Review

Racial profiling and shoot to kill

The latest briefing paper, on shoot to kill policies against suspected suicide bomber in the US and UK, will add to the reputation of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law for cutting-edge advocacy and scholarship and path-breaking reports on the legal violations that have arisen

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Review

The emergence of a European security-industrial complex

The EU is set to spend billions of euros on ‘security research’. With little accountability, European multinational corporations will be researching new techniques of surveillance, identification and profiling, to be directed mainly at migrants and terrorist suspects. A new report by Statetwatch and the Transnational Institute makes depressing reading for those concerned with issues of

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Anger at overseas doctors’ permit requirement

New regulations affecting International Medical Graduates (IMGs) have been criticised by leading members of the medical profession and immigration practitioners. The NHS has developed and utilised the skills of IMGs, essentially Black doctors from Third World countries, since its inception in 1948. The arrangement between IMGs and the health service has traditionally been seen as

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Comment

How the BNP entered the political mainstream

Recently published research gives us more data on where support for the British National Party comes from. But, in common with most analysts, it downplays the most important factor in the BNP’s rise: the legitimacy given to the party’s views by mainstream politicians and even liberal commentators. In 1993, Derek Beackon became the BNP’s first

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Comment

IRR gifts its library to Warwick University

A. Sivanandan, in a speech at the launch of the Institute of Race Relations’ library at Warwick University on 27 April 2006, explains how the collection (1956-2005) reflected the movements of the times – decolonisation, Black Power and globalisation. I am honoured that Warwick University should name the Institute’s library after me. And I thank

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Comment

Criminalising dissent in the ‘war on terror’

The new crime of ‘glorifying’ terrorism, recently introduced under the Terrorism Act 2006, will lead to the suppression of legitimate debate on the causes of terror. Since 13 April 2006, it has been a criminal offence to directly or indirectly encourage terrorism; those convicted face up to seven years imprisonment. ‘Direct encouragement’ is largely the

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‘Quick death is preferable to slow death’

On Tuesday 25 April, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission met to decide the fate of an Algerian man, known only as ‘Y’, who is facing deportation to Algeria as a ‘suspected terrorist’. The man, who was acquitted of involvement in an alleged plot to use the poison ricin, has been subject to a control order

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Comment

Asylum: from deterrence to criminalisation

Below we reproduce Liz Fekete’s introduction to Asylum: from deterrence to criminalisation, a new report written by leading human rights lawyer Frances Webber. The EU’s spin about its harmonisation of asylum policy to create a supposedly fairer, more easily navigable system, masks the grim reality of life in Europe for would-be refugees. For European asylum

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Review

Bradford riots

An important new drama by Neil Biswas, to be broadcast on Channel 4 next week, shows how the lives of members of the Pakistani community of Mannigham were defined and destroyed by the Bradford riots of July 2001. The riots were the worst outbreak of street violence on mainland Britain in a generation and involved

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