News

Calendar of racism and resistance (22 April – 5 May 2016)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 20 April: The Home Office announces that a new process for resettling unaccompanied asylum seeking children will commence in July. (Guardian, 21 April 2016) 21 April: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman publishes: Independent investigation into

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (8 – 21 April 2016)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 8 April: A 7-year-old Afghan boy is rescued from the back of a lorry on the M1 with fourteen other migrants after sending an SOS text message saying that he was having difficulty breathing. (BBC

Read More…


Comment

Anti-Semitism – thought or deed?

Significantly, but without much fanfare, an expanded definition of anti-Semitism entered the UK’s policy arena this April.  An article by Eric Pickles, former secretary of state for communities and local government, chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel and, since September 2015, UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, entitled ‘A definition of antisemitism’ introduced the

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (25 March – 7 April 2016)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 8 March: Caritas Europa publishes: Migrants and refugees have rights! Impact of EU policies on accessing protection. Download the report here. 15 March: Refugee Rights publishes a report: The Long Wait: Filling the data gaps

Read More…


Comment

Interpreting services within immigration removal centres

Demonstration at Yarl's Wood in March 2016 (© Aisha Maniar)

The lack of trained interpreters inside immigration detention exacerbates fear, mistrust and depression and has contributed to a number of deaths. The Stephen Shaw Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons in Britain’s immigration detention estate, published in January 2016, is the latest in a long line of reports that make recommendations to

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (11 – 24 March 2016)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 3 March: Home Secretary Theresa May wins the right to deport refused asylum seekers to Afghanistan after the Court of Appeal overturns an injunction imposed following concerns that the country was too dangerous. (Bureau of Investigative Journalism,

Read More…


News

The IRR’s big book giveaway

The Institute of Race Relations, based in London’s Kings Cross, is giving away surplus duplicated material and invites individuals and specialist libraries and archives to take the chance of adding to their collections. You will be able to view and take away material from IRR’s ground floor (2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS) on Thursday

Read More…


Comment

Black history and black struggle: the past in the present

Below we reproduce a speech at the eleventh annual Huntley Conference on the IRR’s Black History Collection and the importance of archives in signposting the past and future. Today I want to talk to you about an item from the Black History Collection, which is held at the Institute of Race Relations. But before I get

Read More…


News

Calendar of racism and resistance (26 February – 10 March 2016)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum 25 February: Home Office statistics reveal that the number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children has increased by over 50 per cent in the last year, with 3,043 children seeking asylum in 2015, compared with 1,945 in 2014.

Read More…


Comment

Grunwick women who broke the mould

Today, on International Women’s Day, it is women like Jayaben Desai,[1] Kalben Patel and their fellow strikers that we should be remembering and honouring for their tenacity and courage. 23 August 2016 marks forty years since the start of the Grunwick strike. This dispute at the Film Processing Laboratory in Willesden, north-west London lasted for

Read More…