End Zionist control!

by New Worker correspondent

The Anti-Zionist International was launched in Birmingham last weekend. The original venue, The Old Print Works in Balsall Heath, cancelled the booking stating it could not provide a "safe space" following police scrutiny of the group's social media activity. But the event was subsequently moved to another location nearby. 
The campaign was described by supporters as an incredibly powerful and important event for reaffirming Palestinian liberation principles, bringing renewed energy and genuine hope for justice and freedom for Palestinians.
Latifa Abouchakra, a London-based journalist and contributor to Iran’s Press TV,  was arrested while travelling to Birmingham to attend the launch. The police said the arrest was linked to enhanced security arrangements surrounding the event. But activists  claim the action reflects pressure from pro-Israel lobbying interests, accusing authorities of selectively policing events that challenge or criticise the Israeli government. Latif Abouchakra is a prominent voice on Press TV's Palestine Declassified, where she openly criticises Israeli policies and the Zionist presence within Western institutions. 

Nigerian court orders UK compensation for colonial crimes

Monument to the massacre in Enugu

by New Worker correspondent

A Nigerian court has ordered the British government to pay £420 million to the families of miners killed by the British colonial police in 1949. The court also ordered that written apologies be published in Nigerian and British newspapers within 60 days of the judgement.  Justice Anthony Onovo of the High Court, Enugu Division ordered the British Government to pay £20 million each to the families of the 21 coal miners who were shot dead at the Iva Valley Coal Mine in Enugu on 18 November 1949. 51 others were injured when the British superintendent ordered his men to open fire.
The miners were protesting against harsh working conditions, racial disparities in wages and unpaid back wages and when their demands were not met, they went on a go-slow work to rule and occupied the mine to prevent Management from locking them out.
The suit was brought by a Nigerian human rights campaigner who sought an acknowledgment of liability, a formal apology from the British Government, and comprehensive compensation for the loss of their loved ones.
Justice Onovo described the massacre as an unlawful and extrajudicial violation of the right to life. “These defenceless coal miners were asking for improved work conditions; they were not embarking on any violent action against the authorities, yet they were shot and killed” he said.
He added that the Nigerian Government must initiate and pursue diplomatic engagement with the British side within 60 days to seek justice, effective remedies and reparations.
Downing Street says it has not yet been formally notified by Nigeria and therefore cannot comment on whether the compensation will be paid. But there are precedents including a 2013 UK settlement of £19.9 million to more than 5,000 Kenyans tortured by the British colonial forces during the liberation struggle led by the Kenya Land and Freedom Army that the British authorities dubbed the ‘Mau Mau’.

Palestine will be free!

Anti-fascists on the march

by New Worker correspondent

Braving the dismal weather thousands of demonstrators marched through central London in support of the Palestinian cause last weekend. Over 100,000 protesters took part in what has now become a monthly feature in the capital’s calendar to rally for justice for the Palestinian Arabs and oppose war in the Middle East amid escalating tensions between American imperialism and its lackeys and Iran.
Labour MP John McDonnell praised the Palestine activists who had recently been on hunger strike in prison as “people with a heart rending conscience that could not stand by to watch the suffering of the Palestinians...so one action we should take is to demand that they are released. No one should be held on remand for over nearly two years. Protests should not be made a criminal act in this country”.
A few days later the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) was welcoming the news that six Palestine direct action campaigners have been cleared in the Israeli arms factory trial.
The six – who are part of the Filton 24 group of activists – were charged over breaking into an Israeli arms factory in Bristol in August 2024. The jury acquitted or failed to reach verdicts on charges faced by campaigners who took action against Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. PSC said “we're so relieved for Clare Hinchcliffe and all the families and loved ones of those cleared of charges for now. We call for the immediate release of all of the defendants who have been remanded in custody far beyond the legally permitted maximums on charges that are now proven to be unwinnable in court. The real criminals are not those taking direct action against Israel’s genocide – it is those arming it”.

