(en) Britain. Anarchist Federation Resistance bulletin issue 155 November 2013

NOVEMBER 2013 RESISTANCE is out. AUSTERITY HITS HOME (economic crisis), Anti-fascist 
killed in Greece, Food banks, London Day School on Anarchist Communism, Brazilian 
anarchists, Bangladeshi Clothing Industry strikes, US Anarchist Jailed. --- Download 
http://www.afed.org.uk/res/resist155.pdf ---- Contents ---- 1. Austerity Hits Home. ---- 
2. Anti-fascist Rapper Murdered (Pavlos Fyssas). ---- 3. Food Bank Use Skyrocketing. ---- 
4. Coming up: Day School on Anarchist Communism (London 11.00am - 6.00 pm, Sunday December 
1st 2013). ---- 5. Brazilian anarchists stand firm despite state repression. ---- 6. 
Massive Strikes Shake Bangladeshi Clothing Industry. ---- 7. US Anarchist Jailed (Jerry 
Koch) ---- 1. Austerity Hits Home ---- The latest round of government cuts is set to 
plunge people into poverty, homelessness, or worse.

On 12 August 2013 the final stage of the rollout of the government?s benefit cap started. 
The cap has been ?trialled? in Haringey and three other London boroughs since April. In 
July, it spread to areas which had low numbers of households affected. Now local authority 
areas with over 276 affected households will have the cap imposed: chiefly the remaining 
London boroughs, along with high-rent areas in other cities around the country.
Benefit changes from April 2013 cut 14-25% off housing benefit for up to 600,000 tenants 
hit by the ?bedroom tax?. The Benefit cap restricted the total amount of support received 
by a household to ?500 a week for families with children and ?350 for single people. Many 
will lose up to ?180 a week or all their Housing Benefit.

Housing benefit was cut for anyone over the new total benefit cap. Caps to local housing 
allowance (LHA) restrict the level of support to the lowest 30% of rents, making renting 
unaffordable if you are low waged or unwaged. On top of this, reductions in Council Tax 
Benefit and the introduction of the Bedroom Tax for council tenants mean millions will 
have to pay more despite already squeezed incomes. Finally, the introduction of Universal 
Credit means more benefit cuts for some claimants, including disabled people, households 
with two earners, mothers, and people paying for childcare.

This latest round of attacks is driving working class people further and further into 
poverty. In reply we must organise wherever we can - in claimants groups, tenants and 
resident groups etc.- to resist the ultimate results of these attacks. That means:
? Publicising the effects of these new cuts
? Organising to resist gas and electricity cut-offs
? Organising to resist evictions by blocking bailiffs with a mass turnout
Only by standing together as a class do we stand a chance of protecting ourselves and our 
friends and families against these vicious cuts.

2. Anti-fascist Rapper Murdered

Massive demonstrations by antifascists rocked Greece last month following the brutal 
slaying of Pavlos Fyssas, known by the stage name Killah P. Last month 34 year old Fyassas 
was stabbed in the chest outside a cafe in the Keratsini district of Piraeus, shortly 
after midnight, and died in Tzaneio hospital early the following morning. His attacker, a 
member of the Neo Nazi Party Golden Dawn, appears to have carved part of a swastika into 
his body. In response to this shameless murder, big anti-fascist rallies took place across 
Greece, joined by trade unionists, activists, anarchist groups, left-wing parties and 
anti-racist organisations. In Athens alone approximately 50,000 turned out to oppose the 
Golden Dawn.

But once the protesters reached the Athens HQ of the far-right party, riot police threw 
tear gas at the crowd. Police chased demonstrators around the city centre, detaining 
around 20 protestors - more were arrested on the corner of Kifissias and Alexandras 
avenues by motorcycle mounted ?DELTA force? officers. A total of 62 people were arrested. 
To many, this was unsurprising - the Greek police are notorious for their fascist 
sympathies, and often launch brutal crackdowns on anti-Golden Dawn demonstrations. 
Anti-fascist demonstrations were held also in other cities around Europe, such as London, 
Florence, Amsterdam and Barcelona.

