The Weekly Round-up: Hate speech in the UK, asylum seekers in Diego Garcia, and Ukraine ratifies ICC Rome Statute
26 August 2024
In UK news
The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, has published a report which found that black children are four times more likely to be strip searched compared to national population figures. The report analysed a dataset of all the strip searches conducted by all 44 police forces in England and Wales from January 2018 to June 2023. The report found that in almost half (45%) of the strip searches an appropriate adult was not confirmed to be present and the youngest child searched was eight years old. The majority (88%) of searches were conducted on suspicion of drugs and in 47% of cases the search resulted in “no further action”. The Commissioner argues that this calls into question their necessity and that strip searches should only be carried out on children where there is a clear and immediate risk of harm to themselves or others.
The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racism (CERD) has recommended that the UK government “implement comprehensive measures to curb racist hate speech and xenophobic rhetoric, including on the part of political and public figures”. The CERD highlighted the riots which occurred in the UK in August 2024, after the Southport stabbings in which three young girls were killed and emphasised the role of social media disinformation regarding the perpetrator’s identity in stoking the riots. The government has responded to the disorder by activating Operation Early Dawn. This is an emergency action to manage the transfer of prisoners as hundreds of people have been charged for involvement in the riots. Under Operation Early Dawn, defendants will only be summoned to a magistrates court when a cell in the prison estate becomes available, and until then, if they are remanded in custody, they will be held in police station cells.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has announced new measures to significantly increase the removal of failed asylum seekers. These measures include recruiting 100 specialist intelligence officers to the National Crime Agency to disrupt human smuggling gangs, new measures to target employers who hire illegal workers, and increasing capacity at the Campsfield and Haslar Immigration Removal Centres.
In international news
The Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has passed legislation to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) making Ukraine a state party. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has stated that the move shows Ukraine’s “unwavering commitment to strengthening international justice” and to work effectively with the ICC to “ensure comprehensive accountability for all Russian atrocities committed in the course of Russian aggression”. The ratification of the Rome Statute is also a requirement for Ukraine to join the European Union, as set out in the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. The ICC has so far issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, former Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence Valery Gerasimov.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has expressed concern after video footage was leaked of an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldier sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee. The Special Rapporteur has urged that “all alleged crimes committed within the context of this terrible war must be investigated transparently and impartially, and those responsible held accountable by civilian courts of law”. The Israeli NGO B’tselem has published a report based on the testimonies of 55 Palestinian detainees who described systematic abuses including violence, sexual assault, and denial of medical treatment. As of July 2024, there are 9,623 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, 4,781 of which are held in “administrative detention” which means they are held without charge.
In the courts
The UK government has lost an appeal against the decision that it cannot restrict the movement of asylum seekers who inadvertently arrived at the Diego Garcia military base. In October 2021, 47 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers, including a number of children, were rescued at sea by the Royal Navy and brought to the military base which is classified as a British overseas territory. Since then they have been restricted to a small area of the island due to the “operational, security, health and safety risks” if they were granted freedom of movement. The court rejected the government’s grounds of appeal, inter alia, that the judge acted unreasonably in failing to place adequate weight on the authorities security concerns. This long-standing litigation has been followed and reported by Joshua Rozenberg KC (hon), and his commentary is available here.
The Federal Court of Australia has determined that Australian case law has consistently held that sex is “changeable and not necessarily binary”. Ms Roxanne Tickle, a trans woman, sued Giggle for Girls, a social media app for communication between women, alleging unlawful gender discrimination when she was barred from having an account on the app. The court held that the claim of indirect gender discrimination succeeds, as to gain access to the app users had to send a selfie and the reviewer determined that Ms Tickle did not have the appearance of a cisgender woman.
