Sweden, riots and growing inequality

This video says about itself:

Aug 21, 2007

Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reports from Södertalje in Sweden, on the hardships facing the thousands of Christian Iraqi refugees who have fled there.

By Marcus Day:

Rioting hits Stockholm after police shoot Portuguese immigrant

25 May 2013

Rioting has occurred nightly in the suburbs of Stockholm, the Swedish capital, since last Sunday. As of Friday night, police had arrested 29 people and were calling in reinforcements from Gothenburg and Malmö, the second- and third-largest cities in Sweden, respectively.

The riots were touched off by the police killing of a 69-year-old Portuguese immigrant, who moved to Sweden over 30 years ago and whose name has not yet been made public.

According to an interview in Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet with Risto Kajanto, the deceased man’s brother-in-law, the man and his wife had been out eating at a restaurant and were confronted by a gang of youths on their way home. The man went back to his apartment and reportedly went onto his balcony and waved a knife at the youths, who left after a while.

At some point later, the police arrived, and the couple, believing they were the gang of youth, refused to open their door. Although the wife reportedly told police that she was not in danger, they nevertheless stormed the apartment, shooting and killing her husband in front of her.

“That was what my sister told me. But she is in a state of shock,” said Risto.

Later that night, youth in Husby, the northwestern suburb of Stockholm where the shooting took place, set fire to cars and threw stones at police. Over the next five nights, rioting spread to other poorer areas in western and southern Stockholm, resulting in the burning of over 300 cars and one police station and rapid calls for police reinforcements.

This is now the third time that riots have struck Sweden in the last five years. In 2008, hundreds of youth fought with police after the closing of a mosque in the southern town of Malmö, and in 2010 youth set fire to a police station in Rinkeby, another Stockholm suburb.

The events in Stockholm further undermine the lie that the “Scandanavian” model has somehow insulated Northern Europe from the crisis of global capitalism. On the contrary, the systemic economic and social crisis and the massive growth in inequality is giving rise to irrepressible and explosive social tensions.

For his part, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, of the right-wing Moderate Party, has responded to the police killing and the ensuing riots by denouncing the youth: “We have groups of young men who think they can and should change society with violence. Let’s be clear: this is not okay. We cannot be ruled by violence.”

In fact, like similar riots in 2005 in France and 2011 in Britain, the Stockholm riots reflect both the increasingly desperate conditions facing immigrants and youth in Europe and the imperviousness of the political system to the needs of the working class.

In recent decades, the Social Democratic Party, which had dominated Swedish politics in the postwar period, has sought to privatize state assets, deregulate the economy, and dismantle the welfare state. Its support has collapsed to historic lows. It has been backed, both in its right-wing social policies and in its support for overseas wars by pseudo-left forces, including the Green Party and the Left Party. These two parties formed a “Red-Green” coalition with the Social Democrats from 2008 to 2010.

In 2011, these parties supported Reinfeldt’s coalition government’s participation in the imperialist war in Libya, in which it supplied NATO with eight Swedish fighter jets.

In this reactionary political climate, the state has moved to inflame racial tensions and anti-immigrant sentiment. Allegations already emerged earlier this year of police specifically targeting dark-skinned youth for identity checks on subways.

During the current rioting, local organizations in Stockholm reported that police have been calling youth in the area “tramps,” “monkeys,” “apes” and “negroes.”

Many of Sweden’s immigrants are fleeing home countries torn apart by imperialist wars; nearly 50 percent of Sweden’s 43,900 asylum seekers in 2012 were from Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan.

In Sweden, the unemployment rate for immigrants, at 16 percent, is almost three times the national average.

The economic position of native Swedish workers and youth has also grown increasingly precarious since the onset of the global recession and European debt crisis. The overall unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 stood at over 25.1 percent, up from 22.2 percent a year ago.

Although the current rioting began in the poor and predominantly immigrant suburb of Husby, Stockholm police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said that it has since spread to parts of the city not primarily inhabited by immigrants.

He told the BBC, “My colleagues say the people on the streets are a mixture of every kind of people you can think of. We have got Swedes, we have got very young people, we have got people aged 30 to 35.”

The participation of wider layers of the population in the riots, including native Swedes, reflects the increasingly bitter tensions within Swedish society. Social inequality has been growing rapidly in Sweden since the 1990s.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), although there is as yet little “absolute” poverty, the gap between rich and poor is growing faster in Sweden than in any other major country. Between 1995 and 2010, Sweden dropped 14 spots in the ranking of income inequality.

