The United Nations committee responsible for combating racism has criticized the United Kingdom over continuing hate crimes, hate speech and xenophobic incidents, following riots fueled by hate and misinformation that gripped the country this summer.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed deep concern on Friday, August 23, over the presence of racist speech on various platforms, particularly when perpetuated by politicians and public figures.

The committee was “particularly concerned about recurring racist acts, violence, and hate speech against ethnic and ethno-religious minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers by extremist far-right and white supremacist individuals and groups.”

According to CERD’s report, the UK must act to curb the sharp increase in the use of racist hate speech by British politicians and high-profile public figures. Ministers must “adopt comprehensive measures to discourage and combat racist hate speech and xenophobic discourse by political and public figures” and ensure that such cases are “effectively investigated and sanctioned.”

The committee members declined to name which politicians or public figures had made comments triggering the committee’s concern, but added there were “so many credible reports” of racist comments by high-profile individuals that there was “no doubt that the issue is a serious one in the UK”.

The unrest, which gripped the UK for over a week in July and August, was triggered by misinformation surrounding a tragic stabbing incident in Southport, England, where three young girls were killed.

The suspect, a 17-year-old boy named Axel Rudakubana, was initially reported as a Muslim immigrant, despite being born in Cardiff to Christian Rwandan parents. This false narrative quickly spread on social media, inciting violence across the country.

Exploiting the tragedy, far-right groups launched protests that spiraled into violent clashes with police. Hotels housing asylum seekers were set on fire, and mosques and businesses owned by ethnic and religious minorities were attacked. In total, around 600 people were arrested in connection with the riots.

Notorious anti-immigration figures like Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage were accused of stoking the flames. Farage, a prominent MP and leader of Reform UK, warned ominously of further unrest, while his previous comments on Muslims not sharing British values further fueled tensions.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the violence, labeling it as “far-right thuggery.”

Presenting the report on Friday based on a four-year review into Britain’s record on tackling race discrimination, the committee highlighted “very troubling” manifestations of racism within the UK, flagging particular concern about racial profiling in stop and search practices, and the “excessive and deadly” use of force by law enforcement.

Committee members were “particularly concerned about the high number of strip-searches carried out on children, especially children of African descent, by law enforcement officials, and at the increase of police presence in schools with higher proportions of ethnic minority children”.

The government should “take steps to address the over-policing of schools with higher proportions of ethnic minority pupils and adopt and strengthen legislation and other measures to explicitly prohibit strip-searches on children”, the report advised.

A UK government spokesperson said on Friday: “There is no excuse for the hatred, violence and intimidation we saw online and on our streets. It was not legitimate protest, it was violent thuggery, and why we have taken the toughest action to ensure those involved in the disorder, directly or indirectly by stirring up hatred, face the full force of the law.”

Source: UN News

“Many have the idea that independent Muslim schools are a place where you only read the Koran, and that hurts integration,” Nicolai Kaarsen, a senior economist at Kraka and co-author of the analysis, told Politiken on Tuesday, September 20.

“Politicians and public schools should take stock of this knowledge and perhaps learn something from the Muslim private schools.”

Kaarsen was referring to analysis by the politically independent think-tank Kraka which revealed that students with a non-western background attending Muslim private schools, whose mother tongue is not Danish, are achieving significantly better grades in their 9^th grade exit examinations than their counterparts at Danish public schools.

According to the analysis, the difference between the students’ final examination marks is 1.4 grade points, an average of 4.6 at the public schools and 6.0 at the Muslim private schools.

Students from Denmark’s 20 Muslim private schools also perform better over the long-term.

Over 28 percent of the graduates from Muslim private schools had completed a upper-secondary education three years after 9^th grade, compared to only 21 percent of children with similar backgrounds leaving public schools.

The analysis was based on data from 29,000 immigrants from 17 non-Western countries, with the students completing the 9^th grade between 2007 and 2014. Of these, 1,634 attended a Muslim private school.

Niels Egelund, a school researcher and professor at the DPU at Aarhus University, pointed out that culture of discipline was the main reason behind Muslim private schools’ success.

“There is a fundamental difference in respect and an overall sense of calm,” he said.

“Students look up to teachers as authority figures, and you do not see students acting up and creating disturbances in the classroom.”

Source: aboutislam.net