Interrogating and challenging the UK's 'hostile environment' through research and activism
 
About the events
 
These ESRC Festival of Social Sciences events - co-delivered by the Centre for Citizenship, Conflict, Identity and Diversity, University of Huddersfield, and RAPAR, a human rights organisation based in Manchester - will comprise a co-delivered seminar and workshop to interrogate and challenge the ‘hostile environment’ that targets people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. They will draw upon co-research between the University of Huddersfield and RAPAR's young people seeking asylum that took place as part of the PARTISPACE project funded by H2020 (2016-2018) and explored young people’s participation in the hostile environment, as well as ongoing research on activism, campaigning and young people’s lives. They will consider transcultural ideas of space, place and borders, who ‘belongs’ and ‘others’, and explore what and how discourses of othering, central to the ‘hostile environment’, enforce and reinforce exclusion and difference in individuals’ everyday lived lives, and how people counteract these discourses through their own actions.
 
Welcoming academics, practitioners, the public, activists and advocates, the events will begin informally with refreshments and a screening of ‘Faceless’, a film written, produced, directed and performed by young people (aged 25-30) seeking asylum. A seminar talk describing ongoing participatory action research by and with young people seeking asylum will follow. Co-delivered by academics and community activists, the concluding workshop will explore participatory action research in the academy and community human rights activism to explore the question: How do the concepts of space, place and the ‘other’ materialise and what can we do, between us, to transform them?
 
The event will run twice: in Huddersfield (4th November 2019) and Manchester (7th November 2019), both 13.30 to 17.00.

Click here for more details.

On National Hate Crime Awareness Week, communities come together to reject racially motivated violence and call on Greater Manchester Police to investigate the incident properly

6pm Friday 18th October, Hulme Arch (Birchall Way/Stretford Road), Manchester M15 6BT)

The resident who came out of his home in Hulme to stop a young Asian man being violently attacked has welcomed a vigil being organised on Friday during National Hate Crime Awareness Week.
When Clive Pyott saw what was happening to the young man, he shouted “He’s on the ground, leave him” but the two men then attacked him and he ended up in hospital with a broken nose and fractured jaw.

The incident, which happened on 24th August 2019, was a racially motivated attack. One of the men shouted "speak f**ing English" as they stamped numerous times on the head of a tall young Asian man.
This attack was reported to the police as both a racist hate crime and as a serious assault.  The police were told that the attackers had come out of the Three Legs of Man pub and they returned to the same pub afterwards.
A description of the attacker who stamped on the young man’s head was given to the police and he also appears on a video filmed by another local resident on his phone.  Our understanding is that this attack was only recorded by the police as a hate crime when the story was carried in newspapers almost a month later (1)(2).

Clive, 50, has had messages of thanks and support from all over the country.
He says: “I acted instinctively, it was the human thing to do. But the police have not properly investigated a violent racially motivated hate crime against this young man. They have done nothing to protect me or others who witnessed the attacks. I welcome any action which highlights what has happened and the lack of response by GMP.”

RAPAR was alerted to the incident by another Hulme resident. We understand that:

• No police officer attended, despite having descriptions of the attackers and their location in the pub

• The police did not interview anyone for three days, then they visited Clive
• To this day, no statement has been taken from him. Last week, they took a statement from his neighbour who filmed the incident. Clive says this was “Too little, too late”
• The police did not visit the pub until 17 days after the incident
• By day 17, the CCTV footage was not available, despite laws that pubs should keep footage for 28 days
• Only one officer was allocated to the case even though the level of violence could have potentially led to death - and has resulted in a very serious ongoing injury for Clive
• The police have not asked the public to help them find and identify the first target, the tall Asian man, so that he can be helped
• The police have now closed the case, apparently due to lack of evidence

Organisers of the vigil are calling on the police to act now.  This includes widely circulating the video of the attack and the assailants, so that, hopefully, the younger man knows it is safe for him to come forward and help find the attackers. 
Julie Ward, North West Member of the European Parliament and a long-time anti racist campaigner,  said: “Greater Manchester is rooted in a history of struggle for equality and community cohesion. We completely reject all violence directed towards people because of their racial identity or because they intervene to stop others from being racially attacked.”

Messages of support should be sent to admin(a)rapar.org.uk  People can also sign the petition here.

Use hashtags #ChooseLove #NationalHateCrimeAwarenessWeek #RefugeesWelcome #WeStandTogether to tweet about the vigil.
Organisations supporting the vigil on Friday include Cohesive Communities, North West Unison Black Members’ Group, RAPAR.
For more information  contact:

• Dr Rhetta Moran  07776264646
• Kath Grant 07758386208
  

(1) Manchester Evenging News Report

(2) Mirror Report