UK Newswire Archive
Finally an Olympic protest for everyone in central London
13-07-2012 19:35
This is a repost from a few days ago-no comments were made but here we have a chance to protest these criminal games on the opening day. And support a clean, non lethal form of transport. There's been lots of people complaing about lack of protest-here's a chance to make some noise. And it's fun! Sound systems are great to cycle with.Spread far and wide-all you facebookers and twitterers. Make this huge-to the VIP lanes!
Critical Mass London, 27 July, 2012
Squatban in Jamaica?
13-07-2012 16:46
A politician is floating the idea of a squatban in Jamaica, where an estimated 15-20% of the population squat....Diggers2012: Runnymede Eco Village Lives On + Saturdays Workshops
13-07-2012 14:06
EDL hierarchy restructured
13-07-2012 13:43
The EDL have announced they are restructuring their "command structure", which seems to be an attempt by "Tommy Robinson" to consolidate his control over the struggling organisation.A Stateless Silenced Injustice: The Rohingya
13-07-2012 12:55
They are branded as one of the most persecuted communities in the world by the UN and referred to as the Palestine of Asia, yet nobody knows their name.
The Rohingya people have been subject to a programme of state sponsored ethnic cleansing by the Burmese government. Despite their existence in Burma dating as far back at the 8th century, Rohingyas are condemned as ‘non-citizens’ and ‘illegal immigrants.’ Targeted as a result of their religion and race, the Rohingya suffer oppressive levels of discrimination in face of the Rakhine Buddhist majority. Land confiscation, forced labour and denial of very basic human rights including education, marriage and healthcare are characteristic of everyday reality for the Rohingya people.
The injustice the Rohingya face is one of institutionalisation; rooted in Burma’s infrastructure and governmental systems. This can be seen in the 1982 Citizenship Law introduced by the Burmese junta which recognises the 135 national races in Burma but specifically excludes the Rohingya. This legislation has received widespread condemnation for its discriminatory nature and incompatibility with international human rights standards including the right to a nationality.
This systematic denial of human rights is premised on the Burmese government’s refusal to grant citizenship to the Rohingya people. Rendering them stateless in their own state. The denial of citizenship is being manipulated as a tool of ridding the Rohingya people of their identity, their right to being and their very existence.
This severe marginalisation and restriction of basic fundamental rights and freedoms has forced the Rohingya to flee their homes, in search of a life capable of living. As such, between 1978 and 1992, approximately 200,000 Rohingyas left Burma to escape the tyranny of the Burmese military. Most escaped to Bangladesh where they remain as refugees. In one of the most densely populated countries in the world and with prevailing attitudes of discrimination towards ethnic minorities life in Bangladesh has proved little improvement. Similar to the Rohingyas living in Burma, the Rohingya refugees are restricted in their movement and subject to exploitation. In refugee camps, the Rohingya women are victims of sexual violence and basic resources are heavily limited. Hostility in Bangladesh has also led Rohingyas to seek refuge in other countries including Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia; however have faced similar antagonism.
The role of Bangladesh with regard to the Rohingya plight has resurfaced in light of recent ethnic clashes beginning in June 2012 in Burma. The escalating violence has displaced 90,000 Rohingya people. Villages are being burnt, people are being abducted, concentration camps are being created, women are being raped and children mercilessly killed. Survivors are desperately trying to escape persecution and seeking refuge in Bangladesh. However, the Bangladeshi government seem to be forgetting their own struggle for existence and have adopted a closed border policy. Boats of starving, injured and dying men, women and children are being turned away forced to make a choice. Return to death in Burma or wait for death on open sea. It is true that Bangladesh as a nation faces its own difficulties and also that it is not signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. However it remains bound by customary international norms, primarily that of ‘non-refoulement;’ a principle which forbids the return of a victim of persecution to their persecutor.
