11 February 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

New centres ‘to detain child asylum seekers’ and families

originally by: The Independent
4th February 2011

The Coalition is accused of watering down its promise to end the detention of child asylum seekers by setting up new centres to detain families refusing to leave the UK. The new “pre-departure accommodation facilities” will be run under a more lax system than the current imprisonment of failed asylum seekers and their offspring.

But the families will still be kept in “secure” units behind high fences for up to a week, reigniting concern over the Coalition’s flagship policy of ending child detention, announced by Nick Clegg in a fanfare of publicity last year.

Campaigners have long warned over the physical and mental impact of detention on children, 1,000 of whom were being held in British centres at the height of the practice in 2009.

Continue reading

16 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

New Cross Fire: 30th year anniversary

On This Day – New Cross
BBC Archive

18th January 2011 will mark 30 years since the controversial fire that claimed many lives and left many questioning the quality of the police investigation into the deaths. There are those that say it was an accident and others, a deliberate racist attack the authorities couldn’t be bothered to investigate! The New Cross Fire was a devastating house fire which killed 13 young black people during a birthday party in New Cross, southeast London on Sunday January 18, 1981.

The black community were shocked by the indifference of the white population, and accused the London Metropolitan Police of covering up the cause, which they suspected was an arson attack motivated by racism; the protests arising out of the fire led to a mobilisation of black political activity.

Continue reading

6 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Praise for suspending Scott sisters’ sentences

originally published by: WAPT.com
29th December 2010

Gov. Haley Barbour met Thursday (23rd Dec 2010) with the NAACP, a day after he suspended the double life sentences for Jamie and Gladys Scott, sisters who have spent years in prison for a robbery that netted $11.00. “We all worked together to make justice work in this state,” said National NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. “I’m here to thank the people and the governor of Mississippi. When you are right, you are right. Gov. Barbour, you were right today.”

According to court records, the Scott sisters were found guilty in 1994 of luring two men down a road near Forest, where three young assailants used a shotgun to rob the men. Gladys Scott is now 36 years old and Jamie Scott is 38 years old.