Rebecca Hilsenrath, EHRC chief executive, said:
We do not want to live in hate and it is not our way. Hate crime is completely unacceptable in our society and we must do all we can to rid ourselves of it. Following our call for a review of all hate crime strategies, we welcome the government’s announcement today as a start to tackling shameful behaviour that stains our communities.
It is deeply troubling to see the spike in racism and race hate following the recent referendum. But we know that hate crimes have been prevalent for far longer than this. We want the government to take the lead in uniting the country in a zero tolerance approach to these acts of hate, which are targeted at individuals just because of someone’s race, religious belief, sexual orientation, disability or transgender status.
We will shortly publish our largest ever review of progress for race equality. We expect the government to use this to develop a comprehensive race strategy to effectively tackle the racial inequality and discrimination experienced by people living in Britain.
