In what has effectively become a test case for the sentencing of hundreds of Asians charged with participating in the Bradford riot of July 2001, the Court of Appeal has ruled that four individuals were given excessive sentences but a further eleven did deserve terms of between four and six-and-a-half years. During a two-day hearing,
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Britain gripped by populist campaigns against immigrants
An explosive mix of prejudices, often verging on paranoia, is fuelling local campaigns against immigration. While the government’s plans to house asylum seekers outside major cities are being challenged by a wave of mass protests in Kent, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Lincolnshire, elsewhere, asylum seekers are being made the scapegoats for an NHS in crisis.
Asylum seekers face rising violence in the South West
A gang of twelve men launched an unprovoked attack in broad daylight on three Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in Plymouth on Monday 20 January 2003. The attackers were reportedly in their twenties and thirties and inflicted facial and other injuries on their victims. To date, there have been no arrests. On average, one racially motivated
Private security firms suggest new removals regime
Group 4 Falck, Britain’s biggest immigration detention company, today called for the right to report ‘disruptive’ detainees to the immigration authorities so that asylum seekers’ behaviour in detention be taken into account when decisions on refugee status are made. At the House of Commons, members of the Home Affairs Committee on Removals questioned representatives from
Anti-asylum hysteria carries BNP to fifth council seat
The British National Party (BNP) won another council seat yesterday, gaining 679 votes in the Mixenden ward of Halifax, West Yorkshire. The far-Right party managed to gain 29 per cent of the votes cast. Their candidate, Adrian Marsden, 42, overturned the Labour majority in an election which had a turnout of 37 per cent –
Now asylum seekers blamed for dwindling fish stocks
In a bid to win the anglers’ vote, the British National Party has drawn attention to the declining numbers of carp and roach in the River Lea, Hertfordshire. In a surprise move, asylum seekers and refugees have been singled out for blame. According to the January issue of the BNP newspaper, Voice of Freedom, illegal
Iranian asylum seeker under death threat wins reprieve
An Iranian deportee, who has been on hunger strike at Campsfield Detention Centre, was thrown a last-minute lifeline after his application for judicial review was accepted. Today, he has been given bail and will return to his home in Warrington. But just one week ago, until lawyers succeeded in delaying his deportation, he was due
New Labour and new authoritarianism in criminal justice
Lee Bridges, Chair of the School of Law at Warwick University, comments on the government’s new Criminal Justice Bill. A government’s authoritarianism is marked by the numbers of its citizens it imprisons. Under New Labour the prison population, already rising under the Tories, has soared to over 70,000, so high that even the prison governors
Man charged with murder of Asian taxi driver
Paul Craig, 46, of Higginshaw, Oldham, has been charged with the murder of taxi driver, Israr Hussain. Craig has also been charged with assault and intent to rob. 42-year-old Israr Hussain, a father-of-six from Glodwick, Oldham, died after a stab wound to his neck following an incident in his taxi in the early hours of
Nation-wide protests against asylum destitution
Refugee and homelessness organisations have united to protest against new measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act which are set to throw tens of thousands of asylum seekers on to the streets. It is estimated that from 8 January 2003, when the new powers to withhold support apply, every day will see a further