LONDON LEAVES A BAD TASTE AFTER ST. IMIER.

This from AFed UK:

Anarchists Detained by Counter-Terrorist Police on Return from Swiss Conference [plus French, Spanish translations]

For the past week, thousands of anarchists from across Europe have been converging in St.Imier, Switzerland to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Anarchist international. The gathering took the form of a festival and educational, with music, films and entertainment as well as workshops and discussions.

On returning from the St Imier gathering, two anarchists, one a member of the UK Anarchist Federation, were detained for nearly two hours at Heathrow by SO15 (counter-terrorist) police. During the detention, the anarchists were told that their normal rights did not apply, and had their names, addresses, email addresses, DNA and fingerprints taken. The detained anarchists were also forced to sign forms – which may or may not be legal – waiving their rights to silence and a solicitor. Police also conducted a thorough search of personal possessions, photocopied literature and passports and took information from phones and cameras.

During the detention, the police constantly accused the anarchists of lying about involvement in criminal activity and alleged that they would be conducting follow-up police action against one of the detained anarchists. In addition to this, SO15 officers asked a number of inflammatory, irrelevant and offensive questions, including ‘what would you do if someone raped your mother?’ evidently in an attempt to cause emotional upset and illicit angry or violent responses. One member (28) who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from the police, said "We were treated like criminals. I told them I went to the congress as I am an amateur journalist and I write articles about activism. They saw my note book, camera and Dictaphone but they said I was lying. One officer said 'You said you are an anarchist, I've seen anarchists on the news, they are violent, throw molotov cocktails and disrupt people’s lives not write articles'".

Read the full statement HERE:

ann arky's home.

IAF ST. IMIER CONGRESS STATEMENT.

Public statement from IFA Congress Saint-Imier 2012, 9-12th August 

Public statement from IFA Congress Saint-Imier 2012, 9-12th August to other exploited and oppressed people of the World.

The St. Imier meeting has enabled a lot of groups and militants that are member and non-members of the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA) to meet each other. IFA would like to sum up the events of the last few days.

 -------Anarchists reject the idea that it is human nature that one personal exploits another and that we are unequal. It is the case that rulers and states throughout history have maintained this system. This lie justifies Capitalism as a 'natural' system. We hear that there is a 'crisis' of Capitalism, but Capitalism is crisis. It is a recent system in historical terms and has already brought humanity to its knees many times before producing the current situation. But people all over the World are seeing through this lie and are resisting states and capitalism as never before and seek to coordinate their efforts across national boundaries. This makes an anarchist society more possible than ever.----

Read the full statement HERE:

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A TIME TO THINK, A TIME TO ORGANISE.

St Imier 140th anniversary -

Talk and News On Upcoming International Anarchist Festival.

Public Event By Glasgow Anarchist Federation And Friends

Thursday, 19 April 2012

18:30 – 21.00

Room 407, Boyd Orr Building, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ

       In August 2012 anarchists from all over the world will be gathering in St Imier, Switzerland for a week of events to mark the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Anarchist International- a major split with the authoritarian international of Karl Marx.

     This split represents a fundamental divide between those who believe that communism can be imposed from above, and those who believe that we can only have true communism if we have freedom as well. How we get where we want to go is as important as where we want to go.

      As part of the process of building up to the summer event, the Anarchist Federation is hosting a series of meetings around the country. The theme of the meetings is the struggle against authoritarianism- from St Imier to today.

The following issues will be discussed:

• The background to St Imier and what was involved in the split

• How the struggle against authoritarianism continued in key revolutions such as Russia and Spain

• The debate about human ‘nature’ and why humans do not need authority to flourish

• The role of authoritarian tendencies in struggles today eg the cuts movement, the strikes in the public sector, the student movement and within the anarchist movement itself.

http://www.anarchisme2012.ch/

Facebook Event Page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/240919052672305/

ann arky's home.