While India is reeling with Covid-19, the country’s central and
state governments have refused to release an old man from prison.
Varavara Rao, a 81 year old revolutionary poet, is in jail on the Bhima
Koregaon case. Meanwhile, some inmates of that jail have died due to
Covid-19. Prominent personalities of the country and abroad have become
vocal in demanding the release of this revolutionary poet. As
revolutionary student and youth organisations, we demand the release of
Varavara Rao and all political prisoners around the world.
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the victory of the Dalits
in the war against the upper caste Peshwas at Bhima Koregaon,
Maharashtra, Hindutva forces yet again attacked the people and on 28
September 2018 Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun
Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha were arrested from Delhi, Pune, Faridabad,
Mumbai, and Hyderabad on multiple charges. Later Shoma Sen, Anand
Teltumbde, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson
and many other social workers, lawyers, poets and professors were
arrested as well. They were charged under various unconstitutional laws
like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), sedition and so on.
Also arrested was the 90 percent physically disabled Professor G N
Saibaba, who is being held in the small ‘Anda Cell’ of the Nagpur Jail.
The jail crucially does not have the infrastructure to keep someone in
Saibaba’s condition. As a result, his physical condition is
deteriorating day by day. The Indian state is also continuing to target
the veteran Maoist theoretical leader Kobad Ghandy by conspiring to
block his release from jail on new false charges despite him suffering
from cancer.
Gisèle Halimi est décédée ce mardi 28 juillet 2020 à l’âge de 93 ans.
Elle était une avocate militante féministe et anti colonialiste
franco-tunisienne. Elle est notamment restée célèbre pour avoir défendu
en 1972, lors du procès de Bobigny, une jeune femme accusée d’avortement
illégal après avoir subi un viol, procès au cours duquel elle avait
obtenu la relaxe de la jeune femme inculpée.
Bien avant cela, dans les années 1950, Gisèle Halimi s’était déjà
engagée, en tant qu’avocate, dans la défense des militants algériens du
Front National de Libération, contre le colonialisme français. Elle
avait également défendu la militante Djamila Boupacha, qui avait subi
viol et tortures de la part de soldats français.
Dans les années 1980, en défendant deux femmes victimes de viol, elle
a contribué à changer le statut pénal du viol dans le droit de l’État
français, le faisant passer de délit à crime.
Si Gisèle Halimi s’est par la suite engagée dans la politique
bourgeoise aux côtés de François Mitterrand, elle aura néanmoins
contribué des années 1950 aux années 1980 au long combat contre
l’impérialisme et pour les droits des femmes.
By Mike Talavera UPDATE: APD Chief Brian Manley spoke during a virtual press
conference Sunday evening to announce that the police had let Garrett’s
murderer go free pending further investigation. The police released this
killer (without revealing his identity) despite the fact that he
himself admitted to them that he had fired first, contrary to rightwing
conspiracy theories online. In an insult to what Garrett died
protesting, Manley used the shooting as an opportunity to highlight the
“good work” of the police, further demonstrating how they are enemies of
the people.
Today, the people of Austin are mourning the loss of Garrett Foster,
an anti-racist activist who has been a regular at the anti-police
protests since the May Uprisings. Last night, a gunman drove into a
march in solidarity with Portland in downtown Austin and shot Garrett
multiple times from the driver’s seat before speeding away. Garrett was
pronounced dead at the hospital hours later.
Livestream video from independent journalist Hiram Garcia shows some
demonstrators stop as they were marching up Congress Avenue towards the
Austin Police Department (APD) headquarters and start to approach a
vehicle which had driven into the march, hitting at least one protester,
before gunshots ring out and protesters scattered.
Garrett, a military veteran who had since sided with the people, was
legally open carrying a rifle as a volunteer in addition to a small
group that was providing security for the march. Another protester who
was with Garrett when he approached the car returned fire after the
gunman shot Garrett.
Police brutalized protesters enforcing a perimeter around the area
where Garrett was shot. Police pushed people back, threatened to make
arrests, and mounted police were dispatched. Hours later, the police
apprehended the suspected shooter without force. Police have still not
released the identity of the murderer.
Last month, Austin police had offered protection to another gunman and son of a police officer, Logan Bucknam, who had tried to ram his vehicle into another protest
outside APD headquarters. Bucknam had waved his gun around after
protesters surrounded his car and then was briefly taken into an APD
garage behind a barrier set up by the police and was released shortly
after.
Garrett was the full-time caretaker of his wife Whitney, who is a
quadriplegic and a black woman. He had been pushing her wheelchair
throughout the march, and she was with him when the shooting occurred.
Garrett heroically defended her and those around him with his life. The
police did not let Whitney see him in the hospital after he had died.
Garrett and Whitney would regularly cook meals to serve to the
homeless under I-35 and had been planning to do a basic necessities
drive this coming Wednesday. Garret also understood that the housing
inequality in Austin was part of the racist system that he was against,
and he and Whitney marched alongside United Neighborhood Defense
Movement at their Anti-eviction march at the beginning of July.
Protesters gathered back in front of APD to support Whitney and
chanted Garrett’s name and “Fuck the Police!” Protesters shared thoughts
about Garrett, emphasizing how he had said that he was willing to die
for the movement and how he had died protecting them and his wife.
“The reason we are out here, the reason Garrett was out here, is that
Black lives are threatened every single minute in America,” a
spokesperson with Mike Ramos Brigade, the organization who led the
march, told the Tribune. “We are livid about tonight and how we will no
longer see Garrett’s friendly face. We know this comrade would want us
to stay strong and continue the fight. We are inspired by his strength
and we will not back down from this vigilante attack!”
