CAMPACC: Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

In his defence writings Abdullah Öcalan self-critically analyses left and socialist movement’s understanding of revolution and dissociates from ‘social engineering’. How does he conceptualise and redefine the revolution? What is the role of revolutionaries in this understanding and what role does his model on moral and political society play?

Prof. Radha D’Souza, Professor of Law, Development, and Conflict Studies at the University of Westminster interviewed by Erem Kansoy.

On July 8th, the General Secretary of Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU), Joseph Stalin, was arrested by the police along with 31 other trade union and student activists including the Secretary of the CTU, and the Conveners of Inter University Students' Federation & Unemployed Graduates Association  near Sri Lanka's parliament complex. The arrested trade unionists and students were protesting against the government's plan to pass a controversial bill (General Sir John Kotelawala National Defence University Bill), which seeks to militarise higher education by allowing the Ministry of Defence to intervene in university administrative affairs. The CTU is one of the oldest and largest independent unions in Sri Lanka's education sector, which has played a key role in defending the right to free education, while continuously campaigning against privatisation, racism and ongoing militarisation.

Connor Hayes speaks with Steve Sweeney, International Editor for the Morning Star newspaper, about his recent travels in South Kurdistan, an overview of what’s been happening on the ground during Turkey’s invasion of South Kurdistan and the popular protests against the KRG, as well as his reporting on Turkey’s usage of chemical weapons, and the propaganda war being waged by regional and global media against the PKK.

Connor Hayes speaks with Fayrouz Sharqawi, the Director of Grassroots Al-Quds, about the re-developing unity of Palestinian resistance following the recent bombardment of Gaza, the significance of grassroots community organizing across Palestine to achieve self-determination, and the necessity of building links between struggles globally.

Connor Hayes speaks with Shailza Sharma, a visiting lecturer at University of Westminster and a PhD student at the University of Exeter, about the history of the RSS, the emergence of the Modi government in the context of neoliberalism and the global rise of the far right, and the ongoing farmers protests in India.

This report marks twenty years of the Terrorism Act 2000, which has been supplemented by many more ‘counter-terror’ laws.  They have profoundly changed the criminal justice system in many unjust ways, in particular by

- Extending draconian police powers
- Legitimising widespread punishment without fair trial
- Introducing secret evidence
- Criminalising a wide range of non-violent activities
- Criminalising national liberation organisations
- Placing migrant and Muslim communities under surveillance
- Enhancing unaccountable executive powers of punishment without trial
- Securitising all aspects of life

Connor Hayes speaks with Senator Gorka Elejabarrieta Díaz, a senator in the Spanish parliament and Director of International Relations and Policy for EH Bildu, about the history of the Basque people, the emergence and evolution of the Basque self-determination struggle, the criminalisation of the Basque movement under the war on terror, and the relations between the Basque movement and other self-determination struggles around the world, including the Kurdish freedom movement.