Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 6, September/ October 1980
An outrage against the people of St Paul’s is being perpetrated in the Bristol courts. Already fines of £1,500 have been exacted by the magistrates. More than ten people have been convicted of offences arising out of the uprising on 2 April 1980. The most vicious attack is yet to come.
Fifteen defendants, one of whom is remanded in custody, are on a joint charge of having ‘riotously assembled together’ and face possible prison sentences of over two years. This charge was brought only after deliberations by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The British state is directing a calculated attack of intimidation.
The riotous assembly charge is brought under ‘common law’, law that is the result of decades of repression against the oppressed workers fighting for their freedom. According to common law:
‘Riot is a tumultuous disturbance of the peace by three or more persons who assemble together of their own authority, with an intent mutually to assist one another against any who oppose them in the execution of an enterprise of a private nature, and afterwards actually execute the same in a violent and turbulent manner to the terror of the people.’
On whose ‘authority’ did the police attack the black community when they raided the Black and White café? Which ‘people’ were terrorised during the St Paul’s uprising? The mass of the people of St Paul’s, the poor and oppressed, the black people, were on the streets driving away the police! The uprising struck terror in the hearts of the ruling class and its racist police, not the people!
Neither was the uprising ‘an enterprise of a private nature’. The main targets were the police and the robber Lloyds Bank. The uprising signalled the political resistance of black workers and sections of poor whites to the racist British state.
The fifteen defendants appear at Bristol Magistrates Court on 22 September. Their trial will be at the Crown Court some time in 1981. They are fifteen out of a whole community that rose up to defeat the police on the streets. These brothers and sisters must have every support. All charges against them must be dropped. The British state will not be allowed to get away with its repression through the courts, the spirit of resistance lives in St Paul’s.
Donations, further details and messages of support to [APPEAL HAS NOW CLOSED]:
United Defence Committee, c/o Albert Villas, Grosvenor Road, St Paul’s, Bristol.
