In an article in today’s Times newspaper, Tony Blair sets out his plans for a massive increase in deportations of asylum seekers. Read the article paragraph by paragraph and the distortions and double-think on which it is based become clear. The title of the article: ‘Three steps we will take for a fairer asylum system’.
Books not bars for Rachid Ramda
Rachid Ramda, an Algerian asylum seeker, has been detained in Belmarsh maximum security prison for the last nine years – even though he has not been convicted of any crime. Rachid was initially arrested on an extradition warrant from France in 1995 in connection with bomb attacks in Paris. In June 2002, the High Court
Race & Class celebrates milestone
Speaking at the 30-year celebration of the radical journal Race & Class, IRR chair Colin Prescod took stock of the past, while founder editor A. Sivanandan called for new political analysis to inform struggles against racism, empire and globalisation over the coming years. At a celebration event hosted by Jeremy Corbyn MP at the House
Huge response to Omid Jamil Ali appeal
An appeal by an Iraqi family for the body of their migrant son to be returned home for burial, three years after he died trying to enter Britain, has received a strong response from IRR News’ readers. The necessary £3,100 has now been raised. Two weeks ago, IRR News reported on the plight of Jamal
Fighting writing
The radical, international journal Race & Class was founded thirty years ago this month. Race & Class might never have happened. Its publisher for the last thirty years, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), had first been established in the 1950s as a forum for ‘objective’ scholarship on the emerging post-colonial societies of the Third
Indefinite detention creates a ‘suicide culture’
A Scottish NGO is calling on Amnesty International and the UNHCR to investigate the ‘suicide culture’ at Dungavel detention centre. Dungavel detention centre in Scotland, one of three immigration detention centres to detain children, has now been open for three years. To mark those years, Positive Action in Housing (PAIH), a Glasgow-based charity, has produced
New study highlights discrimination in use of anti-terror laws
The Institute of Race Relations publishes today a catalogue that details how hundreds of Muslims have been arrested under terrorism powers before being released without charge; how the special powers granted by parliament to tackle terrorism are being deployed in other spheres, such as in routine criminal investigations or in the policing of immigration; how
Help a grieving Iraqi family to bring their son home
The impoverished parents of an Iraqi man, who died trying to enter Britain in 2001, have appealed to the British public to help raise £3,100 – the cost of sending the body from a Kent mortuary, where it has been left for the last three years, to Iraq for burial. (ADDENDUM, 8 SEPT 2004: The
Funding available for anti-racism week
Kick It Out, the national campaign against racism in football, is offering grants for community organisations which want to participate in October’s Anti-Racism Week of Action. The week of action is held every year during Black History Month to use the medium of football as a tool for education, anti-racism and encouraging inclusion. This year,
Hundreds demonstrate outside Home Office against ‘war on terror’
The campaign against the criminalisation of Muslim communities under anti-terror laws stepped up a gear this week as over 300 people protested outside the Home Office. The emergency protest on 13 August 2004 was called following the re-arrest two weeks earlier of Babar Ahmad, a 30-year-old university IT officer. Babar was first arrested under anti-terror