An interview with Dr Esra Erdem, coordinator of the Empowerment and Participation of Immigrants* in east Germany project (EmPa) based at the Brandenburg Regional Centres for Education, Integration and Democracy. Liz Fekete: This has been a very busy Summer for EmPa, which was set up to promote immigrant participation in the social and political life
News Service
The new McCarthyism
Liz Fekete, delivering the eighth Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture, describes the new McCarthyism against Muslims sweeping across Europe and calls for a campaign against racism and Islamophobia in the media. ‘The legacy that Claudia left was all the more remarkable in that she was hounded, censored and persecuted for her political opinions for much of
Inquest into police death to open after six years
Next week the inquest will begin into the death of Mikey Powell in police custody in Birmingham in September 2003. After a six-year wait, the family and friends of 38-year-old Mikey Powell will finally find out how he died after being arrested by West Midlands police officers outside his mother’s home in the Lozells area
Racist murderer and accomplices convicted
Last week three young men were convicted for their involvement in a racist attack in August 2008 in Hastings which led to the death of Mohammed al-Majed, a 16-year-old Qatari student. George Austin (22), Alexander Quinn (19) and Paul Rockett (21) faced a two-month trial at Lewes crown court where they denied various charges in
Hands Off My Workmate
At a conference in London last week, a campaign was launched to organise for the rights of migrant workers. The Hands Off My Workmate conference was organised following a high profile raid at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in June 2009 when nine cleaners were detained by immigration officers in full riot
Returned Iraqi asylum seekers on hunger strike
More than forty people, many of them Iraqis who were on last week’s returned charter flight, have gone on hunger strike to demand their immediate release from detention. The hunger strikers are being held in Brook House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick airport. As well as Iraqis, people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Nigeria and Jamaica have
Young Dutch Muslims find a venue
An interview with Umar Mirza, the 22-year-old chief editor of the Dutch website ‘We’re Here to Stay’.[1] Chandra Frank: The results of a TV opinion poll, released shortly after the Islamophobic Freedom Party (PvV)[2] won record results in European parliamentary elections, indicated that a large proportion of Turkish and Moroccan migrants no longer felt welcome
Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism
A report published today by the Institute of Race Relations finds that the government’s Prevent programme for tackling extremism fosters division, mistrust and alienation. Entitled Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism, the report suggests that the Prevent programme has been used to establish one of the most elaborate systems of surveillance ever seen in
Rule change for asylum seekers
New bureaucratic requirements will make life even more difficult for asylum seekers. From 14 October, all asylum seekers who were unable to claim asylum when they arrived will have to go to the UK Border Agency Asylum Screening Unit in Croydon to make a claim. All those refused asylum who are now making a fresh
Misleading the immigration courts
A recent High Court judgment shows that Tamils have been unlawfully detained and possibly wrongly refused asylum because of Home Office non-disclosure of its own policies. A High Court judge recently held that a Tamil who has been held for deportation for over three years had been unlawfully detained, because the Home Office failed to