A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Violence and harassment 12 April: Four severed pigs’ heads are found on the doorstep of a community centre in Birmingham which is reportedly being used as a mosque. The incident comes a day after the windows of the building
News Service
IRR News 10 – 23 April 2015
Dear IRR News subscriber, In the week that the European Union woke up to its complicity in the horrific drowning of thousands of desperate would-be refugees in the Mediterranean, it was very fitting that the IRR launched in a public debate on ‘Why do we count deaths’ its two recent reports on lives which seemingly
Living to tell the tale
On 18 April, a celebration event of the work of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) and its Director Emeritus, Sivanandan, turned into a serious discussion on how to unite and strengthen struggles at a time of globalisation and austerity. Divided into three sessions – past, present, future – the packed afternoon covered a conspectus
33-year-old Pakistani man dies at Yarl’s Wood
On Monday 20 April, a man died at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre (IRC) in Bedford, the third person to die there since it opened in November 2001.[1] The Guardian reported that the man died from a heart attack while being held in the family unit at Yarl’s Wood. Named as Pinakin Patel, the 33-year-old
Licence to Kill
A recent community campaigning book from France on deaths in police custody shows just how alarmingly similar the French experience is to that in Britain. On 21 August 2014, Abdelhak Goradia (51), an Algerian undocumented migrant, died in a police van on his way to Roissy airport, near Paris, to be deported. A police spokesperson
‘The time is here to be seized’
My conversation with Colin was recorded in 2011. But I have been given the chance to update some of those ideas for this event on 18 April 2015. Neoliberalism is not working. All that stuff, about wealth trickling down, no society only individuals, the market as the regulator of everything, is shown to be false
Immigration Act 2014 and the slow dismantling of the NHS
A group of activists are creatively protesting against the effects of the Immigration Act 2014 on migrants’ access to NHS services. On 6 April 2015, new immigration health surcharges came into force under the Immigration Act 2014. These surcharges affect non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals who come to the UK to work, study, or visit their
Racist violence and British nationalism in Northern Ireland
The April 2015 issue of Race & Class argues that Northern Ireland’s BAME communities have been living the peace process in reverse. In 1971 British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling suggested that the situation in Northern Ireland amounted to ‘an acceptable level of violence’. During ‘the Troubles’, this became the de facto security policy of successive British governments
IRR News 27 March – 9 April 2015
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, the IRR News Service considers policies and practices at the hard-end of the criminal justice and immigration systems, from the policing of ‘gangs’ to the harsh conditions within immigration removal centres and the death of refugees during deportation attempts. It’s now four years since Mark Duggan was shot dead
Calendar of racism and resistance (27 March – 9 April 2015)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Extreme-Right politics 29 March: In the second round of French local elections, the Front National wins 22 per cent of the vote, securing 62 council seats. (In 2011, it won just one.) However it failed to take control