This year, on National Hate Crime Awareness Week, René Cassin commemorates those lost tragically to hate crime and strives for a world free of hatred by championing human rights.
The Week falls during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, a time when families come together and break bread amongst branches, roots, trees, fruits, and vegetables. Gathering underneath the sukkah, the temporary reconstruction of a resting place for Jews wondering the desert in exile, we celebrate nature and remember the oppression and exile of our ancestors.
As a Jewish human rights organisation, we must consider our persecution alongside that of our peers and stand in solidarity with them when we assert the necessity of human rights protections. It was hatred towards Jewish people, Queer people, people of colour, Roma and Sinti people, disabled people, religious and political minorities during the Holocaust that led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a bulwark against hate and persecution.
Even though today may look very different, hatred persists, and the rollback of human rights reflects this. From the increase in antisemitic hate crime recorded this year and the rollback of Gypsy and Traveller rights in the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act, to the unlawful criminalisation of migrants in the Nationality and Borders Act, we cannot let hatred pervade our actions as individuals, nor our domestic policies
As speakers by experience, René Cassin stands together with all those affected by hate this NCHAW, and against hatred in all its forms.