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Round-Up Dec 2006-Jan 2007
During December and January FRFI readers’ groups were held in Newcastle to discuss and debate the implications of the article ‘Britain: Parasitic and Decaying Capitalism’ published in FRFI 194.
On 3 December a well-attended public meeting was held in Newcastle to discuss the role of the 38,000 mercenaries forming part of the occupation of Iraq, many of them employed and run by British companies. Several lively Saturday afternoon pickets of Marks and Spencer were held in Newcastle over the christmas period. On Monday 8 January RCG activists attended a public meeting of Tyneside Stop the War Coalition and won the support of the meeting for a local sister demonstration to the national Stop the War demonstration on 24 February.
On 8 December members of the RCG and TCAR supported a march organised by members of the Congolese community to expose the recent sham elections in DRC, which had been supported and legitimised by the ‘international community’ of imperialist plunderers. The following day, on 9 December, Congolese asylum seekers were amongst those taking part in a demonstration organised by TCAR in solidarity with the protests at Harmondsworth and the hunger strike at Yarls Wood. The demonstration was forced off its regular pitch by a christmas market, bringing complaints from the Newcastle United shop that they were too close. The demonstrators agreed to move, and a solicitor who happened to be passing stopped and entered in a discussion with the police about the protestors right to demonstrate. The police took objection to a TCAR member filming this discussion, and isolated him behind a police van before arresting him. After forcing him into a police van the police told the comrade that they would unarrest him if he deleted all footage of the discussion. He deleted the footage and was released. During December and January the Immigration Service carried out a wave of dawn raids in Newcastle focussed on Kurdish asylum seekers from Turkey. TCAR responded with several emergency demonstrations outside Government Offices North East and campaigns of protest to Turkish Airways and the Home Office, which helped to avert several attempted deportations. On 20 January Tyneside Community Action for Refugees held a militant demonstration through the centre of Newcastle to protest against deportations of asylum seekers and to launch the pledge of resistance to snatch squads. Over 100 protesters from diverse communities participated in the march, which included a rally at Grey’s Monument. Speakers included asylum seekers from Ivory Coast, DRCongo, Ethiopia and Turkey and representatives from the Revolutionary Communist Group, Stop the War Coalition and Jesus Army. Protesters marched under the banner ‘Here to Stay, Here to Fight - Defend Asylum Rights!’ and demanded an end to dawn raids, the name given to the brutal policy of snatching failed asylum seekers from their homes in the early hours of the morning. The black immigration vans continue to be sent out from North Shields Reporting Centre to snatch families under cover of darkness, forcing them onto planes back to countries where they face extreme danger.
In late December several stalls were held in Newcastle to call for solidarity with socialist Cuba and to fundraise for the 2007 brigade. These activities culminated in a ‘Celebration of Resistance and Revolution’ on 31 December, held to celebrate the eve of the 48th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Supporters gathered on the streets of central Newcastle with flags, banners and music, and were joined by an Ecuadorian folk band as well as hip hop and spoken word artists. More cultural street events are planned for the summer.