Matt Carr reflects on the complicity of Britain and France in the horrific situation for migrants in Calais. For millions of British tourists, Calais is a gateway for continental driving holidays and the pleasures of the Summer. For others it’s a city of designer shops, of the massive Euroshopping mall Cité Europe, where the Daily Mail and P&O
The Edge Fund, a group working for justice and equality, is calling for new applications to its fund. The Edge Fund is inviting new applications from individuals and grassroots groups, in order to support projects which are relevant to communities campaigning on discrimination and injustice. Grants will be given to groups and individuals working for
Andy Shallice reports on the impact of new meaures to restrict the rights of EU migrants, particularly the Roma. ‘In this world, shipmates, Sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers…’(Herman Melville, 1851 via Matthew Carr, 2012) Since April, no new housing
Swiss asylum policy is characterised by institutional neglect within hostile systems designed to segregate and exclude. Feras Farees Abedal Motaleeb was a Palestinian refugee who, having fled from Iraq to Switzerland to save his life, found death in a remote Swiss valley, in an 8m² space in a metal container which he shared with two
John Grayson examines the way UKIP’s messages have been legitimised and in some cases promoted by the media. The self-proclaimed leader of ‘the people’s army’ can relish his victory. Nigel Farage – whose party was once dismissed as a home for fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists – has established himself as a big beast in
A mentally ill Nigerian woman stands naked on the runway in Lagos and takes an overdose. She has just been deported from Britain. The Home Office calls this ‘Operation Majestic’. The deportation of star pupil Yashika Bageerathi to Mauritius put Home Office practice in the spotlight. Now a new report by the prison inspector gives
This week, IRR News teams up with the Border Crossing Observatory at Monash University, Melbourne, and with the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Kings College, London, to bring new insights and an international perspective to bear on the Global North’s callous mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees. Spanish civil guards shoot rubber bullets at
European states are morally responsible for deaths at the EU’s borders, argues the International State Crime Initiative. ‘This is the main feature of contemporary border politics. It exposes the border transgressors to death rather than directly using its power to kill.’ Khosravi (2010), ‘Illegal’ Traveller: an auto-ethnography of borders (p. 27) On 6 February, fifteen
Swiss nativist parties have drawn a new line in the sand, winning the admiration of those campaigning to end EU free movement rights. Anti-immigration and nativist movements across Europe are increasingly turning their ire on eastern European workers exercising free movement rights under EU foundational treaties. UKIP’s position – that ‘unfettered free movement from the
Is the UK turning into an offshore enclave for the world’s wealthiest, at the expense of the most vulnerable? As the British government funds the repatriation of poor undocumented migrants from Greece to war zones in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, it is considering auctioning to the highest bidder the right to come to
