Documented cases of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member to the local councils, despite the fall of crimes in wider police areas. These findings come as the BNP begin their 2010 general election campaign in earnest in Barking and Dagenham where party Fhurer Nick Griffin will be running.
Should we be surprised? Well not really, what we should be more suprised about is that there are figures to demonstrate this. In 2009 the UK government released a report stating that most hate crimes are never reported, so the figures will actually be a lot higher than the Guardian newspaper story covered. Although the UK’s government recognise this fact it is having very little impact in changing it.
Only in 2009 did the USA seriously begin to recognise that hate crime incidents motivated by race, relegion, sexual orientaion were different to other crimes. And have finally establised laws to deal with the incidents, which is quite alarming when in 2009 the Sothern Poverty Law Centre (a very large civil rights organisation) stated there were 926 active ‘hate groups’ in the USA and the FBI figures for 2008 showed 9,691 incidents; that’s not all incidents in the USA, just ones serious enough to be investigated by the FBI. Up until now the hate element of the crime was not recorded by the avarage police department, so there are no reliable figures.
Now in a country where free speech allows hate speech should we be surprised that hate flourishes? Probably not. And we should not be surprised either that the BNP also campaign for the removal of laws that prevent hate speech.The figures support the simple fact that where the BNP take hold, hate rises. And if we ever give them a free hand to remove the restrictions to prevent them using hate speech we should be ready for a hell of a lot more.
