A stalwart of Black struggle in Britain, John La Rose, has died. As a writer, publisher and political organiser, his contribution to the development of Black cultural expression in the UK cannot be rivalled. It is with great sadness that the staff of the Institute of Race Relations heard the news of John’s death on
Fortress Europe – effects and consequences of labour migration
Below we reproduce extracts of a speech given by Liz Fekete, the deputy director of the Institute of Race Relations, on ‘Fortress Europe – effects and consequences of labour migration’, for the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Germany. The terms differ – ‘Selective Migration’ in France, ‘Managed Migration’ in the UK, ‘Labour Migration’ in Germany –
Getting rid of the last resort
At the beginning of February, the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) announced a desperate cash crisis and imminent closure – very, very bad news for those desperate asylum seekers who rely on the organisation for support and guidance. NCADC has closed its London/South East office in 2005, NCADC’s North East/Scotland office will be closing
Labour’s love lost?
A new book on London’s East End blames multiculturalism, and especially the sharing of welfare benefits with ‘newcomer’ Bengalis, for white working-class racism. Let’s face it, the Left just doesn’t know what to do about working-class racism. From that doyen of working-class history, E.P. Thompson, who praised the bloody-mindedness of the English jury that acquitted
Inquest indicts three agencies in restraint death of Black schizophrenic
A two-week inquest at the end of January recorded a detailed narrative verdict critical of the care that 28-year-old Andrew Jordan, a Guyanese man who had a history of schizophrenia, received from police, mental health officials and ambulance service staff in south-east London. Andrew’s mental health problems had begun in 1999 when he returned to
Living under a control order
Testimony about special bail conditions’ intrusive impact on personal life reinforces the concerns recently expressed by Lord Carlile, the parliamentary anti-terror watchdog about control orders. We publish an excerpted version of the verbatim account compiled by the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) from Mr Qavi, who was a bail-accommodation provider for someone released by the
Genocide survivors face deportation
A Rwandan mother and her three children are facing imminent deportation after being ‘snatched’ from their home in Salford last week. Olive Mukarugwiza and her children Sandra aged 18, Olivier, 17, and Yvan, 6, are currently being detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. School friends and teachers of 6-year-old Yvan are extremely concerned about
Are homes being turned into detention centres?
The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) and has branded the tagging of a growing number of asylum seekers as a means of ‘criminalising’ the innocent. Asylum seekers are being fitted with an electronic monitoring device around their ankles. A monitoring unit is then installed in the accommodation address where the individual resides. During periods
Two very Dutch Fires
Helen Hintjens uses the way the Dutch authorities responded to a school fire in the Hague and one in a detention centre at Schipol airport to comment on the treatment meted out to asylum seekers in the Netherlands. It was raining in the Hague, on Monday 16 January. Standing on the corner, a crowd of
Disastrous cuts planned for helplines
A decision to cut funding for specialist legal support is likely to have dire consequences for new immigrants and asylum seekers across the country. On 16 January the Legal Services Commission (LSC) announced that it intends to abolish, as from July, one of its most successful schemes for providing specialist legal help to the most