Over a year after he died, the family of Habib Ullah are still asking how he died. The family of Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah, who died whilst being arrested during a routine stop and search in a car park in High Wycombe in July 2008, have recently met with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to
Theme: Health
INQUEST wins the Longford Prize
INQUEST, the organisation which assists the families of those who die in custody, has been awarded the 2009 Longford Prize. The Longford Prize recognises the contribution of an individual, group or organisation working in the area of penal or social reform which has shown ‘outstanding qualities of humanity, courage, persistence and originality’ and was established
Swiss youth erect Geneva’s first new minaret
The Network of Genevan Youth Associations (GLAJ) immediately registered its shock at the result of the Swiss referendum on the banning of minarets by erecting a minaret made of cardboard, wood, paper and tissue in Geneva’s New Square. The site of the symbolic minaret was deliberate; it was placed at the feet of the statue
Yorkshire youth event a great success against all the odds
A ground-breaking civil rights conference, planned by and for young people in Yorkshire, went ahead despite claims that the local council placed difficulties in its path. On Tuesday 17 November, 450 young people packed into an international conference centre in Leeds to discuss the issues of most concern to them growing up in twenty-first century
Swiss poll crushes minarets
Graham Murray writes from Switzerland as the country votes to ban the building of minarets. I’m sitting in a café in Geneva at 8.30am on ‘the morning after’, which seems like an appropriate expression given yesterday’s events. While I write this, the radio news comes on and refers to ‘the shock’. Everyone took it for
Death of Chinese woman at Heathrow under investigation
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has begun an investigation into the death of a Chinese woman following her release from custody after being arrested at Heathrow airport. According to an IPCC press release, in the early hours of the morning of Thursday 12 November, 35-year-old Jianping Liu was arrested as a suspected overstayer in
People must be entertained
We publish below a talk on ‘Early 19th century theatre and racial attitudes’ given by Dr Hazel Waters at the Museum of London, Docklands on 19 November. We’re sitting here in a former sugar warehouse in what was once one of the busiest commercial ports in the world, with a network of massive and forbidding
Dickensian poverty in the twenty-first century
The asylum support system destroys hope and sanity. In his home country of Zimbabwe, Gabrial Ziki was chair of the National Aircraft Engineers’ Association – until 2003, when he organised a strike and his life was threatened. He fled to the UK, where, shockingly, his asylum claim was refused, and since then he has received
The EU security-industrial complex
This report is an indispensable reference manual on the threats posed to citizens by the convergence of neo-con ideology, power and technology in the name of national security. ‘A new kind of arms race, one in which all the weapons are pointing inwards’, the product of a marriage between the imperatives of profit and the
IQ film misses opportunity
Channel 4’s Race and Intelligence: Science’s Last Taboo programme missed an opportunity to educate a new generation about the sham ‘scientific’ claims behind this controversy. Rageh Omaar opened his programme on the connections between race and intelligence, part of a five-part series, with the kind of doom-laden voice-over we’ve come to expect from his investigative