Measures announced by Home Secretary David Blunkett and Constitutional Minister Lord Falconer on 27 October to reduce further the numbers seeking asylum in Britain have been condemned by refugee groups and human rights lawyers as inhuman, discriminatory and incompatible with the Refugee Convention. The measures include: new criminal offences for those destroying or disposing of
Theme: Violence and harassment
Forced deportation of Roma
A well-respected Roma political organiser and twenty-five other Czech Roma are to be deported to the Czech Republic on 25 October, despite the fact that by next May the Czech Republic will be part of the European Union. Ladislav Balaz, chairman of the Trans-European Roma Federation has, like many of the other Roma threatened with
Update: far-Right political parties in Europe
In its latest review of the successes and losses of far-Right and anti-immigrant electoral parties in Europe, the Institute of Race Relations notes that extreme-Right immigration and law and order policies are being incorporated into the agenda of mainstream centre-Right parties; extreme-Right electoral parties are appealing increasingly to rural constituencies; and new political parties are
Denial of visitor visas for families
Ethnic minority communities in the UK face clampdown on visits from members of their family living abroad. Six national organisations – Citizens Advice, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, the Law Society, the Immigration Advisory Service and the Legal Action Group – have written to the home and
Action needed to provide for Europe’s minority ethnic elderly
Urgent action is needed to prevent a looming crisis in provision for Europe’s minority ethnic elderly, according to the first report of a major Europe-wide research project, covering ten countries, into the problems of ageing and ethnicity. Launched at the European Parliament, Brussels, on 8 May, the report Minority Elderly Care in Europe shows how,
The BNP in the local elections
The British National Party, with eight councillors, has become the main party of opposition on Burnley Council. And, in a significant number of wards in other towns in the North of England and in the West Midlands, the party has been able to win over a quarter of the votes cast in the recent local
Black Caribbean pupils at the bottom in GCSE league
New official figures reveal a disturbing gap between the performance of black Caribbean pupils in GCSE exams and pupils of other ethnic backgrounds. The annual pupil census, implemented in 2002, makes it possible, for the first time, to monitor the achievement of black and ethnic minority pupils in a consistent way, locally and nationally. The
Analysis: Asylum figures – behind the headlines
The release, last week, of the asylum statistics for 2002 was greeted by politicians and media alike as ‘bad news’. But a closer examination of the numbers reveals a more complex picture. ‘Asylum up 20%’ and ‘Record levels of asylum seekers’ were the headlines proclaimed across last week’s news-stands. And, since the government, earlier this
Doreen Lawrence accuses Blunkett of burying Macpherson report
David Blunkett lost interest in the fight against institutional racism following the riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford, says Doreen Lawrence. Speaking at yesterday’s Unite Against Racism conference, organised by the National Assembly Against Racism (NAAR), with UNISON and the South-East Region TUC, Doreen Lawrence won a standing ovation before and after her speech. She
New Labour and new authoritarianism in criminal justice
Lee Bridges, Chair of the School of Law at Warwick University, comments on the government’s new Criminal Justice Bill. A government’s authoritarianism is marked by the numbers of its citizens it imprisons. Under New Labour the prison population, already rising under the Tories, has soared to over 70,000, so high that even the prison governors