Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! has been busy over the past two months organising meetings and demonstrations in support of those fighting back against imperialism internationally or involved in struggle in Britain.
Support asylum seekers!
We have been actively supporting asylum seekers who have taken a stand against racist deportations. In London on 10 February FRFI activists took part in a picket of Harmondsworth Detention Centre to demand its closure. Later in the month FRFI helped organise a demonstration at the Home Office to stop the deportation of families back to dangerous and life-threatening conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Labour government supported the fake elections in the DRC and is deporting asylum seekers on charter flights under the pretence that the DRC is safe. London comrades have also continued pickets on the first Tuesday of every month at Communications House reporting centre for asylum seekers. Come and join us.
In Newcastle, through involvement with Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR), FRFI has been working closely with asylum seekers facing deportation. This has included two Kurdish families who were snatched in dawn raids and taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre and then Heathrow airport. The Erdogan family and the Dagon family both physically resisted their removal and were taken off the aeroplanes as the pilots refused to fly. TCAR held emergency demonstrations outside the Government Offices North East in response to the snatches of both families. FRFI comrades are building support for the pledge of resistance in local communities and are working together with anarchists who are monitoring the activities of the North Shields Immigration Reporting Centre. We will show the government that they cannot simply ‘disappear’ people. Together we are stronger and the government’s actions will have political consequences on the streets.
On 3 March TCAR joined with Newcastle College Student Union and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) staff and students to organise a march and rally against the Labour government’s proposed cuts to funding for ESOL. Along with denial of the right to work and a parallel and inferior welfare system, cuts to ESOL funding are another attempt by the Labour government to divide asylum seekers from others in Britain who are also under attack, and to prevent any united fight back.
Another TCAR family, Joy and her daughter, received notification that they would be deported to Jamaica on Wednesday 14 March, despite a pending citizenship claim by her daughter. TCAR organised a national media campaign and as a result the deportation was frozen. The media focused on the fact that Joy’s sons had served in the British Army, with the front page of the Independent carrying the headline: ‘Your country needs you…but not you: soldiers’ mother faces deportation’.
A TCAR delegation attended the Glasgow No Borders conference with a proposal to coordinate national actions in defence of asylum rights. TCAR argued for the need to take a collective approach and defend the interests of all, recognising the limitations of a legal system that is geared towards failing asylum seekers. Also in Glasgow, on 7 March, FRFI joined a militant demonstration against recent deportations to the DRC. Around 80 asylum-seekers gathered outside the immigration courts, with chanting and singing against dawn raids and deportations.
On 7 March in Manchester the Congo Support Project (CSP) held a lively demonstration outside the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal on Mosley Street. It was supported by FRFI members through the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG). More than 100 protesters from DRC attended, together with some other anti-racist campaigns..
Another of the British state’s disgusting, racist institutions, kept out of the public eye, is Dallas Court Immigration Reporting Centre in Salford Quays. NWASDG has been organising protests outside the building for almost a year, and now more asylum seekers are beginning to do the same. The CSP called a demo on 13 March from 12 noon to 2pm. It was attended by around 250 Congolese refugees, supported by NWASDG and FRFI, some Libyan activists and other anti-racist individuals. For more than 20 minutes the demonstrators blockaded the entrance to Dallas Court, forcing it to be temporarily closed, and gave speeches about British imperialism’s reactionary record in DRC, and demanding the right to stay. When the police attempted to arrest one black man for ‘picking up a brick’ or ‘other offensive object’ (a mysterious thing which was never found) the crowd physically rescued him from the arms of two cops. When it was discovered that Rosetta, a Congolese woman signing on, had been detained at the centre, the demo demanded her release and extended the protest by 21/2 hours. NWASDG are calling further protests outside Dallas Court
Stop the war!
FRFI has been active against the brutal occupation of Iraq. On 17 March in Trafalgar Square in London, FRFI held an anti-war demonstration as part of the International Day of Action against the War. Written in large chalk letters on the ground were the words ‘655,000 dead in Iraq’. British people and tourists also signed messages of resistance in many languages. We were joined by Kurdish and Turkish comrades from the MLKP. On the same day in Manchester a protest was organised with the Stop the Warmongerers (see Roundup FRFI 195), in Piccadilly Gardens to mark four years since the invasion of Iraq. The local Stop The War Coalition called a ‘die-in’ protest on the same day at the same time in Albert Square, a quarter of a mile away.
In Newcastle FRFI activists have continued their work with Tyneside Stop The War Coalition (TSTWC), engaging in joint activities whilst putting forward the principled demand of a break from the Labour Party. On 24 February a Troops Out demonstration took place in the centre of Newcastle, called by FRFI and supported by Tyneside STWC. On 17 March FRFI activists staged a protest outside a Shell petrol station in the East End of Newcastle to highlight British multinationals’ ambitions in the plunder of Iraq, which was joined by members of Tyneside STWC.
Victory to the Intifada!
In London, weekly demonstrations continue against Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street because of the company’s support for Zionism. In Manchester on 17 February we held a picket of Marks & Spencer on Market Street. The Manchester protest against M&S continues to gather new supporters. A successful picket was also held in Rochdale a week later.
FRFI also attended the opening meeting of the Enough! Coalition in London. Enough! is an organisation formed in large part by the leadership of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. One of the main conditions for joining Enough! is to hold to the principle of non-violence. We wrote and asked if non-violence applied to Palestinians living under occupation. Enough! didn’t answer and rejected our application to join.
Viva Cuba!
Work in solidarity with socialist Cuba has continued around the country. At the London School of Economics there was a meeting organised by the FRFI society. The highly political discussion was about revolution and democracy in Latin America and the main speaker was author DL Raby (see review page 12).
In the last year Rock around the Blockade has raised over £3,000 to support the work of the Union of Young Communists in Cuba (UJC). In April a brigade will be going to Cuba to donate this material aid and give political solidarity to the UJC. There will be report-back meetings across the country in May.
FRFI 196 April / May 2007
