A critical analysis of the BBC’s ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary about the Metropolitan police. In what has been billed as an unprecedented move, in early 2014 Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe allowed a BBC camera crew an access-all-areas pass to film the force as it carried out its routine policing of London. In a commentary for
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the IPCC consulted with a police force under its investigation during the construction of its media releases. On 6 May 2013, Julian Cole, a 21-year-old black man, was left with a broken neck after being detained and arrested by Bedfordshire police outside a nightclub. Cole’s
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Violence and harassment 2 July: The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) publishes a report documenting a 23.5 per cent rise in Islamophobic attacks after the killings of the Charlie Hebdo staff and hostages in a Jewish grocery
In the last few weeks a number of important cases involving racially-motivated violence have been before the courts. Dr Sarandev Bhambra On 25 June, in a few hours, Zack Davies was found guilty by a jury of the attempted murder of 24-year-old dentist Dr Sarandev Bhambra in Mold in Wales in January 2015. Davies had
JENGbA has launched an important crowdfunding appeal for a case at the Supreme Court. Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) is hoping to raise at least £10,000 for analytical work to be carried out by their lawyers, the human rights and criminal solicitors ITN, and barristers at Doughty Street. The Supreme Court has been
Asylum rights campaigners and human rights lawyers are celebrating the suspension of the detained fast track – and gearing up to resume battle over a ‘reformed’ version. On 2 July, immigration minister James Brokenshire announced the suspension of fast-track detention of asylum seekers. In a historic victory for asylum rights campaigners, he acknowledged the ‘significant’
When we look at the figures of young African Americans shot dead, some might comfort themselves with the mantra ‘thank goodness our police forces, unlike those of the US, are not routinely armed’. But look at our record of BAME killings when they are armed. In just the last few years, Azelle Rodney was shot
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE 19 June: The Independent Police Complaints Commission will consider whether the ethnicity or the mental health of a 33-year-old prisoner injured in a cell influenced the actions of six officers involved in his restraint, resulting in
Dear IRR News subscriber, In the week in which the Counter Terrorism and Security Act came into force, teachers’ and lecturers’ unions have warned that the vast and intrusive nature of the new statutory duty to prevent non-violent extremism has a potential to corrode trust between teachers and pupils, transforming educators into de facto adjuncts of
Two videos from the IRR’s recent conference Catching History on the Wing, which celebrated the work of the IRR and A. Sivanandan, are now available to view. The first session examined the ‘coup’ in 1972 which ousted the IRR’s rich and powerful Management Board and its monopoly on defining ‘race relations’, is available here. The second
