Oppose Neo-Nazi march through Berlin immigrant district on 23rd August 2008 ...نحن نصفق عاليا وفرحين بقرار بناء اول معبد هندي في برلين

The Neo-Nazis have announced that they will march on 23rd August to protest at the proposed building of a Hindu Temple in Berlin. They have decided to march through the largest immigrant district of Berlin (Neukoelln) ending at the proposed site as they believe that "symbols" of this nature attack 'German' culture.

Curiously this ignores the fact that the swastika is an ancient hindu symbol which was hijacked by the Nazi Party as its' official emblem. It's ironic that the neo-nazis themselves don't see this 'foreign symbol' as an attack on their fragile identity and may even use it during the march.

We stand in opposition to the objectives and attitudes of this march and stand in solidarity with the immigrant communities of Berlin. We seek to take action to minimise the negative impacts of this march.

نحن نصفق عاليا وفرحين بقرار بناء اول معبد هندي في برلين.
نحن فرحين ان برلين اصبحت متعددت العرقيات, وخاصتة في ضوء تاريخ المدينة في العهد النازي.
نحن نتطلع الى الوقت الذي يصبح فيه كل المواطني برلين يعيشون في سلام و مساواه.

There'll be more information shortly on what you can do to prevent this from taking place there. At this stage, we need both local and international solidarity and:

1: press contacts (international)
2: Individuals to distribute flyers in Berlin
3: people to write to and email the Berliner senate and police department or other local contacts (details either on the wall below or to follow) Sign the petition at the German Embassy here:
4: additional strategy advice/other support
5 German lawyers who know about the law relating to marches

Please get in touch at priyashah@web.de

Please also write to Chancellor Angela Merkell and the Mayor of Berlin

Mayor of Berlin: Klaus Wowereit

Der Regierende Bürger-
meister von Berlin
- Senatskanzlei -
Rathausstr. 15
10178 Berlin
——————————————-
German Chancellor: Angela Merkel
Bundeskanzleramt
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel
Willy-Brandt-Straße 1
10557 Berlin

http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/Webs/BK/DE/Homepage/home.html
—————————————————————————-
————-
German Embassies in US:

http://www.relocat.com/germanembassies.htm
——————————————————————
German Ambassador to UK
Minister Plenipotentiary Dr. Eckhard Lübkemeier,
London Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
23 Belgrave Square
London SW1X 8PZ

Tel. 020 7824 1300
Fax. 020 7824 1449 They have a form on the website but bureaucrats HAVE to
do something with a real piece of paper!

http://www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/Kontakt.html

Legal drugs for the masses

...best taken sitting/lying down, with the lights and brain activity switched off. Ensure to take entire dose (the last 30 secs are probably the best).

Not the most political lyrics in the world but, what the heck, we all need to switch offf sometimes.

Enjoy Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians - Air of December

GEORGIA, NATO & THE SPREAD OF WAR. Public Meeting.

Public meeting-all welcome

Venue: Friends Meeting House (Small Hall), Euston Road, London
Date: Thursday 14 August, 2008
Time: 6.30 pm

with

MARK ALMOND, lecturer in History, Oxford University and expert on the Caucasus

KATE HUDSON, Chair of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

BORIS KAGARLITSKI, former director Institute of Globalisation Studies, Moscow
and author of, 'Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System'

JOHN REES, Officer of Stop the War Coalition and author of 'Imperialism and Resistance'

The outbreak of war in Georgia is already a disaster for the people of the region. It risks being turned into a still broader problem by Dick Cheney's threats. The conflict is in large measure the product of George Bush's policy of US global hegemony, in the Caucasus as in the Middle East. Attempts to extend NATO eastwards, specifically incorporating Georgia, directly challenge Russian interests.

Please come to the meeting to discuss this latest flashpoint in an increasingly dangerous world and forward this message to your contacts.


You can read Mark Almonds analysis here:

Fuck the Government-Someone Blow up Parliament

from a good young boy he said

Release prisoners of conscience now! Birzeit R2E campaign

Release prisoners of conscience now!

Right to Education Campaign, Birzeit University, 1 July 2008
http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/

On Sunday 25th November 2007, the president of Birzeit University's Student Council, Fadi Hamad, was arrested by Israeli military Special Forces while travelling on the road between the al-Jalazoon refugee camp and the city of Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territories. Eyewitnesses reported that the car carrying Fadi was suddenly ambushed in what seemed like a premeditated operation.

