We are saddened to report the death of John Rety, anarchist, poet and chess player who was editor of Freedom in the 1960’s. John died on February 3rd of a heart attack at home. John co-founded the Torriano Meeting House and published the Hearing Eye series of poetry books, while his column “through the anarchist press“ in Freedom has been published as a book by Freedom Press.
He remained active in recent years compering meetings of the Torriano Poets for Peace a vivid insight into his passion and commitment that no one who has ever seen could forget, and was a regular visitor to Angel Alley. He is survived by his partner Susan, son Jacob and daughter Emily Johns who is active in the peace movement and co-editor of Peace News.
We will be doing a full obituary for John in the next issue of Freedom but for a flavour of the man some of his chess games can be found online at http://www.chessgames.com/player/john_rety.html and some of his poetry at http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/torriano/practice.htm.
Parents from Wishaw, North Lanarkshire vowed to fight on against the impending closure of their local primary school despite being forced to end their occupation after threats by the authorities to send the pupils elsewhere until they left.
The five protestors, including four parents and one grandmother, took direct action as part of the Glasgow Save Our Schools campaign by occupying St Matthew’s Primary, just outside the city, as a protest against its planned closure. They are angry at the actions of North Lanarkshire council who are seeking to sell off the site along with three others in the region.
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One of the more intriguing aspects of last year’s impressive Anarchist Movement Conference was the emerging realisation amongst serious anarchists that there was at last a recognisable potential for building a proper movement. To that end it inspired a re-assessment of how anarchists choose to organise with each other, how they work together, how they communicate and express their ideas. Simply arguing a case from entrenched positions is gradually being subsumed by a practical need to work on a collective basis to create a more visibly engaging credible anarchist presence, the significance of which is now becoming a reality.
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The recent arrest of Alfredo Bonanno on suspicion of an alleged bank robbery in Greece has exposed the risks and reopened the controversy surrounding the tactic of political expropriation. Whilst criminality remains in the arsenal of the movement on the continent, its use in the UK is rare. It is often argued that this is a result of the efficiency of the British state in surveillance and arrest, compared to their European counterparts. The failure of ‘illegalism’ to generalise in the British movement is not purely tactical, for many its rejection has a moral and political basis. Illegalism is as much a product of historical and geographical contexts as a result of an ideological construction. To explain the development of hostile critiques of illegalism requires a backward glance to the turbulent history of the individualist tendency within the anarchist movement.
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Workers at the car part manufacturers who won a momentous battle for redundancy payment from Ford motor giants last year are still locked in a bitter dispute with their ex-employers over money owed through the pension fund after the collapse of Visteon UK.
Visteon UK, formerly the main car parts supplier to Ford, went into administration on 31st March 2009, sacking its entire workforce of around 560 people without notice. The workers immediately responded by occupying the three factories in Belfast, Basildon and Enfield, and when evicted mounted a 24 hour-a-day picket to prevent the administrators stripping the plants of machinery, components and finished parts.
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As many comrades know 2010 is International Stay Out Of Jail Year. Here at Freedom we are proud to do our part by publishing this short guide to avoiding incarceration. Globally over nine million people are in prison and not one of them likes it. We can’t guarantee anything but following these simple points will give you a fighting chance to avoid the pokey. The law is that in England and Wales so check up on the legislation if you live elsewhere. So here are three simple points to remember and the four ways of getting off should you be before the bench.
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European court rules UK stop and search terrorism law is illegal
Two activists have won a landmark victory in the European courts over the UK police’s use of the controversial anti-terrorism laws to stop and search political activists. On Tuesday 12th January Pennie Quinton and Kevin Gillan won their case against the Metropolitan Police in the European Court of Human Rights over being stopped and searched under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act (2000) at the DSEi arms fair protest at Docklands, London in 2003.
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Paul Cannell, the artist responsible for the artwork of Primal Scream’s classic 1990s album Screamadelica, has had the image commemorated on a new set of Royal Mail stamps. The Post Office has chosen ten album covers as part of a ‘design classics’ series acknowledging the artistic merit of record sleeves that are as culturally significant as the music they were designed to represent.
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