last week, while covering the protests on budget day, i wandered on to the grass at parliament square. a heritage warden and various police told me both that i couldn't be there, and i couldn't take photographs there. holding my ground and after further inquiry, i was told by the head of the security company managing the 'heritage wardens', that the GLA have a list of websites that the bye-laws prohibit posting to, even non-commercially. the GLA press officer has so far failed to respond to my calls asking for a copy of that list.

Details of the arrest of Bryn Phillips, his interview with the British Security Services, and the involvement of The City of London Corporation in his arrest.

Notices have gone up along Oak Road, adjacent to Dale Farm, saying that the road will be closed to all but residents from Friday, Sept. 2nd. Both ends of Oak Road will be blocked (blocking access via both Hardings Elm Road and Gardiners Lane North). Additionally, the lay by on the southern end of Oak Lane (leading on to the A127; by the white ‘Basildon onion’ water tower) will be blocked.

As the launch of Camp Constant ( http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/activity/ ) on August 27th approaches, the authorities appear poised to blockade Dale Farm.

ROAD BLOCK WARNING

Notices have gone up along Oak Road, adjacent to Dale Farm, saying that the road will be closed to all but residents from Friday, Sept. 2nd. (See http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/contact for details). Both ends of Oak Road will be blocked (blocking access via both Hardings Elm Road and Gardiners Lane North). Additionally, the lay by on the southern end of Oak Lane (leading on to the A127; by the white ‘Basildon onion’ water tower) will be blocked. There will be a no stop zone on the footpaths on the A127 between A176 at Billericay and A132 at Wickford. Residents are feeling under siege, with children asking how many more nights they are going to be able to sleep in their beds. Dale Farm is a big site, so it should be possible to find routes in, but be advised that after Sept. 1, it will be harder to get in, and likely impossible to get vehicles in.

WATER AND ELECTRICITY TO BE CUT

The Council have released information that they intend to cut water and electricity supplies from Dale Farm after the eviction notice period expires on midnight 31st August. This will leave sick, elderly, young, and pregnant residents without access to water or electricity. Amnesty International ( http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR45/013/2011/en/0faf8cdd-f5a1-4024-af41-5a26f21d51a5/eur450132011en.html ) have condemned the removal of vital water and electricity in these circumstances, and asked their supporters to put pressure on the council to cease this action which represents a serious violation of human rights. An injunction has been sought in consideration of two residents who are dependent upon a constant electricity supply for nebulisers, without access to which their lives are placed in serious jeopardy. See Amnesty’s Kartick Raj speaking to BBC Essex this week ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-14635807 )
.
CAMP CONSTANT

On Saturday, 27th August, we will launch CAMP CONSTANT

( http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/activity/ ) a solidarity and resistance camp for supporters of the Dale Farm community. JOIN US. See http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/activity for more information, the long weekends schedule of workshops and a welcome pack.

INDEPENDENT MEDIA:

Any independent media people planning to come on to the site (with video, cameras, etc) please read this ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26043573/IND%20MEDIA%20CALL%20OUT.odt ) first and make contact…

DESPERATE PLEA TO UN

*Richard Sheridan as president of the Gypsy Council has been involved in eleventh-hour negotiations with the UN Commission on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva; the Special Raporteur has already entreated the UK Government to cease the evictions and to ensure the families at Dale Farm are offered viable culturally appropriate alternative sites. Lord Avebury will accompany Dale Farm residents to 10 Downing Street ( http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/dale-farm-petition-to-no-10-and-meeting-with-union ) Thursday, 25th August to present a petition to the PM calling for the eviction to be called off.

DONATE:

use this paypal link ( link )
to donate some money to the camp.

LONDON INFO-EVENT & MEETING

2pm, Thurs, 25th August, at the Haircut before the party <http://thehaircutbeforetheparty.net/>, Whitechapel…see here <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26043573/DALE%20FARM%20INFO%20SESSION.odt> for more info.

