A growing number of European right-wing politicians are reacting with anger and disbelief following the release of police body-camera footage from the murder of British student Henry Nowak.
Swedish conservative MEP Charlie Weimers has called for an urgent European Parliament resolution on the case.
Writing on X, Weimers noted that the Parliament had swiftly adopted a resolution condemning racism and police brutality following George Floyd’s murder in the United States in 2020. He questioned why there had been “total silence” following the death of the 18-year-old British student.
“I propose a resolution for Henry Nowak NOW,” Weimers wrote, urging the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the European People’s Party (EPP), the Patriots for Europe, and the Europe of Sovereign Nations groups to support such a measure.
The case has provoked widespread outrage after footage released by British police showed Nowak, who had been stabbed multiple times in Southampton in December, being handcuffed by officers despite repeatedly telling them that he had been attacked and was struggling to breathe.
His killer, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, was sentenced on Monday to a minimum of 21 years in prison after being convicted of murder. He had falsely claimed that Nowak had racially abused him.
In Belgium, Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken retweeted a post saying that the officers accepted the attacker’s accusations, ignored Nowak’s pleas for help, and allowed him to die “because he was white.”
French nationalist politician Florian Philippot described the newly released footage as “shocking” and accused British authorities of operating within an ideological system that “reverses victims and perpetrators, out of fear of offending, out of political correctness.”
Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński described the footage as “horrible.”
Meanwhile, Austrian identitarian activist Martin Sellner—the leader of the newly founded Institute for Remigration—called for severe punishment not only for the convicted killer but also for the police officers involved in the incident.
Charlie Weimers argues that while the death of George Floyd—a black man who died in similar circumstances at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020—was met with outrage, reaction to Nowak’s death has been markedly different, a contrast, he said, that reflects a double standard in political discourse across Europe.
George Floyd’s death triggered worldwide protests and led the European Parliament to adopt a resolution strongly condemning racism, police brutality, and “white supremacism.”
Now that the victim is a white man and the perpetrator a Sikh man, the European Left remains silent.
