StopWatch, OSJI and Liberty last week wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, the Rt Hon. Matt Hancock MP regarding disproportionate use of police powers during lockdown restrictions. JUSTICE signed this letter.
The letter states: “We – a diverse coalition of human rights, racial equality, community, faith and health organisations – write in advance of the next phase of easing the lockdown restrictions.
We are acutely concerned by evidence that the impact of the police powers granted to enforce lockdown has not been evenly felt. They are disproportionately impacting people of colour, which undermines trust in the authorities and harms communities squeezed between the pandemic and the Government’s response.
We urge you to take immediate steps to amend these powers to address these ethnic disparities and to ensure that any measures the Government seeks to implement during the next phase of lockdown do not discriminate against communities of colour.”