The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is an international treaty adopted in 1965 by the United Nations General Assembly.
The Convention covers the rights of all people to enjoy civil, political, economic and social rights, without discrimination on grounds of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
The UK ratified this in 1969.
Hate crime is defined as an offence which the victim considers to be driven by hostility towards their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity.
It can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, assault and bullying, as well as damage to property.
Although people's experience of hate crime, captured in the Crime Survey of England and Wales, has gone down steadily over the last 10 years, Police recorded Hate Crime in England and Wales has more than doubled since 2012/13, when 42,255 were recorded.
This is partly due to the improvements made by the police in their identification and recording of hate crime offences, and to more people coming forward to report these.
However, there have also been spikes of hate crime.
Speaking at last October’s 'Celebrating International Integration Day' Event in the Temple of Peace, organised by NWAMI- “North Wales Association for Multicultural Integration”, I referred to the “Let us Integrate Through Music and Art” Assembly event I hosted last May with NWAMI and Cwmbran based KIRAN – “Knowledge based Inter community Relationship and Awareness Network”.
As the Honorary President of NWAMI, I have worked with the organisation for a number of years.
NWAMI is dedicated to building up a cohesive community and integrated society in Wales in the 21st century, and to achieving this by promoting an understanding of - and respect for - this country’s diverse cultures through cultural engagement and interaction, education and training – dorganizing cultural performances in music, dance and other art forms, as well as activities including speaker sessions and workshops.
In South Wales, Cwmbran based KIRAN aims to advance education and raise awareness about different racial groups and different social and cultural settings, promote knowledge and mutual understanding between different racial groups, and generate activities to foster understanding between people from diverse backgrounds – with the objective of encouraging acceptance of social diversities and facilitating meaningful engagement between members from different communities.
Last May, I had a meeting in the Assembly with the Welsh Refugee Council, the North Wales Association for Multicultural Integration and the personal support service CAIS to talk about how we can work in partnership to break down barriers and increase understanding of each other's cultures.
We must recognise the vital work been carried out by frontline community and third sector organisations to promote multicultural integration in Wales.
As the Chair and Founder of NWAMI, Dr Sibani Roy, has stated:
"Some of the people think that when you talk about integration, you mean assimilation. We have to explain to people that integration is not assimilation”.
“We have to respect the law and culture of the land.
She added "What we need to do is educate people and say we are all human beings, we're friendly and we should try to understand each other's culture.
"When they learn about other cultures, then they will possibly become friendly."
“Change will happen very slowly, Tit for tat is not the way to change people.
"By talking to people and educating people - eventually by convincing them that human beings are not all bad.
"It doesn't matter - it's individuals.
"And that is what I've always believed myself: that we treat them as individuals - it doesn't matter what the background is, their faith or colour”.
It terms of Brexit – when people voted to leave the EU, they were voting for control, not extremism.
Some extremists have sought to highjack Brexit for their own ends.
However, at this critical time, we must remember that this is not about a soft Brexit or a hard Brexit, but an open Brexit, one that ensures that the UK is still turned outwards, and more engaged with the world than ever before.
We need to build a cohesive community and integrated society in Wales in the 21st century.
To achieve this we need to promote an understanding and respect of this country’s diverse cultures through cultural engagement and interaction, education and training.
We therefore support the call for a cross party Welsh declaration embodying the principles of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
As I have said many times, this is about celebrating our glorious diversity together.