We don't know quite who made the atrocity in Syria, do we really need to?
Hundreds if not thousands of people are dead because of one action and all we can do in the West is make polotic about it.
These are PEOPLE. Young and old, these are our reflections as Citizens of whichever our nation or country might be..
This is you and me in other circumstances.
I dont know how to challenge this, only to mention it.
Today I wish to be a Syrian Civilian. I wish to stand with those brothers and sisters (however, I do not need a gas mask)!! May God be with them and with us for our ignorance and inactivity!
Saturday 24 August 2013
Tuesday 20 August 2013
Poem of the Week: Lament by F S Flint
Lament
The young me of the world
Are condemned to death.
They have been called up to die
For the crime of their fathers.
The young men of the world,
The growing, the ripening fruit,
Have been torn from their branches,
While the memory of the blossom
Is sweet in women's hearts;
They have been cast for a cruel purpose
Into the mashing-press and furnace.
The young men of the world
Look into each other's eyes,
And read there the same words:
Not yet! Not yet!
But soon perhaps, and perhaps certain.
The young men of the world
No longer possess the road:
The road possesses them.
They no longer inherit the earth:
The earth inherits them.
They are no longer the masters of fire:
Fire is their master;
They serve him, he destroys them.
They no longer rule the waters:
The genius of the seas
Has invented a new monster,
Andy they fly from its teeth.
They no longer breathe freely:
The genius of the air
Has contrived a new terror
That rends them to pieces.
The young men of the world
Are encompassed with death
He is all about them
In a circle of fire and bayonets.
Weep, weep, o women,
And old men break your hearts.
Male; Black; African; Muslim; British; Hero! Mohamed Farah's Double Double
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| Mohamed Farah, The greatest 'British' Athlete |
I watched the 5000m race on Friday, as with many of my compatriots, with bated breath (as I, and we, have watched many of Mo Farah's races). He did not disappoint! History was made, as he became only the second man to do the 'double double', of Olympic Gold for 5000m and 10000, and World Championship Gold's at the World Championships in Moscow.
I am not a great sports fan, but quite like the Athletics (and, for such a couch potato these days, was actually a runner in my college days). I ate up the London Olympics and Paralympics, devouring as much as I could, supporting 'Team GB' in every event.
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| Yelana Isinbayeva |
We are told that sport is not political. The fallacy of this was shown recently with the comments of Yelana Isinbayeva, and her subsequent retraction of them, over Russia's anti-gay propaganda law, (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/world-championships-2013-yelena-isinbayeva-claims-she-was-misunderstood-over-comments-condemning-homosexuality-and-promoting-russias-antigay-propaganda-law-8770539.html) and the actions of some of the athletes in support of their gay brothers and sisters, notably, the USA's Nick Symmonds (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/world-championships-2013-us-runner-nick-symmonds-speaks-out-against-russias-antigay-laws-after-winning-silver-in-moscow-8762222.html).
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| Nick Symmonds |
Athletes wrap themselves in Nationalistic, Patriotic symbolism. They stand on a podium with their National Flag raised above that of other nations whilst their National Anthem is played and sung to the exclusion of others. And this is not political?
Referring back to my title of this post, the argument about Russian anti-gay laws and the persecution of my LGBT brothers and sisters in that country is not what I am interested in here. My worry is over names and titles, and their political utilisation.
Too often in the media outlets of Britain and the USA, young, Black and Asian Muslim men are portrayed in a negative way and their allegiance to the country that they call home called into question because of the colour of their skin or nature of their religious conviction. In many news sources, Black; Asian; Muslim all equate to Criminal; Terrorist; generally Threat to the 'White Community'.
Where it suits to do so, we homogenise those from another racial or ethnic background into our ranks almost as 'honorary citizens of our community and culture', through the language that we do not use rather than the language that we do. Hence my hero Mo Farah is 'British'.
What is wrong with this? You may ask. It is his self definition.
