Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week, Eddie Bruce-Jones describes the media vilification of Emrah Kara, a man suffering from mental health problems who was shot in December 2013 by a German special police unit, and explains how this has parallels with the deaths of those from vulnerable groups at the hands of the police in the UK and elsewhere.

Ryan Erfani-Ghettani reviews No Place to Call Home, a history of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in the UK and Ireland. And Michael Higgs reviews Enoch Powell and the making of postcolonial Britain, arguing that it acts as a necessary corrective at a time when attempts are being made to rehabilitate Powell’s politics.

In news from across the UK, the charity Asylum Link Merseyside has criticised the Home Office for covertly targeting the most vulnerable asylum seekers for deportation. The EDL’s former leader Tommy Robinson has been jailed for mortgage fraud. And a man in Shotton Colliery is awaiting sentencing after admitting that he nailed a Qur’an to the wall of a building set to be turned into a Muslim education centre and painted ‘EDL’ on the walls. The building has been targeted repeatedly after planning permission was granted to change its use.

Jon Burnett

Assistant Editor, IRR News