NEW police guidance that says forces should consider releasing a suspect’s ethnicity and nationality to the public was branded “inhumane” by anti-racism campaigners today.

Following the Southport riots last summer, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing backed the plans to release the information when there is a “policing purpose” for doing so.

This could be to reduce the risk to public safety, “where there are high levels of mis- or disinformation about a particular incident” or in cases of significant public interest, the guidance says.

The Home Office will decide whether it is “appropriate in all the circumstances” to confirm the immigration status of a suspect.

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts national chairwoman Zita Holbourne told the Morning Star that releasing the ethnicity of non-white or non-British suspects would trigger “stirring to and fuelling hatred and lead to threats to lives and attacks on innocent people by far-right groups and racists, because they fit that descriptor.

“This othering and singling out of people leads to racist stereotyping and labelling already. 

“What is proposed will make this much worse and mean that, once such an announcement is made, people who are black, brown, asylum-seekers and migrants feel unsafe and have to take precautions when stepping outside in fear and risk-assessing going about their daily business.

“This is inhumane and will deepen racism.”

The official guidance was issued following a row over claims that police had “covered up” the backgrounds of two men charged in connection with the alleged rape of a child.

Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, was charged with rape, while Mohammad Kabir, 23, was charged with kidnapping, strangulation and aiding and abetting rape of a girl under 13 after the alleged incident in Nuneaton.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper urged police to release the details of ethnicity last week after Reform leader Nigel Farage amplified claims of a police cover-up over the alleged rape on July 22. 

Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall KC has also said that it would have been “far better” for the authorities to share more accurate detail about the arrest of the Southport killer to prevent the spread of “dangerous fictions,” which helped spark rioting.

Far-right agitators had falsely claimed that murderer Axel Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum-seeker.