Met police clamps down on right to protest
On Saturday 9 August, over 500 peaceful protesters were shackled, thrown in police vans, and arrested. Their crime? Holding placards declaring support for Palestine Action.
Over half of the arrestees were over 60 years old, many were cuffed and left to sit in the baking sun without any water, others were dragged into ‘bully vans’ and a blind man was amongst those arrested.
In fact, the route of the march was littered with imposing signs warning protesters against using ‘threatening’ chants, or supporting Palestine Action.
Let us be clear: this is a blatant attack on freedom of speech and the right to protest.
Our criminal government is totally complicit in the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, yet they have determined that showing support for the people of Palestine is a criminal offence on the same level as showing support for Isis or Al-Qaeda.
Just down the road the next day, the police obligingly escorted and protected a (much smaller) pro-Israel march, which was protesting Starmer’s half-hearted potential recognition of a Palestinian state.
Open support for a genocidal regime committing untold horrors in the Middle East is offered protection, whereas 60+ year olds holding signs on a lawn protesting genocide are declared terrorists and locked up.
These cynical politicians say one thing and do another, they raise a hue and cry about terrorism, whilst backing the terrorism of the Israeli regime to the hilt.
The war criminals in Westminster, who have done everything in their power to facilitate this genocide, are the real terrorists. They are the ones who belong in jail.
Owen Rees Hattersley, Wood Green
War is peace, freedom is slavery
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was recently in Finland, where she gave a speech to a crowd of people. There were some hecklers there to whom she had this to say:
“For those who scream and yell so loud. They can be happy that they are in a free country, like Finland, where free speech is a right. Where they have not any restrictions. If they would be in Moscow, they would be in jail in two minutes.”
While she was saying it, a heckler was arrested by the police and taken out of the crowd. War is peace, freedom is slavery, I guess. The ruling class has lost any credibility with the majority of the workers, but it doesn’t stop the parasites from the high castle from spitting nonsense like this.
Freedom is not a right which is guaranteed by society. In the class society we are living in, freedom is the right of the minority to oppress the majority. Real freedom will only come when the working class fully takes control of society through a socialist revolution!
Roman Merker, Birmingham
Solidarity with Chris Smalls
On 26 July, American trade unionist Chris Smalls was shamefully and illegally detained and beaten by the Israeli state. His crime? Participating in one of the Freedom Flotilla expeditions that have been attempting to break the aid blockade on Gaza and end this monstrous manmade famine.
The Zionist thugs not only detained all the volunteers who were peacefully attempting to deliver aid, but also targeted Smalls as a black man: “They attacked me out of the 21 volunteers because of the color of my skin.”
His immediate release after this criminal treatment shows that there was no case against him or his comrades.
In 2021, the former Amazon worker led the struggle for the first ever Amazon labour union in the US. Today, he is one of the few prominent labour leaders to speak out boldly for Palestinian liberation.
As he said during a podcast interview after his release, “This is a class issue.” The same ruling classes that are funding this genocide are also attacking workers’ pay and conditions in their own countries.
Unfortunately, Smalls leads a very small union – although an extremely significant one as a harbinger of the struggles to come in the US.
The shameful thing is that the bureaucrats in charge of the mass trade unions are not mobilising the enormous power of their membership. This is indeed a class issue, and only class methods can force the lifting of the blockade and immobilise the war machine.
Dockers should follow the lead of the French workers who are refusing to load components headed to Israel, and workers in the defence industry should be supported to take over their factories and reorganise them for the production of socially useful technology.
And, ultimately, the working class must be mobilised to overthrow the entire imperialist system.
Down with Zionism! Solidarity with Chris Smalls!
Tommaso Verga, Brixton
