Yusef Asad was unjustly sentenced to two and a half years in Prison for defending himself from racists attacking a Palestine March in Cardiff in July 2014. He received the heaviest sentence despite only responding as racists at a pub started the violence throwing bottles, glasses and chairs at the demonstrators, who included young families.
Yusef welcomes letters of support.
Yusef Asad
A4424DD
HUNTERCOMBE PRISON
NUFFIELD
HENLEY-ON-THAMES
OXFORDSHIRE
RG05SB
Solidarity with all facing racist violence! Solidarity with the anti-fascits actually fighting ISIS in Rojava!
After a couple of weeks of typing small and threatening words online* – no doubt buoyed up by media coverage of the supposed “islamic extremist threat” to the UK – a South Wales-based fascist group calling itself ‘War Against ISIS’ completely failed to turn up at its inaugural event: ‘we will not let our country be taken over by isis’. They called it at a location where they possibly perceived there to be a well known ISIS presence, given the apocalyptic nature of their ‘worldview’*: Cardiff Central Train Station. When counter-demonstrators from various anti-fascist groups, totalling around 100 – 150 persons, gathered in advance of the promised fascist fighters, we found there to be merely the usual procession of christmas consumers, bustling through in a hurry, barely glancing up in their mad march to the merch. Sure, there were hell of a lot more police than usual and a couple of their put upon horses…
Antifa occupy the fascists’ meeting point early whilst others scout the area
…waiting. But street-fascist-fighters? Nothing. One or two possible fascists braved making handgestures from quite some distance, slinking along the periphery wordlessly, before disappearing, not to be seen again. A few others maybe made it to the pub; perhaps the real reason for calling the demonstration at the station: it’s proximity to sympathetic drinking establishments, but hardly known for their islamic (extremist) punters. Whether nursing last night’s hangover or terrified at the prospect of facing UAF chants, Red Choir singers and Welsh Antifa, with their new shiny pink banner, the upshot is they did not show, let alone pass. As they put it in their own event description: “we need as many people to be here otherwise it will be pointless”.
UAF and other anti-fascists
Despite their laughable ineptitude today, it would, however, be a mistake to completely dismiss them as a threat. They did have just over a hundred ‘committing’ to attend the event and around a thousand in their online group. They made links to the South Wales National Front and other violent Hitler-lickers. And we obviously haven’t forgotten that Muslims and mosques are currently being targeted in the physical world. But for the time being, this local group appear to be a sad collection of keyboard and barstool warriors. Let’s keep it that way.
* How they choose to describe themselves: “the government are helping the c*nts they want civil war they need for the start of the new wold order. Civil war is coming and it’s going to last around 20-30 years. We need to get our shit together now before they catch us unprepared and slaughter them all. Apparently 600-1000 refugees are coming to the Caerphilly county area we should do something about it asap !!!!!!!”
*Scroliwch lawr am y Gymraeg*
via Cardiff Uncut
Time: 12.00pm
Date: Monday 27th July 2015
Location: Cardiff Crown Court
Address: Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3PG
Demonstration to show solidarity with two facing serious charges after being violently attcked and arrested by police at an anti-cuts demonstration at a HSBC branch in Cardiff in May this year.
There will be a short solidarity demonstration outside the court from 12.00 pm on Monday the 27th of July 2015. Anti-repression and anti-austerity banners and well-wishers welcome.
URGENT WITNESS APPEAL:
***********************
Were you present at the Mayday demonstration and march in May 2015? Even if you think you didn’t see anything you may be able to provide useful defence evidence as to the nature of the day.
If you think you may be able to help please email: bristoldefendantsolidarity@riseup.net
——————————————-
Unoliaeth Llys Gwrth Lymder 27 o Orffennaf 2015
Amser: 12.00pm
Dyddiad: Llun 27 o Orffennaf 2015
Lleoliad: Llys y Goron Caerdydd
Cyfeiriad: Parc Cathays, Caerdydd, CF10 3PG
Gwrthdystiad i ddangos unoliaeth gyda dau yn gwynebu cyhuddiadau difrifol ar ol cael eu hymosod arnyn nhw yn dreisgar a’u harestio gan yr Heddlu mewn gwrthdystiad gwrth-lymder mewn cangen HSBC yng Nghaerdydd mis Mai y flwyddyn yma.
