Over 500 people packed out Plymouth’s extensive Guildhall for a conference to launch The Monitoring Group’s Rural Racism Project. For the South West of England, an assembly of 500 people talking about racism is a major success in itself. That the conference, held on Wednesday 11 February, heard some excellent speeches and is the launch
Theme: Education
Express newspaper faces criticism from its own journalists for anti-Roma stance
Journalists at the Daily Express say that editors are pressurising them ‘to write anti-Gypsy’ articles. Last week, the newspaper ran a campaign to prevent Roma (Gypsies) from new EU countries coming to Britain – which led to the government announcing new restrictions. Last Tuesday, the Express claimed on its front page that 1.6 million Gypsies
Yarl’s Wood update: officer sacked
A security officer at Yarl’s Wood detention centre has been sacked following revelations of racist bullying, exposed by an undercover reporter in December 2003. Following an investigation by the Daily Mirror last year, which documented racist language, a culture of violence in training sessions and staff boasting of their brutal treatment of detainees, three security
Call for greater ethnic minority and immigrant participation in Irish politics
A new report from the Africa Solidarity Centre in Dublin highlights the exclusion of immigrants and ethnic minorities from Irish political parties. Based on research conducted by Dr. Bryan Fanning of University College, Dublin, Fidèle Mutwarasibo and Neltah Chadamoyo, the report published this week reveals that none of the political parties in Ireland have any
Close surveillance of Campsfield protest
On Saturday 29 November, over 200 people from all over the country gathered for a demonstration outside Campsfield House Immigration Detention Centre, the scene of frequent protests, hunger strikes and a riot, to mark its 10th anniversary. Unusually, the demonstration was very heavily policed. The coach taking participants from London was stopped just outside Campsfield
Netherlands: anti-immigration and the road to intolerance
Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has this week advocated the idea of a two-tier justice system in which foreigners who commit crime would be sentenced differently from Dutch nationals. How has a country which once had a reputation for tolerance descended to such illiberalism? During the second half of 2004, the Dutch government will
Concern at new asylum measures
Refugee groups and lawyers believe that the new Asylum Bill will result in profound changes in the legal and constitutional landscape of Britain as well as stripping asylum seekers of further legal and social rights. The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill is the fifth asylum Bill in eleven years and Labour’s third
Analysis: the quarterly asylum statistics
Ministers have trumpeted the quarterly asylum statistics as evidence that their tough policies are working. Do the figures prove their case? And what is the impact on asylum seekers? The quarterly publication of asylum seeker statistics has become a major political event, particularly since the government, earlier this year, set a target of halving the
Step up in family visitor visa denial
Citizens Advice is asking government ministers to review the rising rate of family visitor visa application refusals so as to ensure that injustice is not being done to members of the UK’s Black and Minority Ethnic communities. According to its analysis of statistics provided by the government agency UK visas of decisions being made by
It’s official: media coverage of asylum is distorted and unfair
Research commissioned by Article 19, a group that campaigns for free expression, has found that the British media’s coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is characterised by stereotyping, exaggeration and inaccurate language. Academics at the Cardiff School of Journalism spent two years monitoring asylum coverage in newspapers and on television, interviewing reporters and editors on