Deteriorated Situations April 2022
Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Korean Peninsula, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Ukraine, El SalvadorIsrael/Palestine, Iran, Libya, Tunisia

Conflict Risk Alerts for April
Korean Peninsula, Pakistan, Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Libya

Improved Situations: None - Resolution Opportunities: None

Hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone – that saw the first use of heavy weapons since the 2020 war in March – could intensify further.

Libya’s political crisis could turn violent again as the two rival governments compete for control of the state’s resources, putting the 2020 ceasefire at risk.
Rising tensions in Israel-Palestine could peak ahead of April religious holidays – risking a wider confrontation – following deadly violence in March that killed at least twenty.

North Korea repeatedly tested components of a military reconnaissance satellite in March, indicating a potential provocative space launch in the coming weeks.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is facing a no-confidence vote on 4 April, the most serious test case to his premiership to date, which could fuel further political instability in Pakistan.

Source: International Crisis Group, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch

Mitie Under Investigation Over Home Office Immigration Contracts

While migrants struggle to find safety in Britain, companies ready to deport them are being investigated for breaking rules to grab as much profit as possible. Home Office outsourcer Mitie was raided by investigators to examine documents and emails between senior staff. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently looking into the relationship between Mitie and US firm PAE. The companies operate a joint venture, Landmarc, for the Ministry of Defence. But they were competing to run Home Office immigration removal centres at Derwentside in County Durham and Heathrow in west London. Mitie expects to be “fully exonerated” and PAE believes the CMA’s investigation is “unfounded”. In a statement to its investors Mitie blames Home Office tendering rules for its withdrawal from the bidding of the Derwentside contract.

But investigators are largely focusing on a separate case over Colnbrook immigration centre at Heathrow after the Home Office referred both companies to the CMA. They were bidding on the contract until PAE pulled out last year, clearing the way for Mitie. The CMA is investigating whether breaches of competition law took place and is looking at the relationship between the companies.

Read more: Isabel Ringrose, Socialist Worker, https://rb.gy/evqmyh

Migrant Seasonal Workers Must Now be Paid at Skilled Worker Rates

At the moment, everyone on a Seasonal Worker visa must be paid minimum wage. That means £9.50 an hour for people over 23 (the “National Living Wage”), a bit less for 21-22 year olds, and £6.83 for those aged 18 to 20.

From 6 April 2022, they must instead be paid at Skilled Worker rates.

Any migrant worker sponsored on the Seasonal Worker route who will be making their application for entry clearance on or after 6 April 2022, applicant Must be paid at least £10.10 for each hour they work.

This is quite a surprising development given that Seasonal Worker was originally designed to provide temporary visas to lower-skilled agricultural workers. Paying lower salaries was an attractive feature for employers.

Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/hmvo4j

‘Unnecessary, Mean-Minded and Vindictive’: Peers Savage Anti-Refugee Bill

Peers inflicted more than 12 more defeats on Priti Patel’s anti-refugee bill yesterday as it returned to the House of Lords. The Tory peer Lord Cormack dismissed the Nationality and Borders Bill as ‘largely unnecessary… mean-minded and at times approaches the vindictive’.

Clauses 9 and 11 of the Bill, which would allow the Home Secretary to strip citizenship without notice, and impose a two-tier system on asylum-seekers based on how they enter the UK, were rejected by the Lords for the first time in February. Following votes in the House of Commons, the controversial provisions were reinstated and sent back to the Lords.

‘I think we got it right the first time in taking the clause out,’ said crossbench Peer Lord Kerr on clause 11, which would criminalise asylum-seekers based on their mode of entry. ‘I think the concern across the country about the way that the Government are treating the victims of Putin’s war in Ukraine shows that we are more in tune with the national mood than the Home Office.’

Peers voted in several amendments, including provisions that would grant asylum-seekers the right to work if their claims are not resolved after six months, and allow unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe to join their family members in the UK.

Read more: Zoe Darling, Justice Gap, https://rb.gy/cg6iyo

Windrush Progress Report Shows Too Many Lessons Aren’t Being Learned

Home Office is Talking the Talk. Not so Much With Walking the Walk

Theme 1: Righting the Wrongs and Learning From the Past - No reconciliation events have taken place yet.

Theme 2: A More Compassionate Approach - There’s still been no review of the whole hostile / compliant environment policy.

Theme 3: Robust and Inclusive Policy-Making - One of the reasons for the lack of progress is that the department “continues to work at pace on highly contentious and politicised policies”, which absorbs a lot of time, energy and resources.

Theme 4: Openness to Scrutiny - The Home Office has rejected the idea of a proper statutory Migrants’ Commissioner and proposes to downgrade it to “chair of an existing advisory group with an extended membership to cover a wider range of interested parties”.

Theme 5: A More Inclusive Workforce - The department is not doing terribly well on workforce diversity either: while it is meeting its “aspiration” for ethnic minority staff overall, “the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff represented at the SCS [Senior Civil Service] level has decreased since 2018”. It is doing better on gender and disability than on race at senior levels.

Conclusion: There Are Some Serious Stumbling Blocks to Real Progress

Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/vkdnpa

Weaponising Violence Against Women: From Ireland to Poland

Sophia Siddiqui for Institute of Race Relations, investigates how the murder of Ashling Murphy in Ireland was used by the far Right to push a racist and misogynistic agenda, and how this follows an all-too familiar pattern across Europe, now replicated at the Polish border, that grassroots groups are pushing back against.

On 12 January, 23-year-old primary school teacher Ashling Murphy was murdered whilst she was out for a run in Tullamore, Ireland. Whilst an outpouring of grief and rage erupted across the world, far-right groups immediately speculated on the nationality of the perpetrator, spreading false rumours online in order to manipulate her death for an anti-migrant cause, whilst claiming to be ‘protectors’ of Irish women. But which women are they claiming to protect? How do such narratives which equate strong borders with the defence of women circulate in different contexts, and what does this tell us about the nature of misogyny and far-right racism?

Searching for an immigrant suspect
As soon as news broke that the gardai arrested a Romanian suspect (who was later released), social media platforms were flooded with material linking Romanians to crimes and calling for the closure of Irish borders. A petition was set up calling for the deportation of the so-called ‘Romanian murderer’ and he and his family received death threats after photos were shared online. When the suspect was released with no charges, the focus immediately moved to the next target, a Syrian man living in direct provision in Tullamore, another false rumour. Jozef Puska, a 31-year-old Slovakian national has since been charged.

The way in which the murder of Ashling quickly morphed into an online frenzied hunt for an immigrant suspect disappeared the victim herself, turning her into a prop for a racist agenda whilst obstructing a criminal investigation, with the gardai calling for misinformation to stop being shared. The focus of far-right groups was not on the murder of Ashling, but solely on the nationality and immigration status of the perpetrator – revealing that they only care about her death if it can be manipulated for an anti-immigrant cause.

Read more: Institute of Race Relations, https://rb.gy/tgf3t6