Bangladesh’s obligations aside, it remains the primary responsibility of Burma to address not only this current humanitarian catastrophe but the context of which this has been born. Reality dictates that despite Burma’s move towards ‘democratisation’ the rights of the Rohingya will continue to be absent from the new agenda. Thus this is no longer just a national issue. Nor is it just a regional issue. This has become an issue which demands international concern, condemnation and action. The persecution against the Rohingya can be described in no other terms but that of ethnic cleansing and genocide; worthy of the same recognition of some of the darkest times in history including Rwanda and Bosnia.
The plight of the Rohingya people is yet another stark demonstration of the impotence of the UN and the international community to act, when action is truly necessary. It is the inaction in the international arena with regard to the silent massacre in Burma which exposes the saturation of politics and power which rests at the heart of our global governance systems. In light of these failings, hope can only be found in grassroot movements, civil society and in the spirit of those courageous enough to say; no more.
Restless Beings is a grassroot international human rights organisation taking the lead in championing the Rohingya issue and thus is an embodiment of this hope. We are currently delivering an international campaign; ‘Voicing the Rohingya.’ We have adopted a multidimensional approach in order to broadcast the realities on the ground to as far and wide an audience as possible. We have lobbied the Bangladeshi government via sending a letter and petition via the High Commission in London. This petition received 2640 signatures in just five days from people spanning 90 countries across the world. This action was coupled with a demonstration outside of the Bangladeshi High Commission in London on Monday 2nd July 2012. This demonstration marked the beginning of an intense, highly pressured strategy where we are currently mobilising students, professionals, academics, community leaders, charities, artists, activists and alternative press to join us in supporting the Rohingya community and demanding direct change. We have initiated this by starting a new petition this time to the UK, calling for diplomatic action and human rights compliance. At the time of writing this petition has received 4672 signatures, with our target being 10000. Following this, we are looking to organise a follow up protest and engage in a programme of active MEP lobbying in order to achieve some recognition of this issue on an international level.
Whilst the powers that be refuse to act, it is the responsibility of individuals on the ground, to unify in solidarity with the forgotten. It is with this unity and solidarity that collective change becomes a real possibility, strong enough to topple the inaction of the powerful; passionate enough to break new ground. This is a call for action, a call for change. Not because we are Rohingya and these are our people, not because we are Muslim and share their faith, not because we are Bangladeshi and feel we owe a duty but because we are humans and thus bound by a common humanity and the ability to feel. To feel love, loss, suffering and despair.
Mass action against opencast coal tomorrow: 14th July
13-07-2012 11:33
Genoa G8 2001 Diaz Raid - Cassazione verdict
13-07-2012 10:55
This is a personal account by the defendant of an 11 year fight for justice against the Italian police. Every once in a while a legal case comes along in Italy which will shape the future path of a country concerning the standard of its human rights and its legal system. The raid on the Diaz school during the G8 meeting in Genoa in 2001 is such a case.
This is a text written by nessuno last week in the build up to the final outcome of the "Diaz' trial:
Almost eleven years have passed as the Diaz case has travelled and navigated a legal system challenged and pulled apart by Berlusconi until it has finally arrived at the highest court of the land. This court is the Corti of Cassazione in Piazza Cavour. It is a very imposing building in Central Rome and is situated on the west side of the Tigris river. Cassazione does not use juries but has five Supreme court judges considering the case before it.
What they are considering is a high controversial police brutality case that has multiple victims and many police on trial for multiple serious charges. These are not rank and file policemen but commanders who now represent the top tier of power in the Italian police force. The very people, if acquitted, who will steer Italy through an economic and public order crisis of enormous size.
There are 26 anti-terrorist, DIGOS, flying Squad and state police commanders who are accused of masterminding and planning the bloody 'Mexican butchers shop' massacre at Diaz during the Genoa G8. A raid of such brutality, Amnesty called it the biggest suspension of democratic rights in a western country since World War II. A raid that was described by Genoa judges as the darkest page of history of the Italian police force. Even a movie has been made Domenico Procacci has been made called Diaz: Don't Clean Up This Blood. It was released at the Berlin Film festival to critical fame and many Italian youth have seen it in cinemas last month. The movie script is based upon the basic facts of what happened. Fandango, the production company researched and read over 10,000 court documents.
