Womens’ rights in Democratic Korea

Andy Brooks and Dermot Hudson

By New Worker correspondent

Womens’ rights in Democratic Korea was the theme of a Korean Friendship Association (KFA) meeting in London last weekend. NCP leader Andy Brooks joined KFA chair, Dermot Hudson, in talking about the life of women in Juche Korea at the Chadswell Centre in central London on Saturday.

This month marks the 70^th anniversary of the passing away of Kim Jong Suk, the outstanding Korean guerrilla fighter who married great leader Kim Il Sung during the liberation war against Japanese colonialism.

The emancipation of women in the northern part of the Korean peninsula began when the people’s government was established after the defeat of Japanese imperialism in 1945. Thanks to the revolutionary work of Kim John Suk and the Juche-based socialist system women in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea enjoy real equality.

Support the Kashmiri people!

 

Andy Brooks, Mushtaq Lasharie and Theo Russell at the meeting

by New Worker correspondent

Members of London’s Pakistani community joined New Worker supporters to call for justice for the Kashmiri people at a meeting in central London last week. They had come to the Cock Tavern in Euston to hear NCP leader Andy Brooks and Mushtaq Lasharie, who chairs the Third World Solidarity movement, demand the immediate and unconditional end to martial law in Indian-held Kashmir and support the Kashmiri people’s call for self-determination.

Mushtaq Lasharie summarised the plight of the Kashmiris under Indian occupation despite UN calls going back to 1947 that upheld their right to self-determination. This was supported by Andy Brooks, who talked about the pressing need to draw the broader labour movement behind the legitimate demands of the Kashmiri people whose cause is still largely only upheld by the British Pakistani and British Muslim population.

The meeting endorsed a motion that called on India to immediately and unconditionally restore the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution , release all the Kashmiri political prisoners and allow journalists, diplomats and human rights activists to enter and work unhindered in Indian-administered Kashmir

The motion noted that Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers, and another full-scale war could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange that would leave millions dead. It supported all efforts to ensure that this does not happen. The key demand is the end of partition and it upheld the original 1947 UN resolution and supported the just demand for a referendum to let the Kashmiri people decide if they want to be part of India, Pakistan, or in an independent state of Kashmir.

The motion has now been sent to all those who took part in the meeting for further amendments and it will later be sent round for endorsement in the broader labour and peace movement.

Ann Rogers Remembered

Andy Brooks remembers Ann

by New Worker correspondent

COMRADES and friends gathered at the Party Centre over the weekend to pay tribute to the life-long commitment of Ann Rogers to the communist cause. Ann, who passed away in June, was a leading member of the New Communist Party and was National Organiser and Editor of the New Worker during the turbulent times of the 1980s and 1990s when the very existence of the Party was at stake.

Leading comrades had paid their last respects to Anne at her funeral in July but they, along with others who could not attend the final service, returned to the Party Centre on Saturday to remember her life and her immense contribution to the cause of peace and socialism.

Throughout her life Ann was actively involved in campaigning work in the labour movement, CND and the communist movement and this was highlighted by NCP leader Andy Brooks and Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML) at the memorial meeting on Saturday. National Chair Alex Kempshall, who opened the meeting, spoke of the first time he met Ann while others including Bob Ede, a founder-member of the NCP, and Peter Hendy recalled more fond memories of her life.

Ann spent many years working to make the New Worker the outstanding communist journal that it is today – a point made by Theo Russell in a rousing appeal that raised £283 for the fighting fund.

Democratic Korea’s day in London

Andy Brooks, Chris Coleman and other friends with Choe Il

 By New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and London secretary Theo Russell joined other communists, diplomats and friendship activists in celebrating the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at a lunch-time reception at the DPRK embassy in London last week.

Democratic Korean ambassador Choe Il welcomed everyone to the gathering which included Chris Coleman from the RCPB (ML) and veteran campaigner Mushtaq Lasharie, the chair of the Third World Solidarity movement,  as well as representatives from the Foreign Office and members of the Korean Friendship Association.

On 9^th September 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in the free northern part of the Korean peninsula that had once been part of the Japanese Empire. It’s a special day for Koreans on both sides of the divided country and amongst the overseas Korean community because on that day in 1948 the Korean people expressed their democratic will through popular power and immediately took the first steps towards building a new socialist life for the workers and peasants who had fought to free themselves from the Japanese yoke that had enslaved them for many decades.