If you want change, argues the Transnational Migrant Platform (TMP) in Amsterdam, you need to build a broad coalition capable of working simultaneously both on the domestic and the international front. Over the last six months, the IRR has been trying to find out more about the pioneering work of the TMP which was launched
Shockwaves: Romanians in Belfast
The recent racist attacks against migrant workers have turned my stomach. But two things have shocked me more than the attacks themselves. The first shock was the police tactics in dealing with this crisis. The Romanians have apparently been moved en masse under armed guard to a secret location. A large proportion of the local
Calais No Border camp
Before it even started, the Calais No Border Camp was attacked in the right-wing press. The Mail on Sunday denounced the camp with the headline: ‘Police arrest 17 anarchists threatening to lead swarms of illegal migrants through Channel tunnel to Britain’. The Calais No Border camp is being held from 23-29 June 2009 and is
Fear and loathing in Belfast
In a personal statement, Phil Scraton sets the recent attacks on Roma in South Belfast in the wider context of persistent anti-Traveller racial violence in the UK. Over thirty Roma families, including many young children, were forced to leave their homes in South Belfast and within a week most families left Ireland, following several weeks
Cancelled!
The introduction of the points-based system, together with the habitual contempt for foreigners shown by immigration staff, is turning the UK into a pariah destination for artists and creative workers, according to an important new report. The Manifesto Club’s report UK Arts and Culture: Cancelled, by Order of the Home Office: The Impact of New
New exhibition on the Anti-Apartheid movement
A new exhibition has opened at the Museum of London that celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The display, ‘Forward to Freedom: The Anti-Apartheid Movement and the liberation of southern Africa’, a collaborative effort between the Museum and the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) Archives Committee seeks to show the brutality and injustice of the
Proscription leads to jail for ‘decent man’
A packed meeting of the Bar Human Rights Committee on 16 June heard Mark Muller QC and Gareth Peirce describe how the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000 forced the jailing of someone the judge said was a ‘thoroughly decent man’. Mark Muller QC and Gareth Peirce were the legal team representing Shanthan (Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar),
SOAS occupied after cleaners detained and forcibly removed
Students have taken action after nine cleaners, who campaigned for a ‘living wage’ whilst working at a top London university, were detained in a dawn raid by immigration officers dressed in full riot gear. Six of the workers have since been forcibly removed to South American countries, including Colombia, where gross human rights abuses against
France: academic freedom under threat
A campaign to safeguard intellectual freedom has been formed in France to support a researcher who faces disciplinary action in connection with his work on Islamophobia. Vincent Geisser, a researcher who has worked to dispel anti-Muslim prejudices and authoritarianism, is to appear on 29 June before the disciplinary commission of the government’s National Centre for
Forced returns of Iraqis from Sweden
Deportation charter flights from the UK to the Kurdish controlled area of northern Iraq have been regular occurrences, now, other European countries are carrying out forced returns. On 14 June, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that a total of 111 failed Iraqi asylum seekers have now been deported to Iraq from Sweden. The summary