A Holocaust Memorial for London

by Marie Lynam

Last week the government announced that it intends to build a National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre  in Victoria Tower Gardens near the Houses of Parliament in London. This memorial – first proposed in 2021 – will “honour the victims of the Holocaust” and “help combat antisemitism”.The Memorial will also pay tribute to the Romas, gays and disabled people and others who were victims of Nazi terror in the Second World War. Sadly it will not mention that the Soviet Union was the primary liberator of the Nazi death camps. 
And some survivors and those whose close relatives died in the Holocaust  say the phrase ‘never again’ also means nothing without action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza today.
On the 27 January 1945 Soviet troops liberated prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp – the largest death camp of the Third Reich. That day is now recognised by the UN as the Holocaust Memorial Day. Last week a group of Holocaust survivors from various countries held a simple street ceremony and demonstration on that day to remember all the victims of genocide in the heart of the capital.
Holocaust survivor Agnes Kory told the left-wing Canary news outlet that “it was the Russian army that liberated the Jews of the Budapest Ghetto in 1945. It was a Russian soldier that liberated my mother and myself. At Memorial Day events I say this as loud as I can, making sure that the people around me can hear it”. 
Another survivor, Israeli peace activist Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, said  “I am deeply shocked about the total denial of the events in Gaza by the wide variety of Holocaust memorial institutions. All such institutions are run mostly by Zionist Jews, and all share an unwillingness to mention a genocide in real time...”.
And Chris Romberg said “the Holocaust was not the only massacre committed by the Nazis and their collaborators: the genocides of the Roma and Sinti (Porajmos) and of the Slavs took place in parallel, as did the murders of disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, political opponents and many others. They too should not be excluded from our memory, nor from the call Never Again! It applies to everyone”.

Angry scenes at Wormwood Scrubs

by New Worker correspondent

Police officers shoved protesters to the ground and kettled them outside Wormwood Scrubs jail in London last weekend during a demonstration in support of a Palestine hunger striker. And 86 people were arrested for refusing “to leave the grounds when ordered to do so”. The Palestine campaigners allegedly “blocked prison staff from entering and leaving, threatened police officers and a number managed to get inside a staff entrance area of a prison building”. Those arrested were detained under suspicion of aggravated trespass, the police said.

Remand prisoner Umer Khalid, 22 , was on hunger-strike demanding bail and protesting against British complicity in Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinian Arabs of the Gaza Strip. He had been on hunger strike since November, briefly pausing in December due to severe ill health. Gravely ill he’s now in hospital ending the hunger strike after his health deteriorated rapidly on Sunday with fears he was at high risk of a heart attack.

Khalid told Al Jazeera TV that “the only thing that seems to have any impact, whether that is positive or negative, is drastic action. The strike reflects the severity of this imprisonment. Being in this prison is not living life. Our lives have been paused. The world spins, and we sit in a concrete room. This strike reflects the severity of my demands”.

Umer Khalid is among a group of five activists accused of breaking into the RAF base at Brize Norton in June and spray-painting two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. The group has pleaded not guilty.

The Palestine Action campaign says two of its members were involved and red paint “symbolising Palestinian bloodshed was also sprayed across the runway and a Palestine flag was left on the scene”. Within days Palestine Action was banned under the anti-terrorism laws, adding it to a list that includes ISIS and al-Qaeda. 

Seven other protesters have been involved in rolling hunger strikes since November. But Khalid was the only one still refusing food after three members of the group ended their protests this month. They said one of their demands had been met after a UK-based subsidiary of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems was denied a UK government contract.

“Our prisoners’ hunger strike will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state,” the Prisoners for Palestine Group said.

The group’s list of demands includes bail, the right to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action as well as the closure of all the Elbit plants in the UK. They’re seeking an end to what they call censorship in jail, accusing the prison authorities of withholding mail, calls and books. And they are calling for an inquiry into alleged British involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza and the release of surveillance footage from RAF spy flights that flew over Gaza on 1st April 2024, when British aid workers were killed in an Israeli attack.

We will remember them

by New Worker correspondent

On Tuesday 27 January Russian diplomats together with Russian ex-pats living in the United Kingdom laid a wreath and flowers at the Soviet War Memorial at the Imperial War Museum in south London to mark the 82nd anniversary of the lifting of the Nazi siege of Leningrad.
Members of the Russian community in Manchester also held a flower-laying ceremony at a plaque unveiled in 2020 in honoured memory of the Soviet soldiers who gave their lives liberating Europe in the Second World War and in recognition of the brave people of the besieged Leningrad.
On the eve of this date, the Russian diplomatic mission's staff conveyed the greetings of the Governor of St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Alexander Beglov to the veterans of the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russian who currently live in the UK.
The Nazi German blockade of the city stands as one of the most tragic yet heroic chapters in the history of the Soviet Union. It lasted from 8th September 1941 to 27th January 1944 – 872 days of extreme hardship, hunger and deprivation. Historians estimate that no more than 800,000 of the three million inhabitants of Leningrad and its surrounding areas survived the siege.
The feat of Leningraders has become a symbol of unbreakable will, courage and self-sacrifice. The memory of those who died in the blockade will remain in the hearts of the Russian people forever.