Dear IRR News subscriber,

At a historic meeting organised by Race & Class and the Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology and Criminal Justice last night, Phil Scraton discussed the Hillsborough disaster and black campaigners against deaths in custody found common cause with the Hillsborough Family Support Campaign.

Chandra Frank and Serginho Roosblad discuss how more and more voices are speaking out against the annual Dutch spectacle of blackface ‘St Nicholas helpers’ (Zwarte Piet). And Frances Webber explains how the treatment of asylum seeker Habib Ignaoua exposes the government’s unconcern about the collateral damage to families and the rule of law caused by its determination to keep ‘undesirables’ out.

In news from across the UK, Lee James, 24, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi in Bristol. Mr Ebrahimi had been the victim of sustained racial and disability related abuse before he was killed in July. A Ministry of Justice report has revealed that Black and Asian defendants are nearly 20 per cent more likely to be given prison sentences than white defendants, leading to concerns over institutional racism. And new witness evidence given at the inquest into Mark Duggan’s death in 2011 backs up the claim that the police planted a gun near the scene.

IRR News