As an English Indymedia journalist who was covering the summit, I was attacked and almost killed at Diaz (it is estimated) by up to 14 Italian policemen. So were another four British victims to a lesser degree of injuries. They are Dan Macquillan, Norman Blair, Richard Moth and Nicola Doherty. They were very peaceful non-violent protesters who were genuinely concerned about the state of the planet before 9-11 changed the world. What hasn't changed since 9-11 is the rise of powerful fascist politics that now threaten the stability of Italy and Europe in this current economic crisis. Whilst politicians and journalist analysis the rise of fascist politics in Greece, the Diaz case is the frontline of the struggle against fascism in Italy.
Gianfranco Fini, currently speaker of Rome Parliament, is still the most powerful fascist politician in Europe but since his breakup with Berlusconi, he is biding his time and staying below the radar. When Fini is quiet, he is planning his path to become prime minister. The fascists are allowing the Monti Government to be seen to fail before they offer their extreme right wing policies on law, Public Order and Immigration. Fini's view of Europe and the EU is that Italy should leave union of states. This is where he finds common ground with Cameroon who also wants to leave but for the different reasons of protecting the bankers in the city of London.
Fin grew powerful under Berlusconi. At the Genoa G8 summit, he had the special job of being G8 security minister and he was supposed to handle the Bin Laden threat to fly a wooden plane into the G8 but he was more interested in having his private fascist war with the anti-globalisation movement. Instead of protecting the G8, he took a personal interest in making sure the Diaz raid was carried out and that many people were tortured for fun.
Of the G8 itself, it was expedient to allow a man like Gianfranco Fini and his fascists to do the dirty job of smashing any democratic and popular protest that was being mounted against them as they carried out plans to exploit the planet for even more resources and profit and to maintain their powerful grip over the world.
For the human rights abuse at Diaz and Bolzaneto, Berlusconi and Fini handed out promotions whilst offering money and very expensive lawyers to get them off the serious charges being presented by Dr Zucca and the Genova prosecutors. It is rumoured but not proved yet that Gianfranco told the convicted Diaz police that they were 'Covered to do anything they liked at Diaz'.
Francesco Gratteri, second in command of the anti-terrorist squad at Diaz, has recently been promoted to Deputy chief of police of Italy.
Gilberto Caldarozzi, Gratteri's deputy, has been promoted into the Justice ministry and Spartico Mortola, Commander of the DIGOS in Genoa at the time of G8, has been promoted to be chief of police in Turin. The only commander (7th mobile heavy riot unit) not to of been promoted was Vincenzo Canterini, the 'Butcher of Diaz'.
And they did do anything and everything to the victims of Diaz and Bolzaneto. Like planting Molotov cocktails at Diaz whilst knowing everyone there was innocent and with the firm intention of sending the victims to jail as a grand conspiracy of criminality for the next 15 years on trumped up false charges . It should be remembered that the Italians were using emergency G8 military powers which double the sentence of most crimes in normal times.
What happened to me is an illustration of how far the Diaz police were prepared to go to dispense their kind of idealogy. In three attacks over the space of 15 minutes, my left hand was broken, eight ribs on my left side, my left lung was shredded, I suffered massive internal bleeding, a damaged spine, 16 broken teeth and was put into a coma. I was then left to die outside the main gate of Diaz Pertini despite the fact that Carabineri medical teams were present.
I actually count myself lucky that the police never succeeded kidnapping me out of hospital and sending me to Bolzaneto where I would of certainly died at the hands of a prison doctor (Toccafondi who was convicted during the Bolzaneto trial) who joined in the torture with the police. Others were not so lucky and endured four of the five basic torture techniques as invented by the parachute regiment in 1972 Northern Ireland conflict (yes... Bolzaneto is compared to that conflict. It was not just a few hippies being slapped about. It was systematic torture).
