Welcome to the Scottish Socialist Freedom Group Website

Supporting an independent socialist nuclear free Scotland and Solidarity Scotland's Socialist Movement

"We believe in an independent Scotland where our vast wealth and abundant resources are harnessed and democratically owned for the benefit of all, not the obscene enrichment of the few."
http://www.solidarityscotland.org

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Update on Scottish Political Prisoner John Bowden

  http://scotland. indymedia. org/node/ 10940  By Brighton ABC (Scottish indymedia)   In May this year, long-term prison resister John Bowden went on the run whilst out on a routine shopping trip from HMP Noranside.   We can now reveal why he did so when he was so close to a new parole hearing.   Lifer and long term prison rebel John Bowden, who absconded from Open Prison whilst on home leave, was recaptured on 6/6/08.


After 3 weeks on the run the Police discovered JB hiding on a farm on the outskirts of Glasgow. He now languishes back in maximum security conditions in HMP Glenochil in need of support and solidarity.  

The incident at the farm quickly escalated into a tense siege situation, with armed anti-terror Police, who were acting on a tip off from an informant, ringing the perimeter. It was at this point that John feared that this was a scene the cops would be only too happy for him not to walk out of alive.

However with the intervention of a sympathetic journalist a line of communication was opened and the siege ended peacefully after 7 hours, with John and another person arrested.   The Scottish media had from the outset portrayed John's being-at-large with predictably sensational headlines ( 'Mad Axeman on the loose', etc...) when in reality he had been on home leave once a month for the past 12 months and on the long road to eventual release. The day he was recaptured reads like a Western stand-off between the sheriff's deputies and a bunch of desperados rather than the Police taking an absconder from an open prison back into custody.  

 John was convicted for a murder he describes as stupid and a terrible mistake, has spent his entire adult life in prison. Politicised by his incarceration he's regularly payed the price for his resistance through long periods of isolation, brutal beatings and treatment amounting to torture. He has never been broken and is one of the UK's most articulate and vociferous prison writers and a powerful advocate of prisoners rights.  

Throughout his 25 years imprisonment, John has suffered constant harassment and brutality at the hands of the system. As someone who is not prepared to compromise his beliefs, this has served to mark him out for special attention. In May 2007 the Scottish Prison and Probation Service were involved in a clumsy attempt to prevent his parole by framing him (and smearing the ABC prisoner support network) with accusations that the ABC was involved in terrorism and that JB was therefore associating with terrorists! This all spectacularly backfired, with the SPS issuing a full apology. However it was successful in preventing his parole then and cost him a transfer back to closed conditions for 6 months.  

In Britain life sentence prisoners are in the hands of the Parole Board who can stretch a prisoner's term to suit their prejudices. Not having a fixed date to work towards is a form of torture in itself. As John said in a recent letter received after his 'apprehension' "Yes it's very depressing being dependent on faceless bureaucrats for some hope of release, especially when you know they possess not a shred of compassion or humanity and certainly no sense of fair play or justice. Being locked up in jail on a long sentence is horrendous enough, but for most long-term prisoners the certainty of a release date at least provides them with a definite hope of release, a cut off point when the hardship and suffering will end and they'll regain their freedom.

For those serving life there never is any definite hope of release, just this constant, seemingly endless passage of jail time measured not in the passing of days, weeks, months and years, but in the physical ageing of oneself and the hardening of ones heart in the face of constant parole knock backs and dashed hopes. It definitely requires a particular type of strength to retain one's sanity and humanity in such circumstances, and of course the cruel irony is that those who survive with dignity, courage and grace are usually considered the least suitable for release by the cold, heartless bastards who decide on such matters."  

 On top of that, in May this year, during a routine drug test he provided a false positive result for cocaine (a second subsequent test established that he was in fact drug free). Under duress and fearing yet another fit-up was under way to prevent his release and send him back to maximum security again, he absconded.   At the moment John is facing fresh charges over his absconding whilst on home leave (and resisting arrest) and is potentially likely to suffer a major setback to his eventual release. Therefore it is vital that John is supported through these difficult times and the Scottish Prison Service put on notice that it cannot isolate and persecute prisoners at will.    

