involved Jewish students, academics or other student bodies. 46 13 of these took place on campus. Around three quarters of the total 924 incidents took place in Greater London and Greater Manchester, which host the two largest Jewish communities in the UK and are major university cities.
47. Despite the relatively low number of reported incidents on campus, Jewish community leaders have raised concerns with UUK about antisemitism affecting university students. In order to explore these concerns, UUK hosted a roundtable with representatives from the Jewish community, student representative groups including the Union of Jewish Students( UJS), university representatives and parliamentarians to discuss the experience of Jewish students at UK universities. The discussion revealed that on the whole Jewish students have a positive experience of university, but there are situations where Jewish students feel hostility on campus. Various organisations including the University Jewish Chaplaincy highlighted concerns that Jewish students were not reporting incidents to their universities. In terms of improving the institutional response, the feedback received at the roundtable aligned closely with the themes which are summarised in chapter 3.
Anti-Muslim hate crime and harassment
48. The main evidence on anti-Muslim attacks in the UK is produced by the Tell MAMA( Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) initiative 47. The Tell MAMA data is covered in further detail in Annexe C and sets out a number of significant findings.
49. Tell MAMA received 1,128 reports of anti-Muslim incidents from victims, witnesses and third-party organisations in 2015. 48 437 of these incidents or crimes( affecting 468 victims) were classified as‘ offline’, referring to where they took place in person between victim( or property) and perpetrator, and this represents a 200 % increase over the previous reporting period. 49 364 incidents or crimes were classified as‘ online’, meaning they occurred on social media or other internet-based platforms. In addition to this, three police forces now
46
There are variable and sometimes contested definitions of antisemitism. In its Antisemitic Incidents Report 2015( February 2016), the CST defines an antisemitic incident as:‘… any malicious act aimed at Jewish people, organisations or property, where there is evidence that the incident has antisemitic motivation or content, or that the victim was targeted because they are( or are believed to be) Jewish. Incidents can take several forms, including physical attacks on people or property, verbal or written abuse, threats against Jews or antisemitic leaflets and posters. CST does not include the general activities of antisemitic organisations in its statistics; nor does it include antisemitic material that is permanently hosted on internet websites.’ This is a different definition to the one used in the DCLG’ s Government Action on Anti-Semitism which uses the broader definition of a hate crime. There is also the definition used by the European Forum on Anti-Semitism( EUMF). Further detail on how antisemitic incidents are reported to the CST and the categories of incident that the organisation uses for analytical purposes can be found in their publication,‘ Definitions of Antisemitic incidents’.
47
Tell MAMA is a confidential and independent third-party hate crime reporting service for individuals who experience anti-Muslim hate crime and violence. Tell MAMA classifies an anti-Muslim incident as any malicious act aimed at Muslims, their material property or Islamic organisations and where there is evidence that the act has anti-Muslim motivation or content, or that the victim was targeted because of their Muslim identity. This also includes incidents where the victim was perceived to be a Muslim.
48
Available at http:// tellmamauk. org / wp-content / uploads / pdf / tell _ mama _ 2015 _ annual _ report. pdf
49
Previous reporting period was the 12 months to March 2015.
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