Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Fascists Attack Occupy Newcastle

fight racism fight imperialism | 03.11.2011 14:26 | Occupy Everywhere | Anti-racism | Policing | Liverpool | World

On Saturday 29 October Occupy Newcastle came under attack, first verbally during the day, from a combined mobilisation of several fascist organisations, and later that night physically, from an unidentified group of racists

On Saturday 29 October Occupy Newcastle came under attack, first verbally during the day, from a combined mobilisation of several fascist organisations, and later that night physically, from an unidentified group of racists.

The combined actions of Counterfire, Labour councillors and police left the occupiers open to these attacks. For over a month, CounterFire/Coalition of Resistance and Labour Councillor Dipu Ahad had been promoting a ‘Rising against Islamophobia’ event to take place on 29 October at Grey’s Monument in the city centre. The organisers had invited a speaker from the Occupy Newcastle camp, which has occupied the Monument since 15 October. There were reports that the racist English Defence League (EDL) were planning to target the event, but leading Counterfire members had stated that there was no need for self-defence because the police would ensure its safety. The day before the event the following statement was issued announcing that the event had been cancelled:

Rising against Islamophobia - Event postponed 28/10/11

Following a meeting of the City Council and event organizers, we have jointly agreed to work together in order to plan a long term response to hate crime, racism and Islamophobia.

In the interests of public safety and social cohesion and in recognition of the challenges facing our community, we have decided to postpone the event at the Monument on Saturday 29 October which was designed to bring together communities within the city.

We have further resolved to work jointly to bring together communities at a future event in the interests of tackling hate crime, racism and Islamophobia.

Cllr Joyce McCarty, Deputy Leader of Newcastle City Council, said: “We understand the impact that crime, racism and Islamophobia can have on the people who are victims of it and welcome this opportunity to work with event organisers to promote community cohesion.”

Ends

Activists who had been involved in promoting the event but who were not members of Counterfire said they had not been consulted about the decision to cancel. When challenged on the event’s facebook page for further details on the cancellation, leading Counterfire member Alex Snowdon wrote:

It was the main organisation responsible for the event - Unison - where there were problems. If you strive to build a coalition for an event, then it can go wrong.

This craven response was no explanation at all, and merely confirms the inevitable outcome of making anti-racist organisation dependent on trade unions and Labour councillors.

The cancellation of the event at such short notice left the Occupy Newcastle camp and other activists no time to prepare an adequate response to a possible attack.

On the Saturday up to 100 racists affiliated to the National Front, Scottish Defence League, EDL and the EDL-breakaway group ‘North East Infidels’ gathered at the Monument, complete with St. Georges flags, Union Jacks, Ulster flags and racist banners. The racists targeted a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) stall, an FRFI stall and Occupy Newcastle, surrounding activists and shouting abuse and threats.

Anti-racists were outnumbered but stood together and were joined by members of the public. Councillor Ahad and Alex Snowdon were both reported to be out of town. Another leading Counterfire member, Tony Dowling, turned up briefly, but left within half an hour. The racist demonstration went on for two hours before dispersing to local pubs.

In the early hours of Sunday morning members of Occupy Newcastle including supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! were attacked by a group of 25-30 racists who punched and kicked occupiers, threw bricks and attempted to pull down parts of the camp. Together those who were present defended the camp and managed to prevent anyone being seriously injured. The police were nowhere to be seen despite assurances made to the occupiers that there would be a continuous presence at the Monument to guard against any attack following the fascist demonstration. It took 15 minutes for them to arrive, at which point the racists ran off. None were arrested.

The Occupy Newcastle camp is continuing and urgently requires your support and involvement. General assemblies take place each day at 6.30pm. For more information visit:
 http://occupynewcastle.org

fight racism fight imperialism
- Homepage: http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org

Comments

Display the following 6 comments

  1. It is time to up the ante — Occupy canary wharf
  2. EDL again show true colours — Fred
  3. Photographic evidence — AnarchoTV
  4. Another view of this fiasco — Lill Burne
  5. you people — neil
  6. here u go — neil

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech