Today's Topics:
1. Greece, NOR IN EARTH inch PARASTATE raids SOCIETIES AND
THEIR PATRONES - HANDS OFF OUR COMRADES! By A.P.O.
(gr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #270 - Interview with
Claudine Cornil (1/2): "A process of work transformation is built
on concrete experience" (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Indonesia, anarkis.org: Educación no se vende! Learning of
the Student Movement of Chile By Ahmad Fauzan [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. March for Repeal - watch entire march leave Parnell square -
video (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Britain, glasgow anarchists: Glasgow Events ~~Glasgow
Autonomy Update~~ 22.3.2017 -A-Chat New Date Announcement-
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. wsm.ie: Oppose the police raids searching for abortion pills
in the north (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Sunday 19/3, the repressive apparatus of the State mobilized in Thessaloniki streets to
enforce and protect the presence of a handful of paramilitaries in the city center. Thus,
the militant anti-fascist demonstration of the White Tower, which was called against the
gathering of fascist rabble of the Sacred Band and other fascist runner prospective
refugee hunters in schools faced the attack of the forces of repression resulting in the
arrest of three partners, including each member of collegiality for social anarchism Black
and Red and A.P.O. ---- The very next Monday 20/3 and while the two companions passed by
prosecutor (the minor companion left the Sunday night), the solidarity gathering was
invited to Venizelos statue moved by road to the courts. There, the police again attacked
with tear gas and chemicals against the anarchists and anti-fascists to prevent entering
the courts. Eventually more than 100 comrades were in the courtroom, the two detainees
were released and the trial was set for Wednesday 22/3.
At the same time the government SYRIZA-ANEL herd where you stand and where found by the
Nazis murderers of the Golden Dawn, as recently in Ioannina, official state killer gangs
recruited (attacks and arrests antifascist anarchists consecutive evacuations squatting
migrants roof and refugees occupied social spaces fight) that every opportunity to hit the
world of struggle from below, structures and collectives of militant resistance, class
solidarity and social self-organization.
Today where the far-right and fascist aspect of modern totalitarianism, the most extreme
manifestation of the exploitative state and capital cluster expands under the "Fortress
Europe", the isolation of the fascists and clash with them in every part of the social
field more important .
Against repressive and shadowy terror, the state enforcement tools and world bosses, only
the world of struggle and the organized presence of the movement can serve as a basis for
the establishment of social and class self-defense. As a springboard for social and class
counter-attack that will pass over the para neo-Nazis and their patrons, to build a
society of equality, solidarity and freedom, the world of Anarchy and Libertarian Communism.
From the neighborhoods of Athens to Sofia, Oreokastro, Ioannina and Thessaloniki ...
fascism crimped in the streets of the world race
NO PROSECUTION FOR 3 OF SYLLIFTHENTES ANTIFASISTIKIS DIADILOSIS 19/3 ON THE WHITE TOWER
TRIAL WEDNESDAY 22/3, COURTS THESSALONIKI, 11 AM
Anarchist collective "Circle of Fire" - a member of the APO
------------------------------
Message: 2
In recent years, the word "work" has been misused. From the "labor value", dear to the
right, to the law of the same name last year, one would tend to think that labor is a
capitalist value or an archaic concept, a fancy of the productivist society that the
universal income Of a Benedict Hamon would come to replace as a solution to the crisis we
are undergoing. Yet work is at the foundation of every society. So, what's wrong? It is
that the work has become invisible in the practices and militant discourses of the trade
union and political left. But what project of emancipation can disregard what is the daily
life of the vast majority of exploited? Interview with Claudine Cornil, trade unionist at
the Ferc-CGT[1]. ---- Alternative libertarian: Can you introduce yourself in a few
sentences? Your journey, what led you to join the CGT? Your militant work today?
