A new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation examines some of the major issues affecting young people from one of Britain’s long established, yet little heeded, ‘invisible’ minorities. Here, a community worker reflects on some of those issues and the need to air them in a wider debate. ‘I’d rather be a P*ki than a
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Greeks demand the end of arbitrary detention and the release of child asylum detainees
Campaigners are targeting the Amygdaleza Centre, a former shelter for female victims of trafficking, which has now been transformed into a brutal removal centre for women facing deportation. Greek refugee rights campaigners are taking to the streets. On 6 March 2005, Mothering Sunday, a demonstration will be held outside the Amygdaleza Centre near Athens demanding,
Funeral for Omid Jamil Ali
In November last year, the family of a Kurdish migrant, who died trying to enter Britain in 2001, were finally able to bury their son in northern Iraq, after his body was released from a Kent mortuary. IRR News has now received pictures of the funeral. In May 2004, IRR News reported on the plight
Police launch investigation into Black man’s death at Belmarsh
IRR News has learnt that a young Black man has died in suspicious circumstances at Belmarsh maximum-security prison in south-east London. A police investigation is currently underway into the death of 25-year-old Godfrey Moyo, a Zimbabwean. The Home Office told IRR News that Godfrey, who was on remand, was pronounced dead at 5:40am on 3
Plymouth Kurd family detained and split up by immigration authorities
The two children of Ruir Thaha have been taken into care after first being detained with their mother and then separated from her after she twice attempted suicide over the weekend. Last week, IRR News reported on the case of Sabrin and Hanna Thaha, two Kurdish sisters from Iraq, who, along with their mother, were
BBC’s ‘Asylum Undercover’ exposes violence and abuse
On Wednesday 2 March, at 9pm, BBC1 will be screening Asylum Undercover – The Real Story?, a programme ‘revealing evidence of racism and a culture of violence towards detainees within the UK’s asylum system’. Over a period of three months, two BBC journalists worked undercover in a detention centre and for a company that escorts
Plymouth school students detained after escaping racist harassment
Two asylum-seeking students who were forced to leave their school because of harassment are now facing deportation. Last September, a police investigation was launched at Parkside Community College in Plymouth, after a group of forty White students chanted ‘P*kis Out’ en masse in the school playground. The level of racism in the school had been
Telling it like it is
In the week that the government announced a fall in the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK, the Scottish Refugee Council released a guide on The truth about asylum. The pocket guide, Tell it like it is: The truth about asylum published by the Scottish, Welsh and English Refugee Councils and Student Action
Deportation of dedicated community worker opposed
Earlier this week, a campaign was launched in Manchester town hall to support the right to stay in the UK of Perparim Demaj, a Kosovan asylum seeker. Perparim arrived in the UK in 1998 after fleeing persecution in Kosovo and was granted temporary leave to remain. He came to Manchester, where he learned English and
New Danish government will link development aid to asylum
Next week, the Danish parliament will reconvene and prime minister Rasmussen will announce the composition of Denmark’s next coalition government. But whatever shape the new government takes, the results of the February general election has implications for refugees, not only in Denmark but across the EU. Since 2001, Denmark has been governed by a coalition