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

Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party declared criminal organization in historic ruling as crowds gather in Athens

7 Oct, 2020

In a landmark court ruling, Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party has been found to be operating as a criminal organization. The five-year trial had 68 defendants and included the murder of a rapper and cases of violent attacks.

Protesters held banners comparing the political party, which is controversial for its fiercely anti-immigrant views, to Nazis as they stood outside the Athens courthouse. Videos show the massive crowd filling the main roadway and side streets surrounding the building. Fights broke out in the crowd, with police using tear gas and a water cannon to restore order.

In its decision, the court ruled that seven of the party’s former lawmakers, including party leader Michaloliakos, were guilty of running a criminal organization. In total, 68 defendants were involved in the case, including 18 former parliamentarians.

The trial considered four separate criminal charges involving the murder of Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013, attacks on migrant fishermen, attacks on left-wing activists and whether Golden Dawn was involved in criminal activity.

The trial began in 2015, after a supporter of Golden Dawn was accused of murdering Fyssas, who was known for his anti-fascist views. As a result, Michaloliakos and more than a dozen party members were arrested and charged with participating in a criminal enterprise. Golden Dawn claims that the trial is a political witch-hunt.

At its peak, Golden Dawn was Greece’s third-most popular party as voters looked for radical change during the nation’s crippling financial crisis. The far-right party lost its remaining seats in parliament in last year’s elections.

Source: RT News

Trump Tells Agencies To End Training On 'White Privilege' And 'Critical Race Theory'

   

   

The Trump administration has instructed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity trainings that address topics like white privilege and critical race theory, calling them "divisive, anti-American propaganda."

In a letter to federal agencies Friday, the director of the Office of Management and Budget said the president recently became aware of the racial sensitivity programs, which encourage frank conversations about race in the workplace and discuss potential actions to combat systemic racism.

The memo, issued by OMB Director Russell Vought, reads in part:

"All agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on 'critical race theory,' 'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil."

The memo said agencies "should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these un-American propaganda training sessions."

Citing "press reports" of training sessions at which employees were allegedly told "virtually all white people contribute to racism," Vought wrote that these sorts of trainings [sic] perpetuate misguided views and contribute to racial division. It was not clear which specific agencies or training sessions he was referring to.

Trump's Base Is Shrinking As Whites Without A College Degree Continue To Decline The directive was issued against the backdrop of the ongoing national conversation around police brutality and systemic racism. It's a debate in which Trump has sided with law enforcement over advocates for racial justice and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. As demonstrations were at their peak earlier this summer, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that two-thirds of Americans believed the president has made race relations worse.

Racial sensitivity training has long been conducted on college campuses and across much of corporate America. It's unclear how long it's been going on at federal agencies. But its existence has gotten more attention in conservative circles in recent months.

One of the more prominent critics, Christopher Rufo, director of the Center on Wealth and Poverty at the conservative Discovery Institute, argued on Fox News this week that Trump should end the programs immediately.

"It's absolutely astonishing how critical race theory has pervaded every institution in the federal government," Rufo told host Tucker Carlson. "What I have discovered is that critical race theory has become, in essence, the default ideology of the federal bureaucracy and is now being weaponized against the American people."

On Saturday, Trump retweeted Rufo's appearance on Fox, arguing that diversity training is a threat to American unity. In response to a person who wrote that "critical race theory is the greatest threat to western civilization and it's made its way into the US federal government," Trump responded: "Not any more!" In another tweet, Trump called critical race theory "a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue."

While many conservatives applauded the move, others decried the continuing racism that they see pervading many aspects of American society, including the awarding of government contracts.

"If we are going to live up to this nation's promise — 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — we have to see each other as human beings, and we have to do whatever it takes, including taking whatever classes make that possible," M.E. Hart, an attorney who has run hundreds of diversity training sessions for businesses and the federal government, told The Washington Post. "These classes have been very powerful in allowing people to do that, and we need them more than ever. There's danger here."

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910053496/trump-tells-agencies-to-end-trainings-on-white-privilege-and-critical-race-theor

The City of Seattle held a segregated training session for white staffers last month in which they instructed workers on how to ‘undo their whiteness’

• The City of Seattle held a segregated training session for white staffers last month in which they instructed workers on how to 'undo their whiteness'
• Titled 'Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness', the training session was reportedly held by the Office of Civil Rights on June 12
• One handout distributed in the two-and-a-half hour session reportedly read that 'racism is not our fault but we are responsible' Another said white staffers must give up 'the land' and their 'guaranteed physical safety' in order to be an 'accomplice' for racial justice
• The Seattle's Office of Civil Rights has not yet returned a DailyMail.com request for comment on the alleged training program
  

The City of Seattle held a segregated training session for white staffers last month in which they instructed workers on how to 'undo their whiteness' and affirm their 'complicity in racism', reports suggest.

