Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 229 October/November 2012
Support Basque political prisoners! No to extradition!
On Friday 13 July, Basque national Benat Atorrasagasti Ordonez was arrested in the Leith area of Edinburgh. The raid on his flat was the outcome of a lengthy joint operation between Spain’s Guardia Civil and Lothian and Borders police. A judge at the National Court in Madrid made a formal written request to the British authorities to detain him under a European Arrest Warrant. They duly complied.
Benat has a job in Britain, where he had been living openly with his wife and two young children for ten years. He appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court on 16 July for an initial extradition hearing, where the court heard that he was wanted under two extradition acts: one in France dating from 2006 where he was sentenced to five years imprisonment in his absence, the other to stand trial in Spain. Benat’s solicitor told the sheriff that his client ‘does not consent to extradition and denies any wrongdoing in France or Spain’ and went on to emphasise that Benat had made no attempt to conceal his identity, pointing out that he had a national insurance number and paid council tax and energy bills.
The court set the next hearing for 7 September, subsequently put back to 8 October. He is currently being held in Edinburgh’s Saughton prison. The Edinburgh-based James Connolly Society is supporting Benat in his fight against extradition and is ‘calling on the SNP government to intervene and allow Benat and his family to get on with their life in Scotland.’ FRFI demands an end to the Spanish state’s ruthless campaign against Basque political prisoners, independent political parties and trade unions.
Free Benat! Free all political prisoners!
DANIEL MCGARRELL
Glasgow
There will be an event in solidarity with Basque prisoners on 24 November at Brixton Jamm in south London from 12noon until late. More information from London Basque Solidarity – contact [email protected]
Rangzieb Ahmed: a step closer to justice?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has given permission for Rangzieb Ahmed and Salahuddin Amin to challenge the British government for infringing their human rights by colluding with their torture at the hands of the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI).
Both men are serving life imprisonment on terrorism charges.
Rangzieb Ahmed, from Rochdale near Manchester, was detained by the ISI in 2005 at the request of MI5. He was shackled, beaten and deprived of sleep as well as having three fingernails pulled out with pliers, and interrogated with questions supplied by British security services. He was also questioned and threatened directly by MI5.
In 2008 he was sentenced to life imprisonment as an allegedly ‘high-ranking’ member of Al Qaeda. The jury was never informed of his ill-treatment and, in rejecting his application to appeal in 2011, Britain’s Supreme Court threw out any suggestion of British complicity in his torture.
Now the ECtHR has written to the British government demanding explanations on a number of issues relating to MI5 involvement in the men’s mistreatment; if the court does not receive satisfactory answers by the end of October, it will proceed to a full hearing which, if successful, will almost certainly lead to the British courts being forced to quash the convictions. Evidence obtained by torture is not permitted under British or European law.
In 2009, Ahmed was visited in his cell in Manchester by two men identifying themselves as MI5, who offered him a deal – money and a reduced sentence – in return for dropping his allegations of torture against them. How long can Britain persist in its official cover-up, when it is an open secret that it has colluded with torture and ill-treatment of detainees throughout the so-called ‘War against Terror’? If the case of Salahuddin Amin and Rangzieb Ahmed goes to a full hearing, it will blow the issue wide open once again.
Write to
Rangzieb Ahmed (A6326AC),
HMP Full Sutton,
York YO41 1PS
CAT ALLISON
South London
Boxing legends
I just wanted to congratulate Matt Kelly on the superb tribute to Teofilo Stevenson in FRFI 228. Some readers may be unaware of the context of Teofilo’s remark about the love of millions of Cubans being more important than money. US promoters had been trying to arrange a fight between him and Muhammad Ali, and the stumbling block was that for it to take place, Teofilo would have had to defect to the US and turn professional, as all sport in Cuba is amateur. This he would not do. It is noteworthy that while Ali described with much relish the thrashings he would mete out to rivals as distinguished as Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, his attitude to Teofilo was vastly more respectful, suggesting that had they ever met in the ring, it would have been a draw. This should not surprise – Ali won the admiration of a generation for refusing to fight for US imperialism in Vietnam. Teofilo deserves no less for refusing to desert besieged socialist Cuba to ingratiate himself with the US rulers imposing the siege.
MIKE WEBBER
Aylesbury
Opposing British Army recruitment
It was great to read in the last issue of FRFI about the two young activists who stood in front of the British army recruiting stalls at an education and employment fair.
Given the free rein the British army has over the British media it takes a great deal of courage to go against the carefully constructed wisdom that the army can do no wrong.
The fact that these young men have been willing to do so at such a young age and so publicly is tremendous credit to their ability to think freely against a barrage of propaganda.
I hope they are as proud of themselves as I was to read about their actions.
Steven McAvoy
Glasgow
No Olympic legacy for the working class
Cat Wiener is right to point out the militarisation of the Olympic Games (FRFI 228). But it is also the most commercialised ever. I feel quite sick at the level of involvement of corporations such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. The ‘Olympic spirit’ has been bought out by these vicious capitalists. I am a resident of the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, one of the most deprived and racially mixed areas of the UK, and the truth is that to the vast majority of people here, the Olympics are irrelevant. Even if they could get ahead of the queue of corporate hospitality clients, they could not afford a ticket to the Games anyway. For poor working class people here there will be no ‘Olympic legacy’: just imagine how much better the £12bn could have been spent on jobs and housing.
By the way, the article under the banner ‘Lessons of history for communists’ by Robert Clough in the same issue was brilliant. I do hope that this strand will become a regular item in the paper. It was pitched just right for the general reader and most useful.
JON KEMPSTER
East London
Fight for a more equal future
Your article ‘Poverty and inequality in Britain’ (FRFI 228, August/ September) was a hard-hitting expose of how divided life is in the UK today. It really is shocking.
Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson have exposed how damaging income inequality can be. In their recent book The Spirit Level, they show how a wide gap between rich and poor actually makes our physical and mental health worse. Very unequal societies like the US and Britain can be really stressful and make people ill. Research also shows that high levels of inequality reduce levels of trust between people and cut social mobility. The educational performance of school children is also hit hard by a divided society. Everyone is affected, but the poor suffer most.
The Equality Trust has done some fascinating research on this issue. I recommend looking at their website at www.equalitytrust.org.uk. A more equal society would make us healthier and more successful. That’s the kind of future socialists should fight for.
GRAEME KEMP
Shropshire
