We tried on the VR goggles Manchester police are using to train 2,000 officers in tackling hate crime

Thousands of police officers in Greater Manchester are experiencing what it's like to be a victim of hate crime through the use of VR headsets.

The brand new training project, which is the first of its kind in the UK, is designed help officers understand and emphasize with victims by transporting them into their shoes.

They experience three different scenarios from three different victims - which are all based on real-life incidents that took place in Manchester and weren't reported to the police.

The three videos focus on disability hate crime, anti-Semitism with features of misogyny, and gender-based hate crime.

The Manchester Evening News went along to GMP's training centre in Prestwich to try on a pair of the virtual reality goggles.

The anti-Semitism video begins in a synagogue where a young woman, the hate crime victim, gives you her first-hand experience of what happened and how it made her feel.

It feels incredibly real and you can move your head to see all around the room. But with the woman looking directly at you, and being so close up, there's no way anyone taking part in this experience could turn their attention elsewhere.

The video then moves on to actors playing out the incident, and as the wearer of the headset, you become the victim.<

All of a sudden you take on their height and stance. And in the case of the disability hate crime incident - their visual impairment too.

This allows officers to fully immerse themselves in how it feels to be a victim of such an abhorrent and impactful crime.

The third section of the virtual reality training shows two different responses from police officers – one which victim feedback said was a good response and one that victims felt could be improved.

Inspector May Preston said that previously, officers were educated about hate crime in the classroom.

"We wanted something much more interactive where the victim's voice can really be heard," she said.

Officer Marcos Ennau trying out a police training VR headset (Image: Manchester Evening News) Inspector Preston, who was the hate crime lead, said that that transgender and anti-Semitism hate crimes were chosen for the VR experience because of a spike in numbers; whereas disability-based hate crime was focused on because it's so underreported.

"Most often victims don't realise they're victims of hate crimes," she said.

She said that she hopes this new form of training will help officers to understands victims of hate crime and in turn - that those victims will be more willing to come forward if they know that they will be listened to and believed.

Although the three VR videos focus of three different specific types of hate crime there is overlap into other perspectives too that officers can benefit from.

"One senior officer said he never knew what it was like to be a 5'4 female before. He had never had that perspective before," Inspector Preston said.

Greater Manchester Police worked closely with the non-profit Mother Mountain Productions to develop the VR training.

Gary Clifford, the operations director, said "Most people are telling us that they benefitted from the experience, like they were living in the shoes of the victim."

GMP and Mother Mountain Productions took guidance from partners such as The Proud Trust, The RNIB, The Campaign Against Anti -Semitism, Trans Forum and The Community Safety Trust, to ensure that the training encompassed real victim’s experiences and was an effective and relevant tool of learning for officers.

GMP’s ACC Chris Sykes said: “The impact of hate crime on the victim can be wide-ranging and life-changing. We know that hate crime is still under-reported, but by equipping our officers with the empathy and understanding towards victims, we can ensure that we take the correct actions when dealing with these incidents, sending a message to victims that they will be supported and treated with respect and showing offenders that there is no room for hate or discrimination in our vibrant and diverse city.

Source: 18 Aug 21

Ed- Not much about anglophobic attacks there is there?. 'Vibrant and diverse' - you ae welcome to it. My advice - head for the hills.

Equipping Readers with The Truth

The moment that local governments in the Western world began to issue guidance or full-on mandates for religious gatherings in the early days of the pandemic, many were concerned that society had stepped onto a slippery slope.

Fast-forward 15 months later, and we’re seeing pastors arrested in front of their children after their “underground” church services were discovered by a police helicopter.

This is the stuff of tyranny and totalitarianism, not Western-style democracy. Yet here we are.

This week, Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church was arrested outside his home as his distressed children cried, all for holding a church service discovered the day before by a police helicopter.

