20/12/2024
On the 27th November dozens of riot police carried out dawn raids on the Kurdish Community Centre (KCC) in Harringey, North London, and several home addresses across the capital.
A number of anti-genocide activists from the Kurdish refugee community were arrested under terrorism charges, several more comrades were arrested the same day on protest related charges. A wave of protests, an occupation and hunger strikes followed until KCC was returned to the community. Under constant pressure the return took place over a week earlier then planned, despite what appears to have been a multi-million pound policing operation.
The dawn raids came just weeks after Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs Hakan Fidan, a leading fascist in Erdogan’s AKP party, met with Britain’s foreign secretary David Lammy, also the local MP for Harringey. This attack on the Kurdish community seems to clearly be part of agreed negotiations, in exchange for Turkey’s continued support as a NATO member for western Imperialism, in particular Israeli aggression.
These raids must also be seen in the geopolitical context as part of the handover negotiations, from Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship, to a coalition made up mostly of Jihadists, including former ISIS and Al-Qaida (now known in Syria as HTS) fighters, and Turkish funded and trained militias. These militias have been taking a passive approach to Israeli aggression in the Middle East, and attacks on Syrian land, earning them support from the Western ruling class despite their political ideology.
Today (20/12/24) 6 of the Kurdish activists taken in the dawn raids had a court hearing at the old Bailey. A comrade who sometimes writes for Muntjac has written the following report from todays trial:
The 6 people charged with terror offences have been bailed for a trial date in January 2026.
In the meantime they are released on tag under house arrest and with draconian bail conditions. They have to report to the police station between 12 and 2 daily, making it hard for them to work and study, and bail conditions barring them from the area around KCC means they can’t use the Piccadilly line which goes underneath KCC or the overground line going next to it.
Kurdish activists have been asking supporters to brainstorm ways in which our networks can keep supporting the Kurdish community through this. They’ve said probably the way people can support them the most is by extending revolutionary social changes from Rojava into our countries through local neighbourhood direct democracy, environmentalism and women led liberation.
It must surely be assumed that if these people genuinely were directing a “terrorist organisation”, posing an immediate threat to life, the system would be locking them up straight away and not bailing them until 2026 under house arrest. This gives us time to turn things around, the Turkish state will be ramping up pressure on the British government to deliver long sentences. Collectively we can put greater pressure on UK politicians to put a stop to these show trials and stop supporting the genocide being waged against the only real democracy in the Middle East.
If these freedom fighters are to be given 10 year sentences, this will represent yet another grave injustice in British colonialism’s long and shameful history. What can be certain is that like every other empire before it, this systematic corruption will not be continuing indefinitely.