Civil liberties, justice, crime

Re-establish the right to protest!

New laws aimed at repressing radical protest and scaring activists into silence are being used to harass environmental, anti-deportation and left-wing political campaigners. And so are many old ones: in fact, jail sentences tend to be for “old” offences. The new laws give the police vast new powers against protest which they are only just starting to use. In April two Just Stop Oil (JSO) protesters were sentenced to long jail terms for “public nuisance” over occupying the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford near London. Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker spent 37 hours on the bridge...

Universities seek to victimise student activists

The campaign has stepped up against the victimisation of student activists who have bravely stood against the ongoing assault on Higher Education organised by the Department for Education and carried out by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), aided by University managements. At Sheffield University students protested at a UCEA conference of university leaders which was taking place on a University and College Union (UCU) strike day and across a picket line. Instead, UCEA could have met with the UCU and agreed to the union’s “four fights” demands, important for the whole...

Stop the Tories running amok

The government is under attack from the Tory right wing for being too “soft” on immigration and on Brexit. Probably the critics are setting out their stall for a Tory leadership contest after the next general election. The big fact for the labour movement is that this Tory government is already very right-wing even on the Tory scale, and feels itself under as much pressure from the further-right as from the labour movement and the left. Sunak has always been on the Tory right. The government is pushing back against pay demands harder than private employers, and putting through a concentrated...

Students criticise deflection tactic

Against the ongoing campaign at Sheffield University over the securitisation of campus and policing of student organising, Andy Winter, the university Chief Operating Officer, responded that the private-investigator firm Intersol Global had also been paid to investigate cases of sexual misconduct. The UK-wide campaign Not on My Campus has replied with a statement condemning the use of “sexual misconduct as a way to deflect criticism” on “hiring external investigators to probe the political protests of students”. It condemns the university’s spending on investigations into student protests...

West Bank surveillance echoes China

In a development that echoes the Chinese state’s repressive methods against the Uyghur people, the Israeli military is monitoring Palestinians in the occupied territories with a vast and intrusive database of personal details. This database is connected to facial recognition cameras and smartphone apps that Israeli soldiers and settlers use to stop, scan, control and detain civilians. The database and the apps have been described by former Israeli soldiers interviewed by the Washington Post and Breaking The Silence. BTS is an Israeli organisation of ex-soldiers campaigning against the...

Unions: pull Starmer into line!

Through Labour’s National Policy Forum in July and the Labour Party conference, 8-11 October in Liverpool, Solidarity will be pressing for activists to organise in unions and local Labour Parties to call Keir Starmer to account. The Labour leaders’ draft programme, the National Policy Forum report released on 11 May, sets up two barriers against making reality of its bland and blurred talk of social advance. It defines everything as having to be done in concert with or for the benefit of “business”. “We will make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business by making the...

Sheffield University comes under pressure

The open letter to Sheffield University, demanding that it drop its investigation of student protesters, has been signed by student groups in Sheffield such as Sheffield Labour Students and Sheffield Solidarity Group, as well as by the chair of Sheffield Hallam UCU, the secretary of Sheffield International College UCU, and Sheffield Trades Council president Bob Jeffery. The open letter was started by the Student Cost of Living campaign , a cross-campus network of students around the country. Other signatories include the NUS Vice President for Liberation and Equality, Nehaal Bajwa, branch...

Fight for liberty!

Early on 6 May, before the day’s coronation procession, police arrested Graham Smith and other organisers of the republican protest planned around the procession, and confiscated their placards. The cops cited, so the BBC reports, “suspicion of affray, public order offences, breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”. On 8 May the police told the organisers they would take “no further action”; the organisers are now talking to lawyers about suing the police. Republic is a “moderate” organisation. It discussed its protest plans with the police in advance, and gained approval...

Sheffield University: drop the investigation!

Student protesters at the University of Sheffield are facing the threat of expulsion or a large fine for their alleged involvement in a protest. From September 2022 to January 2023 the University employed private investigator Intersol Global to look into students’ involvement in protests. University Regulations state that the investigator may require students under investigation to respect the confidentiality of the investigation. But we know from a report in the Guardian that in March the University investigated two students for their alleged involvement in the occupation of a building...

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