Dear IRR News subscriber, Happy New Year! The IRR marks the start of 2019 by remembering Barbara Harlow who died in January 2017 and A. Sivanandan who passed away a year ago. Concerned about the analysis of racial discrimination offered up by the Guardian in its recent investigation into everyday ‘unconscious bias’, the IRR’s Jenny
News Service
Calendar of racism and resistance (21 December 2018 – 8 January 2019)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. ASYLUM, MIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP Asylum and migrant rights 20 December: Amnesty International (Netherlands) apologises for producing a magazine cover featuring an image of a woman reclining on lifejackets, admitting that the image ‘trivialised the suffering and trauma refugees
Barbara Harlow – insistently against the stream
This week, the IRR publishes a memorial issue of Race & Class celebrating the lifework of the late Barbara Harlow, Solidarity here and everywhere. Barbara Harlow, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin described as ‘a critic of both the world and the text’, profoundly shaped the fields
Unravelling the concept of unconscious bias
To mark the anniversary of the death of A. Sivanandan, the IRR examines how useful his ideas are for unravelling the recent turn in the UK to the concept of unconscious bias. Until the Guardian published at the start of December 2018 its ‘findings’ of omnipresent, omnifocal ‘unconscious bias’ to explain BAME people’s lack of
Calendar of racism and resistance (6 – 20 December)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. ASYLUM, MIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP Crimes of solidarity 10 December: Fifteen activists who blocked the takeoff of an immigration removal charter flight in 2017 are found guilty of endangering the safety of Stansted airport, a terrorism offence for which
IRR statement on Stansted 15 verdict
IRR vice-chair Frances Webber comments on the stansted 15 verdict, a trial where laws designed to deal with terrorist threats at airports have been brought against human rights defenders. The crime of endangering airport security, under the Aviation and Security Act, was designed to deal with terrorist threats at airports – not peaceful anti-deportation activists
IRR News (22 November – 5 December 2018)
Dear IRR News subscriber, As we wait for the jury at Chelmsford Crown Court to deliver a verdict in the Stansted 15 trial, IRR News reports on the worrying escalation in ‘crimes of solidarity’ this year. Liz Fekete and Anya Edmond-Pettitt cover investigations and prosecutions brought against 99 people, not only anti-deportation activists, but the
Calendar of racism and resistance (22 November – 5 December 2018)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. ASYLUM AND MIGRATION Asylum, migrant rights and citizenship 21 November: The European Court of Justice rules that a 2015 Austrian regulation giving minimal social assistance to refugees is not compatible with EU directive on the recognition of ‘third-party’
Review of ‘The UK border regime’ – a goldmine for activists
Frances Webber explains why Corporate Watch’s ‘The UK border regime: a critical guide’ is an essential resource for activists. In the overcrowded market of books on immigration control, Corporate Watch’s 331-page book, The UK border regime: a critical guide, is one which will not only be read, but will be an indispensible resource for activists. My initial
Investigations and prosecutions for crimes of solidarity escalate in 2018
At least 89 humanitarian volunteers and anti-deportation activists have been placed under criminal investigation or prosecuted so far in 2018 In 2017, the European Commission (EC) published its long-awaited evaluation of the 2002 Facilitators Package which regulates member states’ national penal laws against human smuggling. Pleas from NGOs throughout Europe for an end to the