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Black Lives Matter coming to Carnival

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Seventy BLM activists met last night and have agreed initial steps to take the movement forward. Central to our work will be building for a lively intervention around Notting Hill Carnival this year, where we have now been allocated space by Carnival organisers.

Activists discussed issues ranging from economics to trade unions and have now elected a steering committee to meet between the general meetings.

Keeping the core focus firmly on combatting racist policing, the legal team is now working with leading criminal defence lawyers to put together a legal handbook for the movement.

The three key legal demands we will be highlighting are all achievable and are areas in which the establishment is on the defensive:

More powers to discipline police officers;

Those who have suffered at the hands of the police should be treated by the law as victims and given free legal aid and other resources in addition to the opportunity to seek redress from police forces;

Thirdly, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently 80 per cent staffed by ex-police officers. Just as juries are composed of ordinary people so too can the IPCC be, with serving individuals given the required resource, tools and training where necessary to conduct and/or supervise investigations.

A model motion was also adopted for use in trade unions to enlist their active support and to raise funds.

Funding has been secured to produce an initial run of BLM t-shirts. We are taking per-orders now so we can get an idea of how many to order for Carnival. If you would like to pre-order, send your contact (not bank) details here.

Black Lives Matter UK was set up by activists in the UK and is not connected to BLMUS or BLMUK. Our members called or built many of the protests in the wake of the police killings ofAlton Sterling and Philando Castile and the group has grown organically since then. Black Lives Matter UK is an inclusive but Black-led organisation.

The meeting agreed to continue to liaise with BLMUK and build on links with other groups around the country.

news, US

Slavery reparations sought in first Black Lives Matter agenda

 

Policemen walk on the sidelines as protesters hold a sign which states "Black Lives Matter," during a march against police brutality in Manhattan, New York, U.S., July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Bria Webb
Policemen walk on the sidelines as protesters hold a sign which states “Black Lives Matter,” during a march against police brutality in Manhattan, New York, U.S., July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Bria Webb

Reuters – A coalition affiliated with the anti-racism Black Lives Matter movement called for criminal justice reforms and reparations for slavery in the United States among other demands in its first policy platform released on Monday.

The six demands and roughly 40 policy recommendations touch on topics ranging from reducing U.S. military spending to safe drinking water. The groups aim to halt the “increasingly visible violence against Black communities,” the Movement for Black Lives said in a statement.

The agenda was released days before the second anniversary of the slaying of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s death, along with other fatal police shootings of unarmed black men over the past two years, fueled a national debate about racial discrimination in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Issues related to race and violence took center stage at the Democratic National Convention last week, though the coalition did not endorse the party’s platform or White House candidate, Hillary Clinton.

“We seek radical transformation, not reactionary reform,” Michaela Brown, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Bloc, one of the organizations that worked on the platform, said in a statement. more

Uncategorized

Biggest turnout in years for reparations March

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From The Voice
Thousands March To Parliament Demanding Reparations
‘We will honour our ancestors whether Britain likes it or not’
Written by Elizabeth Pears
04/08/2015 05:14 PM

THOUSANDS OF people marched peacefully from Brixton to Parliament on Saturday (Aug 1) to mark Emancipation Day and reiterate calls for reparations.

The procession, which united people of African heritage across all ages, religions and cultures, followed a hugely successful event last year that left those in attendance feeling empowered.

The crowds, which included many Pan-Africans, Rastafarians, member of the Nation of Islam, Christians and Black Hebrew Israelites, set off from Windrush Square and made the three-mile journey to the House of Commons.

Emancipation Day – a national holiday in many former British colonies in the Caribbean – is the anniversary of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, which made slavery illegal from August 28, 1834. more

action, news

Black lives matter protest Apple Store London

On 29th July we sent a letter to Nike and Apple demanding that they make a statement condemning  the killing of black people by US police. Neither corporation has replied. We paid them a visit. Nike, we protested outside due to the police presence but at Apple we entered and updated its customers on racist policing in the US and Britain.

 

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Birmingham, news

This Is Why The Black Lives Matter Movement Is Happening In Britain Too

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From Buzzfeed, by Fiona Rutherford

As the police watchdog releases its annual deaths in custody statistics, activists in solidarity with campaigners in the US tell BuzzFeed News why the movement is also relevant in the UK.

It took just two days for 20-year-old poet Aliyah Hasinah and her friend Olivia Brown to organise a Black Lives Matter demonstration in their hometown, Birmingham. More than 1,000 people showed up and the event was so successful it was trending on Twitter.

At midday the crowd sat in silence for two hours with tape over their mouths, holding placards with messages demanding justice and raising awareness of the trend of black people dying at the hands of police officers in America.

“It became even more powerful when at 2pm, after sitting in silence for two hours, we ripped off the tape on our mouths and started to march, chanting ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Hasinah told BuzzFeed News.

The 9 July demonstration was held in response to the death of Alton Sterling, 37, who wastackled to the ground before being shot dead by two officers during an incident in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A day later, Philando Castile was shot dead by police in Minnesota as he reached for his driving licence while sitting in a car with his 4-year-old daughter and girlfriend, whose live stream of the aftermath helped push the killing into the public eye.

But the demonstration in Birmingham was about more than showing solidarity with black people in America. Hasinah said it was also about recognising the people of colour who have died in police custody in the UK. “Solidarity with the US is of course paramount,” she said. “[But it’s] in addition to understanding what we face on our own shores.” more

news

Police watchdog releases latest data on deaths in custody

Video: Ken Hinds, chair of Haringey’s Independent Stop and Search Monitoring Group

Britain’s Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has published the latest data on deaths during or following police contact, just as the Black Lives Matter movement formally launches in the UK.

The annual IPCC report examines the period between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016.

It found there were 14 deaths in or following police custody, 3 fatal police shootings, 13 deaths from traffic accidents related to police pursuit and 60 from suicide following custody.

more

Justice for Mark Duggan march, Tottenham, 6th August

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Protest Oxford Circus Friday 29th July 6.30pm

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Black Lives Matter protest on Friday 29th July 6.30pm, starting at London’s Oxford Circus.

The protest will be targeting major US corporations in an act of solidarity with those battling police racism in the US and highlighting similar issues here in this country, brought into sharp relief following the release of the latest report on UK deaths in police custody.

action

Hundreds turn out for Black Lives Matter rally in Sheffield

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From the Sheffield Star

Hundreds of people marched peacefully through Sheffield as part of the rapidly spreading Black Lives Matter movement.

The Sheffield Black Lives Matter march mirrored peaceful protest seen in other cities like Leeds and Manchester, Bristol and Cardiff, Birmingham and London over the past few weeks.

The movement organisers said to wanted to show solidarity with movements across the USA after two high profile killings of black citizens by police officers.

Campaigners also came out to remember those who lost their lives in police custody in the UK and denounced racism and xenophobia in all levels of society. more