Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 233 June/July 2013

Benefits system failing the poor

I am a school-home support worker working in two London primary schools and can see that some of our families are being driven to despair by an increasingly punitive benefit system. Such families are far from being the ‘scrounging scum’ the tabloid press derides; rather, they are decent parents who worry about their children’s future and are stressed out about the lack of jobs available.

One parent I know who could not apply for the required 14 jobs a week was ‘sanctioned’ whilst on jobseeker’s allowance, leaving her with a mere £40 a week for both her and her son to live on. She was forced to go to an emergency food bank. Subsequently her housing benefit was stopped because she was no longer receiving the full jobseekers! This is a Catch-22 nightmare. She is in a state of panic worrying if she will be evicted for non-payment of rent and she has been asking how she will feed her child.

In fact the shocking fast growth in food banks throughout the UK just highlights the failure of the current benefits system: last year more than 350,000 desperate people needed emergency food and this number will escalate as a result of the government’s recent welfare reforms. I hope that some of the parents will take inspiration from the Counihan Sanchez Family Housing campaign. Thank you for providing coverage of this as it inspires people to get organised in their communities and fight back against attacks on their security.

Ayesha Taylor

North London

Prisoner seeks assistance with case against negligent solicitors – can you help?

I am writing in the hope you will be able to help me. The problem I have is to do with a civil court action in the Central London County Court.

In 2005 I acquired the services of a solicitors’ firm to represent me in my appeal. For two years this firm ignored me and then forgot my case. When I complained, they denied representing me and would not return any of my property.

I then complained to the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) and the solicitors were found guilty of three counts of negligence. However, the LCS was unable to order to the solicitors to return my property. I appealed to the Legal Ombudsman with the same result.

During the investigation the LCS did not collect all the evidence I told them existed. As a result, I had to collect it myself. I then commenced County Court civil proceedings in 2009. The firm maintained a stance of denial. In 2011 the defendant found all my legal papers and sent them to a new solicitor.

I am still trying to proceed with the case, even though the Central London County Court has lost all the papers on three occasions, and I have not heard anything from the court since 2011. This firm deliberately withheld my case papers for five years and has caused me immeasurable damage and stress, as well as incalculable damage through loss of evidence that can now never be obtained due to data protection time limits on preserving evidence.

I have been held in segregation for the last three and a half years and have developed serious health problems as a result of all this. Recently there have also been some new developments in my case and the CCRC is currently reviewing it. This should have been done seven years ago if this firm had done as promised.

I have spent thousands of hours and thousands of pounds borrowed from family to pursue this issue, and I keep meeting obstacles because, I believe, I am an unrepresented prisoner with little legal expertise. I have tried to seek alternative legal representation before, but I suspect that no solicitor is willing to sue another solicitor. I am writing to you in the hope that someone will be willing to help me. I do not even need a solicitor – just someone who is willing to write letters to the court, who can do some internet research for me and who has a bit of civil court knowledge.

George Black A3887AE

HMP Whitemoor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs PE15 0PR

The case against Pervez Musharraf

News of the former president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, being taken into custody is welcome. His time in office was full of allegations of abuses, which were confirmed in his memoir In the line of fire. His boasts include the illegal rendition of more than 500 people to the United States, many of whom were later found to be innocent but still languish in Guantanamo. He admitted to the many financial incentives the US offered for these people, as though renditioning of people was a legitimate way of increasing funds to Pakistan’s treasury. One could say it was a form of export.

It was Musharraf who gave the order in 2007 for the attack on the Red Mosque in Islamabad which left 1,300 people dead or missing, many of them women.

Musharraf also illegally detained judges, which is the basis for the current case against him. He did so after sacking the Chief Justice and imposing emergency rule. One of the motives for this was that the Chief Justice was questioning the government about the ‘disappearing’ of its citizens by various agencies – also, by the way, at the request of the US.

However, Pervez Musharraf could never have succeeded without the backing of the most influential institutions in Pakistan, the Army and the Intelligence Services.

The last and most significant atrocity committed by Musharraf is the torture that he has openly admitted. It was used not only against alleged ‘terrorists’ but also against survivors of the Red Mosque siege, lawyers, judges and ordinary citizens. It is applied wholesale in Pakistan – again encouraged by the US and other western countries.

Ironically, Musharraf returned to Pakistan under the pretext of bringing back ‘progress and security’ – yet the current lawlessness prevailing in the country is due to the decisions he and his successors made. And it is those very victims of his in the judiciary who could finally bring down justice on him!

Rangzieb Ahmed A6326AC

HMP Full Sutton, York, Y041 1PS

Was Chavez assassinated?

Thank you for the latest FRFI (April/May 2013). Superb stuff, especially on the Cuban elections and on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. I would add one detail – that many supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution are convinced that Chavez was assassinated, through the introduction of radiation by CIA agents. This was one of the 638 ways to kill Fidel Castro exposed in a Channel 4 documentary a few years ago. As for US motives – where to start? The Comandante’s use of Venezuelan oil to benefit the people rather than monopolies? His friendship with Cuba? The list is endless.

To conclude: all progressives can say of Chavez what Engels said at the grave of Marx: ‘Above all he was a revolutionist. In the struggle, he was in his element. Humanity is shorter by a head and a large one at that.’

Mike Webber

Aylesbury, Bucks

Bedroom tax scam

I was recently told to pay the bedroom tax. I’m currently a student and working. Paying tax, living my life and getting by like most people I know. My housing benefit has recently been slashed since I have a third bedroom – which I did not ask for, like most of the residents in my block of flats. The housing association’s answer to the problem? Demolish all the blocks! Yes, despite homelessness being at at crisis point and housing associations in many areas putting people into B&Bs for lack of social housing, at the same time they’re knocking down 96 homes to build private flats. The housing trust has given me eight weeks to find somewhere else. They’ve been planning this since September 2011 and said nothing till now. My debt (I was already behind before they brought in the bedroom tax) will be taken out of any compensation. With no promise of somewhere safe I have to start from scratch. Meanwhile people on benefits are painted in the media in a bad light. The most recent example is Channel 4’s Skint, which shows people on jobseeker’s allowance mocking people in a full-time job. It’s all about creating scapegoats to distract from the reality of how the majority are treated. Is this any kind of fair representation? I’d like to see Channels 4’s programme ‘for’ welfare, if there ever is one.

Sam Knowles

Wythenshawe, Manchester

Thatcher’s real legacy

I was speaking to a prisoner from Wales following the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and he described how, as a boy, he had gone to work in one of the three mines near his home. At the time all three mines were visible from his front door. Soon there was no visible indication that they had ever been there.

After the mines closed, he and many others became unemployed, and my man was active in the demonstrations against the closures. I was told of extreme brutality by ‘army disguised as police’ which included ‘stabbing with pointed shields’ and stamping on the bare feet of demonstrators. My man knew miners’ leader Arthur Scargill and corresponded with him, and he shared a good deal of his pleasure in hearing that Mrs Thatcher had passed away. What he told me indicates what Mrs Thatcher’s ‘legacy’ really is and I was not surprised when he told me ‘I wouldn’t be where I am today [ie prison] were it not for her’.

George Coombes

Brighton