Here is my problem, Mo is Mohamed Farah. He is Somali by birth, from Mogadishu. A country and city most often portrayed as a hot bed of Terrorism and Piracy. (When is the last time you read or saw a news report that portrayed that country or city as anything but?) Mo is Male, Young, Black and Muslim, in usual Press parlance, either a drug dealer, criminal or terrorist. Ergo, someone to fear! It does not suit our stereo typical view of those terms to use them while discussing a 'National Hero'. These are perceived by the majority to be negative terms to be avoided at all costs in conjunction with a positive report or story. (In fact, by Mo's own admission, he is regularly stopped by Immigration in the USA because of this, see: http://www.channel4.com/news/mo-farah-stopped-at-customs-hes-not-alone)
WHY NOT? Our brothers and sisters of other Races, Ethnicities and Religious persuasions need to instil in their children the positivity of those terms and respective cultures'. Theirs, as well as our heroes and heroines need to be acknowledged as such, not just as 'British' or 'American' (which is a misnomer when it only refers to the USA).
'We don't point out the colour or religion of White Christians in these countries' is an arguament that I have heard in relation to this and other issues. My answer to this is why would you? When you are referring to the ethnic and religious majority, it is a presumption already assumed within our subconscious (along with the negativity of the other terms mentioned).
LGBT brothers and sisters refer to themselves as such, for exactly the same reason, we are not in the majority and need to be seen to be accepted fully into society.
I am not denying the 'Britishness' of Mo, or any other brother or sister from an ethnic or religious minority, I am affirming it and glorying in it. My own ancestry is Irish, but as a White Male, I am seen as nothing but of the Status Quo, if I am noticed at all when I walk down the street. I can walk through the streets of London (and any other British city) without ever being noticed as 'a Foreigner'. My skin colour and accent make me English (however my name actually betrays not just my Ethnicity, but my religious identity too, for those who are aware of these things, similarly with the name Mohamed)!
What I am calling for here is that we abolish the stereo types associated with these terms and begin to really appreciate all of our brothers and sisters in this Multicultural society. Diversity is so much more preferable to hegemony. I don't want 'Britishness' to become like the High Street, where most shops are chains that offer the same thing no matter what street, city or country that you are in across the world! There is also the wider point that maybe our National Institutions and Legislators, and the 'guardians of our borders' may stop making false assumptions and allow law abiding citizens to go about their daily lives free from hindrance and persecution!
Come on Mo, wear a Somali Flag next time you win, as well as the Union Flag!
Congratulations on your magnificent achievement, and here is to many more (along with some gratuitous photos of you and the 'Mobot' to celebrate your Double Double)!
Eamonn
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| Who's that man pretending to be Mo Farah? |
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| Usain Bolt forgets who he is! lol |
Thursday 15 August 2013
In Muslim lands there was a dream of democracy. But now it has died
Yasmine Alibhai Brown is a journalist that I much admire, and, although I do not always agree with everything that she says, I find her thought provoking, and particularly enlightening in her insights into Islam.
In light of what has happened over the last few days in Egypt, I reproduce an article that I read over the weekend, by her.
Eamonn
The Arab Spring was real and authentic, a surge to claim human rights and remake ossified nations that were ruled by dictators. What happened next?
Friday 9 August 2013
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| A Tunisian man looks on next to graffiti as protestors continue their demonstrations outside Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi's offices in Government Square Tunis on January 25, 2011 in Tunis, Tunisia. |
Sunday 11 August 2013
Trench Art Sale at Chiswick Antiques Fair, London on Sunday 18th August
CHISWICK ANTIQUES FAIR
The George IV
185 Chiswick High Road
W4 2DR
We will be attending the Chiswick Art and Antiques sale again this coming Sunday (18th August 2013). As an acknowledgement of 5000+ views of this blog being passed this week, anyone with a print out of the blog address will receive an automatic 10% discount on any purchase made!
The last fair went really well, and one of my best pieces was sold, a carved wooden swagger stick that will be used 'porchini picking in Italy'. I love the idea that a piece of trench art is given a practical use and not just stuck on a wall, but shared with those around her while picking mushrooms. Others will be able to delight in that beautiful object!
Although we mainly have trench art, we have other vintage and antique pieces, including antique pages of Manuscript from Timbuktu, architectural ironmongery and pieces of ceramic. I also have a really unusual set of African bow and fishing arrows made from bamboo.
Prices range from a few pounds upwards. There is something for everyone!
