The two children of Ruir Thaha have been taken into care after first being detained with their mother and then separated from her after she twice attempted suicide over the weekend. Last week, IRR News reported on the case of Sabrin and Hanna Thaha, two Kurdish sisters from Iraq, who, along with their mother, were
Geography: South-West England
Plymouth school students detained after escaping racist harassment
Two asylum-seeking students who were forced to leave their school because of harassment are now facing deportation. Last September, a police investigation was launched at Parkside Community College in Plymouth, after a group of forty White students chanted ‘P*kis Out’ en masse in the school playground. The level of racism in the school had been
Plymouth: former BNP member banned from takeaway
Following his drunken, racist behaviour in May, former BNP member, Gavin Hewett, has been given a night-time ban from every takeaway in Plymouth for five years. On Sunday 23 May, Hewett went into Ali Baba’s takeaway, threw his BNP membership card across the counter and told the proprietor to ‘go back to your own country’.
Protests against separation call for Roma children
Nobel Prize-winning writer Günter Grass is among the first 700 signatories to a petition calling for the resignation of Eric Van der Linden, the EU ambassador to Slovakia. A month ago, Van der Linden called for Roma (Gypsy) children to be forcibly separated from their parents during the week and put in boarding schools. Speaking
Slovakia’s bankruptcy
In just a few weeks, Slovakia will join the European Union. But already, with rioting in the impoverished Roma communities of eastern Slovakia, the country is reeling from the effects of ‘restructuring’. Good news for the Slovak government. South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai has announced that it will build its first European factory in Zilina,
Conference heralds new anti-racism initiative in South West
Over 500 people packed out Plymouth’s extensive Guildhall for a conference to launch The Monitoring Group’s Rural Racism Project. For the South West of England, an assembly of 500 people talking about racism is a major success in itself. That the conference, held on Wednesday 11 February, heard some excellent speeches and is the launch
Kurdish refugees attacked in Plymouth
Two Iraqi Kurds were the victims of a racist attack in an underpass in the centre of Plymouth. The attack, by two young white men, took place at about 9.30pm on Friday 9 May. The attackers repeatedly asked ‘are you f***ing Turks?’, before assaulting one man with a skewer and the other with a belt
Libraries rebuff police surveillance of asylum seekers
Police in Plymouth have asked local libraries to log internet activity by asylum seekers in the city, following an unfounded terrorism scare. But library bosses have told police that they are unwilling to violate the public’s right to privacy. Recently, a member of the public called the police after seeing a foreign student using a
Rural campaign against the BNP launched in South West
A broad coalition of local campaigners in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset have launched a major drive to stop the British National Party from making gains in the forthcoming council elections. The ‘Unite to Stop the BNP’ campaign, led by the South West branch of the National Civil Rights Movement, has drawn support from a range
Asylum seekers face rising violence in the South West
A gang of twelve men launched an unprovoked attack in broad daylight on three Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in Plymouth on Monday 20 January 2003. The attackers were reportedly in their twenties and thirties and inflicted facial and other injuries on their victims. To date, there have been no arrests. On average, one racially motivated