UK report: Slight rise in anti-Semitic incidents

Community Security Trust report finds 5 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain from 2011 to 2012.

By EUROPEAN JEWISH PRESS
Burning Jewish star (photo credit: UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS)
Burning Jewish star
(photo credit: UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS)
LONDON --- A report by the Community Security Trust (CST) on anti-Semitic incidents in the UK shows a slight rise of 5 percent in 2012 (640 incidents) compared to 2011.
A  total of  640 incidents were reported against 608 in 2011.
According to the report, the total of 640 incidents included 100 reported under a new exchange program with the Metropolitan Police Service, whereby CST and MPS exchange all anti-Semitic incident reports received by either agency, in full anonymity, throughout the year.
“This contributed to a 55 per cent rise in anti-Semitic incidents recorded by CST in the capital, alongside the 5 per cent national rise. Without these 100 ‘extra’ recorded incidents, a like-for-like comparison with the 2011 figures would suggest an 11 per cent fall in real terms in the UK-wide anti-Semitic incident total for 2012,” the CST, which has recorded anti-Semitic incidents on behalf of the Jewish community since 1984, said.
The systematic and comprehensive sharing of every anti-Semitic incident reported to either CST or MPS  began in Manchester in 2011 and was extended to London in 2012.
CST said it welcomes the data exchanges as providing an even better picture of the situation concerning anti-Semitic incidents, “especially as hate crime is regularly subject to under-reporting.” 
In Greater Manchester, where CST and Greater Manchester Police have run an incident exchange programme since 2011, CST recorded a 34 per cent fall in incidents.
“CST hopes that this is a welcome indication that the trend of rising anti-Semitic incidents in the city over recent years is beginning to change,” the body said.
Mark Gardner, CST spokesperson, said "the rise in recorded incidents in London and the fall in Manchester are both, paradoxically, the results of our efforts to find new ways to work with the Police to map anti-Semitic incidents, investigate hate crimes and support victims."
"We continue to encourage victims of antisemitic hate crime to report their experiences to CST and to the Police, so we can give them the help they need and support the efforts of law enforcement to catch offenders and reduce incidents."
The Secretary of State for Communities, MP Eric Pickles, said “there can be no hiding place for hate in our society. The Jewish community who have given so much to this country have a right to walk the streets in peace and sleep safe in their beds without fear of discrimination or attack.”
"We want to make Britain an anti-Semitism-free zone and the Government is committed to tackling this, and all other forms of hate crime."