Roma communities are facing a hostile environment in numerous European states. The European Commission needs to strike a fine balance between promoting change and allowing states to tackle this situation themselves.
Migration control increasingly resembles crime control, what’s worse is that migrants are not afforded the same long-fought for procedural safeguards as suspected criminal offenders. Ultimately, history tells us that this is a matter of concern for us all, foreigner and citizen alike
The UNHCR admits that that refugees fleeing Rwanda after 1998 still may have a well-founded fear of persecution, so what lies behind its decision to invoke the Cessation Clause?
Russia has a newly inaugurated president, but its capital has been shaken by two days of unexpected violence and arrests. Writer Lev Rubinstein was drinking coffee in a downtown Moscow cafe popular with the city’s intelligentsia when riot police arrived, cleared the building, and arrested a number
In an article first published on oDR in August 2011, Sergei Zhadan explores how the Euro 2012 football championships have become something of a substitute national idea in Ukraine.
The recent mistreatment of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has caused European leaders to call for a boycott of Euro-2012. This is all very well, but the championship will go ahead and President Yanukovych isn’t bothered by empty threats. He would be if they were backed up by deed
Young migrants to London are keen to start their lives in the metropolis, but find that they are blocked by the toxic migration debate that is producing policies that are ungenerous and unimaginative.
A month ago today, more than twenty people joined ex-candidate Oleg Shein in a hunger strike against disputed mayoral elections in the regional capital city of Astrakhan, south Russia. As the health of those still protesting continues to decline, Svetlana Reiter spoke to two of the strikers to dis
The brutal rape and murder of Oksana Makar, apparently committed by well-connected children, has forced Ukrainians to reflect on power, elite privilege and impunity, writes Mykola Riabchuk
A Yorkshire campaign deploys rigorous research to expose and resist the astonishing corporate takeover of Britain’s 'asylum seeker markets'
It is easy to write off the events of the last few months as a predictable prelude to bureaucratic revanchism. But the unanticipated protest movement also brought about a significant change, writes Alexei Levinson. This was the sense that Russians can now become members of an internalised free soc
The protest movement which was born after Russia's recent parliamentary elections achieved one very rapid result when President Medvedev announced a programme of political reform, including a new law on political parties. Excellent news this may be, but the opposition will need to keep its eye on