Perhaps even more startling than the growth in income inequality has been the surge in overall wealth inequality. As of 2007, the top 1 percent of Swedish households controlled 29 percent of the country’s wealth, and the top 10 percent of households controlled 72 percent of the country’s wealth.

Related articles

• Stockholm riots throw spotlight on Swedish inequality (bbc.co.uk)
• UPDATE 2-Violence spreads outside Swedish capital but violence abates (xe.com)
• Stockholm’s not burning (thelocal.se)
• Swedish police call in back-up after worst riots in years (abc.net.au)

A Somali refugee’s horrible experiences in Libya

This video, by CBS in the USA about Tawergha in Libya, says about itself:

Oct 23, 2011

Black Africans in Libya are being discriminated by brown skin Libyans. Racial slurs are directed at them, or worse.

From Amnesty International in London:

Libya: ‘I Cannot Explain How Terrible the Situation Was’

23 May 2013

Press release

This is part of a special ‘People on the Move’ series, highlighting the human rights violations faced by migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in every part of the world. These profiles are being published around the launch of Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2013.

Abubaker Ali Osman, a Somali engineer until recently living in Libya, never imagined he would become a refugee. But when violence broke out in the North African country in early 2011, he was forced to flee. He rented a car with his wife and six children and drove to Tunisia, where they lived in a refugee camp for a year.

The Osman family now live in Germany, from where Abubaker spoke to Amnesty International about the challenges facing refugees.

I’m from Somalia but I moved to Libya in 1985. I was working as an engineer and teacher in a university in central Libya. I was living there with my wife and six children, who are all born in Libya.

I was working, doing a normal job, living a normal life. Everything was good until February 2011 when the uprising erupted. The situation became very dangerous. I was living in the university campus with my family but Libyans started accusing people from Somalia and other countries of being al-Gaddafi mercenaries. Many people were killed because of these false accusations even though many were like me, normal workers.

I was living in the campus of the faculty and it was safe there but the danger was around me. The threat was there. Also we were living very close to military installations that NATO was bombing. That was terrifying the children and all of us.

When the crisis escalated, we started hearing the noise of bullets nearby, plus the shortage of food and the mobs started getting closer. I got scared for my children and we decided to leave in August 2011.

My older children wanted to stay and started asking, “Where will we go?” I faced the reality that I come from Somalia, with a very different reality so there was nowhere to go.

So we decided to move. Reaching the border with Tunisia was not easy. We had heard many stories of people who faced problems on the road and that some people had been killed. But there was no alternative.

We rented a car, took some clothes and fortunately reached the Libya-Tunisia border safely.

When we arrived at the border, the UN agencies took us to the Choucha refugee camp. We lived there for nearly a year.

The situation there was very difficult.

Thousands of people had left Libya for Tunisia. More than 3,000 people were staying in Choucha refugee camp. They had nowhere else to go.

The UN gave us three tents to live in as we were a large family. We had food.

In the refugee camp sometimes there were problems between people. Organization was a problem and sometimes there were fights. There were also many problems when the sandstorms came. There were also clashes between the local Tunisians and the refugees.

For my children it was all very difficult. They had never seen anything like that. They wanted to go back but I explained to them it was too dangerous. After two months, they adjusted.

Two months after arriving, I started volunteering as a translator in the camp and so did one of my children.

I cannot express in words how difficult the situation was for everybody.

While we were at the refugee camp, the [UN Refugee Agency] UNHCR started to conduct some interviews. Many countries offered to accept refugees although unfortunately the UK and France, who were leading the NATO bombardment, took hardly anybody! My file was fortunately accepted by the German government.

It was a long process and some people are still there waiting but fortunately our file was processed fast. We were lucky.

It’s hard to explain how great it was to be in that terrible situation and be given that news.

On 2 September 2012 we were told that we were going to Germany the next day. We didn’t sleep that night.

When we arrived in Germany we landed in Hanover. We finally slept safely for the first time in one year.

We are now in Berlin. My children are going to school and my wife and I are learning German.

I sincerely hope that now, in Germany, this family will never meet German nazi terrorists or other xenophobes.

Related articles

• Kenya urged to permit, register Somali refugees (capitalfm.co.ke)
• Amnesty report rebukes EU for ‘failing to guarantee’ the safety of asylum seekers (irishtimes.com)
• Torture in Libya continues (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Hunger strikers: ‘We will die here’ (newint.org)
• Syrian refugee plight highlighted in Amnesty report (abc.net.au)
• Refugees and migrants face rising dangers (capitalfm.co.ke)
• Libya: Libyans in North Africa scared to return home (ionglobaltrends.com)
• ‘Tunisian murder suspects escaped to Libya’ (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)

Mali refugees flee French neo-colonial war

This photo of a French Foreign Legion soldier, part of the invasion of Mali, shows the real face of that war.

