Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week, the IRR publishes a briefing paper by Liz Fekete on the growing tide of hostility against Europe’s Romani communities. We also have a review of a new book of Peter Blackman’s poetry, Footprints, which ‘gives this forgotten black British campaigner his due’.

Two historic ‘unlawful killing’ verdicts have been recorded in the past week into the deaths of two men. The Azelle Rodney Inquiry finally published its long awaited report. It found that a police officer known as E7 had ‘no lawful justification for shooting Azelle Rodney so as to kill him’. He was shot six times after the car he was travelling in was stopped in 2005 by the Met police. Azelle’s mother, Susan Alexander, has accused the police of ‘executing’ her son.

The eight-week inquest into the death of Jimmy Mubenga at the hands of three G4S guards during a deportation in October 2010 ended with another verdict of unlawful killing. The jury found that the 46-year-old father of five had been restrained, in his seat on board a plane at Heathrow, with his hands cuffed behind his back by one or more of the guards who used unreasonable force and acted in an unlawful manner. (We also have a comment piece on the verdict).

And finally, in news from Scotland, there have been two racist attacks in Glasgow. In one a 19-year-old student was stabbed by a 20-strong mob and police have been accused of failing to follow-up a racist attack on a taxi driver. And Michael Ross who was jailed in October 2008 for the murder of Shamsuddin Mahmood on Orkney in 1994 has broken his silence on the racist murder.

Harmit Athwal

Editor, IRR News