Interview between Anthony France and Lionel Idan, discussing the recent rise in hate crime incidents following the mounting conflict in Israel and Palestine. He discusses the protests in London and how they are tackling the rise in Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crime.
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00:00 Sadly, we see hate crime across the strands, and particularly against the backdrop as we
00:06 have at the moment with what's happening in the Middle East.
00:09 We've seen a spike in antisemitism.
00:11 We've all seen a spike in anti-Muslim hate crime.
00:14 An incident thousands of miles away can have this ripple effect.
00:18 Anything from paint being daubed on doorways right through to assaults.
00:23 And I think one of the saddest aspects for me is the impact on children.
00:28 I've heard stories of people having to change their behaviours, not wear their school blazers,
00:34 having to stay at home.
00:36 So that sense of fear, isolation, anxiety, it's very real.
00:41 Anything can happen in these protest cases.
00:44 I had two prosecutors, senior Crown prosecutors, based at Lambeth HQ during the course of Saturday
00:51 and on call on Sunday.
00:53 The right to protest and causing or creating or committing a crime, it's a fine line.
00:59 And we have to make sure that we prosecute the right person for the right offence.
01:03 And I think the police, if I may say so, did a tremendous job in policing the protests.
01:09 And so thankfully we didn't see too many incidents.
01:12 Of course, hate crime in a sense does not discriminate.
01:16 And so disability hate crime reports have gone up, but sadly that's not translated into
01:21 cases necessarily.
01:23 We've seen homophobic, transphobic hate crime.
01:26 That's also on the increase.
01:28 Places that we assume are safe spaces, so you might go and watch a football match and
01:32 you might think it's safe.
01:34 Actually for many LGBTQ couples or individuals, it's not.
01:40 The community as a whole wants to see action, wants to see prosecutions, wants to see arrests.
01:45 And we talked just this morning about how we can build public confidence.
01:50 What more can we do to build trust?
01:51 And that was one of the key messages.
01:53 If we can as a community see more arrests, if we can see more prosecutions, that will
01:58 build trust and that will actually encourage more people to come forward and report hate
02:03 crimes.
02:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]