MAKING THE CONNECTIONS:

Workshop, Sunday Sept. 4th, 2pm, Camp Constant, Dale Farm. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Stay!* This is the rallying cry for Roma, Gypsies and Travellers and of migrants throughout the world. A common thread of persecution, of forbidden lands, eviction and deportation connect the struggles for migrant rights and the rights of Gypsies and Travellers. These realities have met dramatically in the crack-down and deportations of Roma people from France and Italy. Come to the Workshop organised by No One Is Illegal and London No Borders including speaker who is an activist in Amnesty International's campaign against the persecution of Roma in Europe.

TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THE DEMO

Sat, 10th Sept, 1pm, see here<http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/demo/>for more
information and email: savedalefarm@gmail.com to add your group’s support to the list…

RISE UP!

We cannot stand by and do nothing while the UKs largest Travellers site, home to hundreds of families, including many children, elderly and sick residents, is brutally evicted. Travellers should not have to live in constant fear of eviction with their lives and communities under constant threat. They should not have to be forced out of their homes and off their land by bulldozers and police. This constant hounding, marginalisation, and lack of provision is how rural England does ethnic
cleansing. It is time for a resurgence of support for Gypsy and Traveller communities. Time to stand against the extreme racial discrimination faced by Gypsies and Travellers. Time to defend the right of Gypsies and Travellers to land, life, respect, and dignity.

http://dalefarm.wordpress.com

Resist ethnic cleansing in the UK, fight the eviction of Dale Farm!

First they came for...

From the clearances of Roma camps in Italy and France, to the neo-fascist murders of Roma in Hungary, Romania and the Czech republic, recent events in Europe are becoming increasingly disturbing. Now the UK Government is engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Dale Farm, the largest Traveller community in the country.

On 4th July the residents were told that have until Midnight on August 31st to abandon their homes or face having their community bulldozed. This despite the fact that the families own the land on which they are living and have been offered no viable alternative housing. In the event of an eviction some 90 families will be made homeless, including many elderly, sick, and very young residents.

An astonishing £18M has been allocated for the eviction, being led by Constant and Co, a company notorious for their involvement in brutal evictions of Traveller sites. This eviction is racially motivated. It amounts to ethnic cleansing. It must be resisted.

Camp Constant, a mass gathering of national and international supporters of the Dale Farm community will begin Saturday, August 27th. We want to send the invitation far and wide for people to come and help the community resist the eviction, many of whom are determined to fight to the end. Different people will take different types of action, but we will take the lead from the community in what forms of resistance we use. Remembering the centuries of persecution Travellers and Roma have faced from the settled community since the 1500s, it's crucial we all act with real sensitivity.

After the August 31st, an eviction could happen at any time, and we might not know when. We'll need people to be on standby to come up to Dale Farm in the event of an eviction. See: dalefarm.wordpress.com/hrm for details. We also need people to spend the night at Dale Farm to provide around the clock support. We are looking for groups and individuals to pledge to stay overnight at smsalerts.tachanka.org/dalefarm

Dale Farm is within easy reach from London Liverpool St. Station. See dalefarm.wordpress.com/contact for directions and contact details

Please spread this message to your contacts and networks. Resist ethnic cleansing, fight the racist eviction of Dale Farm!

organisers estimated 3000 people took part in yesterday's 'slutwalk' anti-rape protest yesterday in central london. the crowd filled trafalgar square to hear from a wide variety of speakers, and the event was seen by them as a success. it has certainly opened up a debate about attitudes to women, rape, dress, and misogyny, although not all agree with the premise of the march.

click on image for larger version. all images are 'some rights reserved' - free for credited non-commercial use, otherwise contact author for permission

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as the crowd assembled outside the 'hard rock cafe' at the west end of picadilly, it became clear this was going to be much bigger than most people had imagined. the london slutwalk, follows similar uk marches in edinburgh, newcastle, cardiff and glasgow, and these in turn were part of an emergence of currently more than 70 similar events around the globe.

it all began in toronto, after an ill-judged, and later reprimanded, comment by a toronto cop, michael sanguinetti, in a rape case. he was quoted as saying that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised". there have been similar comments in british courts from ill-witted judges, and rape victims are routinely asked what they were wearing at the time. so the 'slutwalk' response is that women should be free to wear whatever they wish, and that rape is thus never invited or 'asked for'. infact, one particularly incisive banner at yesterday's protest simply pointed out that "by definition, you cannot ASK to be raped".

