On Saturday 3 August, over 500 people gathered at the North London Community House in Tottenham to remember Joy Gardner, Mark Duggan, Roger Sylvester and Cynthia Jarrett, who all died locally at the hands of the police. The event was held to mark the two years since the death of Mark Duggan and the twenty
On Friday 2 August, Romani rights activists and supporters commemorated the Roma Holocaust and protested at Europe’s continued mistreatment of the Roma. In 1944, on 2 August, Nazi guards at Auschwitz murdered almost 3,000 Roma at its ‘Gypsy family camp’. This is now the memorial day of the Roma Holocaust – or Porajmos (the ‘devouring’)
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, regular contributor, John Grayson, continues his analysis of G4S and its provision of asylum housing. We have a report on the death of 43-year-old Tahir Mehmood who died last week in Manchester Pennine House (a short term holding centre near Manchester airport). New research has been published, Precarious Lives,
A few weeks ago Stephen Small, G4S managing director for Immigration and Borders, and Jeremy Stafford, Serco CEO for the UK and Europe were forced to defend their record before the Home Affairs Committee into the asylum system. You can read a full report by John Grayson* on the Home Affairs Committee’s 25 June asylum
A new oral history project documents key moments in London’s anti-racist struggle. Eastside Community Heritage, which records and preserves social history in East London, has launched a new online oral history archive. London Against Racism allows visitors to listen to stories of anti-racist activity over four decades. Local activists recount various battles against racism and
Asylum seekers’ experiences of forced labour are documented in an important new report. Not much is known about those subjected to forced labour in the UK. Working in a labour market that, by design, is exploitative, abusive, secretive and violent (threatened or realised), their existence is frequently ignored. And, but for the work of investigative
Tahir Mehmood, a 43-year-old Pakistani man, has died in Pennine House, a short-term holding facility near Manchester airport. A typically terse statement from the Home Office reveals: ‘A 43-year-old man from Pakistan died in Pennine House short term holding facility and his death has been reported to the police and the coroner. The family of
The Belgian government has set its face against saving the life of its citizen, on hunger and thirst strike in prison in Morocco, despite protests in a number of countries. As we go to press, Ali Aarrass, a dual Belgian-Moroccan national, is in a critical condition in a prison in Salé, Morocco. As of 30
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, we have a report on how violent anti-Roma demonstrations are occurring on a weekly basis in the Czech Republic and news from France where campaigners say police harassment sparked the ‘riots’ at Trappes. We also have a review of a new play (that is only on for a few more days),
This week the Home Office announced a new pilot scheme, lorries with ads, to encourage people in the UK illegally to ‘go home or face arrest’. The one-week £10,000 advertising campaign will involve vans driving around six London boroughs (Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hounslow and Redbridge) carrying ads asking ‘In the UK illegally?’,
