The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is an educational charity that has been established for over 50 years. Their main area of work is research and publishing. They have a research project, in progress for over ten years, on racism in Europe and which produces Race & Class, a quarterly journal on racism, empire and globalization. Over the years, IRR has produced educational materials on racism. More recently they have made available an online catalogue of Black History Collection —an archive of posters, leaflets, flyers, newspaper cuttings, campaign materials and more than 160 journals from Black community and grassroots groups in the anti-racist struggle spanning the 1950s to the 1980s. And then, of course, IRR produces the Race & Refugee News Service, for which Atwal is editor. The News Service provides news on race and refugee issues in the UK. Here is our interview with Harmit Atwal.

Can you briefly tell us about your background and how you came to become involved in this work?
I came to the IRR in the early '90s on a work placement while at university, where I had developed an interest in Black* politics and was working with the group Panther UK in London. After I finished university they offered me a job and I have been here ever since. One of the first pieces of work I did was to update the IRR's research on Black deaths in custody. Since that time I have started researching racial violence and racially motivated murder and the deaths of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in the UK. In my job as editor of the IRR's News Service, which monitors racism across the UK, we try to cover stories and events that may of interest to those fighting racism. I have also actively been involved in a number of campaigns surrounding deaths in custody and around asylum issues.

Please tell us briefly about the status of Muslims in the UK. Who are they? Where have they come from?
Muslims in the UK come from a wide range of countries in the world. In the '60s we had migration from the Asian subcontinent—therefore Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh predominate. In more recent years we have had Muslims coming from countries such as Turkey, Palestine, Iraq and Somalia as refugees.

How many Muslims are victims of hate crimes annually? Did this change after 9/11 and if so, how? Were particular communities affected more?
Unfortunately the attacks against Muslims are hard to quantify. Figures are not systematically collected. But from our research—we monitor racial violence across the UK from over 100 websites of local and regional newspapers as well as community sources—we would say that post-September 11 attacks against Muslim have increased substantially. You have people being targeted simply because they are wearing a headscarf and you have attacks on mosques. People are verbally abused during attacks, being told they are 'al-Qaida' or 'Taliban'. In once case, in particular, following London bombings in July 2005, Kamal Raza Butt, a Pakistani man, was murdered by a gang in Nottingham, calling him 'Taliban'.

What is known about the perpetrators?
I don't think we can generalize about perpetrators. Quite often Black and minority ethnic families suffer at the hands of local gangs of youth with sustained attacks and abuse. You will get taxi drivers and takeaway owners targeted by local drunk youth. By and large perpetrators are young white men, often from poor, disadvantaged areas. But it is disturbing to see in the stories we report that anyone—women or men, young or old—can be involved in everyday harassment, at a bus stop, in a car park or over the garden fence.

Do you feel that government responses to 9/11 or domestic events are responsible for a worsening of the general security of Muslims in the UK? If so, can you mention any measures or efforts that may have contributed to the public mood?
Definitely—since September 11 we have seen an increasing number of laws targeting Muslims—anti-terror laws, initiatives to target violent extremism, and new laws and investigations targeting charities helping Muslims in Gaza. Students are being put under special scrutiny. Families are targeted through 'control orders' (house arrest). Young people and Muslim-looking people are being stopped and searched all the time by police under new powers.

Do you feel this scrutiny has been unjustly applied?
A study that the IRR conducted in 2004 found that the majority of those actually convicted in an open criminal trial were non-Muslim. Six of them were white men convicted under the Terrorism Act 2000, for offences such as wearing a ring or carrying a flag with the symbols of banned Loyalist organisations. Obviously, more recently there have been more high profile convictions of Muslims, but figures released by the government in the last few days show that seven out of eight people arrested since September 11 have not been convicted of any terrorism offences and there have only been 196 terrorist-related convictions.

However, a large number of people of all races are being widely stopped and searched under anti-terror laws in London. Last week the Metropolitan police (police in London) would restrict the use of stops without suspicion (section 44 - Terrorism Act 2000).

How has the media responded to violence against Muslims and the increasing climate of Islamophobia?
I think the media has played a huge part in creating the current Islamophobic climate in the UK. One minute we have them telling us about a poison gas plot on the underground (October 2002) or the liquid bomb plots to blow up planes (August 2006). The media has hyped up these arrests as major bomb plots that threaten the security of the UK. They have all added to the 'climate of fear' that has allowed the government to pass more and more laws curtailing basic civil liberties without question. When these so-called plots are found to be no such thing, it never makes the headlines.

What has the government response been to address violence against Muslims?
To be honest, I don't think the government has had a specific response to address violence against Muslims—they seem to be more interested in the 'violence perpetrated by Muslims'. I mentioned earlier, a new government initiative called Preventing Violent Extremism—this is funding being made available to community groups and local government departments across the UK and all in the aim of preventing violent extremism. On the whole, this funding has been targeted at Muslims. The government does not appear concerned about violence being perpetrated against Muslims.

How have other communities of color and civil society groups responded to attacks on the Muslim community?
I think slowly 'communities of resistance' are emerging. We have groups working on various issues affecting Muslim communities such as prison support groups and groups campaigning on anti-terror laws and detention in Guantanamo. We have seen support groups emerge after high profile ant-terror raids and arrests. For example there is a very strong campaign based around Nottingham University after a student and University employee were arrested for doing research related to al-Qaida. And, more recently, a campaign has sprung up around the arrests and detention of a group of Pakistani students arrested in very public raids just a month ago—no charges, but now the government is trying to deport the men on national security grounds.

The government, by targeting certain communities, is trying to scare people and stop them from reacting to what is happening to them and their communities. Now we are seeing more campaigns emerge from these communities. I would like to mention a few campaigning groups working in this area—the first is the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) , which, as its name suggests, is a group that is campaigning against the anti-terror laws and the communities they criminalize in the UK. Cageprisoners (http://www.cageprisoners.com) was set up a few years ago and has done a huge amount of work documenting how anti-terror laws are affecting the everyday lives of people as well as providing invaluable support to the men arrested under anti-terror laws, and their families. Helping Households Under Great Strain (HHUGS) is another group providing support to those in prison and their families. All of these are new groups that have emerged to support individuals and communities under attack.

*The Institute of Race Relations uses 'Black' to refer to non-white groups—with heritages in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean—who share a common experience of British racism. Occasionally, where statistical data is used from other organizations, the term 'Black' may have other meanings and the term 'ethnic minority' may be used to refer to non-white groups, as these are the terms under which much statistical data is collected.

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