OPEN PLANNING MEETING for HANDS OFF MY WORKMATES CONFERENCE Wed 9th Sept 2009

Dear friends

SOAS UNISON, SOAS UCU and SOAS Students' Union would like to invite you to take part in an open planning meeting to discuss our campaign to bring back our cleaners in-house, and how to build the teach-in on migrant workers that we are organising for Saturday 17 October 2009 following the brutal UKBA raid on our cleaning staff in June.

Details of the meeting—at which we want to plan how to build the conference—are below.

Please feel free to forward this invitation.

Read the rest of the plans at the Free SOAS Cleaners blog. Provisional agenda included. Plus photos, videos and reports from occupation.

Thank you for all your support. let's try to make this a broad, proactive campaign. If this can happen at SOAS it can happen anywhere.We need to pre-empt moves by the government and management to let them
know we are watching and will fight back

Speak soon.

In solidarity

Protesters send MSG of solidarity to Ssangyong.

Occupations in the UK, whilst not on the scale or levels of violence experienced at Ssangyong, have taken centre stage in the fightback against government cuts and employee cutbacks. We are seeing a new generation of natural leaders emerge from these struggles and want to push this method of resistance out, to generalise the message that if we fightback we can win. But only if united.

We send you our strongest message of solidarity in the hope that our united campaigns will one day win the battle.

We support you and salute your courage. Keep up the fight comrades.

To the South Korean Embassador,

We would like to register our deepest anger at the treatment of the Ssangyong workers who have been occupying their factory to prevent

redundancies.

We are particularly anxious about the treatment of the hundred protesters currently under arrest and call for their immediate release.

The use of psychological warfare and industrial strength tear gas as well as withholding medical treatment is morally reprehensible and is a denial of human rights.

We call for an end of brutality and for the nationalisation of the

Ssangyong car factory.

Concerned,

SOAS students

Clare Solomon NUS LGBT committee (pc)

Brendan Montague-NUJ

Tom Walker-NUJ & NUS

Will Taylor

Gong Gimm

James Nolan

Sandy James

Andy Lawson PCS (pc)

Sent from my iPhone

Home Office: 'Support our wars or you'll be denied a UK passport'

New rules on citizenship could bar immigrants who use the ancient British right to protest

By Jane Merrick, Political Editor, the Independent, Sunday, 2 August 2009

http://tinyurl.com/l3whtf

Immigrants who take part in protests against British troops could be denied citizenship of this country under controversial new Home Office rules.

The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, will launch a consultation tomorrow on a new points-based system for would-be migrants according to their behaviour, as well as skills and qualifications.

Mr Johnson, writing in the News of the World, said: "Bad behaviour will be penalised, and only those with enough points will earn the right to a British passport."

While he did not explicitly point to those who take part in anti-war demonstrations, the newspaper reported that this would be included in examples of "bad behaviour".

But there was confusion over the policy last night, as the Home Office appeared to backtrack on whether protesters would be penalised.

An aide to Mr Johnson said the Home Office was consulting on what constituted bad behaviour, but refused to comment on the issue of protesters.

Earlier this year, troops on a homecoming march in Luton were jeered by Muslim protesters carrying placards that read "Butchers" and "Animals". However, there was no suggestion that the protesters were, in fact, immigrants, so the alleged rules would not apply in any case.

While inciting hatred is a crime, the suggestion that taking part in an anti-war protest could be a bar to a British passport would be highly controversial and draw accusations of pandering to the right.

The new rules would also see the period for which foreigners have to work in the UK before becoming eligible for citizenship doubling from five to 10 years. Applicants from outside the EU are already subject to a points-based system that covers skills, but the tougher rules would sever the "link between temporary work and becoming a permanent UK citizen", Mr Johnson wrote.

"Already we require that people earn the right to become citizens by paying taxes, speaking English and obeying the law," Mr Johnson added. "Tomorrow I will go even further, unveiling my new citizenship proposals which will require that people earn points for, among other things, their skills, their job and their qualifications."

As Mr Johnson risked charges of playing tough on immigration, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, stoked the row over the Conservative Party's new alliance with the far right in Europe. Mr Miliband issued a thinly veiled attack on a Polish politician accused of anti-Semitism.

The Foreign Secretary said David Cameron's decision to support Michal Kaminski as leader of the Tories' new Euro-grouping had provoked "real cause for concern" among Britain's Jewish community. Mr Kaminski, a member of the far-right Polish Law and Justice Party, has denied claims that he opposed an apology by his countrymen in 2001 for the massacre of hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne in July 1941.

The Foreign Secretary, the son of Jewish refugees of the Holocaust, said: "David Cameron has shown little appetite for tough decisions in his career to date. On this rare occasion, he has decided to expend some serious political capital. And on what? On supporting a man like Michal Kaminski for a position of influence in the European Parliament over a moderate and loyal member of his own party.

"It has given key communities in Britain real cause for concern. Against the best advice of foreign leaders and British business, he drove the Tories out of the mainstream and into the right-wing margins of Europe. This reversion to the right-wing extremes of his own party should give people a strong sense of what both he and his party believe in, and it has nothing to do with the best interests of Britain."

Mr Kaminksi has insisted he is not anti-Semitic, and claims he has spent "a lifetime of work supporting Israel and the Jewish community in Poland".

Sent from my iPhone

Collective hat-trick on calling MP's to account. Hear Gordon Brown on Vestas & more

Although I didn't get to talk to the brilliant Malalai Joya last night (and therefore complete the hat-trick on questioning MP's this week) comrade Des Mannay, Bolshevik super hero, tackles Gordon bloody Brown and Department of Works and Mensions minister on Vestas occupation, tuition fees, the Welsh Assembly scrapping Tuition Fee Grants and job losses at London Met.

http://mediaweb.musicradio.com/Show.asx?Episode=101402

mediaweb.musicradio.com

Source: mediaweb.musicradio.com

Unfortunately I have no sound on my computer so can't tell you exact;y which minute it starts at so please comment below once you have listened and let us know.