Hope to see you there to have a chat,
Eamonn
Poem of the week: Glory of Women by Siegfried Sassoon
I am of the age now where I 'ponder' a lot. I suppose that it is the mental version of 'pottering,' which I also do a lot of these days.
Approaching 50, I have almost half a century of memories, recollections, (mistakes!) and experience of life. It does not make one any better, just gives a wealth of historical recollections by which to compare situations that we come across in our daily lives.
Throughout my life, I have known strong women. Women who survived through both World Wars and experienced horrors beyond imagination. I even knew a woman when I was a child and through my teenage years, who had worked down the coal mines in Durham when she was 6 years old! I was brought up around Victorian and Edwardian women, now spanning three distinct centuries.
From the Industrial Revolution, through the Space Age and the Cold War, to the Modern Digital Age, women have dealt with the consequences of the actions and laws of the male of the species.
I was doing a little research about the 'Unknown Warrior' recently and was shocked to read that among the dignitaries and armed services, were 100 women who had lost both their husbands and all of their sons during the 1914-18 War! Among all of the women that I knew of that generation, may I have known (without knowing) women with this legacy of grief? The question is rhetorical, I will never know.
Recently, the world was shocked by the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby. As ever in history, out of the crowds of witnesses, like angels around the manger, three women came forward.
Ingrid Loyau-Kennett confronted one of the killers (still holding a kitchen knife and a hatchet), and tried to reason with him, with no thought of her own safety. Amanda and Gemini Donnelly-Martin (mother and daughter) asked the killers for permission before going to comfort, cradle and pray with the slain man as he lay in the road.
To witnesses around the world, these were brave heroes. To the women, they were mothers, daughters, sisters. They did nothing special, just what was right in for them to do in the circumstances. (see: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woolwich-attack-three-brave-angels-1907856)
There have been many bad women in history, but far more that have just done 'the right thing in the circumstances', being mother, sister, daughter to those they have found in need, the vast majority never known to anyone else but the individuals involved, the simple hand that reaches out to the stranger in need.
Glory of Women
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a memorable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells, You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops 'retire'
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses - blind with blood,
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
Seigried Sassoon
Saturday 10 August 2013
Gregory Lauder-Frost exposed: The Tory fringe group leader with Nazi sympathies
I don't expect my views to be universally accepted, however when you come across such odious views and odious individuals, and realise that they are an accepted part of the British Establishment, it makes me sick to my stomach. Perhaps Mr Lauder-Frost might consider taking his pearls of wisdom back to Zimbabwe and see how he is dealt with there?!
Interesting too, that Doreen Lawrence is 'a nobody'. Mr Lauder-Frost, obviously is 'a somebody'; a convicted criminal. To quote the article below:
'... in 1992... he was imprisoned for two years after stealing £110,000 from a London health authority where he was employed as payroll operations manager. At the court hearing, where he pleaded guilty to eight specimen charges, his lawyer said he had taken the money to pay for a custody battle with the Polish ex-wife'.
So it's ok to have a white 'foreigner' as a spouse in this country, and embezzle the citizens of this country out of £110,000 to divorce her, but not allow law abiding British born races of colour to live freely here? The sheer arrogance and hypocrisy beggars belief.
Further more, as a Scot (presumed by the Scottish National dress that he is wearing in the photograph below), what right has he to presume to speak on behalf of 'The English People' rather than 'the British'? However, I think that more 'English people' are going to be disgusted by his views about the bombing of Coventry and causes of the Second World War, than about statements made by Doreen Lawrence in reaction to the ongoing revelations about the actions of the Metropolitan Police Force!
Eamonn
Right-wing views and criminal past revealed of vice-president of the Traditional Britain Group
FRIDAY 09 AUGUST 2013
Jacob Rees-Mogg, centre with Gregory Lauder-Frost, right, at the Traditional Britain Group's dinner
The right-winger whose association with Jacob Rees-Mogg caused the senior Conserative MP great embarrassment this week has added to concerns about his group’s relationship with the Tory party – by launching a personal attack on the mother of Stephen Lawrence as “anti-English” and a “nobody”, as more damaging revelations emerged about his past.
Gregory Lauder-Frost, the vice-president of the Traditional Britain Group, claimed the decision to award a peerage to the mother of the murdered teenager was an example of a modern fashion for “filling the House of Lords up with spivs”.
