A report published today by the Institute of Race Relations finds that the government’s Prevent programme for tackling extremism fosters division, mistrust and alienation. Entitled Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism, the report suggests that the Prevent programme has been used to establish one of the most elaborate systems of surveillance ever seen in
Rule change for asylum seekers
New bureaucratic requirements will make life even more difficult for asylum seekers. From 14 October, all asylum seekers who were unable to claim asylum when they arrived will have to go to the UK Border Agency Asylum Screening Unit in Croydon to make a claim. All those refused asylum who are now making a fresh
Misleading the immigration courts
A recent High Court judgment shows that Tamils have been unlawfully detained and possibly wrongly refused asylum because of Home Office non-disclosure of its own policies. A High Court judge recently held that a Tamil who has been held for deportation for over three years had been unlawfully detained, because the Home Office failed to
The removals lottery
Lawyers are considering ways of extending court rulings to all on mass expulsion charter flights. As reported on IRR News last week (‘Deportation flight goes ahead – without France’), a speedy and concerted campaign by over thirty migrant and human rights organisations led to the French immigration minister withdrawing from a joint Franco-British deportation charter
Chris Searle: the great includer
Below we reproduce the speech given by Hazel Waters on the publication of a special issue of Race & Class, honouring the work of educationalist, Chris Searle. It’s fallen to me, as advisory editor on Race & Class – or rather, I seized the chance from the journal’s founding editor, Sivanandan – to present Chris,
Stop MI5 blackmail!
As MI5 celebrates its centenary, its lack of legal or public accountability was the subject of an important public meeting. On 30 September, a packed meeting at the Camden Centre heard accusations of illegal and secretive activities on the part of the security services, who allegedly tried to blackmail six British youth workers of Somali
Deportation flight goes ahead – without France
The French government’s last-minute U-turn on a joint Franco-British deportation charter flight to Kabul organised for 6 October was a victory for refugee and migrant rights groups. Widespread public protest greeted the proposed deportation to Kabul of over one hundred former residents of the woodland squatted area of Calais known as the ‘jungle’ following its
Blow to Black mental health in Birmingham
A petition is to be delivered to Downing Street in protest at the forced closure of Birmingham’s only Black-led community mental health service. Omnicare, a provider of mental health services to Birmingham’s Black community for a quarter of a century, will close its doors to patients after a two-year battle with Birmingham City Council to
Destitution shame
A report from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) examines the human misery caused by destitution. ‘No home from home: homelessness for people with no or limited access to public funds’ finds that the government is not complying with international human rights norms in its treatment of new European citizens, refused asylum seekers, victims
TB kills ex-Colnbrook detainee
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has recently published a report into the death of a Zimbabwean man in September 2008 who had been released from Colnbrook immigration removal centre (IRC) a few weeks before his death. The unnamed 32-year-old Zimbabwean man came to the UK in 2002 on a visitors visa which he overstayed.