A Sudanese asylum seeker, 39-year-old Tariq Abdulrahman Mohammed, who is currently detained in Bijlmerbajes deportation prison in Amsterdam, is desperate to find his wife and children, whom he last saw when he was in the UK – before he was deported back to the Netherlands. Tariq and his family had lived in the Netherlands for
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Pressure grows on Gypsy site after BNP elected
Gypsies at the Payne’s Lane site are being threatened with prison by Epping Forest District Council if they do not leave. Three BNP councillors were recently elected promising to evict Gypsies. Harry and Linda Smith are the only remaining Gypsies at the Payne’s Lane site on the edge of the Lea Valley Park. Harry has
Royal Mail and racial bullying
On 25 May 2004, Mahmood Siddiqui, a 59-year-old postal worker at the Royal Mail sorting office in Harlow, was awarded £178,542 in compensation for racial discrimination by an employment tribunal. Mahmood had suffered four years of racist abuse at the hands of his white colleagues which the tribunal found was ‘vicious and sly’. He was
Another Black death in psychiatric custody
On May 28, 24-year-old Azrar Ayub, a patient at the secure Edenfield Unit at Prestwich hospital near Manchester was found dead after being sedated and restrained by staff at the hospital. According to news reports, Azrar, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had been detained at the unit since June 2000. On the day of his death, Azrar
BNP bags 800,000 votes but no ticket to Brussels
The BNP has failed to make a major electoral breakthrough, partly because the anti-immigrant vote was split with UKIP and partly because of a strong, united anti-BNP campaign. It was, according to British National Party (BNP) propaganda, supposed to be the election that would see the BNP gain its first member of the European parliament,
Work regime for asylum seekers in legal limbo
David Blunkett has tabled a last-minute package of amendments to the Asylum and Immigration Bill currently passing through parliament, including a measure forcing unpaid community work onto rejected asylum seekers who cannot be deported. At present there are thousands of asylum seekers left in a legal limbo because their claim for asylum has been rejected
Managed migration: a permanent crisis?
The Sunday Telegraph this week published a leaked memo revealing the latest u-turn in the government’s managed migration policy. And a new pamphlet from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants suggests we should expect more of these twists and turns in the future because managed migration is inherently prone to crisis. The Commonwealth
Wrongly accused Man Utd. fans call for apology
Manchester United supporters have been helping Iraqi Kurdish refugees who were wrongly accused of plotting to bomb Old Trafford. On 19 April 2004, over 400 police officers conducted dawn ‘anti-terror’ raids across the UK and arrested ten people on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Within hours, the arrests were
Protests against separation call for Roma children
Nobel Prize-winning writer Günter Grass is among the first 700 signatories to a petition calling for the resignation of Eric Van der Linden, the EU ambassador to Slovakia. A month ago, Van der Linden called for Roma (Gypsy) children to be forcibly separated from their parents during the week and put in boarding schools. Speaking
Foreign prisoners – forgotten prisoners?
The Prison Reform Trust has recently published Forgotten Prisoners – the plight of foreign national prisoners in England and Wales, which examines the increasing numbers of foreign nationals being held in British prisons, the problems that they encounter, and the inconsistency of their treatment. Key facts and figures include: 12 per cent of the prison