That war is not “against Al Qaeda terrorism” (supported by the French government in Libya, and still in Syria). It is not for women’s rights, human rights or secularism.

It is in support of a military dictatorship.

It brings death, mainly to Malian civilians.

This war is a neo-colonial war.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Refugee numbers at crisis levels after Mali intervention

Friday 12 April 2013

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned today of a growing humanitarian crisis in west Africa where around 70,000 Malian refugees are stranded in the Mauritanian desert camp of Mbera.

MSF emergency co-ordinator Henry Gray warned that “more than 100,000 people from northern Mali are currently displaced within their country or have escaped abroad as refugees.

“Most of the refugees are from the Tuareg and Arab communities. They fled, often for fear of violence due to their presumed links with Islamist or separatist groups.”

Mauritania has been poor in terms of health and nutrition for many years, but since the French military invaded MSF says the situation has deteriorated.

It said the intervention triggered an influx of 15,000 new refugees.

Consultations in MSF clinics have increased from 1,500 to 2,500 per week and the number of children admitted for severe malnutrition has more than doubled.

Related articles

• Mali prisoners tortured with acid (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Another French soldier dies in Mali (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Malian military dictator interviewed (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• German militarism and Mali war (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Fear of army reprisals sparks Mali refugee flight (news.terra.com)
• Portraits of Malian Refugee Camps in Niger, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• France wants 1,000 permanent troops in Mali (worldbulletin.net)
• ‘France, US want to keep Africa under the colonial rule’ (rt.com)

Libyan war refugees at World Social Forum

This video says about itself:

March 8, 2011

As the world marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, euronews went to the Libyan-Tunisian border to meet some of the female migrants who are fleeing the violence in Libya.

The al-Choucha camp is seven kilometres inside Tunisia. Its residents quit their jobs to escape the unrest, missing out on a valuable source of income which they send home to their families.

One Somali refugee said there are several pregnant women inside the camp and they need urgent medical help.

From IPS news agency:

Libya: Refugees of Libyan War Protest At World Social Forum

By Alberto Pradilla, 31 March 2013

Tunis — “We need a solution. The U.N. has created the problem, and they should do their work and fix it,” says Bright, a young Nigerian stuck in the Choucha refugee camp in Tunisia, a few kilometres from the Libyan border.

Bright and hundreds of other refugees have spent the last two years in a camp that has turned into a no man’s land. They are mainly immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who were living in Libya but fled the country at the start of the armed clashes that led to the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi (1969-2011).

Of the thousands who originally crossed the border, 250 are left, from different countries. Their refugee status is not recognised, and officially they don’t exist. The United Nations rejected their applications for asylum, and they can’t return to their countries of origin or Libya, where blacks are suspected of being loyalists or mercenaries and face repression.

They are living in extreme conditions, and their plight is ignored by international institutions and the Tunisian government.

During this week’s World Social Forum, held in Tunis, a group of 50 refugees made it to the capital to demand a solution. Thirty-seven of them declared a hunger strike on Friday Mar. 29 outside the office of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR).

The hunger strikers pledged to continue their fast until a solution was found. The situation of the refugees will become even more complex if the camp is closed in June, as the UNHCR has announced.

“In my country I was active in political issues, so I was persecuted. That’s why I went to Libya,” Mousa Ibrahim, from Ghana, tells IPS. Ghanaians are the largest group in Choucha, where there are 80 people from that West African nation.

Ibrahim says he was working in Zawiya, a city on Libya’s Mediterranean coast 45 km west of Tripoli, until Mar. 20, 2011. When the civil war broke out, he fled with his then-pregnant wife and their five-year-old son.

“I registered in the camp because they promised that they would recognise us as refugees,” he complains. But more than 48 months have gone by; his daughter Jalida was born in Choucha, and his situation has merely gotten worse and worse.

“The Tunisian refugee commission has rejected me. They say I have two options: to go back to my country or return to Libya. In Ghana I would be thrown into prison or killed. And in Libya, black people are persecuted. I just want to be recognised as a refugee and allowed to go to a country where I can live in safety,” he says.

