Shafia jury finds all guilty of 1st-degree murder

Verdict sends message, prosecutor says

By Melinda Dalton, CBC News

Posted: Jan 29, 2012 8:48 AM ET

Last Updated: Jan 29, 2012 10:26 PM ET

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TRIAL HIGHLIGHTS | The case at a glance

P.O.V. | Do you agree with the Shafia verdict?

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What the Shafia jury did not hear

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A Montreal couple and their son were convicted Sunday of first-degree murder in the deaths of four family members in a case the judge called “despicable,” “heinous” and stemming from “a completely twisted concept of honour.”

Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed, who had pleaded not guilty, were each handed an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. They were accused of killing Hamed’s three sisters and his father’s childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

The bodies of Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, along with Rona Mohammad Amir, 50, were found in the family’s Nissan, submerged in a lock on the Rideau Canal on June 30, 2009.

“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime,” Justice Robert Maranger said.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour … that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

http://embed.scribblelive.com/Embed/v5.aspx?Id=37955&ThemeId=2383

‘We didn’t commit the murder’

When Maranger asked whether they wanted to say anything, each declared their innocence.

“We didn’t commit the murder and this is unjust,” Mohammad Shafia said through a translator. “Your honourable justice, this is not just. I am not a murderer and I am a mother,” Yahya said.

Hamed Shafia said in English: “Sir, I did not drown my sisters anywhere.”

One female juror started crying after the verdict was read. Hamed grabbed a hold of the prisoners’ box for support, his parents rubbing his back as each juror affirmed the verdict.

“This is a good day for Canadian justice,” the chief Crown prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis said outside the courthouse, adding the four women were “murdered by their family in the most troubling of circumstances.”

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Zainab Shafia, 19, married her boyfriend Ammar Wahid, but the marriage was annulled the next day. This photo was recovered from her cell phone. (trial evidence)

The cell phone of Zainab Shafia, discovered in the family car submerged in the Kingston Mill Locks. (trial evidence)

Zainab Shafia, 19, seen in a photo recovered from her cell phone. (trial evidence)

Zainab Shafia, 19, seen in a photo recovered from her cell phone. (trial evidence)

Zainab Shafia seven days before her body was discovered along those of her two sisters and her father’s first wife. (trial evidence)

A photo taken in Niagara Falls, Ont. recovered from Zainab’s cell phone. The family had visited the attraction in the days before the girls and their father’s first wife, Rona Mohammad Amir, were found dead in the family’s car.

The following series of photos were recovered from the cell phone of 17-year-old Sahar Shafia. It was found in the submerged car along with the bodies of the three teenagers and their father’s first wife.

A photo recovered from the cell phone of 17-year-old Sahar Shafia. (trial evidence)

Geeti Shafia, 13, seen in a photo recovered from her sister’s cell phone a week before their bodies were found submerged in the Rideau Canal.

Sahar Shafia,17, seen a week before her death in a photo recovered from her cell phone. (trial evidence)

The prosecution in the murder trial alleges the girls were killed in part because the accused weren’t pleased with their behaviour and their relationships with boys.

An image of a love note in Spanish found on Sahar’s cell phone. It reads: ‘I love you forever. For all of life. Even after death.’

Rona Mohammad Amir, 50, seen five days before her death in a photo recovered from Sahar Shafia’s cell phone.

A photo recovered from the cell phone of 17-year-old Sahar Shafia. (trial evidence)

Prosecutors have told the court that Rona and Sahar were particularly close. This photo, recovered from Sahar’s cell phone, was taken four days before their bodies were discovered.

A photo of Rona Mohammad Amir taken in a hotel room days before her death. The Montreal family had taken a trip to Niagara Falls and were returning home when the three teens and Amir were found dead.

This photo of the Rogers Centre in Toronto was taken only a few hours before the girls’ bodies were discovered in Kingston. (trial evidence)

“This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and core principles in a free, democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy,” he said.

In a statement following the verdict, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson called honour killings a practice that is “barbaric and unacceptable in Canada.”

“This government is committed to protecting women and other vulnerable persons from all forms of violence and to hold perpetrators accountable for their acts.”

Patrick McCann, Hamed’s lawyer, told The Canadian Press his client will appeal and his parents likely will as well.

The verdict came after about 15 hours of deliberations, less than 48 hours after the jury was charged by Maranger.

