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Round-Up Oct-Nov 2006
Following the period of weekly pickets of M&S over the summer, FRFI activists in Newcastle have continued with regular Thursday evening pickets, and will be building for a larger mobilisation on Saturday 16 December. A public meeting held on 3 December discussed the economic roots of the war in Iraq, and the role being played by the 48,000 mercenaries serving as part of the occupation, many of them run by British companies.
Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR), which FRFI played a key role in establishing in January, has continued to be extremely active. Large and lively pickets of North Shields Immigration Reporting Centre took place on 13 and 26 October, whilst a militant demonstration in the centre of Newcastle on 18 November put forward the central demand for an end to the detention of children, of who over 2000 were locked away in detention centres during 2005. On 13 November members of Durham University Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Society, working together with the Socialist Students Society and other activists, began a series of weekly actions on campus in solidarity with asylum seekers. On 1 November a member of TCAR, Faridah, was snatched as she went to sign at North Shields IRC, and told that she would be deported to Uganda the following Tuesday. TCAR activists mobilised in response, together with local community projects, and organised a mass-petitioning of Faridah’s MP, and a phone, fax and email campaign against the Home Office and Kenya Airways, who were booked to carry out the deportation. Despite achieving two interventions by the MP, getting Faridah’s case into The Guardian, and inundating the Home Office and airline with complaints, Faridah was finally deported on 13 October. This tragedy has increased the conviction of TCAR activists of the limitations of campaigning on individual actions, and of the need to step up our collective and political organisation against immigration controls. Since late October TCAR has held three large organising meetings of over 70 people to develop its organisational structure and assess the way forward. In addition to FRFI’s participation in these meetings, an FRFI public meeting was held on 9 November to discuss the Labour governments attacks on asylum seekers and Muslims. This brought together activists who have been active in the anti-deportation and Palestine solidarity struggles, for an in-depth discussion of the common roots of their oppression in the imperialist system, an understanding which will be crucial if an effective fightback is to be mounted.
FRFI supporters in Newcastle were active during the period of action to Free the Cuban Five which had been called for by Cuba. A ‘Free the 5’ stall and street meeting was held in Newcastle on 7 October, and RATB members participated in a film showing of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ organised by Hands Off Venezuela on 11 October. RATB members’ interventions on the example of Cuba, and its contribution in supporting Venezuela and progressive movements throughout Latin America, were warmly received. On 21 October Rebel Music played host to a night of political hip hop, spoken word and rock, raising £150 towards the sound system being taken to Cuba by the 2007 brigade.