These events incited public outrage, with many feeling the Greek government had turned a 
blind eye to acts of racist violence perpetrated by the far-right. But the ruling 
coalition, under the pressure of public outcry ordered an investigation into the Golden 
Dawn resulting in the arrest of several MPs along with party member Giorgos Roupakias, who 
was charged not only with Fyssas? assassination, but also a series of other crimes, 
including manslaughter, tax fraud, tax evasion, sex trafficking and money laundering. 
Furthermore, illegal weapons, maps and addresses of immigrants and activists - as well as 
portraits of Hitler and Mussolini ? were found in the apartments of arrested Golden Dawn 
activists and MPs. In addition, eight senior police officers suspected of having strong 
links with Golden Dawn were forced to resign.

The party has grown substantially with the deepening of the economic crisis in Greece, 
receiving 6.8% of the vote in last year?s elections, but the assassination of Fyssas and 
the resulting backlash have seen a massive decline of the party?s popularity. Nonetheless, 
they remain a significant threat to the immigrants and leftists who are their main 
targets. The struggle against Greek fascism continues.

3. Food Bank Use Skyrocketing

The Trussell Trust, responsible for 400 food banks across Britain, recently revealed that 
it handed out food to more than 350,000 people between April and September this year. A 
third of those were children, and a third needed food following a delay in the payment of 
benefits. The trust went on to say that the situation was so bad that some people were 
handing back food because they could not afford the energy to cook it.
The number of food banks has doubled in the last year, but the number using them has 
trebled. One of the problems aggravating the situation is the increasingly harsh benefit 
regime. Chris Mould, the Trust?s chairman said that ?We?re talking about mums not eating 
for days because they?ve been sanctioned for seemingly illogical reasons or people leaving 
hospital after a major operation to find that their benefits have been stopped or delayed?.
FareShare, a group which supplies food to more than 1000 charities in Britain said that It 
said requests for its services had risen by 15% over the last year. With food prices 
continuing to rise whilst wages and benefits fall, the situation may well get worse in 
coming years.

4. Coming up: Day School on Anarchist Communism

11.00am - 6.00 pm, Sunday December 1st, London. Venue to be announced soon.
Sessions include:
What is Anarchist Communism?
Brian Morris on Bakunin and Kropotkin
National versus Local organising- a debate
Against nationalism
Anarchist feminism
Organised by South East Region of Anarchist Federation. Contact London@afed.org.uk for 
details.

5. ?Struggle Is Not a Crime!? Brazilian Anarchists Stand Firm Despite State Repression

In Brazil anarchist groups are under increasing pressure after recent events: in Porto 
Alegre the social centre Moinho Negro (?Black Windmill?) was invaded by the federal police 
who took books, computers and mobile phones. In Rio de Janeiro two anarchist web sites 
have been investigated and the sites? administrators detained.
For its part Interpol is carrying on investigations in Rio de Janeiro and appears to have 
drawn up a list of social movements in other countries it intends to criminalise: USA, the 
UK, France, Mexico, Italy and Portugal. It is quite clear they are planning to globalize 
this persecution.
A search warrant received by a Brazilian comrade reveals that their phone calls have been 
monitored since July 4th. The activist was asked to reveal his relations with ?criminal 
gangs practicing terror against the State?.
Despite all of this, the anarchist movement in Brazil remains defiant. In a statement the 
Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro pledged to ?continue doing what we always do: 
organizing and building strong popular, autonomous and combative movements. Mass struggle 
and popular organization to fight the oppressors! Struggle is not a crime!?