Bydd gwrthdystiad unolaeth byr tu allan y llys o 12.00 pm ymlaen ar ddydd llun y 27 o Orffennaf 2015. Croeso i chi ddod a banneri gwrth-lymder a gwrth-orthrwm.
APEL AM DYSTION
***********************
Oeddet ti yn bresennol yn y brotest Calan Mai a’r orymdaith yn mis Mai 2015? Hyd yn oed os nad wyt yn meddwl dy fod wedi gweld unrhywbeth gallet ddarparu gwybodaeth defnyddiol am natur y dydd.
Os ysych yn credu eich bod medru helpu os gwelwch yn dda e-bostiwch: bristoldefendantsolidarity@riseup.net
Am y Gymraeg cliciwch yma.
“THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.”
(August Spies on the scaffold before his execution)
South Wales Anarchists will be demonstating in Cardiff to celebrate this years May Day. Originally a pagan festival, the modern May Day bank holiday has its roots in the fight for the eight hour day and is celebrated across the globe as an International Workers’ Day to commemorate the anarchist trade union organisers who were executed in Chicago 1887. They were framed and wrongly accused of throwing a bomb at police breaking up a crowd in the Haymarket during a demonstration involving over 400,000 working in Chicago on May 4, 1886.
The anarchist idea did not die with these workers in 1887 and continues to be the inspiration for many fighting capitalism around the world. We call on all those struggling for a world of justice, dignity and freedom to come together and join us this May Day in Cardiff.
Bring your red and black flags and class struggle banners!
Meet at 12 noon at the southern end of St Mary St, under the railway bridge near the Great Western Wetherspoons. March starts at 12.30 through the streets of Cardiff City centre to…. somewhere with no bureaucrats’ speeches!!!
On the 6th of January 2015 two local people stood trial, accused of disrupting last year’s Defence Procurement, Research, Technology & Exportability (DPRTE) Arms Fair, now an annual occurrence in Cardiff.
The defendants were accused of throwing red paint at delegates entering the fair, damaging their luxury goods worth hundreds of hundreds of pounds. They were charged with Criminal Damage and breach of s.4A of the Public Order Act (“Causing harassment, alarm or distress with intent”). They were advised that the prosecution would be seeking custodial sentences.
The defendants sought to run separate, distinct defenses. The first was to put forward a factual defense that the police had grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground for no reason. The second defendant contended that they had been acting out of necessity in an attempt to prevent war crimes based on the arms fair’s various links to Israel and the horrific attacks against Gaza that took place over the summer, in the context of the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people.
Before the trial started some 30 supporters gathered outside Cardiff Magistrates court for a solidarity demonstration with the two defendants. Several groups came out to support, including Food not Bombs Cardiff, Anarchist Action Network, Afed Bristol, Cor Cochion Caerdydd, Bristol Defendant Solidarity, Bristol Against the Arms Trade, disarmUWE as well as South Wales Anarchists.
Outside Cardiff Magistrates Court before the Trial
Throughout the day defendants and their supporters were followed and surveiled by Police Liaison Officers, who largely failed in their documented intelligence gathering role since all attendees wisely declined to engage with them from the outset.
Court proceedings were delayed for hours as there was no prosecutor – the Crown Prosecution Service was called and the prosecutor who had been appointed to the case said he knew nothing about it. A replacement prosecutor was then speeded to the court.
As the arms dealers and lay prosecution witnesses had also failed to turn up, the prosecution sought to amend the charge to Criminal Damage of the arresting officer’s uniform. One of the police witnesses had claimed paint damage to his uniform – which surely, if it had occurred, would have been the result of manhandling and grabbing the defendants when they were arrested. The District Judge said that this was “moving the goalposts” considerably and that Criminal Damage by paint transfer during an arrest when the police grabbed the defendants would be “ludicrous”.
After lunch the CPS informed us that it would drop all charges. The many supporters in the public gallery broke out into applause and the judge scolded them saying “this is NOT a football stadium!”.
Outside Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
The DPRTE arms fair will be returning to Cardiff Motorpoint Arena on the 8th of March 2016. To flog their machines of torture and death. The people of Cardiff and beyond stand ready to oppose them and we ask that you will join us.
For more info on how to get involved with the campaign against DPRTE arms fair, email: stopnatocymru@riseup.net
6th Jan 2015
Time: 9:15am
Date: Tuesday 6th January 2015
Location: Cardiff Magistrates Court
Address: Fitzalan Road, Cardiff CF24 0RZ
Court solidarity demonstration to support two much-loved people who are facing excessively harsh charges for allegedly seeking to disrupt the DPRTE arms fair in Cardiff last year. They stand accused of damaging the luxury goods of arms dealers and organisers with childrens play paint.
