Revolutionary Communist Group

On 25 September, activists from FRFI and other groups held a lively demonstration outside Marks and Spencer on Oxford Street, to mark 10 years of Palestinian Intifada and 10 years of the weekly picket against M&S.

The Intifada began on 29 September 2000, a day after Ariel Sharon and 1000 riot police marched through the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is home to Islam’s third most holy shrine, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police used live ammunition and rubber bullets against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, killing 6 and injuring 220. Within the first few days of the Intifada, 700,000 bullets and projectiles had been fired in the West Bank, and 300,000 in Gaza.

Read more: 10 years of the Palestinian Intifada, 10 years of boycotting M&S;

On 11 September activists from Rock Around the Blockade held lively protests in London, Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne to demand Freedom for the Cuban 5 as part of the international day of action planned by the U.S. National Committee To Free The Five (freethefive.org) to mark the 12th Anniversary of their imprisonment.

In Newcastle in the north of England, activists collected petitions against the illegal imprisonment of the 5 Cuban heroes and asked passers by to sign cards of solidarity which will be sent to Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando Rene and Ramon individually.

Read more: Free the Cuban Five!

On 28 August in Bradford the English Defence League (EDL) held another anti-Muslim demonstration. According to the EDL, Bradford was going to be ‘the big one’, a show of strength in a city where working class Muslims had risen up against poverty and racism in 2001, fighting back against police and fascists. But although the EDL claimed that they would mobilise 5,000 people, on the day they had closer to 700. When around 200 EDL members left the area designated by the police, they were physically opposed and contained by a mobilisation of several hundred, the vast majority of whom were working class Muslim youth, including members of the Muslim Defence League. The EDL were harassed until they were bussed out of the city, with reports that some of their coaches were stoned and the tyres slashed. The only reported arrests were of five EDL members.

Read more: Bradford sees off the EDL

On 24 August, FRFI held a meeting in the Govanhill Neighbourhood Centre, Glasgow to celebrate the life and work of the Edinburgh-born, Irish Marxist James Connolly, revolutionary socialist and a leader of the Easter Rising of 1916. The well attended meeting highlighted the importance of James Connolly’s contribution to the anti-imperialist, trade union and socialist struggles of his day and the lessons for our own.

A lively discussion followed the introductory talk. Points were raised about links between the Irish rebellion and the class struggle on the Clydeside around the time of the First World War and the continuing refusal of the British labour movement to split with imperialism to this day through its funding of the Labour party. The role of Ireland as a testing ground for the British ruling-class in counter-insurgency was also highlighted. The Public Assemblies Bill recently proposed in the north of Ireland – restricting the right of citizens to hold protests and meetings of fifty people or more without receiving permission thirty-seven days prior – is but the latest example.

Connolly’s life was one of total commitment to the oppressed, from the worker exploited by the boss and the landlord, the peasant starved off his land, women workers (‘the slave of the slave’), the Irish nation and all others crushed by colonialism. Over ninety years on from his execution at the hands of the British army, the life and ideas of James Connolly remain as vital as ever.

Read more: James Connolly: A rebel ‘till the end'

On August 22^nd hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists gathered outside of BBC centres across England and Ireland in lively protests against the biased reporting in the Panorama programme ‘Death on the Med’ about the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May 2010.

The demonstration was part of a national day of action against the BBC called by individuals and groups supporting those onboard the Mavi Marmara when it was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters.

More than a dozen pro-Palestinian activists gathered outside the BBC in Newcastle in a lively protest. It was supported by the Palestine Action Group and other independent activists.

Read more: While Palestinians die! The BBC Lies!

On 28 November 2007, 17 year old Kristoffer Batt was found dead in the cells at Tayside Police Headquarters in Dundee. Three years later a Fatal Accident Inquiry has now reported its findings and they show a disgusting and corrupt lack of concern for the young man. Alarm buzzers in the cells had been switched off “some years ago” but nobody “knew exactly when, by whom or why”. The custody assistant had positioned himself out of sight of alarm lights while he surfed sports and social networking sites. Stuart Lewis ignored one light for 49 minutes and, responding after 15 minutes to a second call, he did not ask the young man as to the cause of his request for assistance. Lewis then deliberately failed to cancel the light making it impossible  for further help to be summoned.  Kristoffer had smuggled heroin into his cell and by dawn had fatally overdosed. Lewis has kept his job despite being shown to have falsified custody records.

Read more: Death in Custody - Tayside