Solidarity 250, 20 June 2012

On the night of 14 June, Occupy protesters were evicted from Finsbury Square by bailiffs supported by the Metropolitan Police. At 1:00am bailiffs put metal fencing around the site and proceeded to clear away the tents and evict people. The camp, at that point occupied by around fifty people, had become home to a number of homeless people. Paul Convery, Islington council’s executive member for community safety, claimed that “we have been speaking to them and offering advice and support to those who need assistance.” However, an Occupy London statement notes that “at 5am there were still about...

Despite my university education, my job training, my various other random qualifications, and the endless volunteering I have undertaken, I am at the Job Centre, again. It is a familiar routine: sign on, see your advisor, show job search activity, don’t be more than five minutes late, don’t eat, drink, loiter, or talk on your mobile and please leave quietly if it so happens you are left without any money because of “technicalities”. All around is the unknowing glare of shame that people possess in their eyes having most probably watched the Jeremy Kyle show or read this morning’s Sun. They...

Speaking after the 16 June unofficial meeting of teacher union branch delegates in Liverpool, National Union of Teachers (NUT) Exec member and Barnsley division secretary Roy Bowser said that the meeting “surpassed all my expectations". “More to the point, it was a true outlet for the way most members are feeling. I think behind the rhetoric there is a real base for a rank and file bottom-up push that hopefully will now help shape strategy”. Bowser knows something about union organising: he was active as a coal miner in the 1984-85 miners’ strike. In fact, the network set up from the 16 June...

Thousands of activists marched in Hong Kong to question official reports of the death of Li Wangyang, a veteran of the Tiananmen Square democracy uprising who was freed last year after spending 22 years in jail for his role in the 1989 protests. He was found dead in his hospital room after apparently having hanged himself. But supporters, friends, and relatives claim that, as Li was extremely unwell, it is unlikely he would have been able to carry out the suicide. They also say that to commit suicide without leaving a note is entirely contrary to his character. Li’s family have also criticised...

Tunisia has seen a series of Islamist outrages against the labour movement and freedom of speech in recent weeks, while workers’ struggles for jobs and public services heat up. On 26 May, Salafists started riots and fights in Jendouba — a provocation which began with attacks against alcohol vendors but quickly became a confrontation with the police. On the following day at dawn, Salafists raided the premises of the al Hilwar television station – other attacks also took place against Sfax regional radio and there was a sit-in protest in front of the national radio station in Tunis. The Union...

Fifty people were killed on Saturday in fighting and shelling in the Damascus area, in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, and in Western coastal town of Latakia. For the last week rebel held areas of Homs have been under intense bombardment and ground attacks. Food is in short supply. Thousands are trapped. Syrian human rights organisations are calling on the UN to step in and evacuate the civilian population in the contested areas of Homs. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) had been gaining ground across the north and centre of Syria. However the FSA lost a week-long battle in northern town of...

Why do some people think that campaigning in solidarity with the Palestinians is “a bit anti-Jewish”? This is the question (supposedly) addressed by an article in the spring newsletter of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC). There are many reasons why some people think that the dominant form of what passes for Palestinian solidarity is “a bit anti-Jewish” (or maybe rather more than just “a bit”). Some people may have found it “a bit anti-Jewish”, for example, when the SPSC marked Holocaust Memorial Day by reading extracts from a play (“Perdition”) which claimed that the Holocaust...

Police arrested four anti-fascists in Glasgow last Saturday (16th June) as a mob of around twenty or so Scottish Defence League (SDL) supporters staged a ‘protest’ in the city centre and harassed members of the Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign. At the time of writing, what happened on the day is not yet completely clear. But the main sequence of events is as follows. For several weeks prior to last Saturday the Glasgow Committee to Welcome Refugees was building support for a demonstration it was staging that day in protest at the eviction of asylum-seekers. (Ypeople recently lost the...

While the pay of bosses of the top 100 companies rose 10% in 2011, average household incomes are slumping. A new report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies finds that in 2010-11 mean household income (the average of household incomes) fell 5.7% and median household income (the income of a middling household) fell 3.2%. Both averages are below their 2004-5 level. The one-year fall in 2010-11 was the biggest since 1981, and the longer-period fall is one of the largest on record. http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/hbai2012.pdf .