On 11 December, Peter Connolly was sentenced to life – with a minimum term of fifteen years in prison – for the murder of Christopher Alaneme, an 18-year-old who died after being stabbed in Sheerness, Kent on 21 April 2006. That night, Christopher, whose Nigerian family had moved from London to Kent because they felt
Theme: Health
Condemning the unborn
British asylum policies are condemning increasing numbers of children to illness, poverty and deprivation before they are even born. On the top floor of a high-rise flat in Leeds a young mother sits with her newborn child. Unlike most new mothers she is not surrounded by cards and flowers. Nor is she surrounded by well-wishers.
Eight-year sentence for killing
A 21-year-old Preston man has been sentenced to eight years in jail for the killing of Shezan Umarji in July 2006. Liam McKerney was found guilty of manslaughter at Preston Crown Court in a majority verdict and two other men – his brother Kieran and friend Lee Moore – were cleared of murder and manslaughter.
Teaching Black history: the struggle continues
In a lecture delivered to members of the Black and Asian Studies Association, one of its founders deplores the ethnocentrism and racism in education and society. The Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA) was formed in 1991 with the aim of encouraging research and disseminating information on the history of Black peoples in Britain. (By
Anti-Zionist Jews fight anti-Semitism charge
An action against the accusation of anti-Semitism brought by a prominent Jewish anti-Zionist in the UK has been settled out of court, but in Germany, the appeal court in Frankfurt recently upheld an accusation that an anti-Zionist holocaust survivor was in fact anti-Semitic and suffering from self-hatred. In the UK, in July 2007, Michael Ezra
What to do in the event of an asylum-seeker death
A guide on what to do in the event of the death of an asylum seeker has been published by the Institute of Race Relations. This 13-page briefing paper, Asylum deaths; what to do next (pdf file, 232kb), by Harmit Athwal, contains information as to where in the system asylum seekers are most at risk
Algeria seeks extradition of political refugee who denounced terror
An Algerian exile, with refugee rights in Germany, has been arrested in Spain and now faces extradition to Algeria. In 2003, former Algerian colonel Mohammed Samraoui – at the time a political refugee in Germany – published the book Chronique des années de sang (Denoël, Paris). Samraoui, who had deserted from the Department for Information
The beatification of Enoch Powell
Attempts are being made to rehabilitate Enoch Powell’s reputation. Mark my words, between now and next April (forty years since the infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech) we are going to witness a rehabilitation of Enoch Powell. It has already begun. Television companies are busy preparing those in-depth, talking-head documentaries, radio programmes are taking him up
The friends of Amdani Juma
An anti-deportation campaign has been launched in aid of Amdani Juma, a Burundian refugee who has been refused indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Amdani, a torture survivor, came to the UK in March 2003 as a UN – sponsored asylum seeker and was granted humanitarian protection. Many of his family and friends were
Rights not rhetoric
Politicians talk tough on immigration but fail to recognise Britain’s underlying demand for a highly exploitable workforce. Almost 40 years after Enoch Powell delivered his anti-immigrant ‘rivers of blood’ speech, Britain is still unable to move beyond his grim legacy. In recent weeks, we have returned once more to the old paradigm he popularised –