Dear IRR News subscriber,

In a week where extreme-right and anti-immigration parties have consolidated their presence in the European Parliament, we review two important reports on racial violence across Europe. The case studies provided by Amnesty International, Médecins du Monde and the Greek Council for Refugees are not only harrowing in themselves, but the way the material has been assembled points to the complicity of law enforcement in these attacks, and a wider culture of impunity.

In news from across the UK, UKIP director of communications and MEP Patrick O’Flynn has praised his former newspaper, the Daily Express, for the political pressure it has exerted in the debate over EU membership, saying it deserves a medal for ‘editorial valour’ over its coverage of UKIP. A former senior Serco official who worked inside Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre has alleged that an anti-immigration culture was ‘endemic’ among staff, and that vulnerable women have been deported without their mental health being properly assessed. And in Scotland, a man has been found guilty of wilful fire-raising with malice aforethought, after setting a house on fire with three Asian men inside. But despite the fact that the assailant had previously referred to one of the men in the house as a ‘P***’ and a ‘black b*******’; the racial element of the attack was officially deleted from the charge.

Jon Burnett

Assistant Editor, IRR News