I have been a teacher of retirement schools for a year. As soon as I entered National
Education, my father, who was very committed to the CGT, reminded me that, according to
him, we must always organize when we were working. I agreed, but at the time, when we were
institutes, the only union was the SNI[2]. But I had met with SNI officials at the Normal
School and their only speech was not to teach us to defend our rights but to remind
ourselves of our obligations. What I immediately found strange.
After a short visit to the FSU, a unitary trade union[3], which quickly proved to be the
clone of the SNI, I joined the CGT, much more in line with my values. I did it as soon as
we accepted the instits.
In all political and trade union propaganda, employment is one of the main demands. Yet
when one looks at the history of social struggles, one realizes that it is not the job
that is at the heart of the demands, but the work. In the acronym CGT, with the liberal
counter-revolution of the 1980s, it was sometimes felt that the CGT had moved into its
demands and imagination in the General Confederation of Employment, not labor. For some
years now, there has been a return to the foundation of the existence of the CGT, the
emancipation of labor. What about today's approach?
Yes, it is true that the CGT has focused on the defense of employment when unemployment
has become structural and entire sectors of the industry have been destroyed with
thousands of job losses in the 1980s This is the period when financial capitalism is
taking hold. What I mean by financial capitalism is an evolution of capitalism, where
money, through speculation, produces more money than labor and production. Financial
capitalism destroys the real economy. This evolution of capitalism, which is globalized
and deterritorialized, is accompanied by an ideological discourse on the end of work, the
society of leisure ...
It is at this moment that work disappears from the public scene. With him also disappear
the workers and the idea that there is historically a confrontation between capital and
labor, therefore a class struggle. Many of us remember the 1980s in France where the only
professional activities valued and still visible socially were communication, advertising
and sales.
In those years, the reality of a wage-earning system designed as a variable of adjustment
to "risks" and market fluctuations is set up, with the help of political power.
Structural unemployment, precariousness and subcontracting, become management methods, as
well as a way of bringing the wage earners, who live under the sword of Damocles, from the
loss of employment.
New labor organizations are gradually being established. Some, such as participatory
management, rely on the self-management aspirations expressed in the struggles of the
1970s. Their purpose is to increase productivity, but also to ensure that workers and
Workers consent to their own exploitation.
Since the 1980s, the CGT has been caught up in the whirlwind of the new world order that
is being set up. It tries to save what can be saved and concentrates its demands on the
exchange value of jobs (jobs, wages, pensions, qualifications, statutes, etc.) to the
detriment of its use value: the finality, the content and The meaning of the work, the
conditions of its realization.
Politically, the issue of labor is abandoned ... notably by the Communist Party, which,
historically, was the party of the workers.
All experience, cultures and trade languages are disqualified. Moreover, the trades
themselves disappear: the worker becomes an operator, institutes a professor of the
schools, and corks it up. The old and the old are no longer recognized as carriers and
bearers of experience but as a cumbersome load, fragilizing the running of the company,
the office or the service. Surplus labor is emerging, breaking down the age bracket of
35-45 year-olds, while mass unemployment is taking hold, affecting young people and seniors.
All the pride and dignity of the working class are shattered. With them, it is really the
"power to act" of the wage-earning system that is undermined.
At the turn of the 2000s, the work returned to the public scene dramatically, with the
first suicides mediated at Renault Technocentre and France Telecom. It is, if one wanted
to speak like Freud, the return of the repressed. The CGT reappropriates the issue of
labor but first on the slope of suffering.
Researchers like Christophe Dejours and especially Yves Clot have for several years
highlighted the centrality of work in personal and social life. They demonstrate how the
subjective commitment of workers is fundamental to what they do in their aspiration to do
quality work that is meaningful and that is done according to the rules of the trade. From
the 49th congress[4], the CGT gradually regained this dimension of the emancipation of
labor through work. It should be pointed out that federations like the Ferc, have been
doing this for years.
