A Nottingham HIV/AIDS prevention worker whose anti-deportation campaign was featured in IRR News in November 2007 has had a last-minute reprieve. In a statement issued this week, Amdani Juma’s solicitor said that his removal had been postponed to give both sides time for further consideration. Hani Zebeidi said he hoped reason would prevail in the
A tribute to Abdelhakim Ajimi
A death in police custody in south-east France is causing community concern. Behind a banner proclaiming ‘police blunder, assassins’, hundreds of people, a thousand perhaps (according to the organisers), took part in a largely silent demonstration (except when marching past the police station) on Sunday 11 May in the centre of the south-eastern city of
Discrimination in the name of integration
The UK government should heed the lessons from a recent report criticising the Netherlands for discriminatory pre-immigration tests for migrants. Lessons from the Netherlands In the UK, ‘active citizenship’ is one of the shibboleths in the government’s green paper The Path to Citizenship: next steps in reforming the immigration system. According to a new report
Europe: mobilising against ‘foreign criminals’
Populist politicians – mostly, although not entirely, from centre and extreme-Right parties – are seeking to win elections by mobilising voters against foreign criminals, ‘immigrant’ youth and the Roma. But this resort to xenophobia via crime comes at a high social cost. Politicians who make use of divisive and reckless populism to gain votes, put
Distorted integration debate must be challenged
Islamophobia is running rough-shod over the whole integration debate. The social and economic issues minority ethnic communities in Europe face are hardly ever discussed and marginalisation and exclusion are put down to one factor – Islam. This was the message that the IRR sought to convey at the launch of the findings of its one-year
Three recent Black deaths in Met police custody
An investigation has been launched after the death of 23-year-old Ayodeji Awogboro in the custody of the Metropolitan police on 11 May. According to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is conducting its own investigation into his death, police followed his car after he allegedly failed to stop at a red traffic light on
Gypsy Roma Traveller history month
After many years of hard work and lobbying, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has finally announced that the month of June will be Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month. This will be an annual event. In order to mark this momentous occasion, the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB) a national charity that
Writers and artists for David Oluwale
The David Oluwale Memorial Committee presents an evening of information and poetry. Thursday 15 May 2008, 7-8.30pm Wheeler Hall, St Anne’s Cathedral Hall, Leeds Speakers: Kester Aspden on his recent book: The hounding of David Oluwale Ian Duhig (TS Eliot nominee) and Rommi Smith (parliamentary writer in residence) will read poems in memory of David
Nativism vs integration
IRR director contextualises the new report, Islamophobia, integration and civil rights in Europe at its launch on 14 May. To borrow a phrase from another time, a spectre is haunting Europe – only, this time, it is the spectre of nativism. And, this time, it is being made flesh by the policies, propaganda, and plain
BNP gains smaller than anticipated
Despite commentators having made predictions of a big breakthrough for the BNP in the local elections that took place on 1 May, the far-right party made only moderate gains. On the election night, the party had predicted that it would gain forty new council seats and three seats on the London Assembly, but ended up