A new booklet co-published by The Corner House, Ilisu Dam Campaign Refugee Project and Peace in Kurdistan explores how UK foreign investment creates refugees and asylum seekers. This is one of the most exciting and challenging recent books on refugees. Exciting because for the first time groups of Tamil, Kurdish, Somali, Afghan and other refugees
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Black and Minority Ethnic teachers miss out on performance pay rises
Is there discrimination against Black and Minority Ethnic teachers in performance-related pay? In September 2000, the government launched a performance-based pay rise package for teachers. Experienced teachers could apply for a £2,000 pay rise and, if successful, move to a higher pay scale. Teachers had to complete a form indicating how they met eight professional
Custody death at Heathrow airport
Paul Yorke, a 38-year-old mixed-race man, died after being arrested by police officers at Terminal Two of Heathrow airport on 2 November. He was taken to Heathrow police station where he was charged with being a ‘prohibited person’ (it is alleged that he had been banned from airport property) and then detained in a cell.
Indefinite detention without trial upheld
On 28 October 2003, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) upheld the detention of ten men detained without trial or charge under the Anti Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA). In total, sixteen men have been arrested under the ATCSA since it became law on 14 December 2001. The men cannot be deported and
New deterrent measures for asylum seekers condemned
Measures announced by Home Secretary David Blunkett and Constitutional Minister Lord Falconer on 27 October to reduce further the numbers seeking asylum in Britain have been condemned by refugee groups and human rights lawyers as inhuman, discriminatory and incompatible with the Refugee Convention. The measures include: new criminal offences for those destroying or disposing of
Australia must release the names of the 353 dead!
On 19 October 2001, 146 children, 142 women and 65 men lost their lives when the small, grossly-overloaded Indonesian fishing boat, in which they were travelling, capsized and sank as they sought to flee persecution in their homelands and rebuild their lives in Australia. Since the time of the sinking many questions have been raised
Black people face double discrimination
A two-year independent research project into the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has found that while black defendants appear to be more harshly treated than their white counterparts in the criminal justice system, prosecutors are too willing to drop ‘race charges’. Experience of the criminal justice system The research by Gus John Associates, which examined 12,913
Discrimination against Somalis in housing
A new report into the needs and experiences of the Somali community and its access to housing in Britain has found that Somalis are often discriminated against and do not receive good levels of service provision. The report by Ian Cole and David Robinson at the Centre for Regional and Economic Research at Sheffield Hallam
Forced deportation of Roma
A well-respected Roma political organiser and twenty-five other Czech Roma are to be deported to the Czech Republic on 25 October, despite the fact that by next May the Czech Republic will be part of the European Union. Ladislav Balaz, chairman of the Trans-European Roma Federation has, like many of the other Roma threatened with
England’s ‘ghetto’ schools
An analysis by researchers at Bristol University has found that secondary schools in Oldham, Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham and Luton have the highest levels of segregation between pupils of different ethnic groups. The research, based on the annual census for schools in England in 2001, used two indices to measure segregation. A ‘dissimilarity index’ ranked the