Mr Lauder-Frost and his organisation were a little-noticed Tory fringe group until the website Liberal Conspiracy revealed that Mr Rees-Mogg had been guest speaker at one of its dinners – and highlighted some of its questionable views.
A red-faced Mr Rees-Mogg has since admitted he did not make a proper check of the organisation’s beliefs before taking up its invitation. The MP told the BBC: “I clearly made a mistake. Mrs Lawrence is a wonderful and courageous woman who has contributed to British public life and, in any traditional view of Conservatism, she should be lauded for what she has done.”
But Mr Lauder-Frost, who campaigns to reintroduce what he calls “traditional” values into the Tory Party, refused to back down on his views. Speaking to BBC London’s Vanessa Feltz show yesterday, Mr Lauder-Frost said of Mrs Lawrence: “We do not feel there is any merit in raising such a person to the peerage. She’s a complete nobody. She has been raised there for politically correct purposes. She’s just a campaigner about her son’s murder.
“It’s ridiculous. She has made countless anti-English comments over the last 10 years. She’s no friend of the English people.”
Referring to the 1999 Act of Parliament that removed most hereditary peers from the upper House, he added: “They have kicked out people who have sat in the House of Lords for 1,000 years consecutively, father to son, father to son, all that experience of running the country. We’re filling the House of Lords with spivs.”
The Traditional Britain Group supports halting immigration and leaving the EU. Yesterday, Mr Lauder-Frost, who lived in Zimbabwe when it was under white minority rule and known as Rhodesia, went further – saying that anyone living in the UK who was not of “European stock” should be offered “assisted voluntary repatriation” to their “natural” homeland.
When it was pointed out to him that hundreds of thousands of British citizens from ethnic minorities were born in the UK, he retorted: “As the Duke of Wellington said: ‘Being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse’.” Asked whether he considered his views to be racist, he replied; “I have said nothing unpleasant about aliens at all.”
The Traditional Britain Group was founded in 2001, but made little impact until recently, when it drew new recruits in reaction to David Cameron’s efforts to give the Conservative Party a more modern image. Its website boasts that it has been “reinvigorated by a new, dynamic generation of young, intelligent and passionate people”.
However, 62-year-old Mr Lauder-Frost is a veteran of the right-wing fringe of the Tory party with a political record that dates back to Margaret Thatcher’s time. This was interrupted in 1992 when he was imprisoned for two years after stealing £110,000 from a London health authority where he was employed as payroll operations manager. At the court hearing, where he pleaded guilty to eight specimen charges, his lawyer said he had taken the money to pay for a custody battle with the Polish ex-wife.
At the time he was chairman of the foreign affairs policy committee of the Monday Club, a pressure group within the Tory party that was later banned by Iain Duncan Smith because of its views on race. During one meeting, he provoked a walk out by right-wing European politicians by alleging that the EU was forcing member countries to legalise homosexuality, and accusing them of “sympathising with sodomites”.
A keen admirer of pre-war German culture, particularly its opera and films, he has frequently expressed the view that the UK should not have declared war on Germany in 1939, because the Nazis had no quarrel with this country. In 1990, he criticised Thatcher for her ambiguous attitude to the reunification of Germany. He called for Germany to be restored to its 1938 borders, which would have involved absorbing a large part of what is now Poland. “Poland asked for it from 1919 onwards,” he claimed in one post on Facebook.
He has called the Nuremburg trials of leading Nazis a “farce… without an ounce of legitimacy” and has claimed that those who ordered the bombing Potsdam should be tried as war criminals. But he defended the Luftwaffe’s bombardment of Coventry, saying: “Britain had all its small arms and tanks manufactured at Coventry. If you did not want to be bombed you should not have declared war on a country who had no quarrel with you.”
No holding back: The ‘wit and wisdom’ of Gregory Lauder-Frost
This woman [Doreen Lawrence] has done the British nation no favours whatsoever. If these people don’t like us and want to keep attacking us they should go back to their natural homelands.
The Poles asked for it from 1919 onwards. It was Britain and France who made it a world war, not Hitler.
