Racism and Fascism - new material (13)
01 October 2009
Deporte e integración, Mugak/SOS Arrazakeria, Centro de Estudios y Documentación sobre racismo y xenofobia, no. 48, September 2009, pp. 75. This issue of Mugak magazine includes a selection of articles about sports and integration, analysis of the media’s role and use of language to portray racial diversity in sport and guidelines for neutral reporting, sports’ role in promoting social integration and campaigns to oppose racism within and around sports events. Other issues covered include the Basque ombudsman’s (Ararteko) ruling on a complaint filed by SOS Racismo concerning the minors’ centre in Oilur (Deba), critical observations on the new immigration law, the criminalisation of street sellers and racism, including a complaint by the Unión Romaní gipsy association that details the various steps that turned an article about a conflict within the gipsy community in Seville into a racist and prejudiced piece, and the UN Human Rights Committee’s ruling in the case of Rosalynd Williams that deemed that her being stopped and identified by the police in Valladolid train station in 1992 on the basis of her appearance [colour] amounted to discrimination. Available from: Mugak, Peña i Goñi, 13-1° - 20002 San Sebastian/Donosti.
People Together and Businessman Bankrolls ‘street army’, Nick Lowles. Searchlight No 412 (October) 2009, pp. 4-7. The first article examines the threat from the English Defence League (EDL), and its Welsh counterpart, considering a number of their provocative outings in Luton, Harrow, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Swansea in which shops and citizens were attacked. The second article looks at key figures in the EDL including businessman, Alan Lake, and fourteen other leaders including football hooligans and BNP activists.
Foreign nationals, enemy penology and the criminal justice system, Liz Fekete and Frances Webber. European Race Bulletin No. 69 (Autumn) 2009, pp. 32. This issue of the Bulletin contains an extended essay looking at sensationalist media headlines about foreign “criminals” that are used to justify government deportation policies. Behind the headlines, Fekete and Webber find that those targeted for deportation: “are less likely to be the serious crooks and dangerous sexual predators of modern folklore and more likely to be poor migrants and asylum seekers arrested for immigration crimes such as travelling on false documents, working illegally or other administrative offences relating to immigration laws.” This bulletin also contains a round-up of extreme-Right and anti-immigrant movements in general, provincial and municipal election campaigns from August to mid-October 2009. Email liz@irr.org.uk for more information.
BNP Humiliation in court retreat, David Williams. Searchlight No. 413 (November) 2009, p. 15. Short article on the BNP’s capitulation, in the face of a court case brought against it by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that obliges it to altar its constitution so that it does not discriminate directly of indirectly on the grounds race, ethnic or religious status.
First they came for the Gipsies..., Robbie McVeigh. Runnymede Quarterly Bulletin September 2009, pp. 10-12. This article reports on the “anti-Roma pogroms in Belfast” following a week of sustained racist violence during which Roma were removed from their houses in south Belfast, first to a community centre and then removed to Romania. McVeigh observes that for all of the expressesions of surprise there has been a rising tide of racist violence over the last ten years with systematic attacks on migrant worker communities across the north, particularly in loyalist working class areas.
Battlefield Barking & Dagenham, Nick Lowles. Searchlight No. 414 (December) 2009, pp. 6-9. In November, Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP and its European MEP for the North West of England, announced his intention to stand in Barking at next year’s general election. The BNP London Assembly member, Richard Barnbrook, will spearhead the party’s attempt to win control of Barking and Dagenham council. The Hope not Hate campaign is looking for volunteers to oppose Griffin: Hope not Hate, PO Box 1576, Ilford IG5 0NG.