Dear IRR News subscriber, Saturday 7 May is a day of action against immigration detention, and solidarity with detained people. And on IRR News this week, academics Monish Bhatia and Victoria Canning examine two recent reviews of immigration detention – one into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons and one into Concerns about Yarl’s
Immigration detention: a tale of two reviews
Two recent reviews of immigration detention offer a contrast in their approach to the fundamental injustice of immigration detention and in their usefulness to campaigners. It has been four months since the publication of two key reviews of immigration detention: the Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons undertaken by former Prisons and Probation
Calendar of racism and resistance (22 April – 5 May 2016)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 20 April: The Home Office announces that a new process for resettling unaccompanied asylum seeking children will commence in July. (Guardian, 21 April 2016) 21 April: The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman publishes: Independent investigation into
IRR News 8 – 21 April 2016
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week on IRR News, Frances Webber examines a new definition of anti-Semitism entering policy documents, pointing out the critical importance of distinguishing in the anti-racist fight between thought and deed. And in an excerpt from the latest Race & Class that we reproduce here, lecturers Mayssoun Sukarieh and Stuart Tannock
Calendar of racism and resistance (8 – 21 April 2016)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 8 April: A 7-year-old Afghan boy is rescued from the back of a lorry on the M1 with fourteen other migrants after sending an SOS text message saying that he was having difficulty breathing. (BBC
Anti-Semitism – thought or deed?
Significantly, but without much fanfare, an expanded definition of anti-Semitism entered the UK’s policy arena this April. An article by Eric Pickles, former secretary of state for communities and local government, chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel and, since September 2015, UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, entitled ‘A definition of antisemitism’ introduced the
The deradicalisation of education
Below we reproduce an excerpt from an article in the April 2016 issue of Race & Class, ‘The deradicalisation of education: terror, youth and the assault on learning’. Across the UK, schools of all types and levels now have anti-radicalisation policies in which they pledge to be ‘vigilant’ in ‘safeguarding against radicalisation’ – which, as
IRR News 25 March – 7 April 2016
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week on IRR News, the continued attack on democratic accountability in the UK is examined. Frances Webber expands on her recent London Review of Books article to provide a panoramic perspective on the ‘inversion’ of accountability. ‘While seeking to loosen, dilute or remove mechanisms of redress for violations’, she argues,
Calendar of racism and resistance (25 March – 7 April 2016)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 8 March: Caritas Europa publishes: Migrants and refugees have rights! Impact of EU policies on accessing protection. Download the report here. 15 March: Refugee Rights publishes a report: The Long Wait: Filling the data gaps
The inversion of accountability
While the government increasingly treats human rights as optional and legal accountability for its actions as undesirable, it demands more and more accountability from citizens in the policing of migrants and ‘extremists’. What does democratic accountability entail? At a minimum, we expect our government to comply with fundamental human rights norms and with the rule