Moosa Hadi, the private investigator hired by the Shafia family to find “the truth,” was removed by police after shouting at the prosecutor that the decision was an “injustice.”

Geeti, Zainab and Sahar Shafia were found dead with their father’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, in June 2009. (Trial evidence)

Traditional values

During the nearly three-month trial, the Crown maintained the family road trip was part of a plot to kill the four because they had tainted the family’s honour. The Crown alleged the family’s patriarch was upset that his two eldest daughters wanted boyfriends, betraying his traditional Afghan values.

The Shafias moved to Canada in 2007. They fled their native Afghanistan more than 15 years earlier and had lived in Dubai and Australia before moving the family to Montreal and applied for citizenship.

At the time of the deaths, they were all permanent residents, except for Amir who had only a visitor’s visa. They told authorities, and initially maintained after the deaths, that Amir was Mohammad Shafia’s cousin.

Mohammad Shafia, by all accounts a prosperous business man, owned commercial property in the Montreal area and ran a business buying used cars in North America and shipping them overseas.

Rona Amir was Shafia’s first wife. The couple wed in an arranged marriage in Kabul before civil war broke out in their homeland. Amir wasn’t able to conceive and encouraged Shafia to take another wife, which he did in 1989, marrying Tooba Yahya in another arranged marriage.

A crowd gathers outside the Frontenac County Court House in Kingston, Ont., on Sunday. (CBC)

Yahya and Shafia had seven children, which Rona helped to raise. Court heard Yahya gave daughter Sahar to her co-wife to raise as her own.

However, the family situation deteriorated for Amir over time. Her diary details her trials and tribulations in the family and states she was like a servant to the preferred wife, Yahya. She describes a lonely life in Canada and that she would “wander in parks and cry.” Court also heard testimony about her unsuccessful request for a divorce. According to the diary, Yahya likened her to a dead weight.

Eldest daughters had secret boyfriends

Zainab and Sahar, the two eldest daughters, also had trouble assimilating into life in Montreal within the strict boundaries of the household rules, which included a prohibition on relationships with boys. Both had secret boyfriends, wore fashionable clothes and, according to evidence heard in court, resisted pressure from their parents and eldest brother to wear the hijab.

They both reported incidents or threats of violence from their father and brother to authorities.

Geeti was described by the Crown as a rebel. While there’s no evidence to show she was hiding any boyfriends, she also resisted her family’s rules and had been caught shoplifting and expelled from class for wearing a shirt deemed too revealing.

Motive for murder

According to the Crown’s case, the murder plot was sparked when Zainab ran away to a Montreal women’s shelter in April 2009. This, the Crown alleged, was the ultimate act of betrayal. She had made the family’s problems public and she did it so she could ultimately marry an unapproved man, the boyfriend she had hidden from her parents and brother.

She was eventually coaxed back home by Yahya with the promise that the wedding could go forward.

Court heard evidence that Mohammad Shafia had called a relative of Yahya’s and proposed a plot to take Zainab to Sweden, have a picnic by the water and then drown her. Another relative testified Shafia had told him he would have killed his daughter if he had been at the marriage to her boyfriend, which was annulled the next day.

The murder plot came to include Sahar, according to the Crown, when photos of her with boys and dressed in revealing clothes were discovered and a younger sibling spotted her at a restaurant with her boyfriend and reported it back to the parents and Hamed.

The photos, which the defence claimed were found after the deaths, were recovered by police in a suitcase in Hamed’s room. They were in a pocket that also contained his used boarding passes from a trip to Dubai to meet his father earlier in June.

Geeti and Amir were also killed because they had also been involved in acts of betrayal and couldn’t be counted on to tell the same story after the deaths, according to the Crown’s case.

While the jury had a significant amount of evidence to consider, more than 160 exhibits and testimony from nearly 60 witnesses, most of that evidence was circumstantial.

It included computer searches made on the Shafia laptop, most often used by Hamed, for things including: “Where to commit a murder;” “Can a prisoner have control over his real estate;” and other various searches for bodies of water.

The bodies of Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, along with Rona Mohammad Amir, 50, were found dead in the family’s Nissan, submerged in a lock on the Rideau Canal on June 30, 2009.

It also included seemingly damning wiretaps of the accused discussing the state of the Kingston locks at night, making disparaging remarks about the women and, in Mohammad Shafia’s case, remarks about the value of family honour.

