E/CN.4/1996/72 page 13 for a person, even when seeking work and/or seeking asylum, keeps his or her human dignity. He was pleased to have had useful meetings with municipal officials in London and in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool who are endeavouring to improve race relations in their cities, and with officials of the national and regional offices of the Commission for Racial Equality. He also thanks the officials and representatives of the non-governmental organizations and of various ethnic minorities who agreed to see him and provided him with information. 49. Allegations received at the Centre for Human Rights referred to a multiplication of racist incidents in the United Kingdom due, in particular, to the activities of movements of the far right and to the behaviour of the police towards certain ethnic minorities. Jewish organizations had also informed the Special Rapporteur of the resurgence of anti-Semitic acts prompted by the propaganda of fundamentalist Islamic organizations and organizations of the far right. 50. The mission also took place after the consideration, in July 1995, by the Human Rights Committee of the fourth periodic report of the United Kingdom submitted in accordance with article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 5/ The Committee expressed regret "concerning the failure to address adequately issues properly arising under article 26 of the Covenant". 6/ 51. The Committee also expressed concern on a number of matters directly or indirectly related to the question of racism and racial discrimination. 7/ 52. The Government of the United Kingdom acknowledges the existence of problems of racism and xenophobia and is trying to overcome them through legislative and administrative measures designed to eliminate economic and social disparities between the indigenous majority and the ethnic minorities. Government action is supplemented by that of local communities, churches, trade unions and numerous non-governmental associations and organizations. 53. The United Kingdom was in fact one of the first Member States of the United Nations to make a frontal attack on the problems that may arise from race relations. That country very early on adopted laws on the subject and created a Commission for Racial Equality responsible for supervising their implementation. The United Kingdom is seen as a multicultural society the epicentre of which remains the British nation which is not encroached on by the various ethnic and black minorities which have their own cultures but live under the laws of Britain. 54. Remarkable progress has been achieved during the 30 years of the policy of racial equality, but increasingly subtle forms of discrimination have emerged. Moreover, in recent years, the economic crisis and competition for increasingly scarce resources and jobs, as well as political activity by far right and neo-Nazi movements and parties, and violent action by the police against certain communities, have polarized social relations between rich and poor on the one hand, and between whites and blacks on the other. The term "blacks" is used in a political sense; it denotes the blacks and ethnic minorities of the United Kingdom; in ordinary speech the terms used are either