Dear IRR News subscriber, This week Frances Webber reports on the Justice and Security Bill that is currently going through parliament. In news from across the seas, the Iraqi government has banned the forced return of Iraqi asylum seekers from Europe and in a highly unusual move a Sikh man deported to Afghanistan has been brought back
The Justice and Security Bill will diminish accountability
A bill currently going through parliament threatens to close off justice from those at the sharp end of policing by extending secret evidence to civil proceedings. On the face of it, the provisions of the Justice and Security Bill appear eminently reasonable. In civil proceedings (such as claims for damages), judges must withhold evidence from
IRR News 23-28 June 2012
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week the IRR’s Liz Fekete reports on a symposium on ‘Policing Communities: Race, Class and the State’ which was organised by the Institute of Race Relations and the Power, Conflict and Justice Research Group at Edge Hill University, in conjunction with the Tottenham Defence Campaign. Aisha Maniar reports on a
Community of solidarity
The Black, Irish, Muslim, Gypsy and Traveller experience of policing was discussed at a two-day symposium. Earlier this month, campaigning lawyers, scholar activists and community campaigners, from some of the most marginalised communities in England and the North of Ireland, came together at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham to analyse the ‘joined-up state’
Plastic bullets: fuel for racial tensions?
Prompted by fears that during last summer’s riots, British police forces were preparing to use plastic bullets, activists from Tottenham joined members of parliament and a delegation from the North of Ireland at a recent Westminster press conference to denounce their deployment. Last month, the Metropolitan police confirmed that since the August 2011 riots its
Plastic bullets cannot further ‘the cause of peace’
Below we reproduce the statement by Clara Reilly of the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets from the North of Ireland who addressed a press conference on how the ‘use of plastic bullets will fuel racial tensions’. ‘In situations of conflict, security forces around the world have developed various methods of controlling and suppressing legitimate political
IRR News 15-22 June 2012
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week the IRR publishes the latest issue of its quarterly journal Race & Class. It contains an article by Lee Bridges examining the reports and inquiries conducted in the aftermath of last summer’s disturbances. And the UK Border Agency (UKBA) is in the news after telling people being deported from the
Four days in August
In the latest issue of Race & Class, the lead article ‘Four days in August: the UK riots’ examines reports and inquiries conducted in the aftermath of last summer’s disturbances. Professor Lee Bridges comments on the failure of government to consider the deeper structural causes of the riots in August 2011. Instead it has chosen
Business as usual
A legal observer examining the policing of a February English Defence League (EDL) demo in Leicester, describes how its members were protected by the police whilst counter-protesters were ‘kettled’ and harassed. You had to wonder at and yet be extremely concerned about mass kettling and the suspension of rights to free assembly and movement
IRR News 9-14 June 2012
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, the IRR publishes a major new report that documents far-right violence across Europe and Saqib Deshmukh examines the policing of a demonstration by the EDL in Leicester in February 2012. Frances Webber assesses Theresa May’s new immigration proposals and the deportation of Sri Lankan asylum seekers in defiance of human