The UN Special Rapporteur on Racism will visit the United Kingdom until May 11 to study rampant structuralised racism amongst police forces towards minority groups and people of African descent.
Although the visit is routine, UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Tendayi Achiume, has the intention of focusing on “structural forms of discrimination and exclusion that may have been exacerbated by Brexit.”
The visit comes after five members of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) released a statement on April 27 expressing concern about structural racism due to the death of a “disproportionate number of people of African descent and of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom as a result of excessive force by State security.”
According to The Independent, there was a stark increase in racist and religious hate crimes after the Brexit referendum when the UK decided to leave the European Union in 2016.
These hate crimes are also apparent amongst police forces. In August 2017, the Metropolitan Police discovered that people who were of African or Caribbean descent were twice as more likely to “ die after the use of force by police officers and the subsequent lack or insufficiency of access to appropriate healthcare” after being restrained. Restraint instruments include “firearms, CS spray, long-handed batons, electroshock weapons and physical restraint.”
The report also found people of African descent and other ethnic minorities were three times more likely to be subject to restraint by electroshock weapons.
The group from the UNHRC called for consequences for unnecessary police brutality.
“There has never been a successful prosecution for manslaughter in this context, despite unlawful killing verdicts in coroner’s inquests,” the group said.
The United Nations found that the UK has been dismissive of the Special Rapporteur findings in the past, but the organisation believes that the UK is receptive to this matter and will abide by the rapporteur’s findings.