The conservative Canadian website Rebel News reported that it is unclear if the helicopters were searching for unauthorized church services or just happened to notice the gathering. The outlet said that while police vehicles were later seen circling the service, which included group worship and a sermon from Pastor Stephens, they did not move in and attempt to stop the gathering.

The minister was arrested the following day for violating a court order that restricted him from holding services. Rebel News notes that the weekend prior, the church was effectively seized by Alberta Health Services for failing to adhere to local regulations regarding attendance, social distancing, and masks.

Stephens is being represented by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

Jay Cameron, a lawyer for the firm, blamed Jason Kenney, premier of the Canadian province of Alberta, for the arrest, according to the Calgary Herald.

“It appears that Premier Kenney’s government is targeting its enemies, those who are speaking out against lockdown restrictions and for Charter freedoms,” Cameron said, according to the newspaper.

“Locking out Fairview Baptist congregants and arresting Pastor Tim Stephens has everything to do with punishing dissent, and nothing to do with public safety.”

Stephens has had several run-ins with the law for holding services in violation of local COVID-19 restrictions (as have other Canadian pastors). After Stephens was arrested in May, Alberta Health Services was forced to drop the charges after discovering the health order he had been accused of violating had been served to someone else by mistake, The Calgary Herald noted.

Now, he is being held in prison until June 28 for refusing to agree to bail conditions that would have hindered his ability to hold services.

Rebel News noted that despite efforts on the part of local authorities to prevent Stephens’ flock from gathering, services have only grown larger.

And now we can only assume that, as this man’s commitment to the Gospel of Christ is so emboldened by persecution, the men he is now locked up alongside will be hearing it, too!

That said, it is all the more chilling that we’re reading about a Canadian pastor who has not only been forced to conduct underground church services, but was arrested and put in prison after a police helicopter located the illicit gatherings.

“I just got a tip that the police may be on their way to arrest me,” Stephens tweeted Monday before police arrived at his house. “Why? I continue to lead our church to worship Jesus as Lord over every earthly power.”

“More to come… Pray brothers and sisters. Stand firm, keep the faith,” he added.

This incident is close to home for us Americans, yet it sounds more like something that would happen in China or North Korea.

Our respective nations have long professed a commitment to defending God-given rights to gather and worship, yet after a century of diminishing respect for this deity who gives us these rights, we see an undeniable diminished respect for the rights themselves.

The damage this cultural trend has done to our governments’ commitment to defending these freedoms may have reared its ugly head amid the pandemic, but this has been in the making for a long time.

Let this be a very, very stern warning to us. It’s not as though we’ve been gathering and worshipping freely as our Canadian brothers and sisters live in fear — our churches have been targeted by earthly authorities who prioritize the mitigation of a virus over the inherent rights of Christians to worship.

The most disturbing behavior we saw from leaders here at home was the arbitrarily discriminatory restrictions on religious gatherings even as big box stores and abortion clinics enjoyed more freedom to conduct regular operations.

Again, this highlights how little our leaders regard both our God-given rights and our God himself.

They will answer to Him one day for what they have done — and we will also answer for our commitment to obeying His laws over man’s.

We have a duty to ensure that our First Amendment is protected, because the threats against it are no longer hypothetical. They’re very real, they’re here right now, and the more we get used to it, the sooner we can kiss them goodbye for good.

This incident is close to home for us Americans, yet it sounds more like something that would happen in China or North Korea.

Our respective nations have long professed a commitment to defending God-given rights to gather and worship, yet after a century of diminishing respect for this deity who gives us these rights, we see an undeniable diminished respect for the rights themselves.

Source:
Western Journal- unauthozised church gathering

Biden administration pressed by lawmaker to label white supremacists overseas as terrorists

Fri Apr 9, 2021

House Homeland Security Committee member Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) questions witnesses during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing about 'worldwide threats to the homeland' on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 17, 2020. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden's administration is being pressed by a key Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, to consider designating white supremacist groups overseas as foreign terrorists subject to U.S. government actions.

