Ndengo Lukombo, know to his friends as Luk, the Congolese man taken in a dawn raid in Glasgow on 2nd October, is due to have a bail hearing at the Eagle building tomorrow Tuesday 14th November at 10.00am. He is asking all his friends and supporters to come along and show support for him in and outside the court.
Solidarity stands by Luk and calls for an end to our racist immigration and asylum laws.
The Court is on floor 4, Eagle Building, 215 Bothwell Street GLASGOW G2 7TS, and is on the corner of Bothwell Street and Pitt Street, near the Holiday Inn and the Refugee Council.
Buses 204 and 205 stop close by at the Anderstone Centre. Please come along to support Luk!
More information from: The Unity Centre 30 Ibrox Street Glasgow G51 1AQ 0141 427 7992
SNP and Lib Dems in Council Tax Con
Solidarity MSP and Co-Convenor, Tommy Sheridan, today slammed the Lib Dems and SNP for continuing to con the Scottish public over Council Tax policy.
In the aftermath of the expensive, two year Burt Report into Local Government finance, which has been roundly rubbished by all the mainstream parties, Sheridan highlighted the consistent failure of the Lib Dems and SNP over the last 7 years to publish a bill outlining their detailed alternatives to Council Tax.
Sheridan addressing a Solidarity meeting today, said
“The Council Tax is fundamentally unfair. It takes significantly more from pensioners and low paid workers than the well paid and wealthy. It is a Tory tax and must be replaced by a fairer, income based alternative. Yet despite 7 years of rhetoric from the Lib Dems and SNP no bill to replace the Council Tax has been forthcoming from either of them. Their opposition is empty words. When my Abolition of Council Tax Bill was debated in February this year both parties sided with the New Labour and Tory Party council tax apologists. Their opposition to council tax is exposed as a con. When push came to shove they voted to keep a tax that hammers the poor in favour of the wealthy.”
Sheridan further commented today
“If I am returned as a Solidarity MSP next May I promise to re-introduce my practical and radical bill to replace Council Tax with an income based service tax. Scotland’s army of hard pushed pensioners and low paid workers deserve a better system.”
Solidarity Welcomes RMT Victory
Solidarity MSP Rosemary Byrne has welcomed the news that RMT members had succesfully negotiated a fair pay increase at the end of ten days of industrial action.
Over 900 North Sea divers and support staff, who had been on strike since November 1, voted overwhelmingly to accept a pay package that will increase current rates by a cumulative 44.7 per cent over the next two years. The MSP for South of Scotland said:
“This is a great victory, and should encourage other trades unionists that strike action can still be an effective negotiating tool.”
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow praised the workers determined campaign:
"By any standard this is a tremendous victory for a group of workers who have displayed grit, determination and complete solidarity in their campaign to win a fair pay increase."Our members in the North Sea came out as one, stood together through ten days of solid strike action, and can return to work proud that their unity has won a significant advance,"
Tommy Sheridan Challenges Powerless Parliament
Tommy Sheridan today challenged the Scottish Parliament's ruling that his Bill to take the railways of Scotland into public ownership is beyond the parliaments powers.
The Solidarity MSP said:
"I will challenge this ruling in parliament today, we are in the crazy situation that the Scottish Executive have been given new powers to run the railways yet the parliament is deemed to be powerless in this area. Taking the railways back into public ownership was Labour party policy when they were last allowed to discuss these issues and SNP policy, yet they both voted against discussing it. The people of Scotland back this bill, the trade union movement support it, yet we can't discuss it. That's why we need a real parliament in an independent Scotland."
Earlier this week Rosemary Byrne's proposed bill on drugs treatment was also the subject of an attempted block by the parliament.
Solidarity at Faslane
Solidarity activists have been protesting at Faslane most of this week. Stop the War were there on Monday and Tuesday with many Solidarity members present, and today, Scotland's Socialist Movement took our place in the year long protest organised by Faslane 365.
On Friday morning, Solidarity MSPs, Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne will join braches from across the country at the gates of the home of Trident.
Tommy Sheridan, a veteran of several blockades and protests at the site, said:
"The Labour Party are about to spend £76 billion pounds of public money on replacing Trident Missiles. That is the cost, published in the House of Commons, of replacing and maintaing a new generation of weapons of mass destruction. This is money that could be used to pay a decent pension, a decent minimum wage, or free education for students."