Basically if you did not want to be bombed you should not have declared war on a country [Germany] who had no quarrel with you.
The barbarians who bombed [Potsdam] right at the very end of the war, serving no purpose whatsoever, should have been tried as war criminals.
The Nuremberg trials were a farce. They were show trials without an ounce of legitimacy.
The Africans never had it so good as when Britain governed their colonies there… We owe Africa nothing whatsoever. It owes us eternal gratitude for lifting it out of barbarism.
Sorce:
Saturday 3 August 2013
Women of courage, Wendy Woods (RIP) and Doreen Lawrence
I have had the chance to read the news a little more this week due to a leg injury (which has also given me the opportunity to restart working on this blog). I was saddened that the world lost Wendy Woods, memorialised in the film 'Cry Freedom.' A great human light has been extinguished and the world is a darker place because of it.
I also saw that Doreen Lawrence was to be elevated to The House of Lords.
These are two almost diametrically opposed women with a common goal, Equality and Justice. Woods, the well off white South African social campaigner, made her choices to join the fight against white suppremacy in her homeland, leading to her eventual exile in the UK for the beliefs of her and her husband, the journalist, Donald Woods.
By contrast, Doreen Lawrence was not given a choice to become an activist. Her son was brutally murdered on a London street by a gang of white racist thugs, forcing her and her family into the limelight. Exposing institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police Force, this reluctant hero has been twarted by the establishment (and particularly the Met), every step of the way, eventually managing to see two of the gang convited of her son Stephen's murder. But this is a hollow victory as the rest of the known perpetrators are still at large.
Doreen Lawrence is no different to millions of others. I believe that first and foremost she is a mother. When backed into a corner to protect your children, most people become tigers, who will fight tooth and nail to protect their families. Doreen Lawrence has become the biggest tigress of them all. With every twist and sordid turn of this whole debacle, with a dignity and assuredness borne out of the conviction of what is right and just, she has not only fought the battle for her and her family, but for every person of colour in this country who has been abused and harassed by an institutionally racist system. She has made this country a better and safer place for all of us, regardless of race or gender, at great personal cost. She has lost a son, but in doing so, in many ways she has become the epitome of the British mother, as much of a mother to this nation as Her Majesty the Queen. Without the contacts and privileges that Wendy Woods had, this woman in her battle has taken on the establishment continually, and has won and won and won.
With Doreen Lawrence in the House of Lords, I perceive a renewal of that dusty old institution, and can only warn them: BEWARE THE TIGRESS PROTECTING US HER CHILDREN!
Eamonn
Wendy Woods: Activist who with her husband, Donald, struggled against apartheid
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Wendy Bruce was born in Umtata in the Eastern Cape, and trained as a librarian before becoming a licentiate of the Trinity College of Music. She met Donald as a schoolgirl when their families holidayed on the Transkei Wild Coast. When they married in 1962 she converted to Catholicism, though she had no strong religious beliefs, unlike her mass-going husband. They moved to off-the-beaten-track East London (in the Eastern Cape), where Donald became editor of the morning paper, the Daily Dispatch. It was a time of political upheaval, as the African National Congress, with its large following, launched the armed struggle against white rule. The uprising was neutralised, and the torture and murder of imprisoned activists was widespread.
Wendy joined the highly politicised white women's resistance organisation, the Black Sash; with them she stood in the city centre holding banners highlighting bannings and indefinite detention. Liberated by reading Germaine Greer, she saw the world more analytically than her husband. "For some time Wendy had been more radical than me", he said in his autobiography, Asking for Trouble (1980).
Steve Biko lived a 30-minute drive away in King William's Town, from where he proclaimed the philosophy of black consciousness and ran community programmes aimed at showing black people how to stand up for themselves. The Woods were impressed by his persuasive ideas and exhilarating rhetoric. The whole family, including the five Woods children, was invited to spend the day at a clinic run by Biko's friend, Dr Mamphela Ramphela.
"Wendy and I realised we were on trial", Donald wrote, "but we must have passed muster because in spite of our conservative views we were often invited back. Wendy and I had never met blacks like these in South Africa… we began to live in two different worlds… in the white world you talked of who had dined with whom, and in the black world of who had been arrested or searched that week."