The jury saw a series of police interviews with the accused where they at first all told the same story about the incident; Yahya later claimed she had been there and fainted when the car went into the water. She later recanted that story.

They heard from collision experts who talked about damage on the Nissan that was consistent with coming into contact with the family’s Lexus SUV.

They heard from the motel manager in Kingston who recalled Hamed and Shafia checking in that night and telling him there would only be six guests in two rooms. He recalled them leaving after check-in and seeing only one vehicle.

Family dysfunction

There was evidence given from teachers and social workers who talked about the girls’ complaints about abuse at home. Cultural experts were brought in to explain the concept of honour killings and to tell the jury why some of the vulgar expressions on the wiretaps weren’t that offensive in the Shafia’s native Dari.

They heard arguments from the defence about a timeline of the night, based largely on cellphone records, which the lawyers said proved the accused wouldn’t have enough time to drown the women after reaching Kingston just before 2 a.m. and for Hamed to reach Montreal, where his phone was recorded at 6:48 a.m. on June 30.

What they didn’t hear was exactly how the women died. They drowned, that’s certain according to the forensic pathologist who signed off on their post mortem exams.

However, the Crown could not conclusively tell the jury where they drowned or why they sat seemingly calm in the Nissan with the window open and in relatively shallow water.

Bruising on their heads

The Crown’s theory was that the women were drowned elsewhere or incapacitated and then put in the car. That was supported by evidence of fresh bruising on the heads of three out of the four women

The car was in first gear when it was pulled from the water with the ignition off. The headlights were also off, the girls weren’t wearing seatbelts and the seats were reclined at an awkward angle.

This, the prosecution told the jury, supported the theory that they were placed in the car which was then pushed into the locks by the family’s SUV. Pieces of the SUV’s headlights were found at the scene.

However, the defence argued, without conclusive proof of how the car went into the water, no one would know exactly what happened that night and it might well have been an accident.

Hamed Shafia gave another version of the events to a private investigator hired by his father after the arrests. He said he followed the girls and rear ended the car by accident when they stopped short at the lock.

Car plunged into water

P.O.V.

Do you agree with the Shafia verdict? Take our poll.

While he was picking up pieces of the broken headlight, the car plunged in the water as the driver was trying to turn around. He rushed over, called their names, dangled a rope in the water, but when no one responded he took off to Montreal and didn’t report the incident because he said he feared his father’s anger.

He then staged an accident in Montreal to cover the damage to the SUV.

Hamed’s lawyer told the court in his closing arguments his client was guilty of being “stupid” but not murder.

The jury of seven women and five men listened to more than 40 days of proceedings that included delays for a health emergency with Mohammad Shafia, a power outage caused by an ice storm and an evacuation caused by a security threat at the courthouse.

The tempest of raving, enraged and (in most cases) logic-free and fact-free comments on my criticisms of ‘Sir’ Richard Branson are most interesting to the intelligent and informed mind.

 

First of all, what is their purpose? It is plain that most of these people have been guided to this site by other sites, and urged to post abusive messages. They probably haven’t read what I actually wrote.

 

Why do this? The pro-drugs movement has won almost every propaganda battle of the last 50 years and is accustomed to the faint-heartedness and cowardice of old-fashioned Toryism, and presumably hopes that it can browbeat or insult me into being quiet as well. And one contributor, in a very important unintended giveaway – actually calls for opinions such as mine to be banned by law.

 

I have no doubt that something of the kind will eventually happen. The only question is when it will come.  I regard my life as a race between the grim reaper and the forces of political correctness – will I die before they can find an excuse to put me in prison?  I am by no means sure which will win.

 

But this raises the fascinating question of why drug-abuse is not just a disgusting and rather shameful private vice, but instead is a political and social movement.

 

I first realised that this was a problem when people write to me saying they couldn’t understand how I could be in favour liberty of thought and speech, and against identity cards, and simultaneously in favour of criminal punishments for drug users.

 

I grasped at that moment that drug abusers actually see the taking of drugs – especially cannabis – as an exercise of civil liberty.

 

This is plainly ludicrous. Drug-taking makes its victims passive, fuddles their ability to think and makes their speech incoherent. It is , in those ways at the very least, the ally of authority and the enemy of thought and speech.

 

I then found that Aldous Huxley had understood this many years before.

 

His fictional drug ‘Soma’ is actually a means of social control in ‘Brave New World’, Huxley’s extraordinarily accurate prophecy of the death of civilisation.

