Dear IRR News subscriber,

The IRR’s European Research Programme has repeatedly warned that not only is the European far Right emboldened by conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement or the White Genocide, but also that those intent on fomenting ‘race war’ are also feeding off a more mainstream racism. Now, on 9 October, in Saxony Anhalt, Germany, a white supremacist armed with home-made guns and explosives attempted to commit mass murder at the synagogue in Halle. Prevented from doing so, Stephen Balliet went on to shoot dead Kevin S, a painter-decorator in a nearby kebab shop, and Jana Lange, who had told him to stop making so much noise outside a Jewish place of worship. But as our regular calendar of racism and resistance makes plain, many German politicians, disgusted by this deadly antisemitic attack, are condemning the ‘spiritual arsonists’ who have contributed to the culture that enables far-right violence, singling out some politicians from Alternative for Germany (AfD) for speech which belittles the crimes of National Socialism and the Holocaust.

At a time when white nationalism and nativism is sweeping across Europe, IRR’s Anya Edmond-Pettitt highlights the Gilets Noirs, ‘the largest collective of undocumented workers in France’, which has ignited a debate around exploitation and the racism of the French state. She unpacks the emergence of this movement over the past year, revealing how the Gilets Noirs are ‘highlighting the hypocrisy of a Europe that allows for free movement for some and arrest and detention for others’.

The fight for justice when up against the state is not an easy or quick process – forty-seven years since the ‘Oval Four’ were arrested for robbery and assaulting the police whilst on their way home from a political meeting in South London, they might now finally be cleared.

It is not a coincidence that the ‘Oval Four’ were all politically involved in the Black Power movement – as the ongoing UK undercover policing enquiry has revealed, the breadth of police infiltration of political groups is extensive. As part of the Undercover Research Group, Rosie Wild reveals the striking evidence that has been uncovered about Special Branch’s attempts to infiltrate Black Power groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the Oval Four campaign. Read about the lifelong fight of Winston Trew (one of the Oval Four) to expose the fact they were framed.

 

IRR News Team