Dear IRR News subscriber, A week after Paul Moore received a life sentence for the attempted murder of a Muslim woman and a 12-year-old girl in Leicester, communities came together to express disgust at the anonymous far-right campaign to make 3 April ‘Punish a Muslim Day’. At public events across the UK, speaker after speaker
Calendar of racism and resistance (23 March – 5 April 2018)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 22 March: The captain and head of mission of Proactiva Open Arms, an NGO rescue ship working in the Mediterranean, are arrested in Sicily for refusing to hand over the 218 people they saved in
Are the experts on radicalisation getting it wrong?
What, asks the April issue of Race & Class, has happened in policy and academia to the concept of ‘radicalisation’ that Arun Kundnani analysed in a pathbreaking piece, ‘Radicalisation: the journey of a concept’, some six years ago? In a far-reaching survey of published articles and commissioned government research over the last years, covering the
The Moria 35: refugee resistance under attack on Lesvos
On Saturday 17 March, on the Greek island of Lesvos, 300 people gathered in Mytilene’s main Sappho Square to mark the second anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal (described as a ‘statement’ to avoid the scrunity of the European parliament). The deal is credited with leaving thousands of refugees either stranded in Turkey or attempting to
Challenging G4S’ ‘catastrophic failings’
Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), a charity that assists those in immigration detention in the UK, is taking legal action against the British government in an attempt to pressure it into designating security company G4S as a ‘High Risk’ strategic supplier in the wake of ‘catastrophic failings’. The launch of the campaign comes after the
IRR News (9 – 22 March 2018)
Dear IRR News subscriber, Is there anyone out there who still believes that there is no such thing as Islamophobia? If so they haven’t been reading IRR News. For over a decade, far-right groups have been terrorising communities across West Yorkshire and now, this Saturday, multicultural Birmingham faces incursion from the Football Lads Alliance (FLA)
Justice for Kevin Clarke: death in Lewisham
On Saturday 17 March, in a cold and snowy Catford, a vigil took place for Kevin Clarke who died on 9 March after being restrained by up to nine Lewisham police officers. The small vigil on a quiet residential Lewisham street was attended mainly by the grieving family and friends of 35-year-old Kevin Clarke. Candles
Calendar of racism and resistance (9 – 22 March 2018)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 6 March: Jess Phillips MP reveals that a constituent was detained in Yarl’s Wood after reporting her violent husband who had threatened to kill her to the police. The woman was later released and given
Young Muslims respond to Islamophobia
We reproduce below the speech of Riz Hussain, director of Jawaab, a movement of grassroots voices, at the launch on 7 March of Jawaab’s report Voices of Young Muslims: Building a society free from Islamophobia. ‘Since we began our work in 2011, we have seen so much change. And with this has come our focus
Celebrating the ‘real’ Khadija Saye
At the 7 March launch of Jawaab’s report Voices of Young Muslims, Nadia Hasan gave a speech celebrating the political activism of Khadija Saye, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire, and questions the media’s decontextualised response to her death. ‘Sometimes, despite the slurs, despite the micro-agressions, despite the collective blame, we appear to lose