There will be a short solidarity demonstration outside the court from 9:15am on Tuesday 6th January 2015. Antimilitarist banners and well-wishers welcome. Afterwards some of us will be supporting the defendants from the public gallery.
URGENT WITNESS APPEAL:
***********************
Were you present at the protest against DPRTE Arms Fair at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena in October 2014? Even if you think you didn’t see anything you may be able to provide useful defence evidence as to the nature of the day.
If you think you may be able to help please email: bristoldefendantsolidarity@riseup.net
At 7.30 am on the 8th of August, supporters of the Palestinian people protested the BBC’s bias coverage of recent events by painting slogans on the corporation’s building in Roath Lock .
On arrival of police one the graffiti artists got away, the other was arrested is now on bail, charged with criminal damage. The individual received harsh bail conditions including a ban form Cardiff, where she works.
A video of the action can be seen here:
The defendant is due to appear in Cardiff Magistrates Court on the 27th of August. This a call out for all to come and support her and this action against the BBC which has shown which side they are on when reporting on the Palestinian issue: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/bbc-trying-shore-support-israels-assault-gaza
Come to Cardiff Magistrates court at 9.30 am with Palestinian and Anarchist banners, then at 10 am we will support the defendant in court.
Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
On the morning of Friday, July 25th, supporters of Stop NATO Cymru took action in London and Cardiff, locking themselves to the front doors of missile developer MBDA, occupying the HQ of arms company Airbus Group and closing the Armed Forces Careers Centre in Cardiff by occupying the roof. This was part of an ongoing anti-militarist campaign in the run up to September’s NATO Summit in Newport, targeting all institutions which perpetuate violence on a global scale.
Cardiff Armed Forces “Careers Centre” closed
MBDA is jointly owned by arms companies Airbus Group (37.5%), BAE Systems (37.5%) and Finmecanica (25%), companies guilty of providing arms used by Israel to bombard communities, demolish hospitals and murder innocent children in schools. Palestinian solidarity activists stood with us against these monsters, with Israel having used British bombs on playing children, family homes, schools, independent journalists, rescue vehicles and hospitals in the last week alone.
In solidarity with Stop NATO Cymru, anti-miltarist activists from Stop the Arms Fair entered the lobby and picketed the entrance to the London HQ of Airbus Group (aka EADS). Airbus Group is a major profiteer of war. They manufacture jets, drones (including some with nuclear warheads) and surveillance technology. They are the second largest arms producer in Europe, with investments in authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kazakhstan. Airbus has recently announced new contracts worth £50mil, and have urged the arms industry to take ‘full economic advantage’ of the NATO Summit. The summit is an opportunity for them to showcase their killing machines and blood-stained business through NATO procurement. Stop NATO Cymru opposes the NATO war machine, arms production and the murder of anyone for corporate profit.
When the rich declare war, the poor die.
Earlier this month the British Army launched a recruitment drive entitled ‘More Than Meets the Eye’, aiming to dispel myths surrounding life in the forces, boost their falling recruitment figures and secure the flow of “a new stream of young blood” as head of recruiting, Major General Chris Tickell, so aptly put it.
They are right about one thing, there is more to life in the army than meets our eyes – more to what the media, charities and the state show of the idealised soldier. Waves of forced redundancies are leaving thousands unemployed, many of them young people, promised adventure and reward at the recruiting office before being spat into the jobcentre, often injured, with thousands wounded over the last decade.
Even those who keep their job are constantly exploited y the state. The fact is that every individual within the armed forces – from the musician to the infantryman – is part of an effort to further the state’s expansionist agenda. In Afghanistan, war for oil saw the deaths of almost 4,000 coalition troops and an estimated 20,000 Afghan civilians killed to bring NATO’s version of democracy to the Afghan people. Now we see conflict flaring in Ukraine, with British companies having armed the Russian dictatorship, America throwing its weight behind a neo-Nazi backed government and the people of Ukraine and the world suffering the consequences.
We took action to show that we will not stand by and watch ordinary people suffer in the wars of the wealthy. We are anti-militarist, opposed to states, their armies and the world that creates them. When NATO brings its circus to Newport in September, we will make our feelings known.