Solidarity Statement on Beit Hanoun
Whilst the world's attention was focused on the results of US Midterm Elections on Wednesday, November 9, Israeli tanks were shelling civilians in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, slaughtering 18 and injuring 50 men, women and children. Many of the children involved were just two years of age.
This latest Israeli crime yet again produced no meaningful response from the international community, prompting the following questions:
How long will the long-suffering Palestinian people be forced to stand alone in the face of this wanton slaughter and sustained programme of ethnic cleansing? And how long will such crimes against humanity be able to hide behind a culture of victimhood and exceptionalism?
Further, of the Israeli people, Solidarity asks: Where are the mass demonstrations in response to your government's brutal treatment of the Palestinian people? Where is the outrage at the rivers of innocent blood spilled in your name?
Of the Israeli working class, we ask: Where is the industrial action in solidarity with your Palestinian brothers and sisters? Where is the class consciousness necessary to transcend the poisonous ideology of Zionism which has brought shame on you? The comforts and standard of living you enjoy are being paid for in the blood of a people whose land your ancestors seized, and who continue to exist alongside you as a testament to their heroic defiance.
Undoubtedly, the Holocaust was the greatest crime of the 20th century. Thus far, the greatest crime of the 21st is Israel's occupation of Palestine. As such, the only fitting tribute to the millions who died in the Holocaust is to campaign for Palestinian human rights today.
Along with ever-increasing millions around the world, Solidarity declares, in defiance of the British government's continued support of Israel's ethnic cleansing, in defiance of those who fear the calumny of the label anti-Semite, we declare our complete support for the Palestinian cause.
And just as Nazi Germany was consigned to history, just as apartheid South Africa was consigned to history, we look forward to the day when the apartheid state of Israel is consigned to history where it belongs. This eventuality would be in the interests of all who are interested in peace and universal human rights in the region, whether Jew, Muslim or Christian.
We also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Israeli 'Refusnik' movement, comprised of those members of the Israeli military who refuse to take part in military operations against the Palestinians. History will rightfully judge them heroes in the service of human solidarity.
Finally, Solidarity, Scotland's Socialist Movement, sends a message back in time to former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, who in 1969 uttered the infamous statement that "there were no Palestinians."
Our message is this:
Today, in 2006, not only are there Palestinians. Today, in 2006, we are all Palestinians.
Attack on MAB spokesperson is "astonishing" say SACC
Scotland Against Criminalising Communities have issued as statement in defence of Osama Saeed after an "astonishing", ill-informed attack on Scotland's MAB spokesperson. The full statement from SACC is below:
SACC was surprised to learn that a Dundee Muslim community leader has "denounced anti-police sentiment" supposedly shown at a meeting that our campaign helped to organise. The comments by Bashir Chohan, of Dundee Islamic Society Central Mosque, appeared in today's Evening Times. He has clearly been misinformed. No anti-police sentiments were expressed at the meeting. We are particularly distressed by the ill-informed criticism that has been directed at Osama Saeed, a spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain and one of the best champions of healthy inter-community relations that Scotland is likely to see.
Mr Chohan implies in his comments to the Evening Times that the meeting wasn't adequately publicised. In fact, leaflets about the meeting were distributed at Friday prayers last week. In the event, the University's Baxter Suite was filled to capacity, with people sitting in the aisles. SACC is a Scotland-wide campaign civil liberties campaign for people of all faiths and none. We don't presume to represent the views of the Dundee's Muslim community, although we certainly hope that our values are shared by a good number of Dundee people, Muslim and non-Muslim. Our purpose in joining with the Muslim Association of Britain to organise Monday's meeting was to inform and advise people living in Dundee - especially students and staff at the university - and to stimulate discussion.
The position our campaign takes is very clear. We encourage people to cooperate with good policing. We encourage them to report real crime to the police. We encourage minority communities to engage actively and confidently with the whole community. But we insist that a healthy civil society can't exist unless people can discuss political matters freely and without fear. Politics has never been any business of the police in this country and it isn't their business today. So we urge people not to discuss ordinary political activities with the police. In particular, we urge them not to respond to general requests for information from the Special Branch Community Contact Unit. The Unit is undermining healthy community life by treating community relations as a national security issue. Building links between communities is the job of communities themselves, not of police officers. And building understanding between minority communities and the police is the job of ordinary police officers, not Special Branch.
