portland Place, thenmarch, as a bloc.)

This year, with refugees fleeing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and millions of others on the move because of poverty, conflict and environmental catastrophe, the UN Anti Racism Day demonstrations have a particular significance.

They are an opportunity to say NO to UK government plans to intensify the hostile environments for refugees and migrants, to celebrate the #BlackLivesMatter movement which is exposing the depths of institutional racism, and to stand against the rising threat from far right and fascist forces.

This very week, the British parliament will enter the final stages of debating the Nationality and Borders Bill, a dangerous piece of racist legislation which even some prominent Tories have denounced, saying it will “significantly breach key international obligations”. If passed, as seems inevitable given Boris Johnson’s large parliamentary majority, it will create a two-tier system for refugees depending on how they arrive in the UK, criminalising and penalising many of them.

Violating international law

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, has already warned that the new plans will stigmatise those seeking asylum in the UK as “unworthy and unwelcome”, creating a “lower class of status” for the majority of refugees, in violation of international law.

Commenting on the controversial clause 9, which the House of Lords has rejected but MPs are yet to vote on, writer and educator Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan notes in the Guardian that it allows the home secretary to secretly strip people of their citizenship without notifying them.

“Such measures disproportionately target people of colour,” Manzoor-Khan says. “The state assumes that we will be eligible for citizenship in other countries (even if we have never visited them). United Nations experts are clear that this specifically threatens the human rights of people of colour “and especially people from Muslim and migrant communities … Human rights only apply if you are seen first as human.”

The devaluation of Black and Muslim lives has long been evident in the enforcement of global border controls. This is true currently in the case of Ukraine, where African students have been actively denied escape routes from war.

A raft of racist measures

The UK, despite a clear prejudice in favour of white, Christian refugees, has distinguished itself in Europe by its miserable reluctance to admit even these desperate people in any numbers, as Steve Bell’s cartoon wryly comments.

Johnson’s government also has a raft of other racist and authoritarian measures lined up for parliamentary approval in the coming year, among them the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Elections Bill, the Online Safety Bill,  the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, and Human Rights Act “reform”.

There is still time to persuade MPs – of all parties – to oppose the #NABB or perhaps to pause its passage through Parliament because of the Ukraine crisis.

Sonya Sceats, chief executive at Freedom from Torture, which calls NABB the “anti-refugee bill, has said: “At a time when the Boris Johnson is chastising Putin for violating international law, it is unconscionable that he is pressing ahead with plans violate an international treaty that Britain helped draft.”

HERE you can access and share a google folder from Stand up to Racism including leaflets, posters, stickers and other graphics and materials to publicise the Anti Racism Day events.

#MarchAgainstRacism #AllRefugeesWelcome #KilltheBills #CitizenshipIsARight