Two years ago, the Libyan conflict triggered an exodus that overwhelmed Ras Jdir, the main border crossing into Tunisia from Libya, and led to its temporary closure.

The UNCHR gradually transferred most of the refugees from the Choucha camp. The remaining families, from Ghana, Nigeria, the Western Sahara, the Darfur region in Sudan, or Palestine, complain that they were left out of the transfer, for one reason or another.

At first, dozens of organisations were working to address the humanitarian crisis in the camp. But now, hardly any aid is arriving. The refugees continue to sleep in the tents in the camp, but the assistance is drying up.

Food stopped arriving five months ago, and they do what they can to find food. And since their applications for refugee status have been rejected, they don’t have the right to be relocated to another country. In practice, it is as if they didn’t exist.

“We aren’t immigrants and we aren’t trying to go to another country because we’re looking for work. The problem is political: we are refugees,” Bright tells IPS during a sit-in outside of the European Union office in Tunisia on Wednesday Mar. 27.

Frightened by the prospect of the closure of the camp in June, the refugees have begun to mobilise.

But survival itself is difficult, let alone carrying out a campaign to raise awareness of their plight and demand solutions.

On one hand are the economic problems. They hardly scrape by, and need the help of Tunisian and foreign activists who collect funds to pay for their trips.

Then there are the obstacles put in place by the Tunisian government, which has sent in police to keep the refugees from moving about.

That happened in January, when around 100 of them managed to reach the capital, where they spent five days informing people about their situation.

And it happened again before the World Social Forum. When they were heading out of the camp, the police stopped their buses at Ben Gardane, 443 km south of Tunis.

But half of the refugees who had set out, including Ibrahim and Bright, made it.

Their signs were visible at the entrance to the World Social Forum, held Mar. 26-30 on the El Manar university campus. The placards were also seen outside official buildings like the U.S. and British embassies.

Their demand is clear: a solution to leave behind the limbo in which they are living.

But although the question of the refugees came up in several workshops this week at the WSF – the largest global gathering of organised civil society opposed to the direction globalisation is taking – and many activists expressed solidarity with their cause, no clear statement was issued urging the U.N. to reconsider their status.

“This is a real case, not theory,” Bright complains. His tired eyes show how fed up he is with all the doors being slammed in his face, and reflect his lack of confidence in institutions that have failed to help him and his fellow refugees.

The refugees say official representatives have tried to negotiate in parallel with the different national communities in the camp, while the deadline of closure looms.

The WSF ended Saturday in Tunis with a closing act and a demonstration for the Palestinians’ Land Day. Meanwhile, the unrecognised refugees will stay here, waiting for a solution.

See also here.

Libya: Thousands of Libyan Families Displaced in the Nafusa Mountains: here.

Libya intervention more questionable in rear view mirror: here.

Related articles

• World Social Forum Meets in Tunisia (spyghana.com)
• Women’s rights rally in Tunisia (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• World Social Forum begins with march through streets of Tunis (guardian.co.uk)
• Warning: NATO War Crimes Against Libyans Graphic Photos (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
• Arab Spring Shifts Focus of World Social Forum (commondreams.org)
• Refugees of Libyan War Protest at World Social Forum (ipsnews.net)
• Seven Hospitalized in Shousha Camp Hunger Strike (tunisia-live.net)
• Press Release concerning the Hungerstrike (theinvisiblenetwork.wordpress.com)
• Hunger strikers: ‘We will die here’ (newint.org)
• Tunisia Now Exporting “Jihadis” (ipsnews.net)

Greek nazis, police attack refugees

This video on neonazis is called The Rise of ‘Golden Dawn’ in Greece.

From Amnesty International:

20 December 2012

Asylum-seekers and migrants in Greece hounded by police operations and right-wing extremists

Greece is seriously failing to respect the rights of asylum-seekers and migrants, Amnesty International warned in a briefing published today.

Every year, tens of thousands of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa cross the Greek land and sea border with Turkey in search of shelter, refuge or just a better life within the European Union (EU). Few of them find it in Greece.

Amnesty International’s briefing Greece: The end of the road for refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants charts the obstacles they encounter entering the country and challenges they face once there.

“Greece’s failure to respect the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers is taking on the proportions of a humanitarian crisis. Against a backdrop of sustained migratory pressure, profound economic crisis and rising xenophobic sentiment, Greece is proving itself incapable of providing even the most basic requirements of safety and shelter to the thousands of asylum seekers and migrants arriving each year,” said John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

While the burden on Greece is great, there is no excuse for the obstacles asylum-seekers face in registering their asylum claims. A new agency set up by law in 2011 to hear asylum applications is yet to process a single case on account of staffing shortages.

