News

Calendar of racism and resistance (22 November – 5 December 2018)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. ASYLUM AND MIGRATION Asylum, migrant rights and citizenship 21 November: The European Court of Justice rules that a 2015 Austrian regulation giving minimal social assistance to refugees is not compatible with EU directive on the recognition of ‘third-party’

Read More…


Review

Review of ‘The UK border regime’ – a goldmine for activists

Frances Webber explains why Corporate Watch’s ‘The UK border regime: a critical guide’ is an essential resource for activists. In the overcrowded market of books on immigration control, Corporate Watch’s 331-page book, The UK border regime: a critical guide, is one which will not only be read, but will be an indispensible resource for activists. My initial

Read More…


News

Investigations and prosecutions for crimes of solidarity escalate in 2018

At least 89 humanitarian volunteers and anti-deportation activists have been placed under criminal investigation or prosecuted so far in 2018 In 2017, the European Commission (EC) published its long-awaited evaluation of the 2002 Facilitators Package which regulates member states’ national penal laws against human smuggling. Pleas from NGOs throughout Europe for an end to the

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (8 – 21 November)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. ASYLUM AND MIGRATION Asylum and migrant rights 8 November: A total of six EU states, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Croatia, have so far refused to sign the UN’s non-binding Global Compact for Safe, Orderly

Read More…


Press Release

The Windrush scandal exposes the dangers of scaremongering about ‘illegal immigrants’

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) publishes today a background paper showing how the injustices meted out to the Windrush generation are not anomalies but the logical result of an immigration system that, over many years, has weaponised the idea of ‘the illegal immigrant’. How can people who considered themselves British over a lifetime suddenly

Read More…


News

‘Reclaiming our collective past’; meeting Amrit Wilson

IRR’s Sophia Siddiqui has a discussion with Amrit Wilson, an activist and writer, whose seminal book Finding a Voice: struggles of South Asian women has just been republished, forty years later.  Why did you write the book in 1978 and why is it relevant today? Back in the 70s like many other community activists and South Asian

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (25 October – 8 November)

Asylum and migration 24 October: In northern Bosnia, around 250 people protesting at the closure of the EU Maljevac crossing at the Croatian border are dispersed with tear gas. (Are You Syrious, 24 October 2018) 25 October: Home secretary Sajid Javid apologises to Afghan and Gurkha immigrants who were unlawfully required to take DNA tests

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (10 – 24 October 2018)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Anti-fascism and the far Right 10 October: The army launches an investigation after Tommy Robinson posts a photograph and video footage of himself at Watford Gap motorway services surrounded by young uniformed squaddies who chant his name. (Express,

Read More…


Comment

Language and vulnerability: interpreting in Immigration Removal Centres

Aisha Maniar discusses Stephen Shaw’s follow-up report on the detention of vulnerable people from the perspective of interpreting facilities for detainees.  The United Kingdom has one of the largest immigration detention estates in Europe. While detention is punitive in nature, the measure itself is administrative and not criminal. In 2017, for the non-offence of not holding a British passport, 27,331

Read More…


Comment

Calais two years after the ‘Jungle’

Eliane Edmond-Pettitt describes how the situation in Calais has changed for volunteers on the ground since the Jungle came down in 2016. In October 2016 bulldozers entered the Calais ‘Jungle’, a shanty town built on an asbestos field on the edge of Calais near the port. The event gained a lot of media attention and

Read More…