 

At one stage a riot is quelled when police spray vaporised Soma into the air and the rioters instantly become happy and begin weeping and embracing each other. In later works and lectures (as readers have told me) Huxley became convinced that rulers would use drugs and unrestricted sterile sex to persuade people to love their own subjugation, and this isn’t a bad picture of modern Western societies, where we all do as we’re told and think as we’re told, amid the ruins of free countries – Parliaments that don’t debate or decide, media that parrot the ruling party’s line, parties that represent the state to the people rather than the other way round. Meanwhile the principal occupations and diversions of the masses are internet pornography, banal social networks which incidentally provide the state with a window into our lives and souls,   and various forms of bread-and-circuses drivel on the TV, not to mention the bizarre new paganisms of football worship and brand worship, with Las Vegas as a sort of Plastic Parthenon of this ghastly cult.

 

Well, if people love their servitude, and they do (for true liberty of action guided by morality and conscience is quite hard work, and  often rather frightening) , what are they going to do to those who point out to them that they are serfs?

 

Lock them up, when they can. In the meantime, they’ll infest this weblog with insulting, brainless comments. Far from putting me off, it encourages me. I have recently restarted work, after a long interruption, on my book ‘The War We Never Fought’, about the ludicrous lie that our society is conducting a war on drugs, when in fact they are half an inch from being formally legal, and Britain probably has the most relaxed actual drugs regime (especially for cannabis) on the European continent.   

 

I don’t suppose anyone will pay much attention, as both the new establishment and the masses have an interest in having as many people happily stupefied and passive as possible. But real freedom shouldn’t just go down without a fight, if it is ever to be revived in the future. Civilisations which go gently and willingly into extinction, as Winston Churchill once rightly pointed out, disappear forever. Those that go down fighting have some hope of revival.

 

 

 

?

The Story of a Gypsy Chef

To use the Romani term, I am a Didikai; a person of mixed Romani and non-Romani ancestry. My paternal Grandfather’s Mother, Agnes France was a Welsh Romany Gypsy who journeyed from Merthyr Tidfil to Birmingham, where the family ‘settled in bricks’.

I was brought up in a Gaje (non Romani) household by my Mother and Father in Birmingham. Food was always at the heart of our family life, my mother growing much of what we ate. From an early age, I spent my weekends cooking with my extended family, pickling with my Granddad, baking cakes with my Aunties and always making the all-important gravy for the Sunday dinner with my Grandma.

Taking this family-wide love of food with me as my inspiration, I moved to London to study Sociology and Communication Studies at Goldsmiths College. Working to fund my studies, I found myself in the student’s union kitchen, working sometimes up to 40 hours a week. It wasn’t long before I began to enjoy working in the kitchen as much, if not more than studying.

The decision to become a professional chef was easily made, and my first job was at Hardy’s, a small French bistro in West London. Here I learned a lot, getting to grips with the finer details of the French classics. I moved on to the Oxo Tower Brasserie, and here I had the opportunity to work with a diverse stable of international chefs, with whom I shared many exciting, inspiring, and stressful moments.

When the time came for me to take on the responsibility of my own kitchen, I was appointed as Head Chef at The Honor Oak, a gastro pub in South East London. My Steak Night and Sunday Lunch quickly became a hit with locals. I was involved in a wide range of community events, including crèche mornings, weddings, funerals and everything you would expect from a diverse South East London borough.

After three years of success at the Honor Oak, I felt the need to get back into a central London kitchen, and I now run the Seven Dials Club kitchen in the heart of London. Mainly catering for the local community, whether it’s birthdays, weddings or other family functions, I love these large events, with lots of people and honest, well-made vibrant food. Over the last year, I have started running food-related classes with children from local schools; an incredibly rewarding aspect of my job. Having earned the respect of the community leaders, I am now actively pitching other proposals for food projects in the Covent Garden area.

As I have grown as a chef, I have realized that my Romani roots are reflected in my cooking style. I like nothing more than moving from place to place and sampling and mastering the local dishes. Soups and stews have become an increasingly significant part of my repertoire, and the act of preserving has become more commonplace in my armoury. My cooking style often reflects the humble beginnings of my forefathers. Some would call it peasant food, but I wouldn’t want to give it such a lowly name. Frugal cooking doesn’t have to be unadventurous.

