FRFI 205 October / November 2008
Marx once said: ‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point however is to change it.’ Following this spirit FRFI supporters have been active on a wide range of issues, drawing the links between Labour’s attacks on the working class and the need to build a new socialist movement.
Fight Britain’s racist immigration laws
One of the central issues that we have campaigned on is the defence of asylum seekers against attacks by the British state. In Manchester activists learned about the suicide of Nadir Zarebee, an Iranian refugee, in a park in Longsight. Nadir died after being forced out of his ‘support’ accommodation by a Home Office-appointed housing company. Comrades from the International Iranian Organisation of Refugees quickly organised two demonstrations in Manchester which FRFI supported. Both protests went to Piccadilly Gardens to speak to the public about the case of Nadir and about the situation facing asylum seekers in Labour’s Britain. On the second protest the demonstrators marched to the BBC on Oxford Road, demanding that Nadir’s death be reported. An Iranian comrade refused to leave the building and in the end was granted an interview. The BBC, however, has yet to report on the case and further protests are being planned.
In the North East, following the Northern Conference Against Racism in June, many new supporters have joined Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR). A public meeting on 6 September discussed the housing crisis and rising cost of living, and the need for anti-racist unity between asylum seekers and other sections of the working class. These issues will be the focus of the second Northern March Against Racism planned for 25 October in Newcastle. Contact [email protected] or 07858 346276 to get involved in organising or sponsoring the march.
On 25 September, FRFI joined a protest called by the Latin American Workers Association and the Campaign Against Immigration Controls outside a meeting hosted in Pall Mall, London by National Physical Laboratories (NPL). NPL employs the cleaning company Amey. Amey took over the cleaning contract in May 2007 and found itself faced with a largely Latin American migrant workforce that had recently unionised and was taking steps to gain recognition – something afforded to all other NPL staff. Amey’s first act was to invite workers to a ‘training session’, only to hand them over to the Home Office, which deported three of them. It has since suspended five NPL cleaners for union membership and protesting against cuts in the workforce from 36 to 15. The protest, supported by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Hands Off Venezuela, London Coalition Against Poverty and the Solidarity Federation demanded that the suspended cleaners be reinstated immediately and that the NPL get Amey to clean up its act.
Stop police harassment and defend democratic rights!
In Newcastle a magistrates’ hearing on 18 and 19 August found four FRFI activists guilty of participating in an unlicensed collection at a street meeting at Grey’s Monument on 7 May 2007 against the deportation of a Kurdish family to Turkey. Supporters gathered outside the court at the opening of the hearing for a lively demonstration which received good coverage on local television. Magistrates accepted the prosecution argument that as the event lacked a structure it was not a street meeting, and was not therefore exempt from the regulations. Fines and costs totalling £1,800 were imposed on the defendants. The defendants are appealing the case to the Crown Court, and are stepping up their political activity on the streets against police harassment. Financial contributions can be sent to: Monument 4 Defence Fund c/o FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX.
On 23 September FRFI organised a public meeting in the West End of Newcastle in an effort to unite resistance to the police. The meeting was addressed by a representative of the Monument 4; TCAR member Mako, who spoke about her experiences of an immigration police raid and detention; Barbara Yusuf-Porter, who is campaigning against the police racism she experienced before and after the murder of her son in South Shields in 2006; Dave Douglass, an NUM official during the 1984/85 miners’ strike; and a speaker against ID cards.
Hands off the Middle East!
Activists from around the country have been organising weekly demonstrations against the brutal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by US and British troops. Despite the mix of silence and propaganda spread by the bourgeois media many people have stopped to sign petitions and show support for the rights of the Iraqi and Afghani people to determine their own future and for troops to be withdrawn.
In London weekly demonstrations have continued every Thursday outside Marks & Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street. M&S is Britain’s biggest retail sponsor of the Zionist regime.
It’s time for change – look at our events column and join us in action against the barbarity of the imperialist system!
