Oxford Social Struggles Newswire Archive

Opus Dei cabinet minister, Ruth Kelly, has refused to intervene in the increasing scandal over the closure of Oxford's Plater College.


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Activist Trauma gathering is happening now in Oxford from the 18th till the 19th June, all welcome, working on logistics of support for anti-G8 activist, and our own support. Read more >>

Several MakePovertyHistory (MPH) events are upcoming in Oxford. Read more >>

Two films about detention centres for refugees, and
inspiring actions that have taken place outside and inside them across the world and in Oxford Read more >>

Faiths walking together today for peace in the Middle East. Read more >>

Make Poverty History campaigners form a human ring around Radcliffe Camera. Read more >>

CARNIVAL PARTY BRASIL!

For the eve of the Cowley Road Carnival, Brazil Solidarity presents a full-on Brazilian festa.

East Oxford Community Centre, Cowley Road and Princes St

Saturday June 11th - 8pm-1am Read more >>

June 1st was the 20th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, a notoriously brutal one-sided confrontation between 450 unarmed travellers - including many women and children - and a quasi-military police force of over 1,300 police and MoD. Read more >>

Anniversary of the 'Battle of the Beanfield' 1st June 1985
It's 20 years, since the major trashing of my community, travelling on the way the make the "Peoples Free Festival of Albion" at Stonehenge. It was a regular event on the calender. Read more >>

Bimingham, England
27 May 2005

The Plater College Foundation has issued fraud proceedings against four Roman Catholic Archbishops of England and Wales.

They are Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster; Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham; Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff and Patrick Kelly, Archbishop of Liverpool.

The proceedings were issued in the Chancery Division of the High Court, at Birmingham, this Friday afternoon.

Also sued, are the Catholic Education Service and its Chief Exective, Oona Stannard and a member of its legal staff, Martin Bradshaw, along with 14 present and former members of the Governing Body of Plater College, Oxford, including its former Chair, Leo Curran, QC and its present Principal, David Mason.

The Foundation represents staff and students opposed to the intended closure of Plater College, Oxford, of which the four Roman Catholic archbishops are trustees.

Counsel for the Foundation, John Rhys-Burgess, who is himself a former Plater College student, said:

"It is our view that no valid reasons for closing the College have ever been given. On the contrary, the stated reasons for the closure were manifestly false, misleading, self-serving and pretextual.

Upon any rational and objective analysis of the statements variously made by the Defendants to justify the closure, the unavoidable conclusion is that they could only have been made with the deliberate intention to deceive.

This has informed our conscientious belief that the Trustees and those advising them have attempted to carry out what can only be regarded as a callous and cynical fraud upon the College.

Whilst the Governing Body appear to be innocent of any dishonest intent, they are nevertheless complicit in the wrongful conduct of the Trustees and the Catholic Education Service, since they ought to have taken steps to prevent the intended fraud but have failed to take any action."
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Oxford PSC have organized a public speaker meeting to discuss the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. Read more >>

Some text should follow on Tuesday.... Read more >>

The Home Office have now ratcheted up the ante by re-introducing slavery through the form of 'voluntary service for people who have failed the Asylum System and needing subsistence and accommodation' with the assistance of the National YMCA Organisation.

Liverpool YMCA is going to be the first voluntary sector agency to collude with the Home Office in the immigration slavery scheme introduced by section 10 of the 2004 legislation.

While Liverpool is parading on its City Of Culture, 2008 Status (more like Culture of Capital, Here & Now), it would be worthwhile stating historical fact - Liverpool was home to the Slave Trade - and now in 2005, Liverpool could and may well become home to the New City Of Slavery.

The YMCA and the Home Office have called for a 'Closed Door' Meeting to be held at Liverpool City Councils Millenium House on Tuesday 24 May 2005 from 12:40 - 14:40hrs.

The aim of this meeting from what I can gather, is to 'embrace community dialogue' - through restricting the meeting to just a few (highly-paid & self-anointed) NGOs (whose own sources of revenue are probably paid for by the Home Office...)

The question is, can real community dialogue be achieved like this?

The meeting was posted on the SmartGroups Liverpool asylum seeker and refugee support group:

 http://www.smartgroups.com/message/viewdiscussion.cfm?gid=1256290&messageid=2609

----Section 4 Support - 'Voluntary Service'

>> There is a consultation meeting with the YMCA and
>> the Home Office about this on 24th May - 12.40 - 2.40
>> at Millenium House in Liverpool.

As you can see this is the only outside knowledge of this meeting.

