On 25th August 75 people met at short notice at SADACCA community centre. The meeting was called by the newly formed Campaign Against Detention and Deportation of Iraqis. The meeting was conducted in both Kurdish and English and addressed by speakers from the local Kurdish community, the left, labour movement and Yemeni community.

I was particularly pleased that dozens of Kurdish people attended and participated in the meeting despite their fears of arbitrary arrest. They spoke to make the points that Kurdistan is a rich country and that they hadn’t left it for a 30 quid a week food voucher in Britain. Some expressed their thanks to the UK government for letting them stay in this country until now. Others pointed to the hypocrisy of the UK government’s expressed aim of protecting Kurds from the Saddam regime and its policy of deportation now. They explained how it is not safe for them to return to Kurdistan now, but that in order to get any state support in the UK they must sign the infamous Section 4 form. Signing up to this, commits people to returning voluntarily to Iraq/Kurdistan whenever the UK Government deems it to be safe. A number of speakers pointed out that the Kurds were the biggest ethnic group in the world (around 80-90 million) without a nation of their own. One speaker reminded the audience that the Kurdish areas of Iraq were under UK administration after the First World War. When the Kurds launched a national uprising in 1919, the UK Government ordered the bombing of the Kurdish city of Kirkuk using poison gas. Of course, one of the reasons cited for both the 1991 and 2003 attacks on Iraq was to protect the Kurds from the Saddam regime which had killed thousands of Kurds in Halabjah in 1988...using poison gas.

With 8 or 9 speakers from the platform, there was little time to discuss campaigning practicalities. This wasn’t helped by long-winded contributions from a couple of SWPers in response to the chair’s insistence on short practical contributions (both of which had to be translated into Kurdish). We did however agree to hold a demonstration on the following Saturday in Sheffield (which was a success with over 100 people) and to hold these every Saturday at 2pm in the Peace Gardens.

Next action: Demonstrate on Saturday 3rd September, 2pm, Peace Gardens, Sheffield centre.