Increase in race hate crimes casts doubt on 'One Scotland' campaign
Racist crime is growing across Scotland despite a multi-million-pound Executive campaign to tackle the problem, new figures obtained by The Scotsman have revealed. Some 3,387 racially-aggravated crimes and offences were recorded by the country's eight police forces between April and December this year, compared with 3,192 during the same period last year – a rise of 6 per cent.
The increase has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the Executive's "One Scotland" campaign launched in 2002 to tackle racism in the country's streets and classrooms, and sparked calls for Jack McConnell, the First Minister, to put the issue on a platform equal in size to the one given to sectarianism in recent months.
Ethnic community leaders are also accusing politicians of failing to wake up to the "elephant in the room" that is growing Islamophobia, saying thousands of Muslims and members of other minority racial groups are continuing to be victimised following the 11 September and 7 July terrorism attacks.
Martin Sullivan