Thirty-five years after East London teacher Blair Peach was murdered by the Metropolitan police at a demonstration against the racist National Front in Southall in April 1979, the struggle to determine the exact circumstances and perpetrators of his death still continues. David Renton’s finely argued and profoundly persuasive pamphlet, Who killed Blair Peach?, makes a crystalline
An incisive new campaigning video attacks the equation of anti-racism with extremism. Human rights defenders connected to Swedish anti-racist group Linje 17 mot rasism (Line 17 Against Racism) have found a novel way of lobbying for change. In a terse film, entitled #viärsverige 2014 – sluta normalisera rasismen! (#WeAreSweden 2014 – Stop Normalising Racism!), of just
Dear IRR News subscriber, On 16 June, the 799th anniversary of Magna Carta, the Prime Minister demanded the promotion of British values, with democracy, respect for the rule of law and individual liberty, and respect for others’ beliefs at their heart. This week, Frances Webber shows how these values are irrevocably damaged by the combination of
The ability to secure justice has been irrevocably damaged by the combination of secret trials, trials involving secret evidence, and the continuing legal aid cuts – affecting the rule of law itself. The ‘Trojan Horse’ affair has given us a definition of ‘British values’ – in a document for school governors issued by the Department
Protesters gathered outside the Moroccan embassy to demand the release of Ali Aarrass. At around 11 o’clock on 26 June, around fifty people stood outside the Moroccan Embassy, holding placards calling for ‘Justice for Ali’ and photographs of Ali Aarrass. The protesters chanted ‘Morocco: stop torture now!’ and ‘Ali Aarrass: we are with you!’ The picket was
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, Andy Shallice lays bare the impact of new measures to restrict the rights of EU migrants, particularly the Roma. And the IRR’s European researchers home in on Swiss asylum policy, describing the institutional neglect and exclusionary policies that characterise its detention system. And in news from across the UK,
Andy Shallice reports on the impact of new meaures to restrict the rights of EU migrants, particularly the Roma. ‘In this world, shipmates, Sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers…’(Herman Melville, 1851 via Matthew Carr, 2012) Since April, no new housing
Swiss asylum policy is characterised by institutional neglect within hostile systems designed to segregate and exclude. Feras Farees Abedal Motaleeb was a Palestinian refugee who, having fled from Iraq to Switzerland to save his life, found death in a remote Swiss valley, in an 8m² space in a metal container which he shared with two
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, we republish an article by Daniel Holder from the Belfast-based human rights NGO Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) on incitement to racial hatred in Northern Ireland. We also run an article on the recent death of Anowar Tagabo, a Darfuri student in Sheffield. Racially motivated violence has been
Police in Sheffield are investigating the death of 25-year-old Anowar Tagabo, a Darfuri refugee, who died following an attack. In the early hours of Sunday 25 May 2014, Anowar Tagabo, a peace and development student at Bradford University, was savagely attacked by a group of men and women near the Viper Rooms, Carver Street, Sheffield.
