Amnesty International has called for a review of Northern Ireland’s hate crime laws, with the aim of bringing them in line with Britain’s.

Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland programme director at Amnesty International, urged Stormont to follow the lead of the Scottish Government in establishing a “comprehensive independent review of hate crime legislation to consider scope for further improvement”.

The call is one of a series of recommendations for the UK government and the devolved administrations in Amnesty’s new briefing, ‘Against Hate: Tackling hate crime in the UK’.

The briefing, based on a study by the University of Leicester, reviews existing legislation and case studies from victims of hate crime.

It says that an independent review of Northern Ireland legislation would “identify gaps and areas for improvement in line with international standards and other jurisdictions in the UK”.

Mr Corrigan (pictured) told the Belfast Telegraph: “In the last year the PSNI recorded over 1,600 hate crimes in Northern Ireland. That means more than 1,600 people here were attacked and harassed, physically or verbally, because they are perceived as different.

“Everybody in this community should be able to go about their lives in peace without fear of attack from those who seek to sow hatred and division.

“We are calling for a much more robust response from government in Northern Ireland to tackle this endemic problem.

“That must include bringing our race equality laws into line with the rest of the UK where Northern Ireland has fallen behind.

“We also need to see the long-delayed sexual orientation strategy, which could map out a joined-up response to tackling homophobic hate crime.”