The primary purpose of the Special Branch Community Contact Unit is "intelligence-gathering". This doesn't mean that it simply invites people to report crime. The Unit seeks intelligence on a range of activity within the Muslim Community in order for it not only to detect crime but also to detect non-criminal activity that it regards as "extremist" - a term for which it provides no definition. It return for this intelligence it offers "reassurance" - another term that the it doesn't define. This arrangement strikes us as something very close to protection racket. Officers from the Unit said recently that they have found no signs of "extremism" at Dundee University. They also say that the Unit has been a success. Since the purpose of the Unit is to "create intelligence-gathering opportunities", it must be assumed that the police have gathered data on a substantial number of people who are neither engaged in criminal activity nor even in non-criminal activities that the police call "extremist". A further indication of this came when a member of our campaign submitted a Freedom of Information request to Tayside Police. He was told that substantial parts of the information requested were exempted from disclosure because they were made up of personal data concerning members of the public. The effect of all this has been to impose a culture of suspicion on Dundee's Muslim Community. There have been strong hints that similar schemes may be introduced on other campuses around the country. If this is allowed to continue, participation of Muslim students in political and social activities will be steadily reduced and links between Muslims and other communities will be eroded. But the destruction of healthy community relations is only the beginning of the problem. The denial of ordinary rights and freedoms to the Muslim section of the student population can't fail, in the end, to corrode political and social life for all students. Muslims have been uniquely victimised by Tayside Police. But the issues raised are much too large for this to be a matter for the Muslim community alone.
For all these reasons, SACC is grateful to Osama Saeed for the assistance he has given to our campaign. Speaking after Richard Haley, of SACC, at last night's meeting he gave broad support to Richard Haley's call for people of all communities to "say no" to Special Branch officers seeking intelligence. It's simply astonishing to find Bashir Chohan of Dundee's Central Mosque saying of Osama Saeed that "these kind of statements will not help the relationship between the wider community and Muslims.' Osama Saeed has done more than anyone to encourage Scotland's Muslim community to look outwards. He is the best ambassador that Scotland's Muslims could wish for. Nobody - except perhaps, the two officers at Dundee's Special Branch Community Contact Unit - can possibly benefit from this kind of attack on him.
Monday's meeting was multi-cultural, vibrant, confident and friendly. In other words, it was a pointer to the future of community relations in Scotland. We urge everyone who feels inclined to pass comment on the meeting to inform themselves properly about what actually happened and then - if they want a Scotland free of fear and racism - to come and join us.
Parliament Denies Democracy On Byrne's Drugs Bill
Solidarity MSP Rosemary Byrne today made a major attack on the Scottish Parliament for denying democracy to private members bringing forward Bills. For the last year Rosemary Byrne has been working on the Treatment of Drugs (Scotland) Bill she has worked to the timetable set out by the parliament, consulted widely on the bill and presented it to parliament for consideration. Now she has been told by the Health Committee that there isn’t time to consider the bill before the end of the parliamentary year, the South of Scotland MSP said:
"This is a major scandal. My staff and I, together with the parliaments staff, have spent a great deal of time and taxpayers money working on this Bill. We consulted widely across Scotland and the Bill which would provide a comprehensive service for drug treatment across Scotland. As Professor McKeganey's report showed earlier this week that is exactly what is needed. The bill has wide support across Scotland from headteachers, parents, the police and voluntary organisations. They are all hoping these issues will be debated, now they are going to be desperately disappointed and I know many are already protesting to the parliament. I will be challenging this ruling widely in the parliament and if necessary legally, we cannot allow this ruling to stand otherwise MSPs will be denied their democratic rights to draft legislation and the Scottish Parliament will suffer.”
Motion to Parliament:
Lack of democracy
That this Parliament condemns the situation whereby member’s bills face undemocratic barriers to their passage through the parliamentary system; notes with concern that more and more stringent measures are being put in place with regard to members bills thus weakening the basic democracy of the parliament; recognises that the production of a members bill involves a considerable amount of time and public money including the cost of both parliamentary and party staff; calls for an immediate review on the way in which members bills are supported through the parliamentary system including a review of the standing orders of the parliament with regard to members bills and their progress in the parliament
Gordon Brown will be in Brussels today arguing for a global alliance of governments, business leaders and public figures to fight the reactionary “Luddites” opposed to globalisation and break the “dangerous global log jam” that is threatening world trade.
Brown, the UK, EU and every capitalist power employs a hypocritical stance on free trade, advocating greater liberalisation of the markets where it suits and protectionist measures, tariffs and quotas where it benefits their own corporations and national economies. But workers cannot safeguard their futures or protect their own interests through adopting the same protectionist policies of the USA, EU, China or Japan.