In the meantime, at the Attika Aliens Police Directorate in Athens, only around 20 people succeed in registering their asylum application on the one day a week it opens. The queue forms days in advance and stretches hundreds long down the street. Amnesty International spoke to numerous asylum-seekers who had had to fight their fellows to keep their place.

The majority who do not manage – or give up trying – to register their asylum claims run the risk of arrest in mass sweep operations and of being detained in overcrowded, unhygienic detention facilities for up to a year or more.

“The Greek authorities continue to systematically detain asylum-seekers and irregular migrants including unaccompanied children in breach of international standards and seem to use detention – often in appalling conditions – as a deterrent,” said Dalhuisen.

“The situation of unaccompanied children, who are amongst the most vulnerable, is particularly worrying. We found several children detained among adults in very poor conditions during a recent visit at the Corinth detention centre. If a place is not found at a reception centre, they are released with no shelter being provided for them.

“The Greek authorities must ensure that immigration-related detention is used only as a last resort and that they prohibit the detention of unaccompanied children in law and end it in practice.

“Amnesty International has even received reports of people fleeing conflict and war in countries such as Syria being pushed back to Turkey through the river Evros.”

There has also been a dramatic rise of in the number of racially motivated attacks throughout 2012. Asylum-seekers, migrants, community centres, shops and mosques have been the target of such attacks which have been reported on an almost daily basis since the summer.

“The Greek authorities must condemn in a loud voice and effectively investigate and prosecute all racially-motivated violence” said Dalhuisen.

A draft presidential decree creating the specialized police units to curb racist violence is a first step towards the right direction, but falls short of guaranteeing the effective investigations and prosecutions for crimes where victims are reluctant to approach the police for fear of arrest and detention themselves.

EU asylum policy requires asylum-seekers to return to the first country they entered upon arrival in the EU. However, after the European Court of Human Rights concluded in 2011 that Greece lacked an effective asylum determination system, many EU countries have halted the return of asylum-seekers to Greece.

“Most European countries have taken the right step in stopping the return of asylum seekers to Greece until the country reforms its asylum system. However, they must share responsibility for processing asylum applications and supporting asylum seekers more equally among member states,” said Dalhuisen.

“The current situation in Greece is totally unworthy of the Nobel Peace Prize winning European Union and so far below international human rights standards as to make a mockery of them. Greece needs help but it must also accept its own responsibilities.”

Cases

In June 2012, N., from Aleppo, Syria, was on a boat with six other Syrians when in the middle of the river, where supposedly the Greek border starts, Greek police arrived in a patrol boat and reportedly started pushing their inflatable dinghy back towards Turkey. Then a police officer used a knife to stab the plastic fabric of the boat, which then sank, leaving people to swim to the Turkish shore.

K., an asylum-seeker of African origin who was trying to apply for asylum for months, was arrested during a sweep operation against irregular migrants in Athens in August 2012 held in a detention facility. K. kept on trying to apply for asylum while in detention and in October his asylum application was registered, following multiple interventions by non-governmental organizations. However, in December 2012, he was still being held in detention.

On 10 September 2012, two men dressed in black entered a barbershop run by a Pakistani man. Two Pakistani men who were present, one of them staff, told Amnesty International how the two men verbally attacked the Greek customer who was present for having a haircut in a shop owned by Pakistanis and stabbed him when he reacted. Then they started destroying the shop and throwing Molotov cocktails. The police came to investigate the incident and arrested two Pakistani nationals because they had no documents. In October, they were both in detention, pending deportation.

See also here.

Related articles

• Syrian refugees ‘turned back from Greek border by police’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Greek police accused over racism (bbc.co.uk)
• Nauru described as cruel and degrading (bigpondnews.com)
• Detainee condemns ‘slaughterhouse’ Nauru (abc.net.au)
• Germany suspends returning asylum seekers to Greece for second year (ekathimerini.com)
• Greek Police Accused of Brutality Again (eu.greekreporter.com)
• Refugees to get $440 a fortnight (dailytelegraph.com.au)
• Australia’s ‘overwhelmed’ asylum centers slammed (edition.cnn.com)
• Asylum seeker rooftop protest continues (bigpondnews.com)
• UN official highlights deep immigration problems in Greece after visit (ekathimerini.com)

G4S mercenaries get British taxpayers’ millions

This is a music video by British punk band Crass, of their song Securicor (another name for G4S corporation). Lyrics are here.

From weekly Socialist Worker in Britain:

6.57pm Tue 27 Nov 2012

£93 million a year for firm of bunglers with bloody hands

The Tories are handing millions to some of the country’s least favourite private contractors.

A new report into government spending on the criminal justice system shows that one of the biggest beneficiaries has been G4S.

The firm is best known for bungling the security operation at the Olympics.

G4S got £93 million in the first year of the coalition government to run services for the UK Border Agency.

Yet G4S has been widely criticised for their treatment of failed asylum seekers during deportations and the conditions in the detention centres they run.

Jimmy Mubenga died in 2010 as three G4S private security guards were forcibly deporting him to Angola. He appeared to have died of asphyxiation. The three guards were arrested but never charged.

Out of the £170 million the Tories spent on contactors, four security giants—Serco, G4S Care and Justice Services, and the GEO Group—accounted for 90 percent of it.

Serco and G4S have raked in huge chunks of the half a billion budget for electronic tagging, court to prison escort services and prisons and detention centres.

In just these two areas these two companies grabbed over 55 percent of the government budget. Serco’s global business is already worth over £4 billion and is set to benefit from NHS privatisation. Let’s hope they look after patients better than they did Jimmy Mubenga.

Related articles

• Serco and G4S making a killing by British outsourcing craze (antonyloewenstein.com)
• Protesters mark Mubenga death (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• G4S ‘corners market on detention’ (independent.co.uk)
• G4S’s Olympics Punishment Could Be a Buying Opportunity (fool.com)
• Wiri prison contract may be reviewed by future Labour govt (nzherald.co.nz)
• Serco Awarded $68 Million U.S. Navy Production and Engineering Services Contract (virtual-strategy.com)
• G4S loses prison privileges after Olympic staff debacle (thetimes.co.uk)
• G4S loses contract to run East Yorkshire’s Wolds prison (independent.co.uk)
• G4S in the running to take control of privatised probation (independent.co.uk)

Racism in British media

This video from the USA is called Negative Portrayal of Blacks in the Media.

By Chizom Ekeh in Britain:

Racism and the British press

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Protests have rocked the Muslim world over the past week, sparked by a tawdry amateur film produced in the US widely seen as a gratuitous attack on Islam.

Throughout the Middle East the ongoing reality of US interference and bloodshed makes any insult to the Islamic tradition especially provocative. But even in Britain Muslims have cause to feel they are seen as “fair game” by an unscrupulous media.

The Leveson Inquiry is entering its concluding phase and the subject of press racism has been ignored.

Only two of 99 witnesses called to give evidence have been from minority backgrounds, leading critics to slam the inquiry as “white people addressing white people.”

Yet a swathe of independent studies show that press racism exists and continues to shape public perceptions and attitudes towards ethnic minorities.

When women’s groups gave evidence to the inquiry in January, demanding the censorship of sexualised images of women such as the Sun‘s infamous page three and attacking the myths perpetuated about rape by some outlets, it received widespread coverage.

Lord Justice Leveson admitted that much tougher regulation would be needed to tackle the problem.

Surely media racism is worthy of the same attention?

Dr Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed of Sussex University recently submitted the report Race and reform: Islam and Muslims in the British media to Leveson.

It highlighted the correlation between increased incidences of racist violence on the streets and the streams of anti-Muslim coverage in the press.

“In 2010, 75 per cent of non-Muslims believed Islam was negative for Britain and that Muslims do not engage positively in society,” it notes, while “63 per cent did not disagree that ‘Muslims are terrorists‘ and 94 per cent agreed that ‘Islam oppresses women’.”

Dr Ahmed warns: “A by-product of this social polarisation is that many British Muslims increasingly see British media and society as Islamophobic, contributing to a greater sense of alienation and undermining a sense of belonging.”

Anti-Muslim reporting “reinforces extremist narratives and vindicates the anti-Western ideologies promoted by militants,” he adds.

As the Runnymede Trust pointed out in evidence to the inquiry in 2011, similar inflammatory stories are regularly published about immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, fuelling community tension.

It called for an alternative regulatory regime which would reverse the Press Complaints Commission’s (PCC’s) failure “to advise editors that relentless repetition of hostile epithets amounts to unbalanced reporting and is likely to generate hostile views in local communities.”

While negative coverage about Muslims has risen significantly since the September 11 2001 terror attacks on New York, other minority groups are also affected by press racism.

