The Labour government is clamping down on the right to protest. Under the guise of fighting terrorism the government is creating the legal framework to stop demonstrations against war, racism and poverty. On Saturday 20 May, FRFI comrades were targeted under the same legislation which has removed from Brian Haw, the tireless anti-war campaigner, the right to demonstrate outside Parliament – the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA). Among other things this bans the use of a loudspeaker except by people ‘in a position of authority’, and bans demonstrations without previous authorisation within one kilometre of the Houses of Parliament. One of our comrades was violently arrested, and others assaulted by police as marchers reached Trafalgar Square during the annual Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) march.
An impromptu demonstration was held outside the police station until our comrade was released on bail – charged with using a loudspeaker ‘for the purpose of encouraging the crowd to chant pro-Palestinian and anti-government remarks’ – and summonsed to appear in court on the following Thursday. Unfortunately, PSC organisers stalled over announcing the arrest at their rally, apparently fearing they would be ‘accused of incitement’ if they urged marchers to go to the police station. A Palestinian comrade pointed out that in Palestine/Israel when someone is arrested the entire protest goes to the police station to ensure their release.
The PSC did eventually announce the arrest and invited our comrade to join them in an ongoing legal challenge to the SOCPA by five of their own members previously arrested. We appeal to all witnesses to contact us.
Whatever the harassment by police, FRFI activists and supporters will remain active on the streets, organising resistance to racism and reaction.
Free Palestine!
On Saturday 13 May, to commemorate the Nakba (the Catastrophe – ethnic cleansing of Palestinians before the founding of Israel), Victory to the Intifada organised a national day of action. Events were held in London, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester. In London, activists ignored police provocation and held a lively picket of Marks and Spencer – Britain’s biggest corporate sponsor of Israel – with drumming, singing, chanting and speeches. In Manchester the M&S picket included asylum seekers from Libya and the DRCongo. The usual middle class fascist Israel supporters came to attack the protest in their most violent display of racist contempt so far. The collusion of the police officers present with the Zionists was clear throughout the event. However, the picket stood its ground.
The London School of Economics FRFI Society held a successful meeting in May with two Palestinian students speaking about the recent elections, Hamas’ victory and the role of British collaboration with Zionism. In Glasgow FRFI held a meeting on 16 May with the Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign who spoke about their recent visit to the West Bank and showed powerful documentary footage. Contact [email protected] to get involved in our work on Palestine.
Support asylum seekers
On 10 April, London FRFI joined Crossroads Women’s Centre outside Communications House, an immigration reporting centre in Old Street. In Newcastle our work with Ugandan refugee Mariam Nandawula led to the cancellation of her deportation in early May. Our work amongst impoverished asylum seeker communities in Newcastle, with Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR), is gaining momentum. On 29 April a TCAR contingent participated in the Tyne and Wear May Day march. The organisers had previously agreed to allow a TCAR speaker on the platform, but a Communist Party of Britain organiser, Martin Levy, tried to stop this at the last minute, saying that a TCAR speaker had been called for earlier without response and that it was now too late. Levy was unrelenting despite pleas from many asylum seekers, communists, anarchists, trade unionists and other activists. So a TCAR speaker from Zimbabwe took the stage anyway, to massive support from the crowd.
Also in Newcastle an FRFI public meeting on racism in April was attended by residents from Woodlands Crescent estate, which had been boarded up pending demolition, but then opened to house asylum seeker families. Then on 20 May over 60 people attended a meeting on the Woodlands estate itself to begin the work of organising to defend the community.
In April Manchester FRFI and the Defend Eucharia and Timeyi Campaign (DETC) took part in a march against deportations. Refugees and activists from TCAR travelled to Manchester to join them. FRFI’s Africa correspondent Charles Chinweizu spoke from the platform about British imperialism’s
role in plundering oppressed nations and attacking refugees who flee the violence this breeds. Support the DETC: [email protected].
On 1 May Manchester FRFI joined the Trade Unions for Refugees May Day march. During the rally, activists were shocked to see Labour Lord Mayor of Manchester and ex-cop, Afzal Khan, invited as ‘guest speaker’. As he spoke hypocritically about ‘multicultural’ Manchester, at least half the marchers joined in jeering at his record of complicity in Labour’s racist attacks on asylum seekers. Next day the Manchester Evening News reported on the event under the title ‘Protesters jeer Mayor on asylum’, mentioning that protests were led by FRFI. Shockingly, the organisers of the event, including leading Socialist Workers’ Party members Jeff Brown and Mark Krantz and a prominent trade unionist Bob Pounder, signed a letter to the newspaper condemning the ‘hecklers’ and defending the Labour Mayor!
On 10 May Libyan refugee Abdullah Gawaan and his family were called to Dallas Court holding centre in Salford – a place notorious amongst asylum seekers who don’t know if they will come back out – to ‘prepare their travel documents’. FRFI and the Defend Abdullah Gawaan and Family Campaign quickly called a demonstration outside the centre. After two hours Abdullah and his family were released and told that they had ‘six months to a year’ before they will be deported. Support their right to stay, contact [email protected].
On Saturday 8 April, FRFI and supporters took part in the first march called in Glasgow by Unity, the new Scottish Union of Asylum Seekers. Most of the 400 or so protesters were asylum seekers, demanding an end to deportations and the right to work. We continue to support the weekly vigils outside Brand Street Immigration Centre in Glasgow and other protests in solidarity with asylum seekers.
Viva Cuba!
FRFI and Rock around the Blockade (RATB) continue to campaign in support of socialist Cuba and against the criminal US blockade. In Newcastle on 16 April there was a Marxist educational discussion on the state under socialism, with reference to the Cuban Revolution. On 26 April, the FRFI society at LSE held a report back from Cuba with a student recently returned who discussed Cuba’s current ‘Energy Revolution’. To get involved in support for socialist Cuba and raising money for the next RATB brigade and sound system. e-mail [email protected]
Close down Guantanamo!
Illegally-occupied Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is a concentration camp where the US holds hundreds of prisoners incommunicado. In March, at an LSE FRFI society meeting, Clara Gutteridge from the Coalition against Guantanamo and Eric Allison, Guardian prison correspondent, spoke about brutality in imperialist goals. On 6 May, FRFI London activists held lively demonstration, with protesters dressed in symbolic orange jumpsuits, hooded and chained, to call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. Other FRFI comrades joined the London Guantanamo Campaign in a street event in Willesden. Comrades have also been on the streets in Durham and Newcastle highlighting the illegal occupation of Guantanamo Bay and calling for solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike there.
Oppose political bans!
Meanwhile in Scotland on 3 May activists staged a protest outside Celtic Park Stadium opposing Glasgow City’s Labour Council by-laws banning political images outside football grounds. Decked out in Che Guevara T-shirts, flags and even an apron, as well as Palestine and Basque flags, we called for unity against political censorship. The football crowds were very supportive and the campaign will mobilise before the next season to prepare legal and public challenges to the ban and to spread the campaign beyond the grounds. We aim to organise a ‘Hundred For Che’ at Celtic Park on the match night nearest to the anniversary of Che’s execution in Bolivia in October 1967. These by-laws are a blatant curtailment of political freedom and must be opposed. How better to do that than have a hundred folk decked out in the image of revolutionary Che Guevara! Send your pledges and support for the campaign to [email protected]
FRFI 191 June / July 2006
