Dear IRR News subscriber,

The upsurge in Islamophobic and other racist incidents recently acknowledged by police forces across the country is certainly borne out by IRR’s monitoring of local and national media. In order to assist readers dissect patterns and trends, we have reorganised our calendar of racism and resistance. We hope that breaking down our usual ‘violence and harassment’ category to group attacks according to type, will allow for more scrutiny of the institutional response, especially in regards to charging and sentencing. Institutional responses and the effectiveness of the National Police Online Hate Reporting system is also the subject of an in-depth examination into the harassment experienced by human rights defenders, Eric and Philippa Kempson, who will be well-known to IRR News readers for their work saving refugee lives on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Radical film-maker Prasanna Ratnayake (1972-2017) was a great friend of IRR/Race & Class and we were greatly saddened to hear of his sudden death. Jenny Bourne recalls the life of a truly gifted documentary-maker here.

The July issue of Race and Class is out and features a double-length article on the little known New York City jail riots of the 1970s which predated those at Attica (the article is currently available for free here). And we also publish a collection of free Race & Class articles on Prison resistance and black self-defence.

There’s also a new job opportunity at Race & Class, view details here and feel free to circulate the information.

Finally, the News Service is taking a break over the Summer, though you should check the website for events and updates of our calendar on racism and resistance. A full service will resume in the Autumn.

IRR News Team