In the hours and days after the Diaz raid, a cover-up went into place by the Diaz police whilst they gave press conferences telling the international press that all the victims were dangerous terrorists. Dr Zucca calls it a 'Code Blue' wall of silence. The commanders at Diaz ordered civil servant police who attended Diaz later to write false reports and statements (which they later signed). My attempted murder was written out of the statements and to this day, only two policemen out of 340 who had to pass me to get into Diaz, ever said they saw me. No honest policeman had the courage to face up to the power of these commanders and attempt to tell the truth for fear of being threatened and killed by their superiors. A few did attempt to tell some truth about the basic facts. Fournier was one such policeman. He testified that Diaz was a 'Mexican Butchers Shop'. However, on the whole, very few spoke out about what they had seen.
In the years after the Diaz raid, I attempted and succeeded in rebuilding and synchronising the video evidence. 'Supervideo Diaz', as it was nicknamed, was finished and presented by the italian legal human rights team in the actual Diaz trial. This reconstruction is an irrefutable major piece of evidence in front of the Cassazione judges.
Diaz is a special trial in the sense that so many police are on trial and they are not just the rank and file. Most of them are commanders. Police trials like Diaz have to have a much higher level of evidence involved even if you are to be in the situation of bringing a case, let alone winning it. We called it the 500% rule. The police had to be caught absolutely red handed in performing a crime before we presented a legal argument. At Diaz much went wrong for them and yes they were all caught red-handed beating innocent protesters and journalists, planting false evidence - namely two Molotov's, falsely accusing and arresting the victims and caught sending victims off for torture at Bolzaneto by another set of police.
This is why Diaz breaks all known records in the legal sense. I have not found another case yet where more police have been put on trial as in the Diaz trial.
However, through the last eleven years, Berlusconi sought to move the legal goalposts of the Diaz case. First, he shortened the statute of limitations. This was primarily to get himself off charges related to the John Mills affair. However, this law also caused many of the Diaz charges to go beyond the statute of limitations despite being found guilty of all of them.
The three charges still on the statute book are false arrest, false statement and forgery. If found guilty of these three charges, the may 2010 verdict will stand and 15 of the Diaz police are jailed and a further eleven will be thrown out.
However, many italian commentators say that Cassazione will use a law passed in 2005 that suspends the first three years of a sentence. Its known as Berlusconi's 'Pardon' law. This will mean that all Diaz police walk and most will keep their jobs.
If Cassazione exists for justice for the victim, where is the justice? Why does the court have to protect and let go the butchers of Diaz? Why does the court have to use laws from a criminal like Berlusconi? Is the court going to do anything about what Amnesty International said? Will yet another serious injustice persist into italian history?
Photo resources: [1|2]
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Update:
G8/Diaz: Supreme Court confirms conviction against police. All 26 found guilty.
July 5, 2012 - 19:32
(ANSA) - Rome, July 5 - The Supreme Court has definitively confirmed the sentences against the officials of the State Police raided the Diaz school in Genoa during the G8 in 2001. Among the accused, the sentence of five years for the former commander of the first mobile unit in Rome Vincenzo Canterini, four years for the current head dell'anticrimine Francesco Gratteri and the former Deputy Director John UCIGOS Luperi, four years, and one to three years and eight months for the former head of the Digos of Genoa, Spartacus Mortola and the former deputy head of the SCO, Gilberto Caldarozzi .
Officials will be suspended from duty and 'applied the penalty of disqualification from public office for 5 years.
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ROME - The Fifth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for forgery for police chiefs and prescribed the injury to the other officers involved in beatings at the Diaz school in Genoa during the G8 in 2001. The decision came after nine hours of deliberation. After 11 years, the Supreme Court thus puts an end to the mexican butchers shop called Diaz.
