At a time when anti-racism in education is often being reduced to ‘cultural awareness’ projects, Show Racism the Red Card’s direct tackling of racism is welcome. In the early 1980s, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) produced a series of educational booklets on racism in Britain starting from the premise that, at that time, the
The saying goes that time heals all wounds. The families of Cherry Groce and Jimmy Mubenga would probably disagree. Cherry Groce Last week, it was announced on Channel 4 News, that the Met police had made public their 2013 apology to the family of Cherry Groce, who was shot and paralysed during a police raid
Dear IRR News subscriber, In a week in which the Crown Prosecution Service has announced that it will bring manslaughter charges over the death of Angolan asylum seeker Jimmy Mubenga, the IRR teams up with the Border Crossing Observatory at Monash University, Melbourne, and with the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Kings College, London,
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
The director of the Institute of Race Relations calls for the arts to take a stand for human dignity. Europe is divided, split between its image of itself as the continent of the Enlightenment and humanitarian values, and its shadow-image as the ‘Fortress Europe’ which sets its face like flint against migrants and refugees. In
Australia’s inhuman anti-asylum policies may survive the many protests at Reza Berati’s offshore detention death, but change can come through global solidarity in pursuit of justice for asylum seekers, says Leanne Weber of the Border Crossing Observatory at Monash University. On 23 February Melbourne’s Federation Square filled with people who had come to commemorate the
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
Dear IRR News subscriber, Buzz Johnson, the founder of Karia Press, died last month. This week we publish a tribute by Chris Searle to the ‘people’s exemplar’ who was to find ‘excellence in the most unrecognised and neglected of contexts, and print and spread its message in the midst of hope and struggle.’ In news
A tribute to Buzz Johnson (1951–2014), who created in the UK one of the most important and prolific black publishing houses on and for Caribbean peoples. I feel that I met Norris ‘Buzz’ Johnson nearly a decade before we actually met, human to human. In 1968, I found my first school teaching post in Scarborough,
Dear IRR News subscriber, Anti-immigration and nativist movements across Europe are increasingly turning their ire on eastern European workers exercising free movement rights under EU foundational treaties. This week, we show how Swiss nativist parties have drawn a new line in the sand, winning the admiration of those campaigning to end EU free movement rights.