Wendy went to visit Biko during one of his terms in prison – this time for "defeating the ends of justice". On being told that "whites never visit blacks in jail", she demanded to see the commandant. Biko was brought in, angry and withdrawn. His face lit up on seeing Wendy, but with the jailers in the room he adopted his usual stony approach of drawing a veil between himself and his interrogators. Wendy handed him George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and left.
Everything changed with the murder in detention of a Dispatch journalist, Mapetla Mohapi. The paper's angry reaction made Donald a hate figure for the establishment. Bullets were fired at the Woods' house; there were midnight phone calls, and their telephone and home were bugged. When the police arrived to harass labourers working on their house, Wendy hurried the two men into the upstairs bathroom and locked herself in with them. "It's me in here", she shouted, when they rapped on the door. They left, sure no white woman could be closeted in a bathroom with "kaffirs".
When Biko was murdered in a prison cell the story was unleashed day by day on the Dispatch front page, accompanied by a picture of his body in the mortuary. This lead to Donald being banned under the Internal Security Act; he could no longer work as a journalist or leave East London. So Wendy sat through the inquest in Pretoria into Biko's death. "What I find so painful is that the security police reduced him to a cabbage lying naked on a concrete cell floor," she wrote. "They stripped him of the very dignity we had spoken about in discussing Nineteen Eighty-Four, and they did it because, to them, he was 'just another kaffir', and that is what I will never forgive them for."
While Wendy was in Pretoria, her five-year-old daughter Mary received a "present" from the security police – a T-shirt that had been dipped in acid. The burns remained on her face and arms for three weeks. It was time to leave their comfortable home – the Mercedes in the garage and the grand piano bought with the proceeds of Donald's libel action against a cabinet minister who had called him a communist – but most of all, their black and white friends.
Donald went first. Wendy dyed his hair black and, disguised as a Catholic priest, he drove to Lesotho. Wendy and the children left the next day. She found a border official in the throes of giving up smoking. While he perused the six passports, she distracted him with advice on a drug that would help him cope in a post-tobacco life. Bleary-eyed, he stamped the passports.
London was not as exciting but it was busy. They settled in Surbiton, south London and Donald raced around the world campaigning against apartheid, while Wendy saw to the children, worked for the Canon Collins educational trust and Amnesty International, collected books for Fort Hare, Nelson Mandela's old university, and wrote articles for the cause.
As a trustee of the Mandela statue fund, initiated by Donald before his death, she unveiled the statue with the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Parliament Square, London, in the presence of the former president. The Donald Woods Foundation, which she founded, has built clinics in the impoverished rural Eastern Cape. Wendy and her family are repaying a debt to the country that allowed them to play a small but significant role in its developing story.
Denis Herbstein
Wendy Heather Woods, human rights campaigner: born Umtata, South Africa 5 February 1941; married 1962 Donald Woods (died 2001; three sons, two daughters, and one son deceased); died London 19 May 2013.
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Baroness Lawrence: Stephen's mother Doreen set to join House of Lords as Labour peer
Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence who was murdered in a racist attack in 1993, is to be made a Labour peer in the House of Lords.
The Independent understands the Cabinet Office will make the announcement tomorrow.
Ms Lawrence campaigned tirelessly for her son’s killers to be brought to justice after he was stabbed to death at a bus stop in south east London aged 18. Ms Lawrence believed the Metropolitan Police’s subsequent investigation was flawed, involving elements of racism.
In 1999 the Macpherson Inquiry established the Met police was ‘institutionally racist.’
Ms Lawrence also founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and sits on panels within the Home Office.
In May 2011, following a cold case review, it was announced two of the original suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris were to stand trial for Stephen’s murder. In January 2012, both Dobson and Norris were found guilty of murder and were ordered to spend a minimum of 15 years in prison.
Doreen Lawrence is an inspiration and a fighter for Equality and Justice, in further news this week, she will utilise her new found position to take forward the struggle of people who are often voiceless in society and ignored by the establishment. Here is a further article about this courageous woman from the news papers this week...
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The Home Office faces investigation by the equalities watchdog over stop-and-check operations condemned by new Labour peer Doreen Lawrence.
