A campaign has been launched to persuade the government to guarantee an adequately funded legal aid system ensuring quality representation and access to justice for all. The campaigners, including the NSPCC, Shelter, Mind, Child Poverty Action Group, Advice Services Alliance and others, are worried that the government’s plans to reform legal aid could lead to
Dedicated asylum legal advice for women
The Refugee Women’s Resource Project at Asylum Aid has established a pilot scheme offering legal advice on asylum issues to women. The service will be a dedicated legal advice telephone service for women. And will be able to help: Women seeking legal advice about their asylum claim; Family members and friends of women asylum seekers;
Enforcing the language barrier
Recent cuts to English language classes suggest that the government fears the integration of migrants more than it supports it. On 18 October the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) announced that it would no longer fund basic ‘English for Speakers of Other Languages’ (ESOL) classes. The essential free classes were massively oversubscribed. Namely, they were
Chronicler of Black history dies
Peter Fryer, the author of ‘Staying Power: the history of black people in Britain’ died on 31 October. His funeral is on Wednesday 8 November at 2pm at Islington Crematorium, High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9AG. Peter Fryer, born in 1927, was from an early age associated with left movements in the UK. As
Asian women – ‘the world we want’
At a time when Asian women are only being discussed in terms of their veils, forced marriages and oppressive religion, what a relief it is to read a book about Asian women as agents not objects. And to read a book by a journalist-cum-campaigner which avoids the usual academic claptrap about ‘the other’ and culturalist
Letter from the Netherlands
A contributor to the IRR’s European Race Audit writes on recent developments in the Netherlands. Dear IRR, ‘The party here in the Netherlands just keeps on getting better and better. Just when I thought I had heard it all, along comes immigration minister Rita Verdonk’s newest brain child. Regional police forces in the Netherlands can
Abiy Fessfha Abebe: ‘I can’t go back. I rather die’
On 20 September, a brief inquest was held into the death of Abiy Fessfha Abebe, a 35-year-old Ethiopian asylum seeker who was found hanged at Greenbank accommodation centre in Liverpool the day after he was told that his asylum claim had been refused. The coroner found ‘it more likely than not he died by his
And Still I Rise
A frank and affecting account of the enduring destruction wrought on a mother and her family, first by a racially-motivated murder and then by the racist reaction of the Metropolitan police that meant it was not investigated properly. The Lawrence family’s compounded tragedy eventually resulted in a landmark admission in the form of the Macpherson
Two landmark asylum judgements
Two important cases, reported this week, vindicate the rights of refugees to recognition and fair treatment. In the first case, the House of Lords upheld Zainab Fornah’s right to refugee status as a young woman from Sierra Leone who, after abduction and repeated rape by rebel soldiers during the country’s civil war, was threatened with
Remembering Naser Al Shdaida
Last week in Burgess Park, south London, the Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers (SDCAS), held a memorial service and tree planting ceremony for Syrian asylum seeker, Naser Al Shdaida, who took his life earlier this year after his asylum claim was refused. Naser was a regular user of the SDCAS which provides a ‘warm