who killed anthony grainger?

By Mark Harrison

Yesterday I attended an important action in support of the friends and families of those killed at the hands of the police, as part of the #justice4grainger campaign. Around 60 people gathered in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens and similar events were held around the country. A passionate speech was made by Anthony’s mother (see above) and she was presented with a portrait of her son by a local artist. Other important speeches were then made by Janet Alder (sister of Christopher Alder, killed by the police whilst half naked and after being racially abused) and campaigners who seek to reform Joint Enterprise law. These include Mohammed Riaz, served 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

on violence against the police

by a participant in the Parliament Square demonstrations

The condemnations are as predictable as they are boring.  The public-school educated Sun hacks, who write like some coked up parodies of proletarian semi-literacy, refer to “louts” and “hooligans”.  The Daily Mail complains about someone urinating against Churchill’s statue, and the Telegraph is dismayed that Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were “attacked”.  Probably by a “baying mob”.  Meanwhile, someone in a moustache on The Guardian talks about how, no doubt, this will provide a “distraction” from the “real issues”, whose repetition ad nauseam presumably has some intrinsic value for the solemn liberal contingent.

I can’t even be bothered to look up the precise terms of the condemnation this time.  It’s always the same.  A dash of the royal family, veneration for some long dead racist, shakes of the head from the banal but well intentioned.  Is anyone still listening?  Haven’t we read all this before?

state repression in france’s pensions struggle

Millions in France have marched and struck against a two-year increase in the retirement age. Nicolas Dessaux looks at the repression of the movement.

Since the start of the movement over pensions, the state has reacted in a highly repressive manner. From the fist demonstrations, the slightest stepping-out-of-line, a single bottle thrown, has led to offensives by CRS (riot cops), tear gas, arrests, fast-track trials and sentences.

First, on 23^rd September, workers were arrested in Saint-Nazaire, since when court sentences, dismissals, penalties and threats have rained down on workers who took part in blockade actions. From the start of the movement in the lycées (of high school students), there has been a hail of arrests and punitivemeasures, and many have already been injured.

ruling class embarrassed by ian tomlinson charade

Adam Ford writes on the recent inquiry into the police killing of Ian Tomlinson, which resulted in a whitewash of those involved.

For the ruling class, the embarrassment caused by the transparent cover-up of Ian Tomlinson’s police killing was a necessary evil. The alternative was far worse – a very public examination of policing tactics at a time of drastic cutbacks.

testimony of a mitie worker in an immigration detention centre

Seven cleaners were detained after a raid by immigration police on 14th July, which took place with the complicity of Mitie and Willis. Among our detained sisters and brothers are Alejandro, Hermes Ayala, José Sorriso, Karina Cruz, Cintia, Sonia and Sebastián Desolsa. We are demanding that their salaries are paid and that they win 20 days holiday.

Her name is Lidia, and she said that at 4am there was going to be a meeting about chemicals in the Willis building, and that at 5 in the morning in the basement they would be given times for day-time and early morning shifts. She says that she had an ominous feeling about the timing of these meetings. When she arrived in this room, the manager Donna Sidley and another woman called Ivon were laughing their heads off. Everyone started coming in, with the illegal workers on one side and the legal immigrants on the other – the undocumented workers already separated out – and Donna took a chemical bottle and said for what purpose this or that bottle served.

of policemen and mad professors: communism and physical force

by Chris Kane

The Police operation around the G20 was entitled “Operation Glencoe” – named after the massacre in Scotland in 1692 when the order was given that “the rebels, the McDonalds of Glencoe” were to be “put all to the sword”. Operation Glencoe lived up to its namesake resulting in the Police manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson returning home from work. The G20 summit was surrounded by an atmosphere of hysteria whipped up by the media, the Police and mad professor Chris Knight, the self-appointed spokesman for the protests. This was done in a way that made protest and violence almost synonymous. These events have posed anew the question of violence and of legality as they relate to the project of creating a new society.

Most working class people abhor violence, particularly anti-social crime. Contrary to the lies of capitalist politicians communists also abhor violence, we seek a society fit for human beings where the social conditions which give rise to forms of violence will be uprooted, the need to resort to violence will be vastly diminished and subject to the interests of humanity. But this new society will not be achieved without physical force: this may seem a paradox but it flows directly from the nature of the society we live in today.

activist’s arm broken as police clamp down on gaza protest

by David Broder

Our readers will forgive us for another report on the daily protests at the Israeli embassy in response to the war on Gaza. Although the numbers at the 9th January protest were less than on previous days due to a simultaneous demo at the embassy of Egypt, whose government actively participates in the the blockade of Gaza, the protest was remarkable for the arrest of one activist and the aggression of the police, leading to another protestor’s arm being badly broken.

Below are several photos of the demo and a brief summary of the course of events.

gaza demo 7th january: police run riot after zionist counter-protest

report by Taimour Lay

Demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington on Wednesday night ended in baton charges on pro-Palestinian protesters and at least ten arrests. A counter-demonstration organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council and UK Zionist Federation attracted 300-400 people, but the arrests were ultimately sparked by police tactics at the end of the evening rather than the conduct of the opposing sides during the protest.

The police chose not to force pro-Palestinian demonstrators – who had been gathering since 5pm for the daily demonstration – away from their pen as the Zionists arrived shortly after 7pm, instead setting up a second pen opposite the embassy nearer Gloucester Road, with three police vans and 40-50 officers to keep the two sides apart in contained areas.

But as the night wore on riot police were used to end the anti-war demonstration by force. One policeman said a strategic decision had been made to ”clear the area”, including Kensington High Street and surrounding roads, to prevent ”Israeli and Palestinians from kicking each other”. In reality, it meant that the peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who still numbered around 200 by 9pm, and who remained determined not to depart before the close of the opposition demonstration, were pushed, harried and chased out of the pen.