I have recently been appointed Trustee and Fund-raising Secretary of The Gypsy Council, something I am very proud of. The Gypsy Council is an organisation charged with helping the travelling community with the social, welfare and civil rights issues that arise from time to time. We also work with a wide range of groups in order to build a better future for the Roma of Europe.

I am about to begin my own great adventure. I am currently working on a cookbook and TV program that will tell the story of my Romani Heritage through food and take me on a journey of rediscovery.

It will, I hope, inspire others to seek out their own culinary heritage wherever they are from. I am excited at the prospect of bringing the disappearing art of Gypsy food to a wider audience, and to doing something to address the problems of negative attitudes toward the Romani community in British society. Fingers crossed you will like what you read and watch.

If you have any questions about my heritage, my cooking or me, then please get in touch! I would love to hear from you.

Tom Ewer
The Gypsy Chef

Published on Thursday, January 26, 2012 by Waging Nonviolence

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’

by George Lakey

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.

Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.

In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.

When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.

In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.

The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!

The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.

The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.

Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.

By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.

This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)

Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.

Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

–>

George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining. E-mail: glakey1@swarthmore.edu

January 2012 – Traveller Solidarity Network Bulletin

Posted on January 19, 2012 by dalefarmsupport

Here are some updates from the Traveller Solidarity Network. As always, we welcome new people to get involved! This email should contain different opportunities to find out more about TSN and get stuck in.

There has been a lot in the news about a recent government decision to fund hundreds of Traveller sites “in order to avoid a repeat of Dale Farm (Independent article here). Our experiences of the government’s support of the brutal eviction – including providing the funding for the extremely violent policing – means that we don’t have a lot of faith in the government’s intentions or actions, and no sites have yet been approved on the local level. Though this could be a positive step, much of the money had been agreed or accounted for previously, and even if all the sites were actually built, it would hardly scratch the surface of the under-provision of sites.
In the bulletin:

UPCOMING TSN EVENTS
-TSN National Meeting – 25 February – Cambridge
-Info Tour- March 2012 – A Town Near You!
-London TSN Meeting – 19 February
-TSN Cambridge
-Outreach Working Group meeting – soon!

URGENT ACTION
-Write a letter of support for the Dale Farm Residents’ Association planning permission appeal

UPDATES FROM WORKING GROUPS
-Legal working group: get involved, ongoing actions against the police, court support needed
-Fightback – take action against nasties
-Traveller Liaison: visit to Romany community in Meriden, callout for help with info-tour
-Update from Dale Farm

OTHER EVENTS
-Holocaust Memorial Day, 29 January
-London No Borders Convergence, 13-18 February
-South London Anti-Fascists AGM, 25 January
>>> UPCOMING TSN EVENTS

=== Traveller Solidarity Network National Meeting

The next national meeting for the TSN will be in Cambridge on Saturday 25 February.

We will be discussing important things like what to plan for Roma Nation Day on April 8th, and continued work with the communities we have been in contact with. Stay tuned for an agenda and timings. Please submit agenda items and proposals to tsn-internal [at] noflag.org.uk.
It will be followed on Sunday by an action debrief from Dale Farm for people who were involved in the eviction resistance. For more info about that, contact tsn-internal [at] noflag.org.uk.
=== Traveller Solidarity Info Tour

The Traveller Solidarity Network is organising a UK-wide speaker tour throughout the month of March. Twenty-five cities will be hosting TSN activists and Travellers at info-nights geared towards linking up those who want to support Travellers with local Traveller communities to discuss where the fight for Travellers’ rights is heading in the future.

A list of confirmed dates and locations can be found here:

http://travellersolidarity.org/traveller-solidarity-tour/

=== London TSN Meeting

19th February, 1-3pm
Freedom Bookshop, Autonomy Room, Whitechapel

London TSN meets every six weeks or so to discuss what we can do as a London group to take action on Gypsy Roma and Traveller rights. At our next meeting we will be talking about taking action against anti-Roma racism in London, and liaising with London Traveller communities. All welcome- come along!
=== TSN Cambridge

Cambridge Traveller Solidarity are doing a lot of exciting work with the Smithy Fen Traveller Site in Cambridgeshire. If you are based in Cambridge and would like to get involved, contact tsn-cambs [at] riseup.net for more info.
=== Outreach Working Group meeting

Outreach plans to have a meeting in London soon. Contact tsn-outreach [at] noflag.org.uk to find out more, or to request leaflets or advice on how to start a local group from scratch.
>>> URGENT ACTION

=== Support the Dale Farm Resident’s Association – Mary Flynn Appeal Letter writing campaign:

Mary Flynn is an Irish Traveller from Dale Farm who is appealing the refusal of planning permission for her plot. Mary’s appeal would be helped by supporters and residents of Dale Farm sending letters, so TSN is calling for people to write in support.

