Peckham, Choudary, Vedanta & Gove: Ten years in the past Friday thirtieth Might 2014 noticed me speeding round London to cowl 4 occasions, my day beginning exterior the job centre in Peckham and ending with being escorted out of the Division for Training in Westminster.
Peckham Jobcentre Penalises Jobseekers
Individuals had come to protest exterior Peckham Jobcentre as a result of it removes advantages from claimants at twice the speed of different London job centres and so they demanded to know why this was.
Individuals are sanctioned for a lot of causes, typically for issues exterior their management similar to lacking interviews the place letters have both not been despatched or not been acquired resulting from postal delays, or arriving late when trains or buses have been cancelled. Some had been additionally being sanctioned for refusing to work with out pay un unfair ‘workfare’ schemes.
Sanctioning leaves many job seekers destitute, with none supply of earnings, typically for 3 months, generally longer, eradicating the ‘security web’ the welfare state is meant to supply. There have lengthy been sanctions on advantages, however the main adjustments launched by the Coalition Authorities’s Welfare Reform Act 2012 have vastly elevated their use, typically for trivial causes.
The brand new sanctions regime is one more instance of the failure by the Tories (and on this case the Lib-Dems too) to know how folks exterior of the center and higher courses get by; what it’s prefer to stay on advantages or low incomes with no sources to fall again on. And it exhibits that they simply don’t care.
The protest was organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group although others got here to help it. Audio system used a megaphone to inform folks why they had been protesting and folks handed out leaflets to these coming into and leaving the job centre in addition to these strolling previous. In addition they gave out an info leaflet about UK Borders Company raids.
Extra photos Peckham Jobcentre penalises jobseekers.
London Mosque Protest For Sunni Extremist
I left Peckham to go to the London Mosque in Regents Park the place Anjem Choudary and his followers had been protesting on the highway exterior because the crowds left after Friday prayers.
Choudary had come to name for the discharge of militant Islamist Omar Bakri Muhammad, held in Lebanon for his help of extremist fighters Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL.) Few within the crowds stopped to hearken to him and lots of crossed the road to keep away from him. A couple of got here to argue with him.
Omar Bakri Muhammad claimed asylum within the UK in 1986 and got here to Finsbury Park Mosque, the place he constructed up Hizb ut-Tahrir and was one of many founders of Al Muhajiroun, banned within the UK after alleged involvement within the 2005 London bombings. He left the UK for Lebanon and was instructed by the Residence Workplace he couldn’t return right here.
In 2010 he was sentenced in Lebanon to life with onerous labour for acts of terrorism, however was launched on bail after some retracted their testimony towards him. He was arrested once more in Might 2014 for alleged involvement in assaults carried out by militant Sunnis in Lebanon for his help for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who he had known as to deliver their combat to Lebanon.
This was a segregated protest, with round 30 girls coated from head to foot in black in a separate group holding up posters and becoming a member of within the chanting of slogans.
Extra photos London Mosque protest for Sunni extremist.
African Liberation Day protest towards Vedanta
African protesters had been exterior Vedanta’s Mayfair places of work for an Afrikan Liberation Day protest over the London listed firm owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal which has cheated each Zambia over copper and Liberia over iron ore offers.
Agarwal seems in a video the place he ridicules the Zambian authorities over the small sum he paid to purchase the Konkola Copper Mines and boasting that they made him greater than US$500 million yearly in revenue. Different sources present he avoids paying tax on these large income. Vedanta had been additionally taken to courtroom in Zambia over huge air pollution of the Kafue River and a big positive was imposed, though apparently it had not been paid.
The Liberian authorities offered the Western Cluster iron ore deposits cheaply to a small firm Elenilto in 2009. They instantly offered 51% to Vedanta, transferring the remainder in a number of months.
Individuals had been gradual to reach for the protest and I needed to depart earlier than it actually obtained going.
African Liberation Day protest towards Vedanta
Gove “Learn-In” protest in Division for Training
I met a ‘class’ of protesters exterior the Division for Training in Nice Smith Avenue, Westminster and walked with them into the lobby the place they sat down for an ‘English lesson’ in protest towards Michael Gove’s political interference within the curriculum side-lining fashionable US books, selling schooling for the wants of enterprise moderately than folks.
We had not been stopped when coming into though the protesters anticipated to be ejected as quickly as they started making speeches and displayed their banner.
Sadly I used to be requested to depart earlier than this occurred because the division had been sad with the press taking photos in a public constructing the place there have been certainly no safety implications – although maybe a excessive threat – if not a certainty – of the minister and the federal government being embarrassed.
Though they had been insistent that I depart the safety workers had been unusually well mannered and moderately apologetic and I obtained a powerful impression that they weren’t joyful at being instructed to maintain the press out. I had already taken quite a few photos and took a number of extra on my method out.
The DfE had issued a press release denying that Gove had something to do with the choice to slim the curriculum and promote a extra narrowly nationalist agenda for schooling – one that may sideline not solely fashionable US literature, but in addition the nice wealth of writers from the Commonwealth who’ve enriched English literature.
They said the change was a results of session with all events, whereas academics, examiners, schooling and literary professionals have launched a mass marketing campaign towards what’s clearly a ministerial diktat, political interference in schooling. For them, the DfE assertion was merely an uninspired work of fiction.
Gove “Learn-In” protest in DfE
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Tags: African Liberation Day, Al Muhajiroun, Anjem Choudary, profit sanctions, destitution, DfE, schooling, Gove, Hizb Ut-Tahrir, large income, iron ore, jobcentre, Konkola Copper Mines, Liberia, London, London Mosque, Michael Gove, militant Islamist, nationalist agenda, Omar Bakri Muhammad, Peckham, peter Marshall, police, political interference, air pollution, protest, RCG, Learn In, studying lists, security web, segregated protest, tax evasion, Vedanta, Welfare Reform Act, Zambia
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