Our Right To Protest Must Always Be Defended.

        In this so called democracy, the so called "right to protest" is not seen as a right by the powers that be, it is always seen as a threat. Protest means that people are challenging the purloined power of the decision makers. They can't allow that to be seen as an action of ordinary people, it must always be portrayed as a mob action of violent trouble makers. In an attempt to prevent others from joining protests, the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will always show the police instigated violence at protests as the action of the protesters. Obedient subservience is their desired aim, making control so much easier. The right to protest must be defended by solidarity across communities, workplaces, and borders, or our cages become permanently locked.

       The peaceful protest at Brand Street Glasgow was another example of this growing brutality, by the authorities against protesters.

This from Common Space:

Superglued protestors pulled apart and pregnant woman says she was pushed repeatedly at Brand Street blockade

POLICE DOGS and around 30 officers were used to break up a blockade in Glasgow last night, to enable the removal from Scotland of an LGBT asylum seeker and her young son.

Dogs were deployed against a peaceful protest in Glasgow as officers from Police Scotland broke up the blockade of 30 protestors with around 30 officers, in an move which the protestors described as "extremely violent" and "unprecedented".

Refugee rights campaigners blocked the entrance to the Border and Immigration Agency in Brand Street for around four hours yesterday [Monday 21 March] after discovering that LGBT activist and asylum seeker Beverly Vaanda Kanjii, 45, and her 14-year-old son had been arrested in a dawn raide at their Bridgeton home earlier that day. 

Read the full article HERE:


 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A World Week-End Of Action.

       Like I said in a previous post, the world is in revolt, the people are waking up to the injustice and inequality that is this world capitalist system. While Greece has seen more than two years of continual protests and the people of Turkey still carry on with their three week protest in the face of ferocious police brutality and dawn raids on their homes, Brazil has now exploded into the largest demonstrations seen in that country in more than twenty years. Brazil, heralded as one of the B.R.I.C's Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the fastest growing economies in the world, as is normal has seen its people get poorer as its corrupt politicians and parasite business bosses get richer and richer. 

       Of course when our lords and masters talk about successful economies they don't include you and I. Brazil's "successful economy" meant that in a population of 191 million, 25% of adults earn £70 a month or less, with inflation running at 6.2%, that's a road to deprivation. However, the Brazilian government could afford to spend £8.5 billion to host the World Cup. Like in Turkey it was a straw that broke the camel's back. The Turkish protests started with the plan to build a shopping mall, in Brazil it was the increase in the price of bus fares. If the conditions are right, it only takes a small spark to start a forest fire. With "austerity" being forced onto millions of ordinary people across the world, the conditions are right.

       As the police brutal crackdown on the Turkish protesters intensifies there has been a call for a world wide week-end of action in solidarity with the people of Turkey, but let's not forget, the people of Greece and Brazil.

     Global unions have called for two days of protest -- on Friday and Saturday -- in response to state violence, and in solidarity with demonstrators in Turkey.

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) has a statement here.

The International Union of Food workers (IUF) has its statement here.

If your union is holding an event as part of these days of action, please let us know using our new online form, here:

http://www.labourstart.org/2013/suggestevent.php

      Your event will appear on LabourStart's home page for your country.
For example, you can see details of the Friday demonstration in London on the home page of LabourStart for the United Kingdom, here:
http://www.labourstart.org/2013/country.php?country=UK&langcode=en

(Look on the left side of the page, under Events.)

      Meanwhile, early this morning, our online campaign reached an important milestone: we've now sent over 20,000 messages from trade unionists

 in 150 countries to Prime Minister Erdogan.

       Please spread the word in your union -- let's make this an even larger campaign! Click here to send your message: http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1840

Thank you!



Eric Lee

ann arky's home.

DAWN RAIDERS DAWN RAIDED!!

           At 5:30am this morning a group of dozen protesters from Unity & the No Borders Network blockaded and closed the gates at the UKBA reporting centre in Brand Street Glasgow, in protest against the continuing detention of children and the practice of early morning raids following the harrowing dawn raids and subsequent detention of two African families in the city over the last month. 

          Protesters have attached themselves through lock on tubes across the entrance of the main gates, blocking the exit for dawn raid vans, and closing all vehicle exits to the building where the heavy handed UK enforcement teams are based.
The team of protesters are chained together through tubing on which reads the slogans “STOP DAWN RAIDS” & “END DEPORTATIONS”. Banners in support of refugee rights hang across the gates.
          The peaceful protest attracted the attention of 15 police officers. As protesters blocked the road this morning, members of the UKBA Enforcement Teams which carry out the dawn raids arrived, protesters believe, in preparation to carry out a dawn raid on another family this morning. Protesters believe that we have managed to successfully stop the UKBA detaining a family today.

ann arky's home.