NATO is the militarist juggernaut that encourages military spending in times of austerity, stokes the flames of conflict in places like Ukraine and represents the armed wing of capitalist exploitation. In spite of the power behind NATO – and all militarist institutions in a world of government by violence – we will keep up our fight on the streets, doing all that we can to bring change, until every gun is cold, every bomb is dead and every cage is empty.
From Cardiff Antifa Caerdydd:
Urgent Call Out To All The Antifacists In Britain
A WHITE PRIDE WORLD WIDE DEMONSTRATION HAS BEEN CALLED BY THE NATIONAL FRONT IN SWANSEA ON THE 5th OF APRIL 2014. THE DEMO IS CO-ORGANISED BY AN UMBRELLA GROUP OF BRITISH WHITE NATIONALIST THAT CALL THEMSELVES ‘FOR RACE AND NATION COLLECTIVE’.
The National Front is on the rise in south Wales. In January 2014, they held their Annual General Meeting in Swansea. This meeting went ahead un-disrupted by any antifascist and/or Antifa.
Since then, people from several areas throughout south Wales have contacted the NF to organise local demonstrations. In one of them, a small group of people confronted them. However, no call out was made nationally.
In March 2013, the first UK-wide White Pride World Wide event was held in Swansea organised by the National Front. Up to 100 fascists attended and although outnumbered, they held a static demonstration with minimal confrontation or disruption. This time, they are trying to make it bigger than last year.
This were the scenes in Swansea at last year’s White Pride World Wide event for which Christopher Philips was jailed.
The NF is also part of For Race and Nation Collective: a combination of multiple fascists groups who believe in white supremacy. They are co-organising this demonstration.
If they are not properly confronted again, the city of Swansea is in danger of becoming the White Pride UK Capital. Swansea is becoming the NF capital in Wales, as mentioned earlier.
Opposing the NF demo last year
This as we know, must not happen. Fascists should not be welcomed in
Swansea, Wales or anywhere on this planet. We, as anti-fascists in Wales want the National Front and all fascist groups out and out forever.
This is an urgent call out for anyone who identifies as an anti-fascist to come to Swansea on the 5th of April 2014.
This is the time when we urgently need all the support from anyone from anywhere who is against fascism and racism.
Please put the 5th of April 2014 in your diary and come to Swansea to stop the UK’s White Pride World Wide.
See you on the streets! ¡No Pasarán!
We are an independent group of antifa people who live in Wales. Our main objective is to organise resistance against fascism in Swansea. We are currently organising a counter demo.
– Cardiff Antifa Caerdydd
Extra Information
Quiet a lot of info on last year’s event here and here and this is the Facebook eventfrom last time. The White Pride demo pulled about 60 fascists who were opposed by 300-400 anti-fascists. The demo was followed in the evening by a Blood and Honour gig hosted at the Valley Commandos Motorcycle Club. VCMC denied all knowledge of the event’s true nature, but given that their logo is an SS death’s head and they appear to have hosted neo-Nazi events before (see comments here), it does make you wonder… Hopefully they will not be repeating their mistake and hosting Nazis again.
This blog was taken from the AntiFascist Network Page.
Please circulate!
Announcing the NATIONAL WEEKEND CONVERGENCE in LONDON of the ANARCHIST ACTION NETWORK (previously known as STOPG8) and STOP NATO CYMRU. To be held on the weekend on 22-23rd February 2014 at The London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, London, E1 1ES.
About
The Anarchist Action Network (previously known as StopG8) has existed as a network in the UK since July 2012. It initially came together both to mobilise against last years G8 summit, and to help re-build an anti-capitalist movement in the UK and beyond. In January 2014 StopG8 adopted its new name – the Anarchist Action Network, and the Network was joined by Stop NATO Cymru, the South Wales network opposed to the NATO summit in Newport in September 2014. The Anarchist Action Network will shortly be putting on a programme of events on Anarchism and anticapitalist struggle, and working with Stop NATO Cymru to support the mobilisation against the forthcoming NATO summit. The Anarchist Action Network respects diversity of tactics and has adopted the PGA Hallmarks.
https://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/en/
This is a two day event and all are welcome (except cops and journos) from 11am til 5pm each day on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of February 2014.
Please email us in advance to discuss any enquiries about disabled access, childcare or crashspace at: stopg8@riseup.net
Indymedia Wales No Borders South Wales Radical Wales Lib Com Wales Earth First! Wales Cardiff ABC
South Wales Anarchists 