UK- based organisations mark murder anniversary of British teenager

Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence






Stephen Lawrence Accra, April 28, GNA –  Four UK-based organisations have marked the 20th Anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, African Caribbean British teenager, describing it as a racist crime driven by hatred involving a gang of like-minds.

A statement issued by Dr Koku Adomdza, on behalf of the Global Race Equality Action, Great Trust, Council for Afrika International and Afrika Liberation Society in London and copied to the Ghana News Agency said the murder of Lawrence who was 18 years as fundamental human rights and racial equality issue.

It said there is no control on the far-reaching ramification such as the cost of innocent lives such as the murder of Lawrence.

‘The question which must be reflected upon is whether it should take the murder of a young teenager, with his full life ahead of him, to sufficiently progress race equality and fundamental human rights Outcomes in Britain measurably forward the way things have turned out?’

‘In same vein, everyone in British Society must ponder about how difficult and challenging it must be for Stephen Lawrence’s parents, siblings, relatives and friends to have to been pulled through two rough decades in the pursuit of justice, only to be rewarded with partial justice.

‘Attention must be drawn to the point and relevance of the dictum that justice delayed is Justice denied, the statement said.

‘The inconclusive status of the Stephen Lawrence Investigations, even against the backdrop of the famous MacPherson Enquiry that established institutional racism, is a damnation of the vain parochialism of those who have long attempted to sing a premature requiem to racism, and therefore sought to undermine and limit the need for anti-racism efforts as though it had been overcome and eliminated from society.’

The statement said the reality of the investigations into the murder of Lawrence and the lack of success of bringing all culprits to justice pulls the rug off those who postulate that anti-racism has been over-hyped with consequences for a backlash.

‘ Such  degree  of  insensitivity and intellectual dishonesty is simply a veneer to masquerade the racist undertones of those who hide behind professional  pretences and an exhibition of the insidious and covert  metamorphosis of racial  bigotry, racial  discrimination and institutional  racism, ‘ the statement said.

 
GNA