The issue of repressive legislation is becoming a regular feature in PN's editorial and comment section. However, we make no apology for banging on about it, when current and proposed measures have such a profound impact, not just on how protest is viewed and policed, but also on how the wider public - and we ourselves - perceive our identity, power and actions in opposition to the inherent violence of government and corporations.
Real concernsOctober saw the government…
Terrorist atrocities are a daily occurrence around the world. Bizarrely, a cutting from the 6 July Times was lying on the floor of the meeting room at Caledonian Road; found on 7 July, the headline read “The 28,000 victims of terrorism” and was a report o
Suicide in Palestine: Narratives of Despair is the first book to deal with the increase in suicide among ordinary Palestinians living under occupation.
It is not about so-called suicide bombers, although this phenomenon is also examined by way of contrast. This work is about individuals in the general population, and the various circumstances which lead them to become depressed and, in greater numbers than in the past, commit suicide. This is what the author Dr Nadia Dabbagh refers…
You could be forgiven for thinking that the new Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the result of an almost unprecedented to and fro between the Commons and Lords, is a much-watered down version of the Government's proposals for the replacement of the heavily criticised detention powers in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.
But the parliamentary tussles perhaps tell us more about the shortcomings of most Westminster debates than about any actual gains made by defenders of…
On 20 January, just outside 10 Downing Street, the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities organised a protest – supported by an alliance of campaigning and human rights groups – against the detention of suspects without trial and calling for an end to the political terror that the anti-terror legislation has itself created. Activists, human rights lawyers and members of the London Muslim community attended the event at which they urged the government to stop detention without trial and…
I write as a lifelong peace campaigner who has been on all the big demos against the Iraq war, and at the same time is very concerned that the peace movement is failing to come to grips with the dangers posed by international terrorism.
The tendency is to blame the US for terrorist atrocities rather than the terrorists themselves, thus making it difficult to confront the issue of terrorism directly. However, terrorism in general and Al Qaeda in particular pose dangers to peace in…
The blurb on the back of this book augurs well. “In the aftermath of 9/11, America has been haunted by one question: Why do they hate us?” Perhaps, one thinks, some intelligent discussion by a leading US commentator (Pintak is a veteran journalist who has reported on the Middle East for many of the big names of the international English-language media) of why the USA has become such a symbol of oppression for so many. Progression to the next few sentences reveals that such hopes may be…
When the voices of war and the “war on terrorism” are raised around the world, the voices of women, feminists with different opinions, perspectives and experience are silenced or drowned out.
This volume of essays, personal stories, poetry and statements is a welcome collection of voices from around the world. In the words of the dedication, “... women who have struggled to perfect the difficult and valuable skill of surviving, who refuse to be overwhelmed by the…
