Oxford Anti-racism Newswire Archive

An article exposing the UK Government's collusion with Indonesia in stopping the people of West Papua from voting for freedom from Indonesian colonial rule Read more >>

Seventh Annual Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture dedicated to the memory of the pioneer of Black journalism in Britain. This year's lecture will be delivered by Dr Robert Beckford, Reader in Black Theology and Popular Culture at Oxford Brookes University. An award-winning broadcaster for Channel Four, Dr. Beckford's lecture will explore how understanding "whiteness" offers an important strategy for community cohesion and democratic inclusion.
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following YOUTUBE atrocity,  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MHzvsbPiNCs of police beating Albanians, a petition has been set up to draw attention to the torture that seems routine in Greece today. I am writing as a victim of such torture myself. Read more >>

Necati Zontul, who is an Oxford resident, was tortured in 2001 in Greece. Today, he received a letter from the Greek Ombudsman who claims the Minister of Merchant Marine has agreed to apologise and to promise that there would be no further incidents of torture by the Greek Coastguard. This is despite recent videos broadcast on YOUTUBE of Greek police torturing foreigners in custody! It is 6 years after the event and 2 years after a guilty verdict was reached. Read more >>

Following Tuesday night's large, disciplined yard-protest and Wednesday morning's hunger strike, two Home Office representatives were called to Campsfield on Wednesday afternoon to hear the detainees' grievances. The pair, including the Assistant Director of Escorting Services at the Borders and Immigration Authority (Philip Schoelenberger?) were confronted by an angry, articulate, multi-national delegation of 22 detainees in a meeting that lasted 2 and a half hours. Read more >>

++Government refuses to spend £1bn/year to
protect against real floods; instead wastes
£1.5bn on an imaginary one.++ Read more >>

The ENOUGH! coalition is organising a major national demonstration and rally to take place in London on the afternoon of 9 June 2007 - the international day of action to mark the 40th anniversary under the slogan: "The World Says No to Israeli Occupation". Read more >>

Oxford Women in Black members will move their protest against the Israeli occupation of Palestine to London on June 9th to join with thousands of other protestors who are saying Enough! to 40 years of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Read more >>

After having his talk at Bath University cancelled, it looked like Griffin would be giving the city a miss. However, a report on BBC 'points west' stated that he would be holding a secret meeting arranged by nazi Bath student Danny Lake. Read more >>

On Monday 14th of May, holocaust denying Nazi fuckwit Nick Griffin will be speaking at Bath University... unless we stop him! Read more >>

Mohammad Bakri, Palestinian actor and director will be answering questions after a screening of his latest film "Since you Left" at the Phoenix Cinema, Walton Street at 4pm on Sunday April 29th Read more >>

On Monday 19th February, the local Reading press reported that BNP leader Nick Griffin, was gonna pay our town a visit on the Wednesday. The BNP's regional organiser reckons they've got "a lot of members (in Reading) but no organiser" and that if they could be organised, they could field candidates in the local elections, maybe up to 4. Read more >>

Nick Griffin is coming to Reading on Wednesday to sir up racial hatred, and to try to organise the BNP. Read more >>

For the fifth consecutive year a Salisbury Plain Peace Vigil will be
held on the army range at 12 noon on New Year's Eve 31 December 2006. Read more >>

It's the season of good will and to celebrate brotherly love and the like, the Daily Mail was been reporting from the holly land on what they describe as a "sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem".

The paper reports, "The town’s Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006. There are reports of religious persecution, in the form of murders, beatings and land grabs."

Apparently the breakdown in security has been putting off the jet set tourists and leading to economic hardship for those ever down trodden Christians - who incidently manage to own most of the town’s hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.

This god awful situation has become "so desperate" that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, are going over with a bunch of cristian protesters to express their solidarity with the "beleaguered Christian populace" Read more >>

Anne Owers HM Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) has published today a report on Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), the UK's largest immigration removal centre, stating that it was not performing satisfactorily against ANY of the Inspectorate's tests of a healthy custodial environment and that poor relationships between custody officers and detainees were "worse than had been seen at any other detention centre" and was "Undoubtedly the poorest report" issued by HMIP of any IRC to date.
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Barbed Wire Britain, a network to end refugee and migrant detention, has produced a second volume of testimonies from immigration detainees, Voices From Detention II.

Amidst the political and media clamour about how many asylum seekers have been or need be deported, the voices of the system's victims are necessarily stifled. Would-be refugees are mere statistics, objects in a disgusting Dutch auction as to which political brand can wash whitest. And this why such a collection is an important tool in the struggle for rights and justice.

The volume is a collection of accounts by detainees in Tinsley House, Campsfield House, Rochester (HMP), Liverpool (HMP), Belmarsh (HMP), Lindholme, Harmondsworth, Yarlswood, Dungavel, Dover and Haslar. These are people for whom the unthinkable has happened. They have been imprisoned in the UK without charge, without conviction, without time limit. They have been imprisoned by the UK government, which boasts its democratic institutions.

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published below, a letter to the Greek Prime Minister from Tim Wilson who works in Oxford with his partner, torture victim Necati Zontul. Their second film, "A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE" is now in production and charts the failure and bias of the Greek Courts. Yesterday, the Government's apology to Greek activist Avgoustino Dimitrou, important though it is, demonstrates that there is one law for Greeks and another for foreigners. Necati has waited 6 years fro an apology and has received none. Neither has he been offered compensation, or a statement of non-recurrence. Instead, he has been denied access to court and seen 3 of his assailants acquitted. It is time that the racist agenda is challenged, and the mindless corruption and cronyism that sees convicted men still in uniform years after their trial, must stop -before more innocent foreigners are hurt in Greece. Read more >>

STOP THE WAR COALITION NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
2 DECEMBER 06 ~ RAF BRIZE NORTON
Coaches leaving from Central London 9.30am
Tickets: £10 / £8 (to book contact  office@stopwar.org.uk or 020 7278 6694)
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Mohammed Alater's documentary film "The Iron Wall" is showing in Oxford on Tuesday November 11th at 7.30pm in the Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford.
This film covers the issue of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and its impact on the two-state solution. Read more >>