David Harker, an assistant editor at the Guardian, recently noted that violence and underachievement among black British citizens continue to be the dominant themes in most stories about African and Caribbean communities.

Such negative stereotypes have a real impact on the life chances of young black people.

Harker notes that a study commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government found that 70 per cent of stories on black men focused on criminality.

“No sensible person could seriously claim that 70 per cent of black boys are criminals, yet this is clearly the image the media portrays,” he says.

“And it is hugely damaging. When boys apply for jobs, what will be in the mind of the employer, who can’t help but be influenced by the media description he or she sees constantly?”

So how successful have efforts been in challenging Fleet Street racism through the ages – beginning in the 1970s, when it was at its height?

The NUJ did not escape Thatcher‘s 1980s onslaught against the unions. In the past journalists at the Express revolted against Richard Desmond’s demands for inflammatory stories about Gypsies and travellers, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a walkout by journalists over issues of race – though the Daily Star was forced to pull a page mocking Muslims after its NUJ chapel objected in 2006.

The old Commission for Racial Equality was hated by the press for challenging racism. Viewing its anti-racism agenda as an assault on “freedom of speech,” the Daily Mail dubbed it “the Holy Inquisition.”

But its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, made clear in 2008 that it had no intention of taking on the press nor the time or resources to do so.

This was despite the fact that consultation with race groups had revealed media racism to be one of their key concerns.

Six years ago the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF) wrote to the PCC highlighting the fact that its editors’ code of practice had failed to tackle racism.

The letter was prompted by the PCC’s failure to uphold a complaint about the inaccuracy of a story run by the Express in July 200[5], under the heading Bombers are all spongeing asylum-seekers.

It pointed out that not only was the story untrue – but such coverage was “in and of itself both xenophobic and racist in the extreme.”

Clause 13 of the editor’s code says that “the press must avoid prejudicial or perjorative reference to a person’s race, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.”

CPBF recommended that the word “person’s” be removed from the clause – noting that the PCC had not upheld a single complaint under clause 13 and that the revision would “bring within the ambit of the clause much of the racist comment that besmirches most of the British press.”

In 2012, what has changed? Not much. In January the New Statesman investigated the question of race and the British press.

It revealed that there are no non-white national newspaper editors or political editors.

Three nationals did not have a single writer on the comment pages who was not white. Only five journalists from ethnic minority backgrounds had columns in the comment pages of national papers.

Today any discussion about challenging racism in the press is met defensively with the counter-argument about the need for a free press.

Yet Richard Peppiat – a former reported for the Daily Star – contends that what we really have in Britain is merely “corporate free speech” driven by the desire to maximise profits.

Peppiat emphasises that promoting fear and anxiety is often good business for newspapers.

Mehdi Hassan – political editor of the US news website the Huffington Post – has described the “great British commentariat” as a “mono-racial, monocultural closed shop.”

As Hasan highlighted, columnists wield enormous influence over society, policymakers and politicians. They can set the political agenda and define the parameters of national debates.

Contrast the silence over this lack of diversity with the manufactured hype which surrounded an allegedly racist tweet by Labour MP Diane Abbott.

As Brian Cathart, professor of journalism at Kingston University, told the New Statesman earlier this year: “Is the media institutionally racist? The simple answer is yes, of course.”

He adds that the industry “doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to.”

The Leveson Inquiry should take the opportunity to revisit the guidelines on race reporting.

And it should take on board CPBF comments from that letter back in 2006.

“Factually accurate reporting, and reporting free from hatred, bigotry and intolerance, are in our view basic communicative rights in a democratic society and citizens should be fully entitled to complain effectively if those rights are denied.”

In the second of our articles marking Black History Month, Ken Olende looks at how racism in Britain has changed over 50 years of struggle: here.

Israeli government jails Darfur genocide survivors

This video is called Defend African Refugees in Israel.

From daily Haaretz in Israel:

Eli Yishai orders mass roundup of Sudanese migrants, including Darfur genocide survivors

Campaign, set to begin October 15, was approved by Prime Minister’s Office; interior minister also plans to arrest and deport Eritrean migrants.

By Talila Nesher and Jonathan Lis

Aug.29, 2012 | 10:17 PM

Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Wednesday instructed immigration police to begin rounding up and detaining Sudanese migrants on October 15, in what migrants’ aid groups see as a racist move and a violation of the UN Refugee Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.

Because Sudan is classified by Israel as an enemy state, they say, it is forbidden to repatriate Sudanese nationals who are seeking asylum.