In everyday union activism, Henri Krasucki[5]said that it was necessary to take an
interest in the broken window of the workshop rather than to make speeches to the
employees. What do you think? Is this to say that the aspiration to another society would
be the fact that of ideologues disconnected from reality? Can we disqualify any agitation
of ideas?
For me, this expression of Henri Krasucki is fundamental. It does not say that we must
only be interested in the broken pane but that the commitment in a process of
transformation of work is built on the concrete daily experience that we have of it.
Workers are engaged subjectively, very intensively in the work that is or should be an act
of creation. "Tell him to machine a piece and he makes a whole world," says researcher
Philippe Davezies.
This commitment to work, this aspiration is a formidable spring for struggles of social
transformation. Krasucki's phrase reveals that there is no discontinuity between immediate
experience and a political vision. Moreover, she also says that a discourse calling for a
more just society is not credible if, at the same time, those who hold it do not care
about deplorable and unworthy working conditions.
What are the questions of the CGT's comrades who put work at the center of their
reflections and militant activities?
The comrades of the CGT who carry these questions conceive the trade union process as
anchored in the real work, as it is realized, in this or that condition, for this or that
purpose. Starting from this, because only the worker knows his work, that he or she is
"expert", this approach puts the word of the starting point of any trade union move.
Rather than being convinced that workers must be mobilized and revolted, the process of
opening up spaces for words about work can contribute to creating a social and Of the
collective by the confrontation of points of view and aspirations. This is called "white
sheet syndicalism". Rather than making leaflets to explain to workers what they already
know, this form of trade unionism prefers to rely on their words. To speak of work is to
regain power over it, to begin to reclaim it, to emerge from alienation. It's getting
together. To say, think and act are the three poles of this approach which is nothing but
a return to "original" syndicalism.
Moreover, the presupposition of the approach that starts from work is that awareness, the
starting point of commitment, is primarily a personal act. It is the confrontation and the
exchanges that create the collective. In this, allowing the passage from the individual to
the collective is a major objective.
This way of thinking about trade unionism can create resistance and even rejection
mechanisms among seasoned militants. Indeed, it challenges, in a way that can be
destabilizing, trade unionism as it has been practiced since the 1980s and which is based
on the delegation of power and the idea that the trade unionist must "save the workers And
women workers ".
The lack of maneuvering margins for negotiation, which is a characteristic of the current
period, puts them in check but it is complicated to come out of postures and habits that
have been posed as the right way to militate.
The orientations voted at the 50th Congress (in 2013) point to the importance of investing
the negotiating venues and the IRPs (staff representative bodies), but make it clear that
the center of gravity of the trade union exercise is above all the place Of work. We can
only rejoice.
Most union organizations talk about suffering at work when it comes to organizing and
working conditions. What is the design of the CGT?
We must not deny the reality of suffering at work. Statistics show that there is an
enormous share of the population of employees who develop work-related pathologies. The
novelty, with financial capitalism, is that physical suffering still exists and that there
is a massification of mental suffering. This affects all professional categories and all
levels of hierarchies.
The CGT intends to act on this suffering through bodies like the CHSCT[6]. I must admit
that I have never understood too much why the problematic of conditions and organization
of work was not brought to a more unionized level when it comes before the question of
wages in the claims spontaneously expressed by the employees .
Suffering at work is no other than the expression of the aspiration to work better,
otherwise. This is one of the salient aspects of the class struggle before even the
under-compensation of labor. It is clear that this goes far beyond the framework of the
action of elected representatives in CHSCT, but that this raises more generally the
question of which unionism is practiced.
Interview by Rémi Ermon (AL Lorient)
[1]Federation Education Research Culture of the CGT.
[2]National Union of Teachers. The historical and ultra-major union of the first level of
the defunct Federation of National Education (FEN), created in 1947 by refusal to choose
between the CGT and FO at the time of the split, in order to preserve the unity of the
profession. Deeply reformist, with nevertheless within it the revolutionary syndicalist
tendency the Emancipated School, more radical.