As a student leader, Fadi represented the interests of some 7,000 students before the university administration, and was responsible for welfare programmes for students, providing them with sports and cultural activities as well as help with registration, paying fees, their studies.

Since 1967, the Israeli army has passed military orders outlawing all student societies which promote Palestinian nationalist ideas or parties, including Fatah, despite the fact that Israel officially negotiates with all such political parties at different moments in time. In this way, the army can 'legally' detain any student leader simply on the grounds of his or her political affiliation and in practice, persecute certain political opinions over others thus aggravating political tensions in Palestinian society at any given moment.

Read more here


PLEASE WRITE to your government representatives asking them to raise questions in Parliament or Congress, and to put pressure on the Israeli government to release student prisoners of conscience and to respect their rights to freedom of association, thought and liberty - ultimately, calling on Israel to respect the right to education of Palestinian students.


* Click here to read the UN definition of Human Rights Defenders, and here to view the General Assembly resolution A/RES/53/144 adopting the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

SOAS Alumni Zionist Thug and Comrade Sabby - Is the World Loosing Faith in the Zionist Regime?

Palestinians stranded at Rafah terminal go on hunger strike

From Egypt: Allow the medicines through Now!
August 6 2008

RAFAH, (PIC)-- Palestinians trapped at the Rafah border terminal between Gaza Strip and Egypt have gone on hunger strike to protest the Egyptian authority's continued refusal to open the border for them.

They said in an urgent appeal sent to the PIC on Wednesday that they have been suffering for the past few months on the border terminal and have been sleeping in the desert in the open. They said that out of their total number of 150 persons they group old people and women who suffer chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments.

Many of the young men suffer from skin and other diseases, they said, adding that they did not have any medication except sedatives and other simple medicines.

They also said that many suffer malnutrition and scarcity of potable water, and appealed to human rights groups to end their ordeal.

They asked local and foreign media to shed light on their plight in a bid to solve their problem.

Egyptian Embassy refuse petition of protest

Today we spoke out in solidarity with the people from Mahalla and the 49 detainees set to be put on trial on Saturday 9 August. The Egyptian Embassy on South St, London, did NOT, however, welcome our delegation of protesters.

Soon after assembling the police arrived and spoke to our organisers: they informed us that we would not be allowed to present the letter and petition directly to the Embassy en masse. This was to prevent us from 'intimidating' the embassy officials! A small group of people were permitted to approach the front door to deliver the letters but the door was answered not by embassy officials but by the same police officers. The embassy refused to officially receive the letter and we were informed by the police that we could post it through the letter box. Rob Owen, NEC NUS did so rather unceremoniously. A full report and better pictures will be posted here in the morning.


Cairo Conference Committee report on Arabawy's blog

More pictures from Clara's Flickr

Here for more pictures from Picasso web albums

Bush, No! Mad Cow

Even the London Shite, oops I mean Lite, reported this story.

London Lite noun ; one of the many crap, target obsessed, free papers; the bosses of which force their underpaid employees to thrust this nonsense in your face whilst trying to negotiate the packed streets and public transport at rush hour. Entitled London Lite because it is totally light of anything interesting or useful (usually). See also London Paper, Metro, Girl About Town etc etc. See Facebook group: No, I do not want a free London Lite/London Paper. Fuck off

Thousands of protesters greeted George Bush on his arrival in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday of this week.

Twenty thousand police were deployed to protect the US president from demonstrators.

The protesters are angry over the South Korean government’s decision to resume beef imports from the US – despite fears the beef may be contaminated with BSE (mad cow disease).

Over a million people have marched against the imports.

The protest was also over Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and continuing threats to attack Iran.

President Lee-Myung bak described the alliance with the US as “the backbone of South Korean diplomacy”.

South Korea has committed troops to Iraq and Bush will try to persuade Lee to send greater numbers to Afghanistan to help deal with the growing resistance to the occupation there.

“Obviously we’d like to see a greater role for South Koreans in Afghanistan, if the South Korean people are willing to move in that direction,” Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs, told reporters on Air Force One.

