For a third year in a row, the Home Office is providing funding to help places of worship tackle hate crimes against them through the installation of additional security equipment.

Hate crimes, for the purposes of this fund, are defined as any crimes committed against a person because of their real or perceived religion.

The criteria for this year’s bids has been made more flexible – bidders will need to provide evidence that they are either vulnerable to hate crime or have been subject to a hate crime within the last two years.

The funding is available to churches, gurdwaras, mosques, and temples, but not for synagogues, as a similar commitment was made to fund Jewish community sites through a grant administered by the Community Security Trust.

There is a total funding pot of £1 million for this round. Grants of up to £56,000 per place of worship are available for projects costing up to £70,000.

The funding is to be used for the cost of additional security equipment. Match funding of at least 20% of the total project costs is required.

Examples of security equipment that can be applied for include, but are not limited to, the following:

• CCTV.
• Perimeter fencing.
• Access control gates.
• Bollards.
• Door locks.
• Window locks.
• Intruder alarm.
• External lighting.
• Security doors.

Funding is also available to pay the appropriate labour cost to install the security equipment.

All funded work must be completed by 31 March 2019.

Commenting on the new round, Minister for Countering Extremism, Baroness Williams said:

“This scheme has already helped many places of worship bolster their security and we encourage those who have suffered from or fear hate crime attacks to apply.”

The deadline for applications is 10 August 2018.

An online application form can be found on the GOV.UK website

 The Met Police are working with a UCL postgraduate student from the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science and have been advising on her research project. The project’s aim is to explore why most antisemitic behaviour is not reported by victims or witnesses to the police, and to organisations like CST / Shomrim.

The research is being conducted using an anonymous online questionnaire which can be completed by adults who are interested in this subject.  While there are no immediate benefits for people who respond to the survey, it is hoped that this research will contribute to our understanding of the problem of significant under-reporting, and to explore ways to make it easier for victims and witnesses to report antisemitic abuse in future. The ultimate goal is, of course, to lead to improved detection rates and more effective sanctions against perpetrators which we know is directly related to prompt and direct reporting of incidents. 

If you are interested in looking at the survey, you can find it by clicking on this link

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/reporting-antisemitism

Please pass this message on to friends or family who you think would like to take part. The survey is open from 1st June – 30th June, and will take 10 minutes or less to complete. 

Luciana Berger, MP for Liverpool Wavertree, gave a deeply personal account of the almost endless anti-Semitic abuse she has suffered since her student days, during Tuesday’s discussion on anti-Semitism in the Commons.

Read the full article on the Jewish News On-line 

Punish A Muslim Day condemnation response from BMFF

The Barnet Multi Faith Forum condemns all acts and expressions of hate related rhetoric and violence which seeks to divide our faiths and our communities. Explicitly we condemn in the strongest terms the recent threats of violence and prejudice directed at British Muslims which undermine everything that it means to be British, and are totally abhorrent.

These perverse actions, reinforces, the need for all our different communities to come together and find practical ways of showing solidarity and support for one another. The BMFF will therefore continue in all our efforts to build bridges of trust and confidence based on greater understanding and knowledge of each other’s faiths, beliefs and customs and work together to engage in dialogue, events and actions which aims to promote social cohesion, oppose prejudice, injustice, and bigotry.

Esmond Rosen Chair of The Barnet Multi Faith Forum

Es Rosen and Trevor Alexander ( Chair and Vice Chair of the BMFF) were present at the invitation of the Vice Chancellor of Middlesex University and were privileged to hear the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

He gave a brilliant address proclaiming the particularity and the universality of Judaism which, whilst safeguarding the richness of preserving a Jewish way of life, stressed the essential elements of being a valuable participator to the worldly developments of engaging positively in the wider society. This should be a important model for those people of all faiths to possess  the confidence in one’s own history, traditions, faith and beliefs to be able to play a substantial role of what we aim to achieve for the benefit of the greater community.

Es Rosen Chair of the BMFF