Every year hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are attacked and harassed because they are seen as different, says a June 2017 Amnesty International briefing (pdf). And the response from authorities is inadequate.
Amnesty’s briefing explores the background to hate crime in the UK, including definitions, effects and the scale of this problem. It summaries the victim-centered approach to hate crime policy and barriers to justice – alongside case studies from survivors.
The briefing contains a series of recommendations, including these for the Westminster government:
- As recommended by the Law Commission, the government should undertake a more extensive review of the hate crime legal framework within the UK to assess whether the current system meets the needs of hate crime victims.
- The list of protected characteristics across the UK should be extended to include, as a minimum, gender, socio-economic status and age; and all characteristics should have equal legal protection.