[3]FEN split in 1993, organized by the trend of Unity and Action of the Snes (second
degree), linked to the Communist Party against the socialists mainly present at the SNI
(first degree) who wanted to unify the FEN with the CFDT and create a The majority
reformist unionist union in France. This was a failure for the Socialists.
[4]Nantes, 2009
[5]Secretary General of the CGT from 1982 to 1992. Former resistant and deported
communist. A figure of the CGT.
[6]Health and Safety Committee - Working conditions.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Entretien-avec-Claudine-Cornil-1-2
------------------------------
Message: 3
The liberalization of the education system is one of the problems faced by students, both
in Chile and Indonesia. With rationalization to improve competitiveness in the global
interaction, the government releases its responsibility for managing the education system
and handed it to the market mechanism.[1] ---- Recently, the national consolidation
sticking discourse initiated by Indonesian students. The discourse rolled out after
realizing the need to strengthen the student movement on a national scale to respond to
the policy of liberalization of education in Indonesia. Previously, the pop-pop of
protests that occurred in various campuses in Indonesia are still not able to-if you do
not want to be called fail-giving significant changes to the policy of liberalization of
education on a national scale. Various protests burst ironically only able to adorn the
national media a few moments, then faded away without further consolidation demands.
So why the refusal of students to the liberalization of the education system in Indonesia
have so far stalled limited judicial review and popping sporadic protests at each campus;
while in Chile responded with such a massive student and able to press the government to
make changes in education policy?
The liberalization of the Chilean Education System
"No educación se vende!" That phrase is plastered in posters of demonstrators who thronged
the streets of urban centers in Chile in 2011. Indonesian sentence in a more or less means
"Education is not for sale!". In 2011, Chile is able to attract the attention of the
world, not because of the country's economic growth, but because of the student-led
protests related to the liberalization of the education system in Chile. Student initiated
protest waves that occur many months it managed to bring half a million people of Chile
from various walks of life took to the streets. A wave of protests known as the Winter of
Discontent, the biggest protests since the last one occurring at the end of the 1980s to
overthrow the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet.[2]
One of the legacies of the neoliberal regime[3]under the leadership of Pinochet is the
policy of liberalization of education. This policy change the orientation of the education
system in Chile be market based . Since the policy is implemented, in Chile mushrooming
private universities. In addition, these policies have caused the cost of higher education
in Chile is one of the highest in the world-about 3,400 US $ per year.[4]This causes a lot
of university graduates in Chile in debt to finance their education, and not a few
students from poor families who had to discontinue his studies due to funding constraints.
Education in Chile is a reflection of social injustice and inequality as a result of the
system of neoliberalism. The high costs of education led to some of the best schools in
Latin America can only be accessed by students among the rich, while the poor students
'dumped' into the public schools are underfunded.[5]
Winter of Discontent
A wave of student protests that occurred in Chile in 2011 in the reign of president Pinera
can not be separated from the previous wave of protests that took place in 2006. Penguin
Revolution , so called for protests by secondary school students in Chile in 2006
demanding school curriculum changes , But the wave of protests in 2006, failed to bring
about significant changes, due to fracturing of the movement, and finally demobilized
before reaching the negotiation process with the government.
