Dear IRR News subscriber, It was not just Britain First and the English Defence League that tried to make political capital out of the attack in Westminster by Khalid Masood that led to the deaths of a police officer on duty, a US tourist, a South London pensioner and a teacher picking up her children
Calendar of racism and resistance (24 March – 6 April 2017)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum & migration March: The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) publishes a factsheet on immigration detention, download it here (pdf file, 95kb). 11 March: Campaigners protest outside Morton
Stop feeding the beast! A review of ‘My Country: A work in progress’
A play built around seventy long interviews with ‘leavers’ and ‘remainers’ about their feelings after the Brexit vote, inadvertently, provides insights into the immigration debate. The liberal consensus on immigration has broken down. That’s what Brexit has taught us, or at least that’s what the establishment tells us that Brexit has taught us. The Conservative
How the Right framed the Westminster attacks
The Westminster attacks provided the occasion for anti-immigration, anti-refugee politicians the world over to vindicate their positions in the public narrative. It was not just Britain First and the English Defence League which tried to make political capital out of the deadly attacks in Westminster on 22 March. UK-based politicians and international figures were not
Grievance as identity
David Goodhart’s new book calls for an understanding of ‘majority grievances’ , which, he argues, represent ‘decent populism’ not racism. Remember the story about the blind men and the elephant? Each one feels the thing in front of him and finds something different: one man felt the ears: ‘this is a fan’; one felt the
To Birmingham with love
A Birmingham resident fiercely objects, in the wake of the recent deadly terror attack at Westminster, to the depiction of her city as the hotbed of extremism. According to the Daily Mail (‘So how DID Birmingham become the jihadi capital of Britain?’, 24 March 2017), I live in the ‘jihadi capital of Britain’, Birmingham. ‘Birmingham. Birmingham.
IRR News (10 – 23 March 2017)
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, following on from Liz Fekete’s analysis of refugee deaths in Greece, the IRR’s News Team examines seven deaths on the western Balkans route, focusing on Serbia and its borders with Hungary and Bulgaria. Responsibility for these deaths belongs not only with national governments such as Hungary’s, fomenting anti-refugee hatred
Failed by Words
Aisha Maniar examines the UK government’s policy of carrying out language analysis tests on undocumented asylum claimants. Asylum Now According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), a record 65.3 million people worldwide were displaced within and without borders in 2015. Although increasing slightly each year since 2010, after having fallen sharply in the first
Calendar of racism and resistance (9 – 23 March 2017)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration March: Women for Refugee Women publish a report: The Way Ahead: An asylum system without detention, download it here (pdf file, 3mb). 2 March: The Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU) publish a report:
Enough is enough: deaths on the western Balkans route
A public push is needed to stop refugee and migrant deaths on the western Balkans route. IRR News continues its investigation into violations and deaths at EU borders, focusing on seven deaths in the Serbian, Hungarian and Bulgarian border zones. All the official reports, photographic evidence, testimonies and case studies are there. Fresh Response Serbia,