Solidarity MSP, Tommy Sheridan said:
“Solidarity believes that it is irrelevant where production is situated in the world, only who owns and controls the production will ultimately protect the working class in every country from the instability of global capital and trade. By eradicating the inefficiency of profit and adopting a planned, democratic economy, then trade and exchange can be used to free people rather than people being used to free trade.”
In a week where the “Stern” report concentrated on the loss to profits and growth for global capital as a result of climate change, Jim Walls of Coalfields Solidarity challenged Brown and his neoliberal allies to concentrate on real freedom.
“ Every year millions of tons of coal are exported from Scotland and millions of tons imported into Scotland at great environmental cost in the name of free trade. If the profits from the Scottish coalfields were used to invest in clean green coal technology and a carbon capture coal power station instead of lining the pockets of shareholders we would be able to plan this trade more effectively. We should be asking Gordon Brown how “free” are the miners in China who die at a rate of six an hour in the name of free trade and for the cause of cheap energy.”
Solidarity Statement on Saddam Verdict
In 46 BC the captured Gallic leader, Vercingetorix, on the way to his execution, was paraded through the streets of Rome by Caesar to mark the fifth anniversary of his victorious campaign to quell revolt in Gaul and Germania, a campaign which secured the Roman Empire’s European possessions for many years to come.
On Sunday, November 5, 2006, pictures of Saddam Hussein in the dock receiving the death sentence at the end of a nine month 'show trial' were beamed around the world - a world increasingly controlled by a new Roman Empire with Washington DC its centre of power.
Over two thousand years separate the ignominious end of Vercingetorix and Saddam Hussein at the hands of an imperial behemoth, yet the parallels are striking. Simply put, both men stood up to the prevailing global power and both were destroyed.
That Saddam Hussein was a dictator who murdered and tortured many of his own people is undeniable. However, the death and carnage visited on the Iraqi people in three years of a brutal, illegal and immoral occupation, engineered by US plutocrats as a project to smash their way into the heart of the Middle East in order to control the regions vast energy reserves, is a crime against humanity for which those responsible should be held to account in an international criminal court.
There can be no doubt that the American ruling class, intent on imposing the free market to every part of the planet, an economic system predicated on profit regardless of the human, social or environmental cost, are the common enemy of all humanity.
And yet despite the barbaric and brutal nature of this threat, there is hope. For all over the world people are resisting this juggernaut of death and destruction. In Iraq the popular resistance has been the rock upon which US imperialism has floundered; the Palestinians continue to stand fast in the face of a US-sponsored programme of ethnic cleansing; and the Lebanese recently repelled an Israeli invasion of their country.
In Latin America socialist ideas and movements are reinvigorating and inspiring millions. In particular the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela continues to make progress, replacing misery with hope for the poor of that oil-rich country, and in the process turning Venezuela into the same beacon of hope for the poor around the world that Cuba has been for decades.
Meanwhile, in the United States itself, that bastion of freedom and liberty, over 44 million men, women and children exist without any health care provision whatsoever, 30 million live in poverty, and over 2 million languish in prison; this figure a quarter of the entire world's prison population.
But even in the belly of the beast a glimmer of hope exists. Earlier this year an immigrants’ rights movement produced the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States, with millions taking to the streets of most major cities demanding an end to racist immigration laws, exposing the deepening contradiction inherent in a nation in which a minority live in decadent luxury while increasing numbers exist in grinding poverty, mostly Blacks and Mexicans.
In this country a low intensity war against the working class has seen our public utilities sold-off, our social services undermined, and our pensions, jobs, and communities come under attack in a period of reaction which has continued without let-up since Thatcher came to power. Moreover, in recent months a concerted campaign to target Muslims has been initiated by the Blair government, with sinister echoes of the campaign to demonise and isolate the Jews of Europe in the 1930s.
But, here too, people are fighting back. In workplaces, communities, on student campuses, the war at home and the war overseas is being joined by people of all age, ethnicity, and religion, people who in the process of that fight back are drawing the conclusions that we in Solidarity have already drawn - namely that the solution to all of the injustice, chaos and inequality in society is an end to the economic system which lies at its root and a socialist alternative put in its place.
Solidarity, campaigning for this socialist alternative, will continue to do so as a part of the global resistance to imperialism, war, inequality and racism in all its forms.
Not only are we are committed to defending our jobs, our communities, and our public services, committed to standing with all those who are oppressed and who are fighting oppression, we are committed to going on the offensive and asserting the right of the working class to the control of all of the wealth which they produce.
Events Calendar