The Independent revealed today that officials had conducted a series of “racist and intimidatory” spot checks to search for illegal immigrants in the wake of the Government's “go home or face arrest” campaign.
Officers wearing stab vests conducted random checks near stations in the London suburbs of Walthamstow, Kensal Green, Stratford and Cricklewood over the past three days. Nationwide, more than 130 alleged “immigration offenders” have been arrested including in Durham, Manchester and Somerset.
Speaking this morning Mrs Lawrence said: “Why would you focus mainly on people of colour?
”I'm sure there's illegal immigrants from all countries, but why would you focus that on people of colour, and I think racial profiling is coming into it.“
The mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, asked if the spot-checks were a cause for her to take up in her new role in the House of Lords, replied: ”Definitely so.“
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, said she had received reports from constituents who had been stopped at around 7am yesterday outside the train station by a team of around a dozen Home Office officials.
“I’ve been told they were only stopping people who looked Asian or African and not anyone who was white,” she said. “This kind of fishing expedition in public place is entirely unacceptable. I will not have my constituents treated in such a manner.”
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is now set to look into what happened, as well as the Government's controversial poster van warning immigrants of the risk of staying in Britain illegally.
A spokesman said: ”The Commission is writing today to the Home Office about these reported operations, confirming that it will be examining the powers used and the justification for them, in order to assess whether unlawful discrimination took place.
“The letter will also ask questions about the extent to which the Home Office complied with its public sector equality duty when planning the recent advertising campaign targeted at illegal migration.”
The Home Office denied that its raids were connected to the “go home” vans. However, officials could provide no evidence of similar “random searches” taking place in the past.
Onlookers described their shock at the operations, with one member of the public saying it was akin to “Nazi Germany”. The Labour MP Barry Gardiner had written to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, demanding an investigation into the checks which he said violated “fundamental freedoms”. The raids come just a few months after Ms May took direct responsibility for immigration from the disbanded UK Border Agency.
“We do not yet live in a society where the police or any other officers of the law are entitled to detain people without reasonable justification and demand their papers,” Mr Gardiner wrote. “The actions of your department would however appear to be hastening us in that direction.”
Witnesses who saw the operations in London claimed the officers stopped only non-white individuals, and in Kensal Green said that when questioned, the immigration officials became aggressive.
Phil O'Shea told the Kilburn Times: “They appeared to be stopping and questioning every non-white person, many of whom were clearly ordinary Kensal Green residents going to work. When I queried what was going on, I was threatened with arrest for obstruction and was told to 'crack on'.”
Another witness, Matthew Kelcher, said: “Even with the confidence of a free-born Englishman who knows he has nothing to hide, I found this whole experience to be extremely intimidating. They said they were doing random checks, but a lot of people who use that station are tourists so I don't know what message that sends out to the world.”
The Home Office said a Ukrainian woman aged 33, an Indian man aged 44 and a 59-year-old Brazilian woman had been detained as part of the checks at Kensal Green. At Walthamstow Central station, immigration officials arrested 14 people after officers questioned people to check if they were in the UK illegally.
Christine Quigley tweeted: “Sounds like UKBA checkpoint today in Walthamstow only stopping minority ethnic people. FYI UKBA - not all British people are white.”
In Stratford, photographs posted on Twitter appeared to show Home Office officials talking to men of Asian origin. The Home Office said a Bangladeshi man had been arrested on suspected immigration offences. In Cricklewood on Tuesday in a joint operation with the Met, more than 60 people were questioned near the railway station. Police said three men were arrested for “immigration matters”, and 27 men received notices requiring them to surrender at Eaton House immigration centre for further investigation.
Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, said he believed that there was no coincidence between the “go home or face arrest” van and the new random checks in Kensal Green. “I am sure it is probably connected and it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth,” he said. “These so-called spot checks are not only intimidating but they are also racist and divisive. It appears from speaking to people who witnessed what happened in Kensal Green that it was only black and Asian-looking people who were asked to prove their identity. What about the white Australians and New Zealanders who may have overstayed their visas?”
Never mind the Czech gold the Nazis stole...
By Adam Lebor | Telegraph – Wed, Jul 31, 2013 21:21 BST
Reuters - People walk past a sign in front of the Bank For International Settlements (BIS) in Basel November 8, 2010. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
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