6. Massive Strikes Shake Bangladeshi Clothing Industry

Hundreds of thousands of textile workers near Dhaka went on strike in late September 
demanding a near-tripling of their monthly wage. The workers last received a pay rise in 
2010 and in response to a derisory wage offer by the employers began a wave of strike action.
Strikes broke out at first in scattered areas but then spread to the main industrial 
centres. 200,000 workers demonstrated in the Gazipur district. In the following two days 
the employers attempted to open factories but failed, despite threats from government 
ministers and the collaboration of the trade unions.
The following day more than 100 factories had come out on strike. Thousands joined 
demonstrations and were attacked by police and the paramilitary Border Guards with tear 
gas and rubber bullets. Workers fought back by throwing stones. In one police attack 50 
demonstrators were injured.
Clothing workers in Bangladesh are the lowest paid in the world, despite working ten to 
sixteen hours a day, six days a week, in notoriously unsafe conditions. A recent factory 
collapse caused the deaths of over a thousand workers, causing international outrage.

7. US Anarchist Jailed

A New York anarchist has been imprisoned for refusing to testify before a federal grand 
jury about his political beliefs, his friends and the legal support he provided to the 
Occupy Wall Street movement. 24-year-old Jerry Koch was subpoenaed before a grand jury 
that is investigating an explosion outside a military recruitment centre in Times Square 
in 2008. The blast damaged only the front door of the centre and no one was injured, but 
the FBI have since begun a witch hunt of local anarchists.
Koch isn?t accused of this or any other crime - prosecutors told his lawyers that they 
think he was at a bar in 2008 or 2009, after the bombing, and that someone else at the bar 
knew about another person who was involved.

Grand juries have been used for decades as a means of gathering information, not 
necessarily about serious crimes, but about the actions of social movements from the Black 
Panthers, to environmentalists, to anti-war activists. Grand juries are secretive by 
nature. Prosecutors won?t even acknowledge if a grand jury exists, let alone say what is 
being investigated. When you appear before a grand jury, you don?t have the right for your 
attorney to be present. Nor can you assert your First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights 
and refuse to talk about your politics, your friends, or yourself. If you do, you can be 
held in contempt and thrown in jail until you cooperate.
Koch?s imprisonment is the most recent case in a range of raids on anarchists and other 
radicals. He has now been in New York?s Metropolitan Correctional Center for five months 
without any charge.
You can find Jerry?s support website at: http://jerryresists.net/
Write him a letter of support today:
GERALD KOCH #68631-054
MCC NEW YORK
METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
150 PARK ROW
NEW YORK, NY 10007
---

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About the Anarchist Federation

The Anarchist Federation is an organisation of class struggle anarchists (based in Britain 
and Ireland, but with many contacts overseas) which aims to abolish Capitalism and all 
oppression to create a free and equal society. This is Anarchist Communism.

We see today?s society as being divided into two main opposing classes: the ruling class 
which controls all the power and wealth, and the working class which the rulers exploit to 
maintain this. By racism, sexism and other forms of oppression, as well as war and 
environmental destruction the rulers weaken and divide us. Only the direct action of 
working class people can defeat these attacks and ultimately overthrow capitalism.

As the capitalist system rules the whole world it?s destruction must be complete and world 
wide. We reject attempts to reform it such as working through parliament and national 
liberation movements (like the IRA) as they fail to challenge capitalism itself. Unions 
also work as a part of the capitalist system, so although workers struggle within them, 
they will be unable to bring about capitalism?s destruction unless they go beyond these 
limits.

Organisation is vital if we?re to beat the bosses, so we work for a united anarchist 
movement and are affiliated to the International of Anarchist Federations.

Contact the Anarchist Federation

Email: info [at] afed.org.uk
Web: http://www.afed.org.uk

Write to:
BM ANARFED,
London, WC1N 3XX,
England, UK.

Local group and regional contacts: email addresses, websites, Facebook and Twitter:

http://www.afed.org.uk/organisation/contact.html

International of Anarchist Federations (our international coordination):
http://www.i-f-a.org/

--

Resistance bulletin no. 155, November 2013

The Anarchist Federation: http://www.afed.org.uk