CAMPACC: Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

By Marjorie Cohn, 28 July 2021

On July 27, a federal district court judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentenced former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale to 45 months in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes.

 

Dr. Rolf Gössner interviewed by Junge Welt

Translated from the German by Janet Biehl

In January 2020, the Belgian Court of Cassation ruled that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was not a terrorist organization but rather a legitimate party to an internal conflict in Turkey. In Belgium, therefore, the PKK cannot be prosecuted under anti-terror laws. Rolf Gössner (b. 1948) is a German attorney, journalist, and author of works on human rights, security, and democracy. He currently co-publishes the Berlin magazine Ossietzky and a member of the board of trustees of the International League for Human Rights.  Has been defending the human rights of Kurds in Europe since the 1990s. He was interviewed by Junge Welt in April 2020. (–trans.)

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.

Terms like “biometrics” and “facial recognition” sound technical and abstract — but the impact of these tools is personal. The feeling of being watched, looked up and down, examined and picked apart, and followed from place to place is deeply unsettling. And the portrait of our lives this kind of data creates — especially when collected in mass and combined with other parts of our digital footprint — is intimate and dangerous.

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This webinar will be about the legacy of Walter Rodney’s revolutionary work as an historian of the lives of ordinary working peoples.  The event is hosted by Anti-Imperialists for Global Justice, and will bring together speakers from Rodney’s native Guyana, Jamaica, the US, the UK and Rwanda.

There has been a social explosion of the Colombian people against poverty and repression. President Duque’s ‘tax reform’ package was the last straw that broke their patience. The biggest upsurge of sustained popular protest since the 1970s has brought the country to an absolutely pivotal moment: Colombia’s future hangs in the balance.

In this article we look at why Duque sought to impose the tax package and the economic drivers behind it. We also indicate some of the devastating social effects of his rule that have led the people to such deep resistance to what has been falsely presented as a progressive reform.

By Andy Higginbottom, with improvements from Colombia Solidarity Campaign comrades – 17 May 2021

Debbie Bookchin, journalist, writer and secretary of the Emergency Committee for Rojava in the US, is interviewed by Erem Kansoy.