Revolutionary Communist Group

Racism, poverty, and imprisonment – the plight of Syria's refugees

Details: Created: Tuesday, 04 February 2014 18:16; Written by FRFI

Three years of war in Syria have created a major refugee crisis. At least 2.3 million people have been forced over Syria's borders. Britain, France and other European governments are happy to fuel the war with money and weapons, but less generous when it comes to accommodating these refugees. The entire European Union has offered refuge, under a UN plan, to only 12,000 people – 0.5% of the total displaced. The vast majority are living in Syria's neighbouring countries. Those seeking to escape from these overcrowded and deprived situations face the militarised borders of the EU, immigration prisons, hostility and racism.

Focus E15 campaign: fighting slum ‘temporary accommodation’

Details: Created: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 15:19; Written by FRFI

The latest government figures show that 51,940 households in London, containing more than 90,000 children, are in temporary accommodation –a rise of 8% since this time last year. What the statistics do not show is the increasingly appalling reality of such accommodation, as councils farm out their housing responsibilities to unscrupulous private landlords, often outside London. The vast majority of households accepted by local authorities as homeless are single mothers and pregnant women. Guidelines state that no-one should be in temporary accommodation for more than six months, yet in London more than half of households remain there for up to two years; some for even longer. The Focus E15 campaign has been exposing the role of Waltham Forest and Newham Labour councils in east London in decanting homeless families to wholly unsuitable accommodation that is unsafe, overcrowded and far from extended family, jobs and support networks.

Victory at Glasgow job centre!

Details: Created: Friday, 11 July 2014 21:41; Written by Scotland Branches

Glasgow Fight Racism Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) supporter Dominic O’Hara has won a victory over Laurieston job centre staff who are denying claimants the right to be accompanied and to take notes during job centre interviews. Aware of the benefit sanctions being used against hundreds of thousands of claimants Dominic decided from the start that he would record each interview he attended by taking his own personal notes that could be used as part of his appeal evidence should staff ever try to sanction him.

On 27 June he was asked and then told to stop taking notes by a DWP staff member who claimed that it was ‘illegal’. When Dominic asked for the interview to continue with a focus on the positives the staff member replied ‘you don’t have any positives’. This was noted. Dominic was then physically escorted by staff and security to part of the building which has plastic security screening separating staff from claimants. Dominic described this experience as an attempt to criminalise him for defending his rights. Staff terminated his interview after further attempts to stop him taking notes failed and he refused to sign a declaration for his Claimant Commitment to be reviewed. Dominic was then told he would be referred to a Jobcentre manager, to which he immediately agreed. As no managers were available, he was signed on for his Jobseekers’ Allowance and given an appointment to meet a manager the following week.

Accompanied by a friend and fellow FRFI supporter, Dominic met with a manager of Laurieston job centre on 30 June. Both challenged the manager was challenged and forced him to apologise over the behaviour of his staff and their claims that it was “illegal” to take notes. The manager agreed that the DWP had no legal powers to stop claimants taking their own personal notes during jobcentre interviews on their own notepad (not in the work plan booklet). No attempt was made to prevent Dominic’s friend accompanying him, and the two were in fact treated with uncharacteristic respect by G4S security and DWP staff.

A useful leaflet from Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty cites a letter written in 2010 on behalf of the Chief Executive of JobCentre Plus which acknowledges the right to be accompanied to benefit interviews: ‘On the matter of accompanied interviews…We accept that there will always be times when customers attending our premises feel the need to be accompanied by a friend or advice worker and we will always try to accommodate this where possible.’

The lesson of this small encounter is that claimants are not given their legal rights but have to fight for them. With recent declarations made against sanctions by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), who organise amongst Job centre staff, the time for action is now!

For more details visit and to get active contact

www.frfi.co.uk

glasgowdefencecampaign.blogspot.com

Facebook ‘Glasgow FRFI’

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

07923961864

History has absolved Fidel Castro - Happy 90th birthday!

Details: Created: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 15:06; Written by Susan Davidson

Fidel Castro

On 13 August, Cuba will celebrate Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday; his longevity is a source of comfort and pride. The Revolutionary Communist Group pays tribute to this great revolutionary communist. Fidel’s genius has been his ability to meet the need for tactical steps, responding to the day’s urgencies, without losing sight of the strategic direction – the revolutionary principles – that have driven the revolution. Equally important has been the ‘wonderful quality’ that Che Guevara noted: his capacity to establish direct contact with the masses, always communicating, explaining, motivating and responding to the Cuban people.

As a young anti-corruption lawyer, Fidel understood that the brutal military coup that returned Batista to power in Cuba in 1952 signalled the impossibility of a peaceful constitutional path to reform in Cuba. Together with his brother Raul and others, he launched the 26 July Movement, named after the day of simultaneous attacks on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the Bayamo Barracks in Oriente by 160 young militants.

Coup attempt in Turkey: war on Kurds continues

Details: Created: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 14:35; Written by Trevor Rayne

turk beat reuters

The failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016 demonstrates the fragility of Turkish society and has accelerated its descent into fascism and war. President Erdogan said the coup attempt was ‘a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army’. At the latest count some 60,000 people have been detained or sacked; soldiers, academics, journalists, judges, civil servants, teachers, anyone who opposed Erdogan’s government, is at risk of being accused of backing the coup. Captives have been paraded before cameras showing signs of beatings. Under the state of emergency declared on 20 July all constitutional constraints on the president have been removed. With a third of Turkey’s generals and admirals arrested and 2,745 judges, a quarter of the judiciary, sacked, the military and the courts will have difficulty functioning. As the Financial Times put it, ‘Turkey faces a risk of institutional collapse’ (22 July 2016). Trevor Rayne reports.