14-year-old Sebrin Thaha, who was detained with her mother and younger sister by immigration authorities a month ago, claims that she was mistreated by escort officers during her deportation last week. A month ago, she was just another teenager at Notre Dame School for Girls in Plymouth. But on 24 February 2005, Sebrin Thaha’s home
Theme: Media
Plymouth Kurd family detained and split up by immigration authorities
The two children of Ruir Thaha have been taken into care after first being detained with their mother and then separated from her after she twice attempted suicide over the weekend. Last week, IRR News reported on the case of Sabrin and Hanna Thaha, two Kurdish sisters from Iraq, who, along with their mother, were
Plymouth school students detained after escaping racist harassment
Two asylum-seeking students who were forced to leave their school because of harassment are now facing deportation. Last September, a police investigation was launched at Parkside Community College in Plymouth, after a group of forty White students chanted ‘P*kis Out’ en masse in the school playground. The level of racism in the school had been
Plymouth: former BNP member banned from takeaway
Following his drunken, racist behaviour in May, former BNP member, Gavin Hewett, has been given a night-time ban from every takeaway in Plymouth for five years. On Sunday 23 May, Hewett went into Ali Baba’s takeaway, threw his BNP membership card across the counter and told the proprietor to ‘go back to your own country’.
Conference heralds new anti-racism initiative in South West
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
Kurdish refugees attacked in Plymouth
Two Iraqi Kurds were the victims of a racist attack in an underpass in the centre of Plymouth. The attack, by two young white men, took place at about 9.30pm on Friday 9 May. The attackers repeatedly asked ‘are you f***ing Turks?’, before assaulting one man with a skewer and the other with a belt
Libraries rebuff police surveillance of asylum seekers
Police in Plymouth have asked local libraries to log internet activity by asylum seekers in the city, following an unfounded terrorism scare. But library bosses have told police that they are unwilling to violate the public’s right to privacy. Recently, a member of the public called the police after seeing a foreign student using a
Rural campaign against the BNP launched in South West
A broad coalition of local campaigners in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset have launched a major drive to stop the British National Party from making gains in the forthcoming council elections. The ‘Unite to Stop the BNP’ campaign, led by the South West branch of the National Civil Rights Movement, has drawn support from a range
Asylum seekers face rising violence in the South West
A gang of twelve men launched an unprovoked attack in broad daylight on three Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in Plymouth on Monday 20 January 2003. The attackers were reportedly in their twenties and thirties and inflicted facial and other injuries on their victims. To date, there have been no arrests. On average, one racially motivated