Then in 2011, the Chilean students again took to the streets in protest against the plan
of the Ministry of Education of Chile, Joaquin Lavin, to increase government funding for
non-state universities. A wave of protests grew rapidly from the start crowds until
reaching hundreds of thousands mass in the winter of 2011. Originally, the demands put
forward by the demonstrators is not much different from the demands on the wave of
protests in 2006, which is about the subsidy for student transportation and delays in the
provision of scholarship. But the demands creep into demands the provision of free
education to all the people of Chile, the penalty for actors who seek to profit from
education, public education funding is state-run, tax reform, to demand the
nationalization of copper mining company.[6]
A wave of protests that occurred from May 2011 to August 2012 occurs continuously and with
very varied methods of action. Crest of a wave of protests that occurred in August 2011,
involving at least 400,000 mass, and repressive police action led to clashes that caused
the killing of one of the demonstrators and the arrest of 874 demonstrators. The amount of
mass action and a variety of methods in running the Chilean student protests managed to
attract the attention of Chilean society and international mass media. The method used by
Chilean students in the protest marches of them be held simultaneously throughout Chile,
the blockade and the occupation of school buildings and universities, the takeover of
television stations, as well as the hunger strike until the various performing arts
collective action.[7]According to a poll conducted in March 2012, the support of the
people of Chile against the protest movement reached 80%. While support for the president
Piñera continued to drop sharply to 22% figure. A wave of protests that occurred during
the months-forcing two education ministers resign within a relatively short period of
time. In addition, in August 2012, the government finally raised the corporate tax to fund
low-interest loans.
Chilean student movement then the impact on the national political changes Michelle
Bachelet of Chile with a victory in the elections in 2013, as well as the election of two
prominent spokesman Chilean student movement, Camila Vallejo and Gabriel Boric as MPs.
Nueva Mayoria coalition that brought Michelle Bachelet expressed their commitment to build
a system of universal and free access to higher education within 6 years.[8]The plan, the
acquisition cost of higher education will be implemented starting in March 2016. Although
the Chilean government has given promises to realize the demands of the students, but a
wave of student protests Chile has not dimmed until today.
Learning from Chile
Chilean student movement that peaked in 2011 and 2012 who were protesting against the
liberalization of the education system is able to seize the attention of the world.
Although the protest have not yielded the expected results, but there are some important
factors to keep in the underline of this protest.
First , the movement is not a movement that created top-down from the established
political actors and political institutions, but a collective movement that is capable of
sterile of various interests and political institutions. The movement was spontaneously
created by students who strive against cooptation of the political elite class. This can
occur because the Chilean students aware that mainstream political constellation wear
status quo politics as counter-models , as well as alternative controllers.
Second , the role of Confederacion de Estudiantes de Chile (CONFECH) as the ' vanguard
movement' . CONFECH is a confederation of students from various universities in Chile that
the initiator as well as coordinator in the protest movement in 2011. CONFECH composed of
representatives of student associations from around 30 universities in Chile, both state
and private universities.[9]The role as initiator coordinator CONFECH make massive protest
movement, strong and not fragmented.
Third , the wave of protests in the Winter of Discontent , students Chile minimizing the
hierarchical structure in the model of their movement. The protest movement promoting
motion version of 'horizontalisme' of their own. It is a model of a new movement-which in
Latin America is often called the " horizontalidad" -which is found in the radical
movements of marginalized workers in Argentina in December 2001. Horizontalidad as a
method of organizing the movement of a model in which they create a relationship open
between participants, deliberative and not the representative status.[10]Although the
demonstration was coordinated by CONFECH, Camila Vallejo as chairman of CONFECH once the
most visible figures in the movement have a role only as a spokesman is not representative
of the movement. In addition, internal CONFECH horizontalisme in providing opportunities
for all students to participate voice their opinions. So that the decision on the move to
get legitimacy from the internal CONFECH itself.
Fourth , the Chilean students not only focus on issues related to the education system,
but also provide solutions to related problems. In addition to numerous protests by taking
to the streets, students of Chile as a motor of the movement put forward proposals contain
measures that should be taken by the government to finance free education in Chile. Among
the nationalized copper mines, cut military spending and tax reforms.[11]
Fifth , the strategy in protests varied. Notwithstanding the action of the traditional
form of taking to the streets as the backbone and shows the support for their protest,
students of Chile adding the actions of a creative form of various flash-mob of mass
action with the costumes and giant puppets, to the actions of cycling up action
kissathon[12]in front of the presidential palace were able to attract the attention of the
people of Chile and international mass media.
