Rise in racist incidents sparks community action

The North Edinburgh community will discuss a worrying rise in the number of racist incidents at this afternoon’s Living in Harmony forum at Spartans Community Football Academy.

The programme for the afternoon has now been amended to allow time to discuss an alarming upsurge in racist incidents since last week’s referendum result.

North Edinburgh has a proud history of standing up to racists and speaking out against prejudice. Activists are likely to resurrect an anti-racism campaign at the meeting, which starts at 1.30pm.

Hannah Kitchen, who supports the Living in Harmony group, has sent out revised agenda and said:

“Dear All,

I am attaching an agenda for the forum meeting this afternoon. We have added some time in to specifically discuss the community response to racist incidents following the referendum.

In relation to this, Cllr Cammy Day has asked for this statement to be circulated:

“I’ve raised my serious concerns about the rising attacks and racist right wing abuse locally with the council leader on Tuesday.  I will be formally asking that the Council Leader and chief executive put out a statement on behalf of the city to our staff, and to communities condemning these attacks, welcoming people to this city and supporting our keep safe campaign against hate crime.  

“I’d welcome every organisation to sign up to the keep safe / ‘I am me’ campaign which I launched last week with Police Scotland and people first. 

“As chair of the Edinburgh community safety partnership – I have asked our head of safer and stronger communities and the Police Commander for Edinburgh to join us in urgent action to stop these racist attacks and abuse. Any support in this would be welcomed.”

As Living in Harmony, we will also be sharing messages on social media about welcoming community events, good relationships being formed and encouraged, and challenging racist abuse. It would be great if you could share these messages and do the same from your social media accounts. 

I look forward to seeing some of you this afternoon. I will send around notes from the meeting in due course.”