The agents are involved in the beating and sentenced in illegal arrests of anti-globalization to the school in 2001. Then confirmed the sentence of 4 years for Giovanni Luperi (chief of AISI - italian MI6) and Francesco Gratteri (Deputy chief of police), the 5 years to Vincent Canterini (commander of 7th mobile), as well as penalties, equal to 3 years and 8 months, imposed on Gilberto Caldarozzi (anti-drugs chief), Filippo Ferri, Fabio Ciccimarra, Nando Dominici, Spartacus Mortola (chief of police of turin) , Carlo Di Sarro, Massimo Mazzoni, Renzo Cerchi, Davide Di Novi and Massimiliano Di Bernardini. Prescribed, however, the alleged crimes of a serious injury to nine agents belonging to the seventh special unit of the mobile at the time. "The judgment of the Supreme Court today to be respected as all decisions of the Judiciary.
The Interior Ministry will comply as provided by the Supreme Court, "said Interior Minister, Anna Maria Cancellieri. Police "welcomes the judgment of the judiciary with full due respect and reaffirms its commitment to continue the steady improvement of the training on the complex field public order and security, "said Chief of Police, Prefect Antonio Manganelli after the verdict. Confirmation of the judgment of the Court of Appeal will take immediate enforcement of sentences. Between prescription and pardon the sentences in each case there will be sentences but officials would mean immediate disqualification from office and suspension from duty, since for each of the 26 defendants the appellate court has ordered the penalty of disqualification from public office for five years.
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The verdict issued tonight by the Supreme Court on what happened at the Diaz school in Genoa in July 2001, Amnesty International announce that it is an important ruling that finally and definitively, although very late, recognizes that agents and state officials were guilty of serious violations of human rights of people who were supposed to protect.
However, Amnesty International points out that the failures and omissions of the state to give full justice to the victims of the violence of the G8 in Genoa are of such magnitude that these convictions still leave a bitter taste: arrived late, with sentences that do not reflect the severity crimes detected - and that mostly will not run because of the requirement - and following investigations difficult and hampered by agents and police officials that they should feel the duty to contribute to the finding of facts so serious.
Above all, these sentences involve a very small number of those who participated in the violence and criminal activities designed to hide the crimes committed. For Amnesty International, the conclusion of this difficult process can not be the end of the attempt to give full justice to the victims of the G8 in Genoa. After the phase of the investigation of individual responsibility, it is all to do an analysis that leads to shared conclusions about what did not work in Genoa in 2001 at the system level and how to ensure that this does not happen again.
Amnesty International will continue to ask the Italian institutions:
- Publicly condemn human rights violations committed by police 11 years ago and provide an apology to the victims;
- Undertake to ensure that violations such as those that happened in Genoa in 2001 will not occur again through the implementation of concrete measures to ensure the determination of liability for all violations of human rights committed by the police;
- Introduced in the Penal Code the crime of torture (Hence the appeal to be signed) and a definition of torture that includes all the features described in Article 1 of UN Convention against Torture;
- Creating the National Human Rights Institution in line with the "Principles concerning the status of national institutions" (Paris Principles);
- Ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and establish an independent national mechanism to prevent torture and ill-treatment;
- Conduct a thorough review of the provisions in force in the operations of public policy, including those relating to training and deployment of police forces employed in the demonstrations, the use of force and firearms, and takes into account the need to introduce elements of individual identification of members of the police in public order operations.
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Rome, 6 July (AKI) - A major reorganisation at the top of Italy's police force will follow the upholding by Italy's top court of 13 senior officers' convictions over a brutal attack by riot police on protesters at a school during the Genoa G( summit in 2001.
"The men who have been convicted at the final level of appeal must be replaced," justice minister Anna Maria Cancellieri told Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Friday.
Several of the officers are investigators close to Italy's police chief Antonio Manganelli.
They include Franceso Gratteri, head of anti-crime operations, who was involved in many high-profile investigations against the mafia; Gilberto Caldarozzi, head of the police central operations unit, who played a role in capture of mafia "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano in 2006; and Giovanni Luperi, the head of the police counter-terrorism unit.
