Urgent call to support Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Cautiously pessimistic

Prison rebel Kevin “Rashid” Johnson has been facing increased harrassment in recent days, and is requesting calls in support:

On May 21, 2018, Kevin Johnson was retaliated against for speaking up on behalf of a prisoner with a psychiatric disability named Murphy who was being brutalized by corrections officers at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution (SRCI). As Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) officers were gassing and assaulting Mr. Murphy for making too much noise, Mr. Johnson raised his voice from inside his solitary confinement cell (in order to be heard on the video and audio recorders on the cell block) and said that prison guards had been abusing Murphy by failing to provide him with needed mental health care, by withholding meals, and by responding to his psychiatric disability with violence by gassing him nine times and brutally extracting him from his cell.

Retaliation for Speech:

For this act…

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Unpaid work for the jobcentre, anyone?

We seriously need an Unemployed Workers’ network in this area. Obviously we’d encourage you to join the IWW, it’s a pound a month unwaged and we can help if you’re completely destitute but still want to play. We would nevertheless be happy to assist people in organising independently.

scottish unemployed workers' network

Once upon a time work experience was something school pupils did for a few days to give them a sense of what the future held in store for them. And basic training was provided by your job. Today, unemployment is portrayed as a personal failing rather than a function of the economy, and unpaid work experience is promoted as a way to help a person’s prospects of finding work. In theory, it is meant to compensate for lack of experience in paid employment, which makes it particularly difficult to justify when forced on someone with a lifetime of work behind them. What has developed is a new expectation that people must earn the right to get a job through unpaid labour. This is simply exploitation. It also undermines paid work – which makes it especially perverse that jobcentre workers should be pushing people to do unpaid work in their own…

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ATOS is ignoring DWP guidelines – again

scottish unemployed workers' network

We have just written another letter of complaint to ATOS (or Independent Assessment Services, as they are now called), who have again ignored DWP guidelines about the role of companions accompanying people to their PIP assessment. Let’s hope they respond as quickly as they did last time. Here is our letter:

Dear Sir/Madam

We write again with a serious complaint about your assessment centre at Gemini Crescent, Dundee. Last Thursday (17^th May) one of our volunteers accompanied a man to his assessment. The person being assessed has serious brain damage and had asked our volunteer to help him make sure that he fully answered the questions, and that all the difficulties he needed to raise were covered. This is something we have helped with many times before, in line with the DWP guidelines reproduced below. However, on this occasion the assessors told our volunteer that he could not…

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Bashing’s back: Do something about it.

Anti-Fascist Network

By Berkshire Antifascists

It’s a really tense time for Muslims. In June last year, during Taraveh prayers (part of Ramadhan), there was a fatal attack against Muslims praying at Finsbury Park mosque. This weekend in Leeds, a mosque and Gurdwara were subject to an arson attack after a Free Tommy march. The incidents are too many to name, but the fear in the community is real. While Muslims look at the final stretch before Eid, we need to be actively supporting them and confronting a fascism that bought up to 10,000 people out in London this Saturday gone.

Turns out, racism is really complex. We’ve got state racism, street groups, conspiracy theory loons, political groups and much more to deal with. They target a multitude of people, from Jewish to Black, Muslim to general-hatred-of-non-white-people. Here, let’s talk specifically about Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. This is not to erase Black Muslims…

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Commander Arian film screening, in Lewes 14th June.

Wessex Solidarity

There will be a screening of Commander Arian at the Depot Cinema in Lewes on June 14th at 6.15 pm. After the screening, director Alba Sotorra Clua will take questions from the audience with Elif Sarican and Dirk Campbell.

On the front line of the Syrian war, 30-year-old Commander Arian guides a female battalion towards the city of Kobane to release its people from the grip of ISIS in an empowering tale of emancipation and freedom. When the war in Syria broke, a group of women from the Kurdish resistance assembled the YPJ – Women Protection Units. Arian, who witnessed at a young age the nefarious treatment of sexual assault victims, leads the unit and dedicates her life to battling ISIS. As the YPJ inches closer to their target, she implores her comrades to discover the true meaning of their fight: freedom for the next generation of women. With unprecedented…

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