I contacted the Liverpool YMCA today which people believe to be the site of the Pilot Scheme, and the Office Administrator has denied any knowledge of the meeting, but said that, "if it's not Liverpool then it might be Chester which will do it."

If the meeting is being held within Council premises, can Trade Unionists based within Millenium House please make and take action with regards to this?

UNISON, and other Unions the call-out for you is here.

Individuals with a conscience, please make your views heard on this subject.

The following links are related to this meeting:

YMCA slave labour scheme

Section 4 Support - 'Voluntary Service'

There is a consultation meeting with the YMCA and the Home Office
about this on 24th May - 12.40 - 2.40 at Millenium House in Liverpool.

 http://www.smartgroups.com/message/readmessage.cfm?gid=1256290&messageid=2602

IND has announced that YMCA England will be running a pilot exercise for Section 10 of the Asylum & Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act in Liverpool.

Word document:

 http://www.asylumpolicy.info/mayiapnews.doc

YMCA England Statement following meeting with Church Action on Poverty, Boaz Trust and Churches Commission on Racial Justice

Word document:

 http://www.asylumpolicy.info/ymcastatement.doc

It is important that no-one allows this 'Pilot' to get off the ground.

While the YMCA may or could agree to the scheme, it can only be made unworkable if YMCA Staff take a stand on this issue - strike action, refuse on moral grounds, refuse on Health & Safety issues (will the refugees be given proper H&S training?)

Or perhaps I could 'release' the person out, if I saw a refugee doing what I called anything like 'labour'?

Or maybe, the homeless people within the YMCAs will start "getting refugees to do their 'dirty-work'", or cause deep divisions within already dis-enfranchised communities?

If this doesn't happen here, it could happen near YOU.

Maybe meet up at The Egg, Tuesday 24/05, 11:30am?

Anyone into it?

Banners, drums, trumpets, anything to make a party & noise.

Can the 'Outside Media' meaning The Echo/BBC do something on it? Read more >>

The 31st annual Levellers' Day took place in Burford on Saturday 14 May. There was a good turnout of people of all ages, coming from as far afield as Leicester and Cheltenham, and the weather was, for once, almost perfect, considering that most years we either bake or drown..
The theme this year was ‘The Media as a Political Weapon’, and we had excellent speeches from people such as Greg Philo of the Glasgow Media Group, Anna Wagstaff of the Oxford NUJ and Judith Brown from Arab Media Watch.
The afternoon’s entertainment was astonishingly varied, including Geoff Berner and his friends from Canada, Attila the Stockbroker with both poems and songs, and many more (see www.levellers.org.uk). Delicious Indian vegetarian food was available all day.
We Indy types managed to get in a 2-minute plug for Oxford Indymedia, immediately after Anna Wagstaff’s speech, but there was no other mention of Indymedia and, as far as I could gather, just a nod in the direction of alternative media sources on the part of Greg Philo. This was disappointing for us as we consider that Indymedia, though still fairly small and immature, has great potential on several counts: by providing self-publishing facilities for all, it can in principle greatly extend the range of news available to people, so bypassing many of the problems associated with the corporate media. It can also have an empowering effect on those contributors who have hitherto felt themselves to be ‘voiceless’, and thereby reinforce democracy (etc., etc!!).

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The Nakba Day Demonstration in support of a free Palestine, and an end to Israeli occupation is being held in London on 21st May, starting at 1pm at Embankment. A coach will be going from Oxford leaving the Taylor Institute St Giles at 10.30am Read more >>

G8 awareness raiser in New Cross on Tuesday. Info will be available on the night about how to get to Scotland in July. Dub and Breakbeat Music from : Freq Nasty, Fun-da-Mental(WattsRiot), Smart Monkey and Performance Poetry from Paradox. Decent Line-up. £1 a pint. See You there.
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This in-depth training is a chance to come together with
other likeminded people and prepare yourself for taking direct action or supporting others to take action at the G8 Summit and beyond. Read more >>

Please note I have not included the 3 documents mentioned below (agenda etc), as they would have taken up too much space and been boring for most people. If you are interested in any of them, you can contact Anna at  Oxnuj@aol.com. Read more >>

As usual, this will take place in Warwick Hall, in the beautiful Cotswold town of Burford. More details can be found on the Levellers website at www.levellers.org.uk or email  levellers@btinternet.com or phone 01865 249336. There is reasonable public transport from Oxford, but do plan in advance, and bring an umbrella as it's mainly outdoors.Please note that one of the main speakers, Tahrir Swift from Arab Media Watch, is unable to come and instead we will have her colleague Judith Brown. Read more >>

Deep Ecology - A talk by Joanna Macy

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