The officers were convicted on Thursday by Italy Court of Cassation for complicity in planting of evidence to try to justify the unprovoked attack at the Genoa school, including a petrol bomb and clubs.
The officers will not be jailed because they benefited from a general pardon for certain offences in 2006. But they are banned from public office for five years after their definitive conviction and will be suspended from duty.
Cancellieri said Italy was losing some of its best policemen but said she wholeheartedly condemned the violent attack by police on the G8 protesters.
"Serious errors were committed at the Genoa G8 and now those who are responsible for this must pay," she stated.
"The price is very high, because we are losing some of our best men."
Twelve riot police were previously convicted for beating protesters in the school but never jailed because of Italy's statute of limitations.
More than 60 anti-globalisation campaigners were savagely beaten and one left in a coma by the police raid which occurred on the night of 21 July after rioting and pitched battles with police in Genoa.
One Italian protester was killed during some of the worst rioting seen at international summits.
Amnesty International described as the most serious suspension of democratic rights in a western country since the second world war.
Manganelli said the police would, "accept the sentence with utmost respect and commit to the constant improving of training with regard to the complex field of order and public security".
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This has been reposted from Urban 75 discussion board where Nessuno posted the above texts last week
Some short films about the case.
Fortress Olympics Looms Over London
13-07-2012 08:55
Press statement from Anarchist federation on Olympics
Residents in Tower Hamlets and Leytonstone were horrified when they learnt that surface to air missiles were to be positioned on their estates. The positioning of the missiles is only part of the story. as many as 16,200 security forces will be deployed in London, in addition to 17,000 troops ( more troops than the British army have in Afghanistan). A sonic weapon designed to disperse crowds by administering "head splitting pain" is ready to be deployed. Unmanned drones will be patrolling the skies over London. An aircraft carrier will be anchored nearby on the Thames in addition to other warships.
A "safe zone" will be put in place with eleven miles of electrified fence, patrolled by 55 teams of attack dogs.
This is not North Korea or the Soviet Union but London today. During the Olympics in Peking, not even the Chinese government put up such a fence or drone planes.
The 2006 Olympics Games Act means that not only the police and armed forces can use physical force to "protect" the Olympics but also private security forces. This covers anything from peaceful demonstrations, strikes, and the sale of bootleg Olympic products on the street that are not officially approved. "Brand protection teams" will patrol inside the Games to make sure that only clothes or accessories with commercial messages officially approved can be worn.
In addition people congregating on the street, a normal occurrence particularly in summer months, will be harassed,in particular local working class youth. In fact this is already happening with increased surveillance and harassment in the boroughs bordering the Olympics. Rough sleepers will be removed. The police can remove anyone "deemed in any way to be causing a nuisance".
There is no sign that this will disappear with the end of the Olympics. The police will end up more armed and arrogant than before, London and Britain will be saddled with enormous debt as a result of exorbitant Olympics spending, whole neighbourhoods will be socially cleansed and gentrified, taxes will be increased and all the security devices and cameras installed will stay in place.
The Games are not about sport. They are about phony patriotism, brand placing, profiteering for estate agents and landlords. They are there to boost the push towards neo-liberalism, to destroy our working class neighbourhoods, to boost the power of a state that is increasingly a police state. Who is the enemy in this new Britain? It is us, the majority of the population.
The Anarchist Federation (London) will be supporting the march and events organised by the Counter Olympics Network (CON) on July 28th.
See here: counterolympicsnetwork.wordpress.com/
We urge everyone concerned by the impact of the OLympics to support the events and the CON
london@afed.org.uk
Just what Nottingham DOESN'T need
13-07-2012 00:55
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These are challenging times. As an urban community we don't all agree on exactly what needs to happen to evolve Notts to the city it could be but I think we can all agree on some of the things that are holding it back.
