Workers Solidarity Movement

Table Quiz to help defray  legal costs of Mary Kelly, who took action against US war planes at Shannon airport.

Spailpin Fanach, South Main Street, Cork 8pm

Organised by the Independent Workers Union

At the urging of our comrades in  the Colombian anarchist organisation Red Libertaria Popular Mateo Kramer the WSM has signed this international statement.  Red Libertaria Popular Mateo Kramer describe the current political reality in Colombia as follows. "As repression assumes fearful proportions in Colombia, sheer violence is the mechanism to impose a terrorist mafia regime, an enclave subservient to US imperialist interests in the region. The current regime represents the political expression of the harshest class violence against workers in the region. This is not shameful for the Colombian people but it represents a menace to all of the Latin American people. Those libertarian organisations who have signed this statement do so in order to show solidarity with the libertarian movement in Colombia which, along with the rest of the people’s movement, knows no quarter in its struggle against State Terrorism and Imperialism."

At 7pm last night Shell to Sea campaigners used kayaks to approach a Shell drilling platform in Broadhaven bay.  Five Gardai boats intercepted them and overturned the kayaks, dumping the campaigners in the water.  When one campaigner managed to swim underneath the platform he was hauled onto one of the Gardai boats where a Gardai proceeded to choke him for 90 seconds.

Listen in to Radio Solidarity Program no. 5  available on the Near FM podcast site where we concentrate on the recent events around Palestine and the ongoing blockade of Gaza by Israel.

Any public protest of more than 49 people will have to apply for permission at least 37 days in advance.  Otherwise it will be illegal. While emergency protests are allowed, the Bill says it has to be an “extreme emergency” and permission must be applied for three days in advance.

Around 900 arrests took place at the G20 summit in Toronto as police used considerable force to break up protests. Media reports & video (below) indicate that many of the beaten were journalists covering the protest. The G20 was meeting to co-ordinate further attacks on the global working class. This is what the coded statements from the G20 about 'austerity budgets' and 'cutting deficits' will mean in practice. This despite the "risk that synchronised fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery" acknowledged in the final G20 communique.

The audio is from the Dublin anarchist bookfair and has two speakers talking about the reform movement and feminism in Iran in general and the million signatures campaign in particular.

Almost one hundred Castlebar locals and members of local political groups including Workers Solidarity Movement took to the streets holding a vigil in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the activists murdered by IDF forces. A strong message of outrage at these atrocities and anger at the continuing siege of Gaza was relayed from speakers and the protesters. Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Isreali state were prominent from those assembled. Further protests are planned throughout the Mayo area including plans for a Mayo Trade Boycott.

This interview is with the well known Czech camera man Jan Línek who was on the ship alongside the Mavi Marmara when the Israeli military killed at least 10 activists. In it he describes conditions on board, the struggle by the activists to protect the captain, how his camera was confiscated and how he was tricked into signing deportation papers on shore and then told he wasn't getting his camera back. When in prison they were denied sleep and he witnessed an Irish man being beaten in front of him.

Over two thousand people took to the streets of Dublin last night to protest the bloody attack by the Israeli military on the Freedom flotilla to Gaza which left between 9 and 19 people dead and dozens injured. The assembled crowd heard that least five people from Ireland were now in an Israeli jail awaiting trial for refusing to co-operate with being deported from a country they had been brought to against their will, after their ships were hijacked by the heavily armed pirates of the IDF.