Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week, we publish an excerpt from an article in the current issue of Race & Class. ‘The Business of child detention’ raises important questions for charities and voluntary organisations about the consequences of operating inside the detention estate. We also have news on the death of a Bangladeshi woman in police custody in the West Midlands.

Frances Webber reflects on the significance of a US judge’s evidential-based approach to the sentencing of Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan, and asks whether cracks are emerging in a racialised justice system that offers second-class protection to Muslims.

European developments on the far-Right are also covered this week. A new pamphlet aimed at French trades unionists highlights the need for workplace anti-racism, as more and more former Socialist and Communist party voters are seduced by the FN’s programme of national preference, dressed up in anti-globalisation, anti-austerity rhetoric.

In news from across the UK, numerous grieving families have been told that they were spied upon by police officers from the Special Demonstration Squad and that the surveillance ‘served no purpose in preventing crime or disorder’.

Residents in Southampton have raised their concerns about a new Channel 4 programme ‘Immigration Street’. And hundreds of people appearing in court have been left with interpreters as Capita, continues to fall short of contractual requirements.

Two men will have time added to sentences they are currently already serving after they sent incendiary devices and racist letters from Full Sutton prison. And finally, the BNPs leader Nick Griffin quit this week and banned teacher, Adam Walker, took over.

Harmit Athwal

Editor, IRR News