Global report: virus has unleashed a 'tsunami of hate' across world, says UN chief
António Guterres pleads for an end to ‘hate speech’; Beijing says it will cooperate with WHO on Covid-19 origin; global deaths near 270,000
Fri 8 May 2020 06.54 BST

United Nations chief António Guterres has said the coronavirus pandemic has unleashed a “tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering”, and appealed for an all-out effort “to end hate speech globally.”

The UN secretary-general said anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and on the streets, and highlighted the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Covid-19-related anti-Muslim attacks.

His comments came as China said it was “always open to cooperate” with World Health Organisation (WHO) investigations into the origins of the coronavirus, as Donald Trump repeated claims that the outbreak originated in a Wuhan laboratory.

Trump’s claims, for which the US is yet to provide evidence, have fuelled tension between the two superpowers and placed a crucial trade deal between the two countries in jeopardy.

As speculation swirled about where the virus originated, Guterres said migrants and refugees have been vilified as a source of the virus and then denied access to medical treatment.

“With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable, “he said. “And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.”

Guterres called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on digital literacy at a time when extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences.

He called on the media, especially social media, to remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content, on civil society to strengthen their outreach to vulnerable people, and on religious figures to serve as models of mutual respect.

“And I ask everyone, everywhere, to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness,” Guterres said.

The secretary-general stressed that Covid-19 “does not care who we are, where we live, what we believe or about any other distinction”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -lab-claim

fazur wrote:first toilet paper panic, now this. what is wrong with these people?

They don’t have parents to slap the kids and tell them to show respect.

How East Asians in the UK are fighting back against a rising tide of racism
Post-Brexit bigotry was already escalating when the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a new wave of Sinophobia. Rather than retreat, the UK’s Asian community is lobbying the media, public figures and politicians to promote solidarity
Simon Parry
Published: 2:45pm, 31 May, 2020
Updated: 10:12am, 1 Jun, 2020

David Tse Ka-shing was taking his daily exercise, jogging through Soho in the heart of London, in the early days of Britain’s coronavirus lockdown in March, when he found himself at the receiving end of a racist outburst that dragged him back to the darkest times of his childhood.

The Hong Kong-born actor and director had just passed a white, female pedestrian in her early 30s at a safe distance when she barked at him to “F*** off back to China.” When Tse turned back in dismay and replied, “I’m British. How dare you?”, she yelled, “Take your f***ing virus home with you.”

For Tse, 55, who moved to England with his family at the age of six, the foul-mouthed outburst was a shocking wake-up call to a tide of racism unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic in his adopted country.

“The UK was incredibly racist when I grew up here in the 70s and 80s,” he recalls of his boyhood in the West Midlands town of Leominster. “We lived in a small market town and my parents ran a fish-and-chip shop and Chinese takeaway. Every Friday and Saturday night we used to get racist behaviour from drunken customers. They would come in to be served and at the same time abuse us.

“This happened throughout my childhood because me and my siblings all worked in my parents’ takeaway when we were old enough. My parents were somewhat shielded because they were working in the kitchen, so we bore the brunt of it.
“I remember thinking, ‘Why the hell did we ever leave Hong Kong?’ I grew up on Cheung Chau, part of a warm, loving, interconnected large community of family and friends. I had an idyllic childhood and then I arrived in this country that was cold, grey and unwelcoming.”

Tse came to believe Britain had grown more civilised and tolerant. He was the founding artistic director of the Yellow Earth Theatre, which showcases East Asian talent, and has directed productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Barbican.

The unprovoked hostility in Soho “brought out the anger in me because you scratch the surface, and suddenly you’re back to a much darker period of British cultural history, when people were overtly racist”, he says. “I think people here are still racist towards Chinese and East Asians, although there was a grudging respect because of the way China has advanced and become an economic superpower. All that seems to have changed with Covid-19.”

Tse’s experience is far from unique. In the first three months of 2020, police say there have been at least 267 recorded hate crimes against Chinese, East Asian and Southeast Asian people in Britain, compared with 375 in the whole of 2019. Thousands more are believed to have gone unreported.
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-mag ... ck-against

Confronting hate against east Asians – a photo essay

Anti-Asian racism and crimes against the Asian community have amplified with Covid. The photographer Wendy Huynh, whose parents are Chinese immigrants from Vietnam who moved to France to flee communism, has experienced racism in Paris and London. She created a series of portraits celebrating Asian women in London from the creative industry to tackle the issue, and the Guardian talked to some of them to about their experiences
by Nazia Parveen, photographs by Wendy Huynh
Wed 19 May 2021 06.00 BST

For Bonnie Kwok it was a subtle difference. Whenever she used public transport there was always a space left next to her. At first she dismissed it, but when it started to happen regularly she began to question why other passengers were reluctant to take the free seat.

Kwok, 43, who was born in Hong Kong but moved to the UK when she was 16, also started to notice children at the Hackney Chinese community school, where she is a headteacher, were increasingly coming in upset. They were, she says, being subjected to racist abuse on their way to school – something that started to happen with concerning regularity during the onset of the pandemic.

“There is no other way of explaining it – we were being shunned and abused because we were being blamed for spreading coronavirus,” she said. “Things definitely got worse with Covid: someone told one of our students to ‘go back to your country, we don’t want you here , you are a virus’ – the student was really upset. She couldn’t understand why she had been singled out.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... hoto-essay

The experience described by Kwok and her students is part of a worrying trend. Over the past year there has been a significant rise in hate crime against people of east Asian appearance. In May 2020, ministers told MPs that hate crime directed at south and east Asian communities had increased by 21% during the coronavirus crisis, with police estimates suggesting a threefold increase in such incidents in the first three months of 2020 compared with the same period last year.