A case in point is the planning application put in by Medina Green Limited to build another McDonald's AND KFC at Man Of Trent on Clifton Lane.
Both fast food chains are notorious for anti-social business practices, uniting positive movements across the spectrum in a cacophonous boycott call, be it for marketing unhealthy food to children, vandalizing the environment, treating their workers like slaves, persistently sourcing the cruellest factory farmed meat, the list goes on and on.
One also has to wonder the moral health of a society where such reasonable criticisms are not allowed to be taken into consideration when a council like NCC considers a planning application.
Fortunately for those concerned with human rights, animal rights and the environment, there are many, more bureaucratically palatable grounds to object on, such as the extra traffic the junk food outlets would generate on what is already an overused trunk road, or the noise and smell they would emit.
So if you have a spare moment, why not make an investment in a home town with a little less McBlight and register an objection with Nottingham City Council's planning department to Medina Green Ltd's ugly application, number 12/01824/PFUL3.
..and should the council's I.T. infrastructure leaves you somewhat underwhelmed, fret not, you can simply email the responsible planning officer Joanna Briggs with your objection - joanna.briggs@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.
Four events last Saturday, one next Monday for Bradley Manning & Julian Assange
12-07-2012 21:17
Next Monday, Brad is back in court and there will be a vigil from 3pm at the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London.
Earth First! Summer Gathering Update - programme, directions, website and more
12-07-2012 20:56
The EF! summer gathering website has full details up now.Bristol Tax Avoidance Olympics - help make it happen
12-07-2012 16:55
We need athletes!As the Olympics are in full swing on August 4th, Bristol will host an alternative event, where athletes representing the tax-avoiding corporate sponsors compete in events like Cooking the books; Jumping through tax loopholes; Avoiding the taxman; Law Limbo; Hide (your profits) and seek...
Help make this event happen!
The Tax Avoidance Olympics – Bristol City Centre, 4th August at 2pm
Roll up, roll up for the Tax Avoidance Olympics!
As athletes from around the world compete for gold medals and a place on the podium at London 2012, the corporate sponsors are battling for a different prize: to see who can pay the least tax during the Olympics, which will become the world’s latest tax haven.
In order to bring the Olympic Games to London, the UK tax office has granted all the official partner organisations (including corporate giants like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Visa) exemption from paying corporation or income tax while the games are taking place.
Is this the Olympic Spirit? Or another example of the rich getting a free ride while ordinary people pick up the tab through cuts in public services?
As the Olympics are in full swing on August 4th, Bristol will host an alternative event, where athletes representing the corporate sponsors compete in events like:
Cooking the books
Jumping through tax loopholes
Avoiding the taxman
Law Limbo
Hide (your profits) and seek
If you want to help make the Bristol Tax Avoidance Olympics happen, we need enthusiasm, costumes, props, energy and loads of athletes to take part in events and spread the word about the great Olympic tax swindle.
Please email taxolympian@gmail.com to get involved – we need people power to make this happen!
Alternatively, come along to the Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Coalition public meeting on Monday, 23rd July at Friends Meeting House, Champion Square (River Street), Bristol BS2 9DB.
Calais: Justice for Noureddin Mohamed
12-07-2012 16:40
Smash EDO: Final info for July 16th
12-07-2012 15:42
One final reminder about details and lead up events before the weapons inspection on Monday.If you have any portable sound system, please bring it along to the action!
Fortress Olympics looms over London
12-07-2012 13:50
Anarchist Federation (London) statement on the OlympicsAgainst all oppression. Against the EDL: Anti-racist and Proud bloc at Bristol pride
12-07-2012 12:55
Gathering to plan resistance to the G8 - this Sunday in Brighton
12-07-2012 09:29
This is a call for all of those who wish to mobilise for a MASSMOBILISATION against the G8 summit in the UK in 2013.
A initial meeting will take place on SUNDAY the 15th JULY, from 11am to 6pm, at the COMMUNITY BASE centre in Brighton, hosted by people from the Smash EDO campaign.