Chair of the Home Affairs select committee, Keith Vaz MP, has tabled an early day motion urging police forces to record Islamophobia as a category of hate crime, similar to the uniform recording of anti-Semitism.

EDM 945 states:

“That this House notes the recognition of anti-Muslim sentiment and hate crime in the Department for Communities and Local Government's document Creating the Conditions for Integration; further notes that the document acknowledges the limited collection of data on anti-Muslim hate crime; recognises that currently only the Metropolitan Police Service specifically records this hate crime under the definition Islamophobia as a specific crime flag, similar to anti-Semitism, racism and others, whereas the recording of this crime outside of London is under different recording flags in different constabularies; and believes that all police constabularies should record this hate crime under the same flag, which will bring national uniformity in the recording of this crime and enable authorities to gather data that will aid in tackling this issue.”

Recording Islamophobia as a category of hate crime was one of the key pledges we sought from Police and Crime Commissioners in our PCC manifesto last November.

It is vital for official statistics to reflect the full extent of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the UK so that police forces can allocate appropriate resources to tackle the issue.

Please write to your MP and encourage him/her to sign the early day motion on Recording of Islamophobia as a Crime. Contact details can be found here.

You can also send the EDM to your Police and Crime Commissioner and ask if, and how, they will implement the recommendation in their policing plan and local crime strategy.