News

Racist attack victim prosecuted

Last month, charges against Zulf Shah for actual bodily harm were thrown out of court for lack of evidence. Zulf was charged following a racist attack by a man and a woman, in which he was punched and kicked unconscious, and then repeatedly kicked as he lay on the ground. Before the assault, the man

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Comment

The new wasteland

It is poverty not migration that is changing the nature of Britain’s towns and cities. If you want to feel and smell austerity, go to Hatfield – in leafy Hertfordshire, with the rolling hills that EM Forster loved. It provides a microcosm of the changing social geography of Britain today.[1] Hatfield was, until the 1990s,

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Comment

When I thought all hope was lost, then came JENGbA

Below we reproduce a blog by an African-Caribbean mother who recounts the family nightmare of navigating the criminal justice system which was only relieved when she made contact with the campaigning organisation Joint Enterprise – Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA). The day was Thursday 13 December 2012. It was cold and windy. I had just

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News

Protest vigil: stop deaths in police custody

Below we publish an edited version of an article that appeared in the Slough Times on a demonstration that took place at the end of December. On a dark and cold winter evening protesters campaigning for justice for the two men who died in Thames Valley Police’s custody held a peaceful vigil outside Slough police.

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News

Cartoon and article deemed racist by NGO

Below we reproduce a letter from the editor of the Travellers’ Times  to the Metro newspaper on a recent racist article and cartoon on Gypsies. ‘Presumably you expected Richard Herring’s piece ’Beware the gipsy (sic) curse‘ (Metro, 9 November 2012) to raise cheap laughs, but we Romany Gypsies, and those who work with us, would

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Comment

Dale Farm: children’s welfare

Below we reproduce an open letter to Tony Ball, leader of Basildon Council, from Grattan Puxon of the Dale Farm Housing Association. Dear Mr Ball, You have announced that further action will be taken shortly against families on the Dale Farm estate, especially those now compelled to live in caravans on Oak Lane following your

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Comment

Soldier jailed for ‘senseless’ racist attack

A family have thanked Sussex police for tracking down a soldier who nearly killed their teenage son in a vicious unprovoked racist attack. One drunken punch was all it took to put 15-year-old Mohammed ‘Mo’ Bourner in a coma: a punch of such sheer ferocity that his head smashed first into a car bonnet and

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Comment

Jimmy Mubenga’s family devastated

The family of Jimmy Mubenga has been left devastated by the recent decision not to prosecute the three G4S officers involved in his death. Jimmy, a father of five, died after being restrained on a plane at Heathrow airport in October 2010. His family have been waiting since that time for the police to complete

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News

Perverse failure to prosecute G4S over Jimmy Mubenga’s death

Below we reproduce Frances Webber’s letter to the Guardian about the CPS’ failure to prosecute the G4S officers involved in Jimmy Mubenga’s death. The Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to prosecute G4S or its guards for the death of Jimmy Mubenga (No prosecution of G4S guards for deportee’s death on plane, 18 July) seems perverse,

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News

Baisikel calls for volunteers and bikes

A new project opens up opportunities for asylum seekers in London to get about. A couple living in London concerned about the worsening conditions that asylum seekers find themselves, increasingly now dispersed outside the M25 but required to travel into central London for appointments, decided that there was a practical way that they could help.

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