The Mauritian organization LALIT expresses its opposition to the UK-Mauritius Chagos Agreement, which formally recognizes the sovereignty of Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago but authorizes continued operation of the U.S. military base on Diego Garcia for the next 99 years!
The UK faces a stark reality of empowered anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim racism. Riots have been spreading in Northern Ireland, as well as in Southport, Liverpool, London and other cities in England.
Queer Notes columnist Elise presents a bird’s-eye view of the advances and retrogressions in the struggle for freedom of LGBTQI+people worldwide, from Uganda and South Africa to Indonesia, from Poland and Czech Republic to the U.S. and Canada.
In 1999, new Horizon software was installed in post office branches across the UK. Immediately, sub-postmasters and postmistresses experienced inexplicable shortfalls from their branches. It has been called “the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.”
Takes up: International Safe Abortion Day; elections in Poland; ‘Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK, 1970–1990’, the first major art museum show covering the feminist art movement; and El Salvador’s anti-abortion laws.
Takes up: Disability Pride Month; inaccessibility in Montreal’s light-rail stations; proposing cuts to disability payments in the UK, and Case Dominique School in Congo-Brazzaville for children with autism and Down Syndrome.
Rainbow Migration demanded the UK Prime Minister “end immigration detention for all LGBTQ+ people,” “scrap the Rwanda plan” and “reverse changes to the standard of proof for LGBTQ+ people’s asylum claims”; Twelve Republican-led states banned Transgender girls and women from competing in sports; and a long awaited center serving LGBTQ+ people opened on Chicago’s South Side.
No Birth Behind Bars “feed-in” in London; Cross-Border Network of Mexico and U.S. abortion rights groups formed; Montreal protest of the prostitution common at Grand Prix auto race; study finds women less likely to receive credit for their scientific work.
Takes up: UK waffling on protecting LGBTQI+ people from so-called conversion therapy; reviewers are calling ‘Badhaai Do,’ Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s Indian dramedy film about Lesbians and Gay men, bold and refreshing; Gay man Venton Jones won the Democratic runoff primary for Texas’s 10th House district against queerphobe Sandra Crenshaw; and a teacher in Florida created a template letter that cleverly works around Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hate-filled Don’t Say Gay Bill, HB 1557.
Takes up: in a groundbreaking ruling a Tokyo Court ordered Juntendo University to compensate women because they were rejected from medical school which had tampered with their exam scores and set stricter requirements for women; women in refugee camps in Somalia created their own credit lending system; Sandbach High School’s feminist club in Cheshire, UK, launched a petition calling for the government to ban sales of school uniforms in sex shops and their use in porn videos; and the girls’ track team at Albany High School in New York launched a petition to “Stop Gender Biased Dress Codes: Allow the Girls Track Team to Wear Sports Bras.”
Santa Barbara’s jail system and sheriff are sued; Texas caps the number of students who can receive special education services; people with disabilities criticize Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary in the United Kingdom.
LALIT reports on their banned protest of U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, and our statement of solidarity.
A member of LALIT in Mauritius speaks of their Action Conference on the situation of Diego García Island, which Britain has refused to give back to the original inhabitants after more than 50 years of struggle, and which it rents to the U.S. for a military base.
An expansive look at the rise of fascism worldwide beginning in the U.S. with Donald Trump and the U.S. election, and taking in European fascism, and the situations in India, the Philippines, China, Japan and the opposition by rulers worldwide to those fighting for a free existence and new human relations.
On June 16, Labour Party Member of Parliament Jo Cox was murdered by a neo-Nazi. Cox was murdered for opposing the rising reactionary tendency in European politics.
London—You could be forgiven for being surprised at the recent UK Parliament vote last month, with a sizable majority, to recognize Palestinian statehood. After all, when the Palestinians won a hard-fought campaign for recognition at the UN last year, Britain joined a chorus of nations ambivalent or hostile to their efforts. Look beneath the surface, however, and it becomes clear that the British government has little intention of putting words into action….
The UK government may have a fight on its hands as activists and lawyers tighten the noose on British weapons sales to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Regarding “New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, police show pattern of violence against Black people” (Aug. 11 N&L web statement): In 2009 in the UK we saw something similar. Police officers killed a man in the vicinity of a political protest, then told the press [=>]
London housing policies exploit people with disabilities; barriers in Zambia to HIV services access for people with disabilities; discrimination in Kibera, Kenya, schools.
It’s been dubbed a “political earthquake” that has struck the heart of the European Parliament. Yet this surprising victory for the right—where Britain’s own United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) made unprecedented electoral gains–signifies not merely disillusionment with mainstream politics, but growing intolerance across Europe.
UK protests by WinVisible vs. ATOS profiteering; Harris v Quinn at US Supreme Court
London, England—The leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, was heckled on Oct. 20 at a mass demonstration here against austerity cuts.
The Labour Party leader had addressed the crowd to garner support for his stand against the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic and Conservative parties. Mr. Miliband claimed the government’s cutbacks were “too far and [=>]
London—Protest can be violent. Yet whilst violence towards demonstrators often goes unremarked even in an avowedly democratic nation such as Britain, police violence towards foreign officials, as may have occurred during an attempted storming by British police of the Ecuadorian Embassy, seems a little too much to handle.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has since attempted to [=>]
by Gerry Emmett
The killing of 24-year-old Mark Duggan by London police on Aug. 6 set off the largest urban rebellion in Britain in decades. The situation was made worse by police lies that Duggan had pointed a gun at them, and by their rude, smirking response to family and community members who came to the [=>]