Titled 'Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness', the training session was reportedly held by the Office of Civil Rights on June 12, the same day protesters took part in the CHOP zone demonstrations in the Capitol Hill district.

Christopher F. Rufo, an editor for City Journal and director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, unearthed the session’s existence after filing a Freedom of Information request last week, which was approved Monday.

One handout distributed in the two-and-a-half hour session reportedly read that 'racism is not our fault but we are responsible.'

Another said white staffers must give up 'the land' and their 'guaranteed physical safety' in order to be an 'accomplice' for racial justice.

Titled 'Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness', the training session was reportedly held by the Office of Civil Rights (above) on June 12

The session took place on the same day that protesters took part in the CHOP demonstrations in the Capitol Hill district

In an email inviting employees to the event, the office asked 'city employees who identify as white to join this training to learn, reflect, challenge ourselves, and build skills and relationships that help us show up more fully as allies and accomplices for racial justice.'
'We’ll examine our complicity in the system of white supremacy – how we internalize and reinforce it – and begin to cultivate practices that enable us to interrupt racism in ways to be accountable to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) folks within our community,' the email continued.

The name of the email's author was redacted, Rufo said, as the City of Seattle 'refused to provide the names of the diversity trainers, the budget for the program, or the video of the session'. a thread posted to his Twitter account, Rufo outlined the various stages of the training session.

He said that first of all 'diversity trainers informed white participants that “objectivity”, “individualism,” ;“intellectualization,” and “comfort” are all vestiges of internalized racial oppression.'

In an email inviting employees to the event, the office asked ‘city employees who identify as white to join this training to learn, reflect, challenge ourselves, and build skills and relationships that help us show up more fully as allies and accomplices for racial justice.’

Rufo outlined the various stages of the training session. He said that first of all 'diversity trainers informed white participants that "objectivity," "individualism," "intellectualization," and "comfort" are all vestiges of internalized racial oppression'

According to Rufo, the goal of the session was to teach white workers how they have been 'complicity in the system of white supremacy’ and must be held 'accountable to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color'

Diversity trainers also encouraged staffers to cultivate 'networks with other white people who are practicing antiracist accomplicehood so you can talk through your struggles in the work of undoing your own whiteness.'

In such networks, the trainers urged participants to practice 'self-talk that affirms our complicity in racism.' They were also instructed to give up ‘niceties from neighbors and colleagues', 'the certainty of your job,' and 'accepting jobs and promotions when we are not qualified, including racial equity jobs.'

White employees were also issued a flowchart outlining the cycle of racism that whites perpetuate through 'superior' justification, 'self-righteousness,' 'fear, shame and guilt' over 'harmful actions' toward 'people of color,' and 'smallness and inauthenticity.'

White people are unable to 'imagine a way forward' that stems from a 'place of humanity and empowerment.' Thus, the 'status quo is reinforced', the chart concluded.

For any employees questioning their ethnicity, the instructors handed out an information sheet titled 'Assimilation to Whiteness', which noted those of Arab, Jewish, Finnish, German, Italian, Armenian or Irish descent identify as white.

White employees were also issued a flowchart outlining the cycle of racism that whites perpetuate through 'superior' justification, 'self-righteousness,' 'fear, shame and guilt' over 'harmful actions' toward 'people of color,' and 'smallness and inauthenticity'

For any employees questioning their ethnicity, the instructors handed out an information sheet titled 'Assimilation to Whiteness', which noted those of Arab, Jewish, Finnish, German, Italian, Armenian or Irish descent still identify as white.

'Other white people may be angry,' but white accomplices must let go of 'operating as individuals' to adapt to this collective mindset, one handout says

Employees were also taught how to 'interrupt' their whiteness by being 'honest and implicate yourself either in the moment or in past experiences in which you acted or thought similarly.'

'Don’t blame others. Don’t distance. Don’t make yourself seem “better.” None of us is,' a handout said. 'You are also white and what someone else did today you may do tomorrow.'

According to Rufo, the goal of the session was to teach white workers how they have been 'complicit in the system of white supremacy' and must be held 'accountable to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.'

The Seattle's Office of Civil Rights has not yet returned a DailyMail.com request for comment on the alleged training program. It’s unclear if the training was mandatory or optional.