Solidarity 368, 17 June 2015

Justice for Azelle and Jean

Anthony Long, the police officer who fatally shot Azelle Rodney in 2005, is on trial for murder. Prosecutors have told the jury that Long had no lawful reason for shooting Azelle. The court has also heard that Long opened fire less than one-tenth of a second after unmarked police cars boxed in the car Rodney was traveling in. Long fired eight shots in total, hitting Azelle in the arm, body, twice around his right ear and then after a pause, twice through the top of his head. Prosecutors argue that Long “opened fire extremely quickly ... he cannot have taken any time to observe anything...

Afghan teachers' pay strike

Since 31 May teachers in Afghanistan have been on continuous strike to demand that they are properly paid. As Solidarity went to press the teachers had been on strike for two weeks. The strike started in Kabul where it shut as many as 80 schools (the government claim 27) but spread across the country in rolling action affecting 18 out of the 34 provinces. Afghani teachers are the lowest paid public servants and often have to wait months before receiving their salaries due to the government’s permanent financial problems and incompetence. There are 200,000 teachers in Afghanistan and they are...

Chile: ex-prisoners fight for compensation

A group of ex-political prisoners in Chile are on hunger strike demanding better pensions and compensation for the torture they endured under Pinochet's dictatorship. Workers' Liberty activist Matt Weekes spoke to Ben Veraga-Carvello a Chilean refugee living in Britain. Ben arrived in Britain in 1976, he lived initially in a reception centre for Chilean refugees in London before moving to Sheffield. As a prominent student activist and a leading member of revolutionary group M.I.R. who had supported the left-wing President Salvador Allende, Ben had been targeted by Pinochet's regime. He had...

Orgreave: no time limit on truth

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has announced it will not mount a formal investigation into the policing of the so called "Battle of Orgreave" and its aftermath during the 1984-85 Miners Strike. The IPCC's own initial investigation found evidence of police brutality, officers fabricating evidence and committing perjury. The IPCC's argument for not continuing the investigation — that its too long ago and they don’t have the resources to investigate Orgreave and the Miner's Strike whilst its conducting two other major investigations into South Yorkshire Police over...

SWP, shamefaced on Europe

For the Socialist Workers’ Party, who put such emphasis on migrants’ rights and being internationalist, their support for leaving the EU is more awkward than, say, for the Socialist Party. Nonetheless, they are sticking to their guns. At the end of May, the SWP published an article by their national secretary Charlie Kimber under the title “EU referendum debate can’t be left to racists”. “The Tory right and the racist Ukip want to use the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union to ramp up racism. They argue that if Britain leaves the EU then tougher immigration controls can be...

Independent Working-Class Education: a world to win

Hosted by educationalists and labour movement activists at Northern College on the last weekend of May, the IWCE's "A World To Win" was an excellent event which discussed key moments in the development of trade unionism in this country - from the Combination Acts to modern blacklisting, violent rioting in 1700s Liverpool to the GMB organising in ASDA. We also discussed the nature of what working class education should entail and considered Marxist economics, industrial history and philosophy. Practically, we set the basis for facilitating IWCE forums and talks in our towns and cities in the...

Italy: “Renzismo” hits the buffers, right gains ground

In Italy's 31 May regional elections, the results signalled a crisis, or dramatic curtailment of what so far has seemed the irresistible rise of Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party. From its extraordinary success in last year's European election, when it took 41% of the vote, the Democratic Party plummeted to 23%, in the seven regions contested, while still securing victory in five other regions. The result underlines once more the increasingly unstable and volatile profile of the political situation here. There was also a further significant increase in the number of abstentions — 1 in 2 didn't...

Bernie Sanders and fighting austerity in the US

A discussion piece on the campaign by Bernie Sanders, to get the Democratic Party nomination for President. Sanders calls himself a social-democrat and supports reforms on a range of issues including the introduction of universal health care. Barry Finger is a member of the editorial board of US socialist journal New Politics . As proponents of independent political action, we believe that the Democratic Party is a deathtrap for progressives and that history has demonstrated time and again that progressive movements immersed in the DP are stripped of their potential political power...

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