Phil Miller of Corporate Watch examines a recent report[1] from the prison inspectorate on charter deportations from the UK. Security guards from Capita subsidiary Tascor were ‘expected to lie’ to people about being deported, raising the risk of self-harm, a new report by the Prison Inspector Nick Hardwick reveals. Guards were also ‘asleep for significant’ periods
News Service
Landlord penalties and the right to housing
Forcing private landlords to police undocumented migrants will exacerbate inequality and deflect blame for the housing shortage. The drive to embed immigration enforcement into all aspects of economic and social life is about to become even more intrusive. From 1 December, in a pilot scheme, residential landlords in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and Sandwell[1] will
IRR News 31 October – 13 November 2014
Dear IRR News subscriber, IRR News focuses this week on the Europe-wide plight of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. In September, a homeless Roma man from Romania, living in Sweden, died after a fire broke out at his tent camp. In the previous months, the location of Sweden’s temporary Roma camps had been disseminated online. Liz
Abandoning Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities … the UK way
Two new reports, prepared by the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups (NFGLG), with the assistance of academic colleagues, ask hard questions of the coalition government. The European Commission (EC) gave the UK government an ‘overall poor rating’ for the progress report it delivered in 2012 on its Roma integration strategy. The EC uses ‘Roma’
Roma – fascism’s first victims, again
Anti-Roma violence draws strength from fascist ideas that linger on in mainstream European thought. On 15 September, a Roma man from Romania, homeless in Sweden, died of injuries sustained on 31 August, when a fire broke out at a Roma temporary tent camp in Högdalen, southern Stockholm. We will probably never know whether the man,
Redefining Gypsies and Travellers
Gypsy and Traveller groups are angrily responding to the coalition’s consultation document, which proposes to redefine who can be considered a Gypsy or Traveller for the purposes of meeting obligations under planning law. A new consultation paper on Planning and Travellers from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) proposes to redefine what a
The slippery, cynical politics of asylum
At the start of the run-up to the 2015 election, John Grayson, a campaigner in South Yorkshire, examines the main political parties’ line on asylum. ‘The UK has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those who need it.’ A Home Office spokeswoman on Channel 4 News after the disclosure that the Home Office had
Calendar of racism and resistance (31 October-13 November 2014)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum seekers and refugees 3 November: The trial of three G4S guards on charges of the manslaughter of Jimmy Mubenga, during a deportation in October 2010, begins at the Old Bailey. The court is told the guards repeatedly
Cuguano and the mass movement against slavery
A new book on Ottoboah Cuguano brings to life the history of eighteenth century anti-slavery agitation. In June 1985 the Daily Mail reacted to and sought to lampoon Lambeth Council’s announcement that they planned to name some thirty-five council buildings after prominent black historical figures. ‘This plaque honours the memory of Mister Cuguana — Mr Who?’
IRR News 17 – 30 October 2014
Dear IRR News subscriber, In a week in which Foreign Office ministers implied that preventing migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea was not in the British interest, and a Conservative councillor in Maidenhead joked that the way to speed up Traveller evictions would be to ‘execute them’, Frances Webber provides a staunch defence of the