Dear IRR News subscriber,

This has been a horrendous year for deaths of migrants, asylum seekers and foreign nationals across Europe, whether it be in the Mediterranean, at land borders, during the deportation process, in prisons, immigration removal centres or inadequately funded reception centres. In the final in a series of articles, asylum campaigner John Grayson throws a spotlight on the deaths of migrants, including suicides, in direct provision hostels in Ireland. A number of other deaths, including that of Polish national Michael Netyks in Altcourse prison in Merseyside, are recorded in our regular calendar of racism and resistance, a fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns.

With the increase in interest amongst young people in Black History, the publication by The Monitoring Group of Coming of Age: the road to 1976 and the birth anti racist movements, is very timely. We reflect on a unique project to recall the importance of the struggles of a pivotal year on whose shoulders a new generation of BAME campaigners now stand. And IRR Director, Liz Fekete, in a speech given at the Centre for Crime & Justice Studies Centre, provides some further reflections on the anti-racist tradition, this time homing in on struggles in the 1980s against police racism and suggesting that the logic of policing in those times lives on in specific measures like the Prevent programme, the joint enterprise laws and the Gangs Matrix.

We are also pleased to report that Sage Publications have at the close of 2017 embarked on a promotion campaign of the IRR’s journal Race & Class, which will allow you to access all articles across the whole of 2017, view further details here. 

This is our last newsletter for 2017. Have a good break. We will be back in the New Year.

IRR News Team