DAWN RAIDS - IN A DEMOCRACY???

        When you read about dawn raids on homes and people and their kids being pulled from their beds and taken away by officials of the State, and this without being able to feed their kids first, you breathe a sigh and say, "Thank goodness we live in the UK", and "How lucky we are to live in a democracy". Of course that's all an illusion, the dawn raids on families with children happens here in Scotland. This barbaric state procedure was, because of persistent protest, halted for a spell. Well its back and it will take the same solidarity and persistent protest to have it halted again, this time it should be for good.

ann arky's home.

STOP DAWN RAIDS! STOP DETAINING CHILDREN!

STOP DAWN RAIDS! STOP DETAINING CHILDREN!
Come to the protest Monday 21 November, 10.00 am at Festival Court

        Following the dawn raid on two families early last week Unity is calling for a protest outside of the UKBA reporting centre and headquarters of the Immigration Enforcement Team on Monday 21 November. Unity hopes it will be a well-attended protest that will make it clear once and for all that the UKBA using dawn raids and the detention of families is just not acceptable. Monday 21 November is the next working day after the UN's Universal Children's Day on 20 November - a day set aside for promoting the welfare of the children of the world. (http://www.un.org/en/events/childrenday/).

SOLIDARITY.

        We want as many people as possible to come to Brand Street on Monday to make a noisy colourful protest against the resumption of dawn raids that the UKBA cannot ignore. More information about how Funke and Joseph were treated can be seen below this call-out. People involved with Unity are particularly angry that the dawn raids were carried out on families containing young children who were asleep when immigration officials forced their way into the homes. The children were woken up by immigration officials wearing uniforms and stab-proof vests only to see their mothers being handcuffed.
       This barbaric treatment of families who have not been convicted of any crime is something many people thought had disappeared following widespread community protest and opposition from all Scottish political parties in 2006. We want the protest on Monday to be a big day-long action, so tell as many people as possible. The protest will continue into the afternoon so even if you can't make it for 10am, come along when you can.
        Join the protest outside the UKBA office on Brand Street from 10am on Monday 21 November to show your opposition to dawn raids and child detention. We will be running a banner and prop making workshop and preparation meeting from 1pm on Sunday afternoon. If you'd like to come and help then please contact Unity to find out details of the venue.
And if you'd like to come from out of town - we can provide accommodation!

Just get in touch J
Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=272568582785246

Unity!
         The protest on Monday is being held outside the UKBA reporting centre at 200 Brand Street, Ibrox, Glasgow. It is very close to Cessnock underground station and less than 100 metres from the Unity Centre. There is a map and directions on how to find the centre on our website at http://unitycentreglasgow.org/?page_id=16
          Funke Olubiyi and her son Joseph were forcibly removed from the UK on Saturday evening despite a last minute attempt to get an injunction on medical grounds. Speaking from Nigeria, Funke described how nine immigration officials and guards and a doctor accompanied her and her son onto the plane. On the phone Funke thanked everyone who had tried to fight for her and told us that she was OK for now and staying with friends.
        Funke and Joseph were the first family from Scotland known to have been detained in the new family detention centre called 'Cedars' in the village of Pease Pottage close to Crawley in Sussex.
The family had been detained following a 'dawn raid' at their home when little Joseph aged only 5 and 2 months had been asleep in his bed. Funke had been preparing to have a bath and had been undressed when seven immigration officials forced their way into the family's small flat on Shaw Street in Govan. Joseph was not allowed to have any breakfast in his house and was only given some food after the family had been taken to the reporting centre at Brand Street.
         A day earlier the UKBA had detained another single mother and baby during a dawn raid but she had managed to convince the immigration officials to realise her after being held at Brand Street with her baby for over seven hours. These two raids mark the return of dawn raids to Glasgow following a period of several years when the UKBA had almost totally stopped raiding asylum seeker families. Despite holding Funke and Joseph for three days and three nights in their 'pre-departure accommodation' at Cedars which with its 2.5 metre tall perimeter fence is run by security firm G4S the UKBA still insist "We do not detain children for immigration." Unity calls on all campaigners and supporters to work to make sure that for once this becomes a reality.

Come to teh protest on Monday 21 November.

The UNITY Centre
30 Ibrox Street
Glasgow
G51 1AQ

ann arky's home.