An online network of groups concerned with civil liberties, democracy and equality has been launched to counter unprecedented attacks on freedoms in Europe. The European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN) brings together groups and individuals who seek to create a European society based on freedom and equality, personal and political freedom, freedom of information and equality
Geography: Other
Developments within extreme-Right and anti-immigration parties
During the course of 2004/2005, many small extremist parties made significant breakthroughs in regional and local elections across Europe, while other bigger electoral parties, such as Austria’s Freedom party, have experienced substantial losses. New European alliances With the next European Parliament elections due in 2009, anti-immigration parties are attempting to unite under one banner. The
Immigration, integration and the politics of fear
The EU needs migrant labour, particularly skilled labour, and this is reflected at a member state level in the increasingly public debate over ‘managed migration’. Politicians of all political persuasions are advocating that legal routes for migrants be opened up for the highly-skilled. The same politicians, however, promise the electorate a package of reform to
‘Speech crime’ and deportation
Throughout Europe, immigration reforms are being introduced which build in to citizenship and residence rights measures which constrain freedom of speech. If those constraining measures are breached, the punishment could be deportation. There can be no reasonable objection to the deportation of a foreign national who incites violence and hatred, if a court rules that
Obituary: Basker Vashee 1944-2005
A. Sivanandan pays tribute to Basker Vashee of the Transnational Institute who died on 18 July 2005. He has gone too soon, but his smile remains. All his life he was suave, elegant, charming – and he brought those gifts to his politics and made radicalism appear the most natural thing in the world. I
Dying to reach Europe?
To mark refugee week, UNITED for Intercultural Action, the pan-European network against racism, has revealed details of 6,300 deaths of migrants and refugees at Europe’s borders. UNITED has monitored refugee deaths since 1993. With the help of their network of more than 560 anti-racist and refugee rights organisations they have documented the six-thousand deaths in
Caring for Minority Ethnic elders in Europe
The rapid ageing of Europe’s population has become Europe’s number one issue according to an MEP speaking, on 9 December 2004, at the launch of the Summary Findings from the Minority Elderly Care (MEC) project. The research revealed some shocking facts, including: Thirty-five per cent of elders surveyed in the UK are in poor, or
The grim fate that awaits those deported to Congo
In an interview with IRR News, Congolese human rights activist René Kabala Mushiya alleges that asylum seekers deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) face prison and death. The plane lands at Ndjili airport, Kinshasa, in the dead of night – the better to avoid monitoring by journalists and human rights activists. Then the
Fighting writing
The radical, international journal Race & Class was founded thirty years ago this month. Race & Class might never have happened. Its publisher for the last thirty years, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), had first been established in the 1950s as a forum for ‘objective’ scholarship on the emerging post-colonial societies of the Third
Scandal of coerced sterilisation of Romani women
As evidence emerges of gross violations of Roma rights – women are being sterilised without their informed consent – Roma leaders like Rudko Kawczynski of the Roma National Congress are asking why Brussels did not make better conditions for the Roma a condition for the accession of the ten central and eastern European countries to