Detention Action has published new research examining the detention of male asylum seekers at Harmondsworth immigration removal centre and the injustices of the ‘outdated’ detained fast track system. The report, Fast Track to Despair: the unnecessary detention of asylum seekers, examines the gap between the conditions of the asylum system when it was established in
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Kingsley and Habib remembered
Two families will hold demonstrations this weekend following the deaths of loved ones in police custody. The first, on Saturday 2 July will see the family of 29-year-old Kingsley Burrell march in Birmingham voice their concerns over his death days after being sectioned under the Mental Health Act in April. The family will be joined
Foreign criminals, the press and the judges
The deportation of all foreign criminals is the latest populist campaign of the right-wing press. The Mail and the Telegraph have long since campaigned against the Human Rights Act. Their long-running campaign to prevent prisoners born outside the UK from relying on their rights to family and private life to avoid deportation once released, is
Statewatching Europe
Next weekend, Statewatch, the renowned organisation that examines civil liberties and the state across Europe will be holding its twentieth anniversary conference. Statewatch, despite its small but committed staff, punches above its weight and is a consistent source of information on what the state and its agents are up to. It produces the Statewatch journal,
Why did Aminullah die?
French social services have been accused of failing a seventeen-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who apparently took his own life. On 10 June Le Monde reported that Aminullah, a young asylum seeker from Afghanistan who had dreamed of becoming a plumber, committed suicide in Paris, three months before his eighteenth birthday. The full facts of the
Deprivation of citizenship – by stealth
Lawyer Amanda Weston, at a seminar at the IRR, described the impact that the loss of appeal rights under deprivation of citizenship clauses has had on those affected and their families. When David Blunkett informed Abu Hamza of the decision to deprive him of his British citizenship in April 2003,[1] there hadn’t been a similar
The real ‘immigration debate’
A keynote address to the annual conference of the Churches’ Refugee Network by Frances Webber. The political and media campaign against immigration and asylum seekers shows no signs of abating. It is seen by the Home Affairs Committee as a matter of shame that so many asylum seekers, stuck in the system without a decision
Anti-terror whistleblower suspended by Nottingham University
Rizwaan Sabir, who was arrested in 2008 as a suspected terrorist whilst conducting postgraduate research at the University of Nottingham, gives his first public reaction on the recent suspension of Dr Rod Thornton. It has now been over three years since my friend, Hicham Yezza and I were arrested for allegedly being involved in the
Revolutionary poems from Chris Searle
A beautiful collection of poetry by Chris Searle, recalling the people and incidents he has encountered in his many lives as a committed teacher in East London, Canada, the Caribbean, Mozambique and Sheffield, has just been published. All the poems gathered together here in Doodlebug Boy written over some forty years, convey what it really
Look beyond the headlines
Hertsmere Young Researchers’ Network, in advocating for young people, has produced first-rate research into the media portrayal of youth, gangs and knife crime. The National Youth Agency Young Researchers’ Network funded Hertsmere Borough Council to support a team of seven young people in Hertsmere, Hertfordshire, aged 14 to 19, to research a topic of their