 Write to John Bowden at:


John Bowden
Prison No. 6729
HM Prison Glenochil
King OMuir Road
TULLIBODY
FK10 3AD Scotland

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New Labour shock for welfare claimants of Glasgow

New Labour's US style Benefit reforms ‘to be piloted in Glasgow’



Under US style welfare reforms benefit claimants could be forced to pick up litter and clean graffiti under plans to be unveiled by UK ministers.

The Welfare Green Paper is expected to include proposals to force those unemployed for more than two years to work full-time in the community.

Incapacity Benefit claimants will all move to the new Employment Support Allowance by 2013, which ministers hope will be regarded, for all but the most disabled people, as a temporary benefit.

Drug addicts are also being targeted, with the government expecting them to declare their problem and to embark on treatment in return for benefits.

Other parts of the scheme, such as paying private companies a bounty for ever person they get off benefit, have already been rubbished by the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

Sources at the Public and Commercial Services union told The Herald that they had been told by the Department of Work and Pensions that pilot areas for trying out the new policies had been identified, but an announcement of this had been shelved because of the by-election.

"That strategy was found to result in corruption when it was tried in the United States."

"Glasgow East constituency comes in the UK top 10 for measurements of those seeking work, on support for low income or on Incapacity Benefit/Severe Disablement Allowance. On that latter measure it is at number one in the UK with 9920 claimants."

Tory leader in Westminster David Cameron thinks the welfare reforms are "great" and the Conservatives obviously see the leaked Green Paper as a direct copy of their own policies, with its stress on "no right to a life on benefits" and plans to pilot projects to test "compulsory full-time activity" for the long-term unemployed.

However Solidarity candidate in Thursday's by-election, Tricia McLeish, said:

"Labour are planning to cut the income of the poor people of Glasgow in order to steal the Tories' clothes and woo middle-class English voters."

"They are also going to privatise social security by paying private companies £50,000 for every claimant they get off benefit, yet where this has been tried abroad it has led to destitution for the poor and widespread corruption."

Publicity surrounding The Green Paper, due to be formally published today, will add more controversy for Labour in the final days of campaigning in the by-election.

The UK government wanted to get one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015.

In February New Labour government welfare adviser David Freud suggested less than a third of the 2.7m people claiming the benefit were doing so legitimately. This is the sort of language that the wealthy and capitalist press like to hear and gives rise to them describing poor or vulnerable people as "welfare junkies", "welfare addicts" and "benefit cheats" such is the language employed to the delight of the tax dodging rich.
LM

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Scottish Socialist Freedom Discussion Group

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/scotsocialistfreedom

News & Debate group on political and cultural issues affecting Scotland and Internationally.

"We believe in an independent Scotland where our vast wealth and abundant resources are harnessed and democratically owned for the benefit of all, not the obscene enrichment of the few."

To join give a short bio of yourself in a brief paragraph regarding your political views and interest in an independent socialist Scotland.

We are essentially republican socialist and support Solidarity Scotland's Socialist Movement. socialist activists and/or Solidarity members welcome.
SSFG (Alba)

Aamer scores a victory for free speech when found not guilty

Aamer emerges from court and gives a statement to waiting media also he thanks his supporters above all Stop The War.

See SACC statement below -
Press Release from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities
Tuesday 1 July 2008

Campaigners welcome judgement in Anwar case
Lord Carloway accused of "misusing" contempt law

SACC welcomes the judgement given by three judges at Edinburgh High Court today that human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar did not commit contempt of court in statements he made last September following the conviction for "terrorism" of his client Mohammed Atif Siddique.

Nothing contained in the judgment, and nothing said when the case was discussed in court on 29 April, suggests that there was ever any serious basis for supposing that Aamer Anwar's statements constituted contempt of court. It is deeply worrying that Lord Carloway – the judge in the Siddique case - should have chosen to initiate these unprecedented legal proceedings on such flimsy grounds.

Lord Carloway seems, at best, to have been misusing the law of contempt to create an opportunity for the court to express its views on Aamer Anwar's statements. At worst, his actions look like a politically motivated attempt to silence a courageous lawyer.

We are disappointed that, while rejecting the contempt of court allegations, the court today used the opportunity to comment critically on Aamer Anwar's statements. SACC fully supports the statements that Aamer Anwar made last September on the steps of Glasgow High Court, in the media, and in his press release.