Apparently he is the first person to ask a question, and is referred to as "the gentleman in the yellow shirt".

Des told me this:

It was a bit of a shock, nobody knew who was going to be on the platform on the radio talkshow, until I got there and they announced it. Up until then they just said there would be a 'senior cabinet minister'.

I'm presuming Des was awsome so well done!!!

Activists stopped Boris Johnson to demand answers for Rape Crisis Centre funding

UPDATE: BBC report of Boris failing to keep his promise HERE

VIDEO HERE and has now been used by the Guardian.

And is also on USA Today!

Well done Katya. What a bloody shame we didn't ask him how much the 'consultation' cost. Nevermind, we have done an FOI. Due back on the 26th.

Around 30 activists protested outside the GLA today lunchtime to demand that Boris Johnson keeps his promise to fund 3 more rape crisis centres in London.

After a tip off we caught him coming out the back entrance of the GLA on his bike with his entourage of fellow cyclists/security and stopped him in his tracks (with my foot!).

We questioned him as to why he promised money of 744k as part of his electioneering manifesto but has as yet failed to come up with the goods. He said the promise would be fulfilled by the end of his mayoral term. THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Women are being raped NOW and do not need to wait til 2012 to receive support. WE will keep up this campaign until we receive the money. And even after we will be on their backs to ensure they dont do what they normally do-set something up then let it flounder because they dont continue to invest in it then say it isn't working.

Shockingly he said (previously) that his 2nd salary of £255k is only 'chicken feed'. Well Boris, did you know that it only costs an even smaller chicken feed of £250k to fund a Rape Crisis Centre?

The protest was well received by passers-by with a few women even coming up to us a saying that they had been raped and were so pleased to see something being done about this. They all called Boris an idiot or something similar! I could not disagree.

We live in a world where women are treated like objects, treated as property; as possessions. We need to continue to fight against this system and against sexism and oppression in all its forms.

Tonight we will continue this fight at the Miss England 'Beauty Pageant' where women will be judged. We reject the idea that women can be judged on other categories such as 'intelligence', 'ambition', 'empathy' and 'sensitivity': we don't want to be judged on ANYTHING.

Join us later today to protest against this sexist competition.

6.30pm Hilton Edgeware Rd, London. Bring Banners etc. Plz forward & RT http://tinyurl.com/missengland

Called for by Mind the Gap: London Student Feminists, Object, London Feminist Network, Feminist Fightback, NUS, UNISON, UCU, and Socialist Worker Student Society.

Speakers include

JUDITH ORR- author of ‘Sexism and the System’

JO ROBINSON- from the famous 1975 protest against Miss World at the Royal Albert Hall

KATIE TOMS- London Feminist Network, Anti Porn London

SANDRINE LEVEQUE- OBJECT

LIV BAILEY- NUS Women’s Officer

40 years ago feminist activists succeeded in banning the Miss World contest. In celebration of this eminent anniversary, we will ban it again and invite you to join us in the struggle.

Rape Crisis centre in crisis. Rape alarms let off in GLA.

FEMINISTS released attack alarms in City Hall today in a protest calling for Mayor Boris Johnson to secure funding for rape crisis centres.

Five women smuggled the alarms through security and set them off just after 11.30am as assembly members discussed how much money should go to referral and support centres.

The protesters were wearing t-shirts painted with the slogan “rape crisis in crisis” in red as they sat in the public gallery of the GLA centre next to former mayor Ken Livingstone.

Read a full report at rogue journalist Brendan's blog 'At The Sauce' HERE

Lobby of Home Office TMRW 5.30-6.30pm: Our cleaners are not criminals!

Let them stay..

Our cleaners are not criminals!

Staff and students at SOAS are calling for Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for the Home Office, to grant leave to remain with permission to work for Marina Silva and Rosa dePerez, two of the SOAS cleaners picked up in a brutal immigration raid on 12^thJune. Marina, who is 63 and has applied for asylum, following het brutal honour killing of her husband and threats to her own life, and Rosa, who has four children to support in Nicaragua, remain in detention following the raid. Their colleagues, including six months pregnant Luzia, were deported within 48 hours of the raid.

Cleaners at SOAS had demanded and organised for dignity at work with many joining a union. They had succeeded in winning union recognition from the privatised cleaning firm ISS and raising their pay to the London Living Wage—higher than other colleges in the area. It is of grave concern that the raid, organised by ISS, took place shortly after this campaign and on the very day on which UNISON was due to protest in support of an activist who had played a leading role in organising the cleaners at SOAS.

Please support our campaign:

Lobby the Home Office, Tuesday 30^th June, 5.30-6.30pm

2 marsham st, millbank, Sw1

Sign the letter requesting leave to remain is granted to Marina and Rosa

http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/2009/06/send-this-letter-to-home-office-now.html

For more information go to: http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/

Stop the Deportation of SOAS University Cleaners!

Supported by SOAS SU, UNISON and UCU

Statebook-beware, they're after you...

http://www.statebook.co.uk/index.html

Minister gets cake in his face

The immigration minister Phil Woolas was first asked for his passport, then given an 'eco-nationalist award' and finally had a pie thrown in his face by a group from Manchester No Borders. This came in response to his plans of more stringent population controls as announced in the national press. We also denounced his attempts to scapegoat immigrants for the ongoing economic and ecological crises.

Read more from No Borders here.

Fuck the Government-Someone Blow up Parliament

from a good young boy he said