Steve Cohen chose to give up what could have been a lucrative and high profile career, deciding instead to dedicate himself to the defence of human rights.
Steve Cohen was a Manchester based lawyer and anti deportation campaigner. He helped found the Law Centre in Longsight and the Immigration Aid Unit, helping numerous individuals wrongfully facing deportation.
Steve understood that the legal battle needed to combine with community campaigning, and in 2001, he deposited an archive collection with the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre which documents more than 70 of Manchester's anti deportation and immigration campaigns. The fact that we can remember the names of Viraj Mendis and Anwar Ditta, after so much time has passed, owes much to Steve Cohen's campaigning.
In 2003 Steve founded the group "No One Is Illegal" after publishing a book of the same name and was still campaigning just days before his death in 2009.