Rachel Herzing of Critical Resistance in California warns that zero tolerance policing will have long-term social consequences if adopted in the UK. I, like many people I know, watched the uprisings in Britain earlier this month with fascination and concern. More than merely being headline news, the uprisings and the police response to them were
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Defending multiculturalism
A new book provides all the ammunition needed to take on today’s fights against racism. It is ironic that so many of the contributors to this book, Defending Multiculturalism: A Guide For The Movement, including those from unions, the Socialist Workers Party and the Institute of Race Relations – would not, a generation ago, have
The violence of the violated
The director of the Institute of Race Relations comments on the recent riots. Everyone is clutching at explanations for the riots – gangs, greed, family breakdown, lack of respect. But I would like to go into their deeper causes. Society is completely polarised between rich and poor, mediated through a culture of consumerism and quick
Awards in memory of Olive Morris
In remembrance of Olive Morris’ life and work, the Remembering Olive Collective (ROC) is giving awards to young women who are engaged in radical grassroots political activity. Olive Morris was a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and the Brixton Black Women’s Group. Three awards of £500 will
Double standards in MLRs
The treatment by Home Office decision-makers and immigration judges of expert medical reports comes under scrutiny and is found wanting in a new report from Freedom from Torture. This report, Body of evidence: treatment of medico-legal reports for survivors of torture in the UK asylum tribunal, documents the common ways in which expert medical reports
Three deaths in immigration detention
Is it significant that two people have been found dead in two different detention centres in as many days – and three have died in a month? All that the Home Office will confirm is that on Sunday 31 July ‘A 35-year-old male being held at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre died’ and that it is
How to get rid of foreign prisoners
Why should a Bill going through the Nigerian senate concern us? Because it ties in with British efforts to empty UK prisons of foreign national prisoners by sending them home – without their consent. Prisoner transfer agreements with foreign governments are generally seen as benign attempts to bring British prisoners home from excessive sentences in
Deportation reconstruction as aid to action
An overseas student reviews an unflinching film by augenauf, a Swiss human rights organisation, re-enacting a deportation. To my mind, many of those who support anti-racism, multiculturalism, asylum seekers and refugees speak from an easy, privileged, white, middle-class position. Hence, it is often pity that they feel towards BME communities and asylum seekers rather than
Caged gems
Haunting poetry written from prison by Talha Ahsan deserves to be widely read. ‘I wish I could trap your laughter in a jar – to unscrew and make me crumble’. This is a line from a love poem, a poem from an unrequited lover, entitled ‘Lines for f – the doted on’, in Talha Ahsan’s
Bradford 12: lessons for organising
An event in London marking the Bradford 12 thirtieth anniversary was a celebration and an education for resistance. Thirty years ago, on 10 July 1981, twelve young Asians were arrested and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and to endanger life, after a crate of home-made milk-bottle petrol bombs was found. (In fact thirteen were