A charity set up to commemorate the life of Dame Sheila McKechnie, a dedicated campaigner who empowered homeless people to recognise and assert their rights, is looking to assist under-resourced and novice campaigners. The Foundation’s annual awards programme gives people advice and support in improving influence on local and national government. Previous beneficiaries include members
Theme: Health
Unreasonable suspicion
With the publication last week of The review of policing by Ronnie Flanagan, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, the government is proposing another extension of stop and search powers beyond the requirement of ‘reasonable suspicion’. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has announced that, from April, the powers allowing officers to conduct searches will be extended
Dangers of secret inquests
In the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008, the government published proposals to allow an inquest to be held in secret ‘in the interests of national security’. The new proposals allow the Home Secretary to issue a certificate requiring an inquest to be held without a jury. In such cases the inquest would be held in front
Was the Ludwigshafen fire an arson attack?
Evidence is emerging to suggest that the fire in which nine Turkish Germans died might have been started deliberately. Over the last week, dramatic pictures have appeared in the British media of the German city of Ludwigshafen, with a tiny child being thrown out of a burning house occupied mostly by Turkish-German families and caught
Racially-motivated murders on the rise
Fifteen years since the death of Stephen Lawrence, there is less and less interest in the scourge of racial violence in the UK, despite murders remaining a major problem. Racial murders- unprovoked attacks on people not known to perpetrators – in the UK are running at around seven per year. Yet no official body is
Support the appeal for a memorial to David Oluwale
An appeal has been launched for a memorial in Leeds to David Oluwale, who was found dead in the River Aire in 1969. Two police officers were later prosecuted and convicted of assaulting him. David Oluwale was a Nigerian migrant who arrived in the UK in 1949 and subsequently spent many years living on the
Cultural cleansing?
Politicians and Christian leaders are supporting public campaigns and petitions against the construction of mosques which are being denounced for destroying Europe’s Judaeo-Christian heritage. Central to the current public discussion of Islam is a kind of conjuring trick. By removing Muslims from the social reality they face here in Europe and linking them to the
Limbo status is made official
The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, currently going through the Commons, creates a new immigration status for undeportable ‘foreign nationals’. The Home Office’s failure to trace the whereabouts of a small number of non-British criminal offenders post-sentence back, in July 2006, led to a rule change in the same month, introducing a presumption in favour
Trial begins of Harmondsworth 4
On Monday 14 January 2008, the trial will begin of four men facing charges in connection with a disturbance at Harmondsworth removal centre in west London in November 2006. Harmondsworth is run by private company Kalyx, a subsidiary of Sodexho. The disturbance is said to have occurred after guards, allegedly, stopped detainees at the centre
Evidence on assaults and abuse during deportation collected
A coalition of groups assisting asylum seekers, including Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns, is collecting information on alleged cases of assault during removal. The information required for the study is detailed in the document (available at the link below) but includes a person’s name or initials; the date of alleged