As the tendering process for £4 billion worth of contracts over ten years gets under way, asylum campaigner John Grayson examines the market for asylum seekers’ housing in the UK. G4S dumps toddler with rare cancer in dirty asylum house with rats in the yard. Can G4S be trusted to be given part of the new
Theme: Violence and harassment
2017: the deadliest year in immigration detention
This year six men have died in immigration detention centres — the deadliest year since the IRR began recording deaths in immigration detention. The most recent death occurred, on 19 November, when 27-year-old Arim Bakar, an Iraqi man was found dead at the Prison Service-run Morton Hall, where two others have died this year. Detainees at
The Lions of Grunwick
‘We are the Lions Mr Manager’ is a small but perfectly formed play which tells the story of the Grunwick strike. A two-hander, it tells a digested version of the Grunwick saga, a major moment in labour history which seems to have faded in the collective memory. The work of the Grunwick 40 campaign over
Calendar of racism and resistance (3 -16 November 2017)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 27 October: Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions, presents a new report to the UN General Assembly on ‘Unlawful Death of Refugees and Migrants’, download it here. (Der Spiegel, 28
Stop the criminalisation of human rights defenders
To mark the publication of IRR’s new research into the hostile political and legal environment facing humanitarian actors who seek to protect life at Europe’s sea and land borders, the IRR invites you to a wide-ranging discussion of how EU policies are shrinking the space for humanitarian action while feeding the far Right. Monday 4
‘I killed three … maybe four rats in my kitchen this summer’
Asylum campaigner John Grayson examines the appalling conditions in privately contracted housing for asylum seekers in south yorkshire. Ann was showing me round her G4S terraced house, on the inner ring road in Doncaster, on a Sunday afternoon in late October. A few days earlier, Ann had been to the local advice ‘drop-in centre’ for
EU member states, in criminalising humanitarians, are feeding Europe’s far Right
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) publishes today research showing that EU member states are using laws, aimed at traffickers and smugglers, to criminalise those acting out of humanitarian motives. The rhetoric of EU politicians and its border force, Frontex, may be fuelling far-right extremism, it IRR warns. It has written to the European Commission
US empire under Trump
In a podcast, Race & Class Editorial Working Committee member Arun Kundnani talks to journalist Anand Gopal and filmmaker Madiha Tahir about US empire in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan under Trump, and the US Left’s response. Anand Gopal has reported for the Wall Street Journal, Harpers, and the Atlantic and is the author of No Good Men Among
MRN Annual Migration Summit – London
An evening to discuss the future of migrants’ rights in the UK. Thursday 30 November 2017, 5.30-9.30pm Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA Speakers include: Prof. Bridget Anderson – Professor of Mobilities, Migration and Citizenship at the University of Bristol Black Lives Matter UK – to be confirmed Simon Cox –
Calendar of racism and resistance (20 October – 2 November 2017)
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 20 October: A pregnant asylum seeker living in ‘dangerous housing’ provided by G4S in Doncaster pleads to be moved. (Open Democracy, 20 October 2017) 20 October: The Home Office publishes: Grenfell Tower immigration cases (guidance