Austin was not the only scene of reactionary violence last night. In
Aurora, Colorado during a similar solidarity protest with Portland which
had taken highway I-225, another driver plowed into the march,
seriously injuring at least one. Armed protesters there also defended
themselves and fired at the driver. Earlier that day, windows were
broken at a local courthouse, where fires were also set.
Across the US, protests in solidarity with the ongoing rebellion in
Portland took their rage out against the imperialist state in response
to the escalating repression of anti-police protests by federal forces.
From Providence, Rhode Island, where protesters threw paint and other
projectiles at police guarding the local Public Safety complex, to
Seattle, Washington, where protesters set fire to a police precinct and
an under-construction youth detention center, the people have
demonstrated once again how repression breeds resistance.
Overnight, graffiti was spotted in multiple locations in Los Angeles reading “People’s Justice for Garret’s Killer”
Garrett’s sacrifice is not the last to be made in the fight for Black
Lives and revolution. US imperialism is mobilizing its forces against
the protests and is willing to kill to put down what it sees as an
existential threat. Fascists and other reactionaries thrive in this
atmosphere of repression, recognizing the further reactionization of the
state and committing their own crimes against the people.
In the face of this danger the people will not cower but stand
against this injustice like Garrett did. The Mike Ramos Brigade and
other groups have called for a vigil tonight at 7pm at the intersection
of 4th and Congress, the location where Garret made his sacrifice. It is
now more important than ever to support each other, and we implore our
readers to donate to Garrett’s widow Whitney here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/official-garrett-foster-memorial-fund
Tribune of the People stands with the movement for Black lives,
against the police and reactionaries. We mourn our dead while remarking
that not all deaths are equal – to die in service of the police is
lighter than a feather, to die in service of the people is heavier than a
mountain.
HONOR AND GLORY TO GARRETT FOSTER, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE AND DEFENDER OF BLACK LIVES!
TO LIVE ON IN THE STRUGGLE IS TO NEVER DIE!
When US Army Sergeant Daniel Perry shot and killed anti-racist activist Garrett Foster last weekend, his goal was to attackthe
movement for Black Lives. The Austin community has instead come
together this week in honor of Garrett’s sacrifice and stood alongside
his fiancé Whitney, who has become a symbol of resilience in the wake of
her fiancé’s death.
The two had already been important figures
in the local protest movement and had consistently taken to the streets
to demand better lives for Black people. Even after Garrett’s passing,
the strength of their bond and their “frontline every time” politics
extended to those around them, resulting in stronger unity among
revolutionaries, activists, and the everyday working people who have
taken to the streets against the police.
That unity was clear the night after Garrett’s murder, when a silent vigil at 4th and Congress boiled over into a march. Eric Brown, a fascist-friendly police collaborator, was for the first time kicked out of a protest as the crowd chanted “Act like a cop! Get treated like a cop!”
In retaliation, Brown singled out a woman with the Mike Ramos Brigade
who had led the confrontation against him and said, “You’re Moroccan,
you got shit to deal with in your own country.” Brown has earned a
reputation for subverting political debate by bringing up his identity
as a Black man, but in this instance he showed that he was willing to
use racism as a last ditch attempt to save face.
Many speeches were given throughout the night, including by a Tribune
Support Committee member. “The minute the pigs got on the [crime]
scene,” the member said, “they fucking spun that story, and then the
fucking bourgeois media started spinning that story, and we have a
fucking responsibility to Whitney, to Garrett – we got to spread the
fucking truth!”
Another speaker drew the connection between how Garrett’s actions,
his commitment to the movement, spoke volumes of who he was as a person,
and how Daniel Perry’s reactionary actions likewise defined him. “When
[Perry] sped and made this right [turn], and drove through this, he knew
what he was doing,” the speaker said. “He was on a mission.”
This past Wednesday, the community once again congregated to take up
the work of Garrett and Whitney, this time by supporting their group
Austin Direct Action to carry out their work of handing out donations
and serving food to the homeless under Interstate 35. United Neighborhood Defense Movement
had been asked to coordinate while Whitney and others attended
Garrett’s funeral. Grills served hot food, hundreds of bottles of water
and other beverages were distributed, and a large amount of clothing was
also given out.
“Every week Garret, Whitney, and their close friend were out here
serving the people and we are so grateful to be able to help them as
they mourn,” UNDM said in a statement. “Their strength and dedication to
the people inspire us. Garrett died in service of the people and those
close to him continue this fight.”
International Webinar For Release the poet and political activist Vara Vara Rao and other political prisoners all over the world
1.Revolutionary Student-Youth Movement/Bangladesh
2.Revolutionary Student Movement/Canada
3.Revolutionary Students' Front/West Bengal(India)
4.Socialist Students' Union of Manipur (SSUM)
5.All Nepal National Independent Students' Union (Revolutionary) Nepal
6.Young Revolutionaries/France
7.All Nepal National Independent Students' Union (Revolutionary) Nepal
Numerous demonstrations were held this week across the country to
condemn the results of the Munich TKP/ML trial. Ten people were arrested
around Europe in 2015 and extradited to Germany, detained for over four
years during legal proceedings for alleged membership in the Communist
Party of Turkey/ Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML).
On July 28 they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 2.75
years to 6.5 years for no specific crime other than being members of a
“foreign terrorist organization” (referencing TKP/ML), a Party that is
not even classified as a ‘terrorist organization’ in Germany. The
arrests, convictions, and sentences are clearly politically motivated
and were done in service of the fascist Turkish state. Below are
pictures from protests in Munich, Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin.
Action in Berlin, signs read “Freedom for all political prisoners!” and
“Freedom for the Accused in the TKP/ML trial and Varavara Rao!”