Yishai, who made the announcement after obtaining the approval of the Prime Minister’s Office, said migrants who leave the country voluntarily before October 15 will receive assistance from his office, while those who don’t will be imprisoned and deported.

Hotline for Migrant Workers, an organization that assists migrants, said Wednesday that “imprisoning refugees from north Sudan and Darfur, who are genocide survivors, is a blatant violation of the UN Refugee Convention.”

Attorney Yonatan Berman of the Clinic for Migrants’ Rights at the Academic Center for Law and Business said, “Yishai’s complete indifference to human life is astonishing,” adding that Israel’s threat to deport migrants unless they leave the country violates the refugee convention.

“Since it is not possible to deport them, it is illegal to lock up thousands of asylum-seekers for no reason,” Berman said. “We are convinced the Foreign and Justice Ministries have not agreed to the interior minister’s statement, whose main purpose is to create the illusion that he’s doing something,” he added.

“Only a man who has lost all human image can impose the wicked choice on asylum-seekers and their children − to risk their life in returning [to their country] or be imprisoned for years,” said attorney Oded Feller of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

An attack by a gang of Jewish youths on several Palestinian Israelis that left one 17-year-old Palestinian close to death has shocked Israel: here.

Seeking asylum in Israel: The lesbian presented no evidence, you can sleep soundly: here.

Lone children seeking asylum in Britain are confronted with a “culture of disbelief and suspicion” which leaves them frightened and confused, a charity warned on Friday: here.

Related articles

• Israel secretly deports Sudanese migrants (sudantribune.com)
• Israel quietly sends migrants to Sudan (dailystar.com.lb)
• Migrants nearly ‘tricked into leaving Israel’ (timesofisrael.com)
• Only 10 African migrants enter Israel in January (timesofisrael.com)
• Israel deports refugees to Sudan despite threat to their lives. (emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com)
• Detained Sudanese, Eritreans under threat in Israel: HRW (sudantribune.com)
• Rights group: Egypt must stop shooting at migrants (osinan.wordpress.com)
• NGO: Eritrean asylum seekers pressured to leave Israel (jta.org)

Breivik supporters threaten Iraqi refugee, massacre witness

This video from Norway is called Survivors and bereaved respond to Breivik’s testimony.

From DPA news agency, about the court case of racist mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in Norway:

Thursday’s final witness was 20-year-old Mohammed Abdulrahman, who said he saw Breivik gun down a girl who approached him and kicked her. “He then took a smaller weapon and shot her at close range.”

Iraq-born Abdulrahman later jumped into the lake to escape Breivik, despite being a poor swimmer, and got a flashback from a bombing he experienced at his school in Iraq, believing he was about to die.

Unfortunately, Breivik is not the only xenophobe (or the only person giving in cowardly to xenophobes) in the world. Iraqi refugees like Mohammed Abdulrahman are threatened by governments like the Dutch government with deportation to dangerous Iraq.

Today, on the day he testified, Abdulrahman was threatened by e-mail, apparently by a Breivik supporter.

Norwegian TV 2 writes about this (translated):

The threat was very hard on the young man, who previously had dreaded to go to Oslo District Court as a witness.

- It was difficult for him at all to come to Oslo District Court today. It has not made ​​life easier that he is a threatened now.

Iraqi refugees fight deportation to death

This is a video about the Iraqi refugees‘ protest camp in Ter Apel, the Netherlands

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

Iraqis set up camp in Ter Apel

Published on 9 May 2012 – 3:16pm

A group of about 50 failed asylum seekers

These Iraqi refugees have not “failed”. The Dutch Rightist government, guilty in the bloody Iraq war as allies of George W Bush; egged on by the xenophobes of Geert Wilders’ PVV, has failed; in human rights.

have set up camp outside the Ter Apel asylum seekers’ registration centre to protest against their planned deportation.

A spokesperson for the group says that central Iraq, where most of the failed asylum seekers are from, is not safe.

The Iraqis want the Dutch immigration and naturalisation service to reconsider their asylum requests and to provide them with adequate shelter.

“The Netherlands offers us a choice between returning to Iraq and living on the streets. We don’t want to go back. Death awaits us there.”

The group has announced it will stay in the tent camp until its demands are met.

See also here.And here. And here.

A leading Roma activist based in Britain is facing extradition to Bulgaria—where his life will be in danger from racists: here.

USA: In his new book, former Secretary of State Colin Powell provides what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet that there was never a considered debate in the George W. Bush White House about whether going to war in Iraq was really a good idea: here.