The judges today described these statements as "angry and petulant." It would surprise no one if the guilty verdict in the Siddique case – which came as a surprise to many who had followed the case – left Aamer Anwar and his client feeling angry. But the only petulance that anyone has shown in this protracted saga came from Lord Carloway, who chose to use the might of the contempt of court law to hit back at statements that he happened not to like.

The judges also referred, apparently in criticism, to "a range of political comments concerning the position of Muslims in our society" included in Aamer Anwar's statement. It is surely beyond dispute that this is an issue of critical importance for our society, that it was essential background to the Siddique case, and that it played a key role in the jury's interpretation of the actions of Mohammed Atif Siddique. We think it bodes ill for the future of Scottish justice that the judges should treat this matter in such a dismissive way.

We believe that the right of lawyers to speak in the sort of terms used by Aamer Anwar is an essential protection both for individuals who find themselves accused of crime and for society at large.

In the Siddique case, the interpretations that the police and the security services placed upon the guilty verdict were reported immediately and widely by the press. Lord Carloway's own interpretations, issued at the later sentencing hearing, were reported just as widely. Since then, much of the public discussion of anti-terrorism policy has included references to Mohammed Atif Siddique's supposed acts of terrorism. In these circumstances, it is of vital public interest that people should be told of alternative interpretations of the case.

Lawyers south of the border have long been in the habit for making forceful statements outside the court. We hope their more timorous cousins in Scotland will be encouraged by the outcome of this case to do the same, despite the huffing and puffing of the judges over the content of Aamer Anwar's statements. And we hope that this is a trend that the Law Society of Scotland will support.

We wish Mohammed Atif Siddique well in his appeal against his conviction.

Notes

For the Summary of the Opinion of the Court, 1 July 2008,

see http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=583&catid=33

For the statement issued by Aamer Anwar after the conviction of Mohammed Atif Siddique, 17 September 2007,
see http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=527&catid=33

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Look Behind the Wire - Public Meeting

Look Behind the Wire meeting was held on Friday evening at St John's Church in Edinburgh. Scottish Human Rights lawyer Aamer Anwar was unfortunately unable to be there but sent his support to the meeting. Instead a speaker from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities was able to tell the audience about events surrounding the contempt of court charge against Aamer after representing his client Mohammad Siddique and the importance of freedom of expression in this country.

Former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg spoke on how the US-British "War on Terror" is denying people their human rights. The detentions in Britain after 9/11, torture in Guantanamo Bay and how many US service personnel did not want to be posted there.

As for detainees many of the victims are refugees. One of them is Londoner Binyam Mohamed (a refugee from Ethopia) who was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002 and then suffered horrific torture at the hands of the US and its allies before being sent to Guantanamo Bay. He is now facing trial by military commission. If convicted he could face the death penalty.

After listening to the informative talk by the speakers I did not stay to hear the questions from the floor but this was a very interesting public meeting.
LM

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Defend Tommy Sheridan Rally on 7th June 2008

Defend Tommy Sheridan For up to date information on the campaign and messages of support.

In a massive show of support for the Sheridan 7 and defiance of Rupert Murdoch over 250 people packed Langside Halls on the 7th June to attend the Defend Tommy Sheridan / Defend the Sheridan 7 rally.

Messages of support were read from Bob Crow and Ricky Tomlinson and others who were unable to attend, however, a series of impassioned speeches were heard from prominent Trade Union speakers and Miscarriages of Justice speakers amongst others including Tommy Sheridan.

Fortunately most speeches were recorded and some of these can be replayed from You Tube by clicking on the links below

Paddy Hill Birmingham 6 and Mojo

Gerry Conlon Guildford 4 and Mojo

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May Day Rally in Edinburgh on Saturday May 3rd

 The May Day Rally kicked off in Edinburgh on Saturday from Market Street along Princes Street and onward to Princes Street Gardens. Despite a smaller than expected parade it was a good day culminating in hearing speakers from Colombia and CND. May Day events are great family outings for folks and I hope many others not just in the Labour and Trade Union Movements will take advantage of these world wide events in the future.

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: dotSCO Scottish Government E-Petition

Hi,

Help the dotSCO campaign and sign the Scottish government e-petition on lead up to the .sco application process; 


http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=216

We need as many signatures as possible to help get support from the
Government. 
 
Thank you! 
 The dotSCO Campaign 
 
http://www.dotsco.org/ 
 
Sign the e-petition today and help give the dotSCO campaign a massive
boost! 
 http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=216

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