We need help on this – there has been an organised letter writing campaign against this appeal and the NIMBYs are out-numbering us at the moment. If you were staying at Dale Farm between August and September 2011 then you are a statutory party and your reply would be especially useful, but anyone who cares about this is eligible to write a letter.

See the TSN website for more information and spread this call-out through your networks, please.
>>>UPDATES FROM WORKING GROUPS

=== Update from Legal Working Group

The Legal working group have had a busy month with teams working on:

• Defamation and misuse of private info claims/ other media abuses
• Arrestee Support, reviewing evidence and court support
• Actions against the police
• Personal injury claims
• Property damage complaints and claims
•  Freedom of information requests
• Training and good practice guides to help others upskill
• Support for Mary Flynn Appeal

There’s lots of work still to do and we would welcome new members. Because we are working with sensitive data though, we do ask that people attend either a national or regional meeting first, before joining this group.
— Actions against the police – callout to Dale Farm residents and supporters

If you think you may have a complaint against the police, the legal team are happy to talk to you, talk you through taking action against them and put you in touch with a good solicitor who wants to take them on.

This is a good idea because – it makes the police look bad, they have to pay us lots of compensation, and in theory if they get sued enough times it might make them think twice about how they act! So please do come forward!

Things that you can sue them for are a lot smaller than you think, and can be as little as police pushing you or touching you unnecessarily, being rude or aggressive, abusing their power (which can cover a lot of things) as well as false imprisonment and other things for those arrested.
Contact tsn-legal [at] noflag.org.uk
— Court Support – January 27th, Basildon Crown

One of our supporters facing serious charges arising out of the Dale Farm action is in Basildon Crown Court on 27th January. Come along to show solidarity; let’s see if we can fill the public gallery! Contact tsn-legal [at] noflag.org.uk for more info.
=== Update from Fightback Working Group

In the fight against racist organisations and institutions profiteering from the state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of Dale Farm; the fightback group have now compiled a comprensive targets list available in the “Direct Action” section of the TSN website (travellersolidarity.org), and are encouraging all affinity groups, local groups, and individuals, to plan, formulate and enact their own actions with the diversity of tactics avaliable to them…. We are also putting a callout for all those who take actions against these or other anti-Traveller institutions to send us their press releases at tsn-fightback [at] noflag.org.uk so they can be publicised anonymously. We are also currently working on compiling a bailiff watch list (along the same lines as fit watch) and appeal to anyone with photos, names, or other details of bailiffs involved to our email address.
=== Update from Traveller Liaison Working Group

Among other visits, a group of us visited the Hillside Park Romany Gypsy site in the village of Meriden, near Birmingham. The community is facing eviction and has a racist anti-Traveller camp stationed permanently outside. We had a long chat with Jim, a resident who is committed to fighting for their rights and who is really enthusiastic about working together with TSN. There will be another visit to the site on Tuesday 24th January to help residents with letter writing, make banners for a demonstration we are helping organise in the first week of February and to make a short film to publicise the goings on. If you live near Birmingham or Coventry check www.travellersolidarity.org for details of the demonstration, or contact tsn-travellerliaison [at] noflag.org.uk

We are compiling a list of Traveller contacts that should enable more visits to local sites in your area. Again, email us if you are interested in linking up with Travellers in your area and we will provide resources if needed to facilitate this.
=== Info Tour

The organising for the info tour is going well, but we’re having some problems making activist contacts in a few cities, and it’s good to have people on the ground getting stuff going. If anyone has any contacts who would be up for helping with stuff and getting involved in organising the meetings, or even just suggesting venues and postering, in the following towns, would be great:

St Albans
Bedford
Liverpool
Cornwall/Devon
Birmingham

email tsn-info [at] lists.noflag.org.uk or chat to anyone in the group.
=== Update from Dale Farm

Hundreds of Dale Farm residents are encamped along the sides of the private road leading into the estate. They have been there since the police-led clearance operation last October. But now they are working to get back their old homes.