---

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Police attack anti-Bush protestors

Written by Stewart office

Archived from from Tuesday, 17 June 2008

The ban on the demonstration down Whitehall to protest the visit of war criminal George Bush was enforced with violence by the Metropolitan police. My best friend Suzanna Wylie "sustained a bloody head wound in the melee" according to the Guardian paper. "I'm angry that the police have treated us like we are rioting, and we're not," she said. "I've been on lots of demonstrations before, and every one of the Stop the War demonstrations have been peaceful; this time because Bush is here, because of his own security arrangements, they won't let us demonstrate. "If they let us demonstrate, there would have been none of this." Stop the War Coalition, one of the organisers, added that "this was very predictable. If they had allowed us to deliver our letters of protest to Downing Street, as we had asked, none of this would have happened." Two protestors were hospitalised by baton weilding police. Stop the War Coalition have organised over 20 national protests all of which have been peaceful. We have written a letter of protest to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. GeorgeGalloway MP, a vice president of the Stop the War Coalition, has also written a letter of protest to the Commissioner of Police, Sir Ian Blair. Images of the demo can be found here and here. Police Brutality Two protestors were hospitalised after police batoned those who approached the security fence around the protest free 'green zone'. The image below shows one hospitalised protestor being pulled towards the police before being struck on the head and back. Civil liberties another casualty of war Prominent supporters of Stop the War Coalition condemned police violence. Human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger said, “Our civil liberties are becoming another casualty of the ‘war on terror’. I was born in a dictatorship and look with great concern at recent erosions of our liberties. At the demonstration today all I wanted to do with others was to peacefully deliver my letter to the Prime Minister. I was prevented from doing so and instead witnessed brutality towards the demonstrators.” Andrew Murray, Chair of StWC, said, “We condemn the decision of the British government and police to deny the British public the right to peacefully demonstrate while acting on behalf of the criminal administration in the USA. We also denounce the brutal conduct of many police officers towards demonstrators in Whitehall. This evening’s events highlight both the growing menace to freedoms in Britain and also the fear that George W Bush and Gordon Brown have of being held to account for their disastrous war policies.” More Media Reports BBC VIDEO: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7455206.stm GUARDIAN: http://tinyurl.com/4nl4uq EVENING STANDARD: http://tinyurl.com/6nbtw7

SOAS twins with Al-Quds - Postcards from Palestine

SOAS students visit Palestine, establish links with Birzeit and al-Quds and come back to set up a Right 2 Education society. This campaign has gone on to twin SOAS students Union with Al-Quds, has brought over delegations of students to our university and assisted in a speaking tour on campuses across the country... more info on campaign

See also CADFA

See below for full motion passed unanimously at the Union General Meeting (UGM)

Also, see post below Setting Sail on August 5th to Break the Siege of Gaza















Formerly the Golden quarter of the Hebron market, now the buffer zone between the illegal settlers...

Defending Right To Education of Palestinian Students

SOAS Students Union notes:
1. SOAS Students Union is affiliated to Bir Zeit University’s Right2Education Campaign

2. The construction, by the Israeli state, of a wall over 650 km in length and up to 25 feet in height, running on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

3. That this wall cuts off about 50% of the West Bank, running through towns and villages, separating people from their jobs and families, hospitals and schools.

4. The wall runs through Al Quds University campus

5. The ruling made in July 2004 by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the wall is illegal and should be dismantled

6. That the wall runs through the town of Abu Dis, in east Jerusalem

7. That 'friendship links' have begun between the people of Abu Dis and people who live and work in Camden by the CADFA charity

SOAS Students Union believes:

1. That this wall is not a temporary security measure, but a permanent fixture that will lead to the expulsion of Palestinian people from their homes and permanent annexation of Palestinian land

2. That a campaign to twin Camden with Abu Dis can both help to highlight what the wall will mean for Palestinians, and can be a way to offer solidarity and support to those affected by and opposing the construction of the wall through their town

3. Every student should have the right to education

SOAS Students Union therefore resolves:

1. To join the campaign, initiated by Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association, to twin Camden with Abu Dis and send a membership fee of £100

2. To sponsor and publicise any events, such as public meetings, which are part of the twinning campaign, and organise a meeting this term with a CADFA speaker before the next UGM

3. For SOAS Students Union to reaffirm its affiliation to Bir Zeit’s Right2Education campaign

4. To sponsor an Al Quds student to visit SOAS

5. Write to Al Quds University expressing solidarity

6. To lobby SOAS to fund two scholarships for Al Quds students to come study at SOAS

7. To support the British-Palestine Twinning Network

Proposed by:

Sabah Shah 3^rd yr

Seconded by: James Loughran, MA Language Documentation and Description

SOAS Justice for Cleaners - interview

More details to follow from Governing Body member yours truly...