If Biden's administration were to take the unprecedented step of listing such groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), or even a less-stringent designation, it would help curb dangerous white supremacist organizations, Slotkin argued in the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was reviewed by Reuters.

"It would also give the United States Government more tools to engage and flag the Americans who contact, support, train, and join these (white supremacist extremist) groups," said Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who chairs a U.S. House subcommittee focusing on intelligence and counterterrorism.

The State Department declined comment. Slotkin's request has not been previously reported.

Slotkin asked the State Department to consider listing over a dozen organizations including the neo-Nazi National Action Group, founded in Britain and banned there in 2016. It was described in a 2018 U.S. counter-terrorism report as a terrorist group promoting violence against politicians and minorities.

She also named the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, which the report described as an anti-Western transnational organization behind violent attacks, including against Muslims and left-wing groups. Slotkin has a unique perspective on the threat posed by violent extremism. She served three tours in Iraq as a CIA militia expert and was a senior Pentagon official before being elected to Congress in 2018. As a lawmaker, Slotkin's has turned her focus to domestic extremism.

Her Michigan district saw law enforcement disrupt a plot last year to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

"These plotters weren't affiliated with al Qaeda or ISIS. They didn’t hail from a war-torn region halfway around the world - they were Americans. They were white. And they were radicalized right here at home," Slotkin said at a recent hearing.

MOST LETHAL THREAT

The Biden administration has signaled it is prepared to take a stronger approach to combating violent domestic extremists - specifically white supremacists, which the FBI sees as the top threat within that group.

Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers last month that domestic violent extremism "poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to the homeland today."

Since 2018, white supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the United States than any other domestic violent extremist movement, the department said in an October report here

Particularly concerning are the international connections among white supremacist here groups, with members drawing inspiration from each other for attacks around the world, said Ryan Greer, national security director at the Anti-Defamation League, an organization opposing anti-Semitism and other discrimination.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report here last month that "a small number" of U.S. racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists "have traveled abroad to network with like-minded individuals."

Phil Stewart - Reuters

Source:White Supremacists

Criminalising ‘hate speech’ in homes in England and Wales proposed by Law Commission

5 Nov 2020

Private conversations in the home about controversial issues such as same-sex marriage or transgender ideology could result in police intervention under new hate crime proposals for England and Wales.

In a 540-page consultation document, the Law Commission has laid out its plans to lower the threshold for hate crimes to be committed, including criminalising so-called “hate speech” even in private dwellings.

There is currently a ‘dwelling defence’ in law which protects conversations in the home from police intervention. The Law Commission, which advises the Government, believes this should change.

‘Sowing division’
Similar plans have also been put forward in Scotland, where Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has come under fire for the extreme proposals.

Free speech campaigners have warned that the Scottish Government’s hate crime Bill leaves out the dwelling defence currently included in legislation in England and Wales, but Yousaf insists that ‘hateful speech’ in the home deserves to be criminalised.

The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director for Communications Ciarán Kelly commented: “The Scottish Government has drawn criticism from all corners for its sinister hate crime legislation, but the Law Commission for England and Wales appears to have paid no notice.

“Restricting free speech, and policing ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ views, sows division and resentment. The Government would do well to ignore this report.”

Rights binned
Harry Miller, a former police officer who founded Fair Cop, which opposes hate crime legislation, said: “If the private home law is adopted by Government, a comment over the dinner table about a huge range of people could lead to a prison sentence.”

He said human rights laws protecting privacy and family life would be “in the bin” adding that the proposed changes “will generate unfriendliness between different communities where there is none”.

Family law barrister Sarah Phillimore agreed: “I cannot believe the Government is being asked to consider surveillance of citizens in their own home. How will the evidence of such hate crimes be collected? Will we have an East German-style secret police like the Stasi?”

“Freedom of speech is obviously a cornerstone of our democracy, and a right that we must all defend.”

Source - The Christian Institute:-
Criminalising 'Hate Speech' in the home