City Strolls - events - meetings
Thursday, September 29, 2005
News from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities
Newsflash- Vucaj family deported this morning We understand the Vucaj Family has been deported on the ten am flight to Kosovo from London Stansted. The last we heard of the family was at 4.21 am. More info: 07773321727 Protest in George Square, Glasgow, 11am Sat 1 OctSACC Conference Update
The conference is on Sat 1 Oct, 9.30am-6pm, Leith Academy, 20, Academy
Park, Edinburgh
Admission £5 waged, £2 unwaged, asylum-seekers/refugees free
Note the following programme changes:
Workshop on "New Labour's racist asylum laws" (presented by Glasgow
Campaign to Welcome Refugees) has been re-scheduled for 2.15pm - 4.15pm
Workshop on "How to strengthen Jewish opposition to ghettos and
genocide" (presented by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign" has
been re-scheduled for 11.15am - 12.45pm
Ghada Razuki (UK Stop the War Coalition) will be speaking in the
afternoon
Latest details on www.sacc.org.uk
To find out how to get to the conference, visit
www.leith.edin.sch.uk/where.asp
SACC AGM
The SACC AGM will be held at 1-2pm during the conference lunch break.
Anyone can attend; only SACC members can vote. You can join at the
conference - £5 waged, £3 unwaged
Press Release from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC)
Edinburgh conference to challenge
anti-terror policy
Thursday 29 September
For immediate release
Scotland Against Criminalising Communities will be holding a conference
this Saturday at Leith Academy, Edinburgh with the theme "War on Terror?
War on us: how do we stop the criminalising of our communities".
The conference has been called in response to the assault on civil
liberties that the government has lauched in the wake of the London
bombings. The government's attack on our communities has been
accompanied by a wave of racist thuggery on the streets. Leith had been
particularly badly hit by these incidents. It isn't only Muslims who
have been affected; people from a number of minority communities have
been victimised. We'll be looking at the background to these events, the
role played by Britain's aggressive foreign policy and its invasion of
Iraq, and the ways in which we can defend our rights
Speakers at the conference will include Mohammad Aslam, chair of Leith's
Annandale Street Mosque; Aamer Anwar, Glasgow-based human rights
lawyer; Sohaib Saeed, from the Muslim Association of Britain, Ghada
Razuki, an Iraqi who is a spokesperson for the UK Stop The War
Coalition, and Rose Gentle, the mother of Scottish soldier Gordon Gentle
who was killed in Iraq just over a year ago. Rose Gentle spoke at the
anti-war demonstration in Washington DC last Saturday, and was present
when Cindy Sheehan - a bereaved US mother - was arrested along with
other prominent activists outside the White House for demonstrating
without a permit.
Keir McKechnie of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees will be
talking about the brutal deportation today of the Vucaj family -
refugees who have been settled in Glasgow for 5 years
Paddy Hill will also be speaking at the conference. Paddy spent 17 years
in jail for his supposed part in the IRA'a Birmingham pub bombings - a
crime he didn't commit. Gill Hubbard of the G8 Alternatives group will
be talking about the repressive and manipulative way the G8 protests on
Scotland this summer were policed. And investigative journalist Peter
Hounam will be talking about his film "Dead in the Water", which
documents what really happened when Israeli forces attacked the USS
Liberty during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and America went on nuclear
alert.
For more information contact Richard Haley 07719822164
Background
A draft of the governmnent's proposed new anti-terror laws was released
on 15 September and can be downloaded from www.sacc.org.uk
advance of the proposed new laws. Foreign citizens who have been living
in Britain for years are being arrested for deportation on security
grounds under new Home Office guidelines, though they are not accused of
any crime and they face torture in thier counties of origin. Earlier
this week, a meeting involving the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir was
barred from Middlesex University in apparent anticipation of a
government plan to outlaw the group.
Today, the Vucaj Family from Glasgow has been deported on the ten am
flight to Kosovo from London Stanstead. Campaigner Robina Qureshi said
"I am disgusted by this calculated, unremitting barbarity known as the
UK asylum & immigration policy. I feel ashamed of this country, that
shame knows no depths, this calculated, unremitting barbarism that has
broken that little girl’s heart will haunt this country for generations
to come."
Andy Hayman of the Metropolitan Police said yesterday (the Guardian,
September 29) that getting the Muslim community to trust the police was
proving a long and difficult process. Frankly, we're not surprised. The
Met's policy of shooting innocent people - a policy they have yet
to give up - hasn't helped. Neither has the "dodgy map" recently leaked
by MI5, which cobbles together sightings of the BNP, animal rights
activists and Muslim "extremists" - whatever that means - to present a
picture of a country under threat. The document was apparently leaked in
order to muster support for an administrative shake-up of the police
force. Earlier this week undercover soldiers who had been concealing
heavy armament were interecepted by police in Basra, and then were
sprung from jail by the British Army. We don't see how the police and
the security forces in Britain can expect to be taken seriously until
they begin behaving responsibly, and stop acting as the street theatre
wing of New Labour's spin machine. Our conference will discuss ways in
which the whole British community - the majority community as well as
the minorities - can resist this embryonic police state.
_____
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For all other enquiries about SACC email sacctheacts@yahoo.co.uk
or phone 07719822164
Bob, 21:38
