The 30th Anniversary Justice Discussions

Institutional Racism 1

Forgotten Victims & Miscarriages of Justice

Moderator: Satish Sekar

Speakers

Mark Clements, Dumezweni Kulashe

Pete Ouko, Nathan Adams,

Wednesday November 18^th 15.00-16.30 GMT

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85715936809?pwd=OWVuMkgwNGd2YWFyN2RTZTNORkY5Zz09

Meeting ID: 857 1593 6809

Passcode: 478650

The murder of Stephen Lawrence and botched investigation that followed were pivotal events in the history of justice and race relations in Britain, but this raises important questions. Why this case? Even in the LBG (London Borough of Greenwich) where Stephen was murdered in April 1993 there had been two other clearly racist murders – Rolan Adams and Rohit Duggal in the previous 26 months – did the system fail to tackle institutional racism, even after the trial judge in the murder of Rolan Adams had to say that he was satisfied racism had played an important part in the murder. That was in October 1991 – 18 months before Stephen was murdered.

            And then, there are numerous racist miscarriages of justice. The Cardiff 5 was just one of them. The M25 Three and Tottenham Three are just high-profile examples of utterly racist injustices. Why are these not labelled institutionally racist? The USA has examples of racist killings – both by racist killers and law enforcement – that led to #BlackLivesMatter, taking a knee and other protests. Racist injustice within the criminal justice system is disproportionate to representation in society. South Africa endured a racist crime against humanity – Apartheid. Its laws may be gone, but the principles that led to justice miscarrying remain. The case of the Eikenhof Three is a very important example of this. Clear evidence of their innocence was suppressed in order to try to corrupt the peace process. The racist laws are gone, but not the methods used.