Most of those homes are out of reach behind huge mounds of earth and trenches, left there by Basildon Borough Council to obstruct any attempt at repossession. The policy of ethnic-cleansing has so far cost millions of pounds. The Council boasts it has another two million to waste on further harassment of “unauthorized” Gypsy and Traveller communities in the district.

On Beauty Drive, three properties with residential planning permission could be re-occupied. What has prevented this is the malicious destruction of the road and right of way, and the trenching of hard-standing needed for the caravans. Cess-tanks have been broken, and water and electricity supplies ruptured.

Much of the eviction clearance has been declared illegal, leading to a mounting number of compensation claims against Basildon. In addition, the police face personal injury and other claims due to their use of 50,000-volt Taser stun -guns and other high-handed action employed to quell resistance. In coming weeks a test-case planning apppeal will be heard for 27 Beauty Drive, home of widow Mary Flynn. During February she also expects a hearing in the High Court that will determine whether nearly 40 families who turned down houses and council flats should be provided culturally appropriate caravan pitches instead.

Since the Dale Farm eviction, opposition to anti-Gypsy racism has been on the rise. Groups in several countries are calling for co-ordinated protests across Europe to mark the 40th Roma Nation Day on 8 April. The website will be up and running soon at www.romanationday.org – check for an updated list of planned protests, both national and international, and get in contact if you’d like to help plan something in your area.
>>> OTHER EVENTS

=== Holocaust Memorial Event
29th January 2012, 3-6pm
10 Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow, E17 7BY,

Hosted by Amnesty International Waltham Forest and Waltham Forest UAF. Speakers include Roma Activists from Hungary and the Czech Republic.
=== London No Borders Convergence
London, 13-18 February

The No Borders Convergence will include seminars and workshops on a wide range of topics, from immigration detention and forcible deportations, EU immigration policies and its border agency (Frontex), through institutional racism and social services provision, the exploitation of migrant workers and students, to No Border camps, radical solidarity, direct action and much more.However, we don’t want to just talk; we hope that during this week people will also get together to plan and take action against various aspects of the border regime in London and the surrounding areas.

The aim is to get together to share our knowledge and experiences in relation to people’s freedom of movement and the restrictions on it, and to share skills, network, strategise and take action. We seek to create a temporary space for the production of counter-narratives and practices to the very idea of governing people’s movement through border controls.
=== South London Anti-Fascists Group Annual General Meeting 2012

Wednesday 25th January 2012, 7pm – 9pm
The Bread and Roses Pub, 68 Clapham Manor Street, SW4 6DZ

The British National Party may be imploding but they achieved 5% at the last GLA elections. At this meeting we will elect our officers and decide if we should broaden our focus to community organising. We’ll also discuss the new British Freedom Party how to tackle the English Defence League. Following the conviction of two of Stephen Lawrence’s murderers, there is a lot to reflect on at this year’s AGM. Speakers confirmed: Dr Jane Holgate – Co-founder of Hackney Unites, Paul Stott – Anti-Fascist Activist & Academic, Performance by The Ruby Kid. Find the event on Facebook

We’re fighting to stay here but we’re living in muddy conditions where you can’t get on and off the site unless it’s in a four-wheel drive. We’ve got a disabled girl here with cerebral palsy. She walks on sticks and can’t get to her car. If the council would give us somewhere else to go I would happily leave tomorrow. I’d like the people of Europe to see how people live in this condition. In mud. Not out of choice but out of necessity. We can’t go in houses because we won’t live in houses. We want to go somewhere where we can live in our caravans and keep our heritage together.

We’re private people, we like to keep our business to ourselves. But we’ve had camera crews at the door, filming us going about our day to day lives, taking our kids to school, walking our dogs, walking our horses, taking out our rubbish. They film our day to day life and we’re fed up of it.

We’re fed up of being called travellers when we’ve explained that we’re not travellers, we’re Romany Gypsies. Gypsies have been around for centuries, heritage that goes back to India, our own beliefs and our own language, and travellers have come up over the last hundred or so years especially the Irish traveller community that came about after the Irish potato famine. Then there’s English travelers, and others – New Age travelers from the early 1980s came along later too.

We are not travellers. We are Romany Gypsies. That’s our identity and our people paid for it in the Holocaust. And they keep peering into our privacy and we’re crying out for help and support.