Setting Sail to Break the Siege of Gaza on Aug 5th

Sailing into Gaza updates from Yvonne Ridley:

Part 1
Part2
Part3
Part4
Part5

Around 60 Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals from 15 countries will sail to the Gaza Strip to deliver medical equipment on August 5th 2008. The delivery to Gaza Port of desperately needed medical supplies will be the first international cargo to reach Gaza directly since the crushing embargo on its civilians began.

“The siege of Gaza ends only when Palestinians are accorded the basic fundamental human rights of citizens throughout the free world,” says UK passenger, Musheir El-Farra who knows the irreparable human cost of current Israeli government policies. “My family and beloved ones in Gaza have been under siege for over two years now; living without their most basic human rights in their own country.

Read more: CLICK HERE

TAKE ACTION – WHAT YOU CAN DO:

- Keep informed: from the 5^th of August please keep checking the www.freegaza.org website and the PSC website for regular updates on the progress of the boats

- Alert your local media: contact you local papers, TV and radio stations and ask them to report on the Breaking the Siege Campaign - Boat to Gaza initiative

- Contact your MP: write to or call your MP (also in the constituency offices) and raise the attempt to break the siege with them, especially if the boats are stopped by the Israeli Navy. http://www.parliament.uk/directories/directories.cfm

- Emergency: in case the boat is stopped or turned away by the Israeli authorities please contact the FCO and ask them to intervene. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/feedback - http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/contact-us - (Or if the passengers and the boats are detained by the Israeli Navy call 020 7008 1500).

Solidarity with the people of Mahalla-Join the delegation to the Egyptian Embassy in London

Join the delegation to the Egyptian Embassy in London

Thursday 7th August, 4.30pm

Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 26 South Street, London W1K 1DW

Solidarity with the people of Mahalla / Stop the show trial of Egyptian protestors

A date of 9 August has been set for the trial of 49 Egyptian citizens accused of various crimes and arrested during the uprising in Mahalla on 6 and 7 April. We will be gathering to hand in the letter of protest below, which has already been signed by over 500 people including leading activists from the PCS, CWU and UCU unions, and anti-war campaigners.

Return names to cairoconference@stopwar.org.uk

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 6 August for inclusion in the petition.

For more information about the trial see this solidarity website organised by campaigners in Egypt: http://abtalelmahalla.blogspot.com/ (English translation at bottom of page)


Solidarity with the people of Mahalla… Stop the show trial of Egyptian protestors

We the undersigned express our full solidarity with the 49 Egyptian citizens, whom the Mubarak regime has decided to prosecute in an Emergency High State Security Criminal Court, accused of involvement in the two day uprising in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla in April. On the 6th and 7th of April, Mubarak’s troops occupied, Ghazl el-Mahalla, the biggest textile mill in the Middle East, home to 27,000 workers, aborting a strike announced by the independent Textile Workers’ League in protest at spiraling food prices and to demand a raise in the minimum wage which has remained stagnant since 1984.

The troops used live ammunition, tear gas, water cannons and sticks against the peaceful protestors in the town who took to the streets after the crushing of the strike. At least three were killed, and hundreds were injured and detained. The 49 detainees face a list of trumped up charges, to which some have confessed under torture. They will be tried in an exceptional court, systematically denounced by human rights watchdogs for lacking the international standards for a “safe and just trial.”

We call on the Egyptian dictatorship to release them immediately.

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary, PCS
Jane Loftus, President, Postal Executive, CWU
Trevor Ngwane – Anti-Privatisation Forum, South Africa
Professor Alex Callinicos, King’s College, London
Eamonn McCann, journalist and anti-war campaigner, Ireland
Richard Boyd-Barrett, People not Profit Alliance, Ireland
Chris Nineham, Stop the War Coalition
James Eaden, National Executive, UCU
Liz Davies, Secretary, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Richard Harvey, Bureau Member, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
And more than 500 other signatories

http://www.egyptsolidarity.org/

Land of No Return - Asylum seeking in Britain

http://www.asirt.org.uk/



Visit SOAS Detainee Support Group at www.soasdetaineesupport.org.uk