Asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa have been the focus of recent press scare-mongering after three of the suspects in the attempted bombings in London on 21 July were revealed to be refugees from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Now a new report, available to download from IRR News, sheds light on the reality of
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Student campaign leads to stay on deportation
A coalition of students and anti-deportation campaigners have rallied together and helped Abrahim Rahimi win the right to a judicial review of his asylum claim. A young Afghan man, Abrahim Rahimi, has just won the right to a judicial review of the Home Office decision to refuse to accept new evidence in his new asylum
The racist backlash goes on…
In the seven weeks after the London bombings the racist backlash against has continued. 21 August 2005: Racists graffiti is painted all over the Daud Tandoori in Llandudno, just days after windows at the restaurant were smashed and paint thrown at the building. (Wales Daily Post 24.8.05) 21 August 2005: Newcastle Sunday Sun reports that
Deporting Muslim clerics: lessons from Europe
The proposal, to deport Muslim clerics whose words foment violence or glorify terrorism (as indicated by Blair) is already being applied in other European countries. A report by the Institute of Race Relations on ‘the Integration Debate’ in Europe shows how deportations for ‘speech crimes’ has set back community relations and led to serious human
Victim of racist attack facing charges
Campaigners are calling for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to drop charges of assault and affray against Eileen Jia, whose partner, Mi Gao Huang Chen, was attacked and murdered by a gang of youths after facing a sustained campaign of racism at their Chinese restaurant in Wigan. On 23 April 2005, Mi Gao Huang
Fate of Sukula family in the hands of Bolton Council after lost appeal
Pressure is mounting on Bolton Council, from national and local organisations, not to force an asylum-seeking family into homelessness and take their children into care under new government measures. In the first test of new legislation, which provides for the withdrawal of all support from ‘failed’ asylum-seeking families, the Sukula family lost their appeal at
Developments within extreme-Right and anti-immigration parties
During the course of 2004/2005, many small extremist parties made significant breakthroughs in regional and local elections across Europe, while other bigger electoral parties, such as Austria’s Freedom party, have experienced substantial losses. New European alliances With the next European Parliament elections due in 2009, anti-immigration parties are attempting to unite under one banner. The
Immigration, integration and the politics of fear
The EU needs migrant labour, particularly skilled labour, and this is reflected at a member state level in the increasingly public debate over ‘managed migration’. Politicians of all political persuasions are advocating that legal routes for migrants be opened up for the highly-skilled. The same politicians, however, promise the electorate a package of reform to
‘Speech crime’ and deportation
Throughout Europe, immigration reforms are being introduced which build in to citizenship and residence rights measures which constrain freedom of speech. If those constraining measures are breached, the punishment could be deportation. There can be no reasonable objection to the deportation of a foreign national who incites violence and hatred, if a court rules that
The racist backlash to the London bombings continues
Across the UK, serious violent racial attacks are still on the increase, as are incidents of persistent ‘low-level’ harrassment – of people, their homes, and businesses. 10 August 2005: A Muslim woman tells BBC Wales how a man abused her and her family and threw stones at her home; breaking a window. (BBC News 10.8.05)