Lastly, although not fruitless demands for free education, but students of Chile, which
has given a lesson; how students should organize themselves, how students showed himself
as a force to be reckoned suppressor and how students retain the breath struggle that did
not even take a minute.
At least, Chilean students have shown who they are before the country.
record
[1]Umar, ARM 'Law on Higher Education in the snare of Capitalism'. Indoprogress (online).
March 2013.
<http://indoprogress.com/2013/03/uu-pendidikan-tinggi-dalam-jerat-kapitalisme/>.
Accessible, July 8, 2016.
[2]Soma, Nicolas M. ‘The Chilean student movement of 2011-2012: challenging the
marketization of education'. Interface: a journal for and about social movements. Vol. 4.
No. 2. November 2012. Hal. 300.
[3]Baca https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalisme
[4]McIntyre, Jody. ‘How To Grow a Student Movement, Chilean Style'. New Internationalist.
Oktober 2012. Hal. 26.
[5]Long, Gideon. ‘Chile student protests point to deep discontent'. BBC (online). Agustus
2011. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14487555>. Diakses, 8 Juli 2016.
[6]Soma, Nicolas M. ‘The Chilean student movement of 2011-2012: challenging the
marketization of education'. Interface: a journal for and about social movements. Vol. 4.
No. 2. November 2012. Hal. 300.
[7]McIntyre, Jody. ‘How To Grow a Student Movement, Chilean Style'. New Internationalist.
Oktober 2012. Hal. 26-27
[8]Telesur. ‘Chile to Have Free Higher Education by 2016'. Telesur (online).
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Chile-to-Have-Free-Higher-Education-by-2016-20141204-0049.html.
Diakses, 8 Juli 2016.
[9]Soma, Nicolas M. ‘The Chilean student movement of 2011-2012: challenging the
marketization of education'. Interface: a journal for and about social movements. Vol. 4.
No. 2. November 2012. Hal. 303.
[10]Sitrin, Marina. Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. AK Press. 2006.
[11]McIntyre, Jody. ‘How To Grow a Student Movement, Chilean Style'. New Internationalist.
Oktober 2012. Hal. 26.
[12] Action bulk kiss in public as an act of political protest.
http://anarkis.org/no-se-vende-educacion-belajar-dari-gerakan-mahasiswa-chile/
------------------------------
Message: 4
March 8th 2017 and International Womens Day sees an enormous mobilisation in Dublin to
demand repeal of the eight amendment to the Irish Constitution. Thousands of people
blocked O'Connell street bridge as part of #Strike4Repeal and then in the evening 11,000
marched on the Dail. ---- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dw2UnzId4w ---- The 8th
amendment makes abortion illegal in almost all circumstances in Ireland. It was introduced
in 1983 which means that although people voted on it then nobody under the age of 50 now
in fact has had a vote on this ---- There has been a huge head of steam building up since
the X case in 1992 to get rid of the eight amendment, its quite hated at this stage but
government after government has stalled and avoided calling a referendum to repeal it.
Earlier in the day we saw a Strike for Repeal taking place where thousands of people
blocked off the main bridge in the city centre, O'Connell bridge, for the space of about
two and a half hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FjV5uT3NHA
This was also a measure of the sheer level of anger and frustration now growing at the
government failure to act not just a failure in fact but a complete refusal
Almost certainly another major motivation in terms of the numbers that came out was the
previous weekend it had been confirmed that there was indeed a mass grave in what had been
a sceptic tank at the back of the Tuam mothers and babies home. These homes ran by the
catholic church were funded by the Irish state and were basically where mothers and their
babies were dumped and it turned out quite literally to die.