some feminists have opined that the protest doesn't address deeper concerns over the commercial sexualisation of the female in society, and that the word 'slut' is not one worth reclaiming. on a side note, etymologically, 'slut' doesn't originally appear to suggest any sexual connotation, rather being associated with dirt, and applied to women, often servants, who didn't clean properly.

all controversy aside, the trafalgar square speeches, from organisers and invitees, kept returning to a simple single-issue point to be made, and 'slutwalk' might be strongest and least divisive if it continues to be clear about that one issue.

i thought it was best summed up by one speaker who invited us to imagine the case of a man appearing in the witness stand after being the victim of a rape where some penis-like object had been shoved up his arse. the first question he is asked by the sympathetic judge is "can you describe what you were wearing at the time?". the farcical unlikeliness of this scenario brought laughter and a huge cheer from the crowd. and yet female rape victims are routinely asked this question.

a young muslim woman pointed out that her religious dress is under fire for too much coverage, while rape victims are under fire for too little dress. why does (patriarchal) authority believe it should interfere in this area at all? 'slutwalk' invited people to come dressed in any way they wished, and although many took up the challenge to dress 'provocatively' (isn't that word in itself a sign of how deep this problem is entrenched?), others rose to the call in other ways.

a trans-gender speaker spoke of her previous life as a man, never experiencing any sexual abuse, but that since dressing as a woman, she receives anything ranging from stupid comments to serious threats on a shockingly regular basis. sex workers spoke of their experiences at the hands of the police - claims of abuse or rape are routinely met with indifference because of the nature of their work, and the level of protection is minimal, non-existent or indeed negative. she told how she was currently fighting a conviction for 'running a brothel', when her only motive was to work in a flat communally with a couple of friends for safety after being brutally attacked herself (without any subsequent justice) when she previously worked on her own.

other speakers did of course make connections to wider women's issues, such as the use of rape as a weapon in war, the plight of women in AIDS ravaged countries, and the rights of women globally. one particularly eloquent speaker on global issues was crystal from 'global women's strike'.

but ultimately and simply 'slutwalk' is about challenging the arbitrary and ill-conceived connection between dress or appearance and the crime of rape. it is about fighting the perception among, mostly male, police, prosecuters, and judges, that rape can be invited by signals and implied consent. it is about raising these issues publicly and in the press, and pushing it into the judicial agenda.

it certainly seems to have captured the imagination of a wide cross-section of the public, and yesterday's london march and rally had men and women in all states of dress and undress, in unexpectedly large numbers, with a serious aim and as part of a global phenomenon.

quite by chance, yesterday's event coincided with the yearly 'world naked bike ride', and as the speeches were drawing to a close, hundreds and more hundreds of naked men and women rode past the square as part of that event, not one of them inviting rape - a delicious synchronicity on a sunny afternoon.

Sources have informed us that two anarchists, believed to be members of an autonomous proto-working group allegedly connected to the Hackney Anarchist Group(HAG) were kidnapped by state employed thugs for the ‘illegal' flyposting of a poster for the open launch meeting of the Hackney Anarchist Group*, to take place this Saturday.

Sources have informed us that two anarchists, believed to be members of an autonomous proto-working group allegedly connected to the Hackney Anarchist Group(HAG) were kidnapped by state employed thugs for the ‘illegal' flyposting of a poster for the open launch meeting of the Hackney Anarchist Group*, to take place this Saturday(https://london.indymedia.org/events/9195).

The two rebellious propagandists allegedly used a paste made from flour and water, also known as Marxist glue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatpaste), to affix the poster onto a corporate billboard in the early hours of this morning. Although this action by the mischievous, and possibly anti-democratic, working group was against the guidelines of HAG, as stated on the bottom right of the poster below, it is important we stand in solidarity with all victims of both state oppression and the corporate control of so-called public spaces. The perpetrators of this minor but valiant act of class-warfare have since been released by their captors and are said to have spent the afternoon celebrating their (relative) freedom by drinking green tea on a sunny patch of grass.

Autonomous Temporary Informal Communications Council in support of a potential Hackney Anarchist Group (ATIC-PHAG)