It's estimated that across the nine homes there may well have been between six and seven
thousand deaths between 1930s and the 1950s
The running of these homes involved the complicity and co-operation of all aspects of
establishment Ireland from a government that was funding them to a police force that often
arrested and brought women back who had escaped the home and they (police) had no legal
right to do that. To an Irish media establishment that never really covered these, it was
covered in the left press if you go back to the 1930s and 1950s but almost no mainstream
coverage happened until well into the 1990s and 2000s
Chanting "Our bodies, our lives
What do we want, a referenda"
Indeed in 2014 when a British tabloid published the specific claim that there were 796
such deaths at the Tuam home the Irish media took a full week to catch-up and actually
cover this. Even this week when it was confirmed that the sceptic tank had indeed been
used as a mass grave you had establishment media outlets like Irish Times giving opinion
piece space to people who were minimising what this actually meant. The same people had
actually denied the existence of the grave back in 2014.
In the build-up to protest on international women's day there was a lot of coverage by
international media and indeed social media particularly Twitter and Facebook were full of
stories about the protests that were coming. Strike4 Repeal for instance was trending at
the number five
position for Ireland on Twitter the day before but there was absolutely no coverage
whatsoever in national media, on the Irish Times the Irish Independent or on the national
broadcaster RTE. They completely ignored the build-up to these protests
This video is a small part of our overall coverage with much more to come, here is a 109
photo Facebook album from the day.
Subject: Repeal 8th, Pro-choice, IWD
Topics: Gender
Geography: Dublin
Source: News alert
Type: News
Author: Andrew N Flood
http://www.wsm.ie/c/march-repeal-watch-entire-march-leave-parnell-square-video
------------------------------
Message: 5
Hi everybody!!
Brief update for the end of March.
Please note The Workers Theatre Launch Party has moved venue to Kinning Park Complex.
Also, we finally have a date for A-Chat (28th at 1800, GAS), hope to see lots of you down
there!
Love,
Federation of Autonomy Update Writers
Leave a comment
https://glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/
------------------------------
Message: 6
A number of police raids have occurred in search for abortion pills in the north this past
week. According to the London Times "At least a dozen other people connected with the
pills have been contacted by the PSNI and invited for interview." This will impact people
in the south as many pills provided to people south of the border generally come through
the north. ---- While abortion remains illegal and the trip to England expensive, the very
safe abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, are a rescue from a nightmare for many
people who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy. The use of these pills is a well-known
practice with a few mainstream media outlets covering the story not to mention the open
letter that was released in June 2015 by 200 activists admitting to breaking the law by
providing or procuring an abortion through the use of pills. It had appeared that while
the authorities were aware of this practice that they were indeed turning a blind eye to
it with a few exceptions, namely the scapegoating of a 19-year-old student and a mother
who procured pills for her teenage daughter.
They are aware of the strength of our movement which is why arrests happen on such a small
scale. Instead of implementing the law in all cases they reserve it for opportunities to
make examples of people.
This latest development marks a sinister turn and it should serve as a rallying call to us
all. While they're outwardly making examples of vulnerable women they're trying to shut
down our operations in the background. The organisations that provide the pills, Women
Help Women and Women on Web, as well as the activists who oversee things on our end are
providing care to pregnant people that the state refuses to do.
The pills provide an aspect of safety to illegal abortions. As it stands, 67,000 women a
year die from unsafe abortions throughout the world. If we lose the choice, albeit the
illegal choice, of the pills here we could see women returning to unsafe methods. The
state is creating fertile land for pregnancy related deaths.
This leaves us with no choice but to step up our game. This is a matter of life and death.
Any campaign that emerges as a result of this must be an island-wide one. While an
imaginary border means we have different mechanisms for the state to implement oppression
there is nothing imaginary about the consequences of their laws. These raids are also a
warning to anyone in the south complacent that the state would never dare to try and act
on the 14 year jail sentence there.
Be under no illusion, the state hates us. They have the power to intercept parcels, they
have done this, and they will continue to do this. This is not a case of just bad
politicians; it's a bad system, and we will never have real choice or reproductive freedom
under it, but while we're fighting for it they're going to throw everything they have got
at us.
http://www.wsm.ie/c/police-raids-abortion-pills-northern-ireland
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» Anarchic update news all over the world - 28 March 2017