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International Campaign « Free Mumia Abu Jamal! »

2021-04-11

ALGERIA Mumia Abu-Jamal has just tested positive for Covid-19 by his prison doctors. – Free Mumia immediately! – Free all political prisoners! Mumia has to be hospitalised. He has just tested positive for Covid-19, and he is jailed in a completely inadequate prison infirmary. Given his age – 67 – and his liver disease (hepatitis C) and blood pressure problems, his life is in very serious danger. His condition is all the more alarming as he has recently been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He needs to be released from prison and sent to a hospital to receive the necessary medical treatment. But that is not all. Mumia must be released from prison altogether, as his proven innocence and his health should be sufficient to justify his release. In the United States and abroad, initiatives to demand his release are multiplying. On 27 February, the first mobilisation took place in front of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office, where [...]

RWANDA The Open Secret of the Duclert Report

2021-04-11

An interview with Paul Nkunzimana, honorary president of the Party of Workers and Democracy (PTD) of Burundi, author of the book Contribution à l’étude de la préhistoire et de l’histoire sociales de l’Afrique des Grands Lacs et de l’Est (Éditions du travail, 2019).  In 1994, in the space of just a few months, armed groups massacred one million Rwandans. Twenty-seven years later, the president of the « Commission on the Rwandan genocide », Vincent Duclert, believes that France has an « undeniable responsibility ». Is this really a revelation?  With this report commissioned by Macron and made public on 26 March, it was “revealed” to the mainstream press that France bore “heavy and overwhelming responsibility” in the 1994 genocide. However, the report states that « nothing proves » that France was « complicit« . In reality, the role of French imperialism in the genocide and its motives have been known since 1994; there was no need to [...]

PHILIPPINES We Need To Speak Against The Bloody Slaughter of Activists A statement by the Partido Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines)

2021-04-10

Two days after President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his « kill, kill them all » speech last March 7, 2021, 9 activists felt to the ground dead. Any extra-judicial killing (EJK) diminishes us all, it kills part of our humanity.  Today, news report said that police have killed 9 and arrested 6 believed to be with activist groups in Laguna, Rizal, and Batangas, provinces surrounding capital region Metro Manila.  Partido Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines) calls on the Filipino people to speak and denounce the bloody slaughter, arrests and red-tagging of trade unionists and members of people’s organizations.  The killing of trade union organizer Emmanuel « Manny » Asuncion this morning at the Workers Assistance Center in Salitran, Dasmariñas Cavite is highly condemnable and the serving of search warrant questionable if not incredible. The policemen allegedly served a search warrant. He was at the 2nd floor with the police and his wife at the ground floor when [...]

TUNISIA In the call centers of Téléperformance, general assemblies prepare the strike

2021-04-10

An interview with Ali Ourak, General Secretary of the Information and Communication Technolo gies Union of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), a worker at Téléperformance Tunisia.  General Assembly at Teleperformance Tunisia What are the working conditions in call Téléperformance arrived in Tunisia in centres? 2001 and now employs 8,300 people in the country’s seven call centres. In the early years there was fierce exploitation. The first trade unions, affiliated to the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), were founded in 2007. In 2013, there were major struggles (see box). Since the creation of the unions, workers have won significant improvements in their working conditions and pay rises.  Of course, the company is aligned with the logic of the « free movement of capital », and after setting up call centres in Tunisia and Morocco, it is now planning to relocate production to sub-Saharan Africa, in search of ever greater flexibility. In March last year, [...]

KAZAKHSTAN Workers’ strikes on the rise

2021-04-10

In Kazakhstan (the largest and most industrialised of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia), there has been an increase in strikes in recent months, both in foreign multinationals and in the companies of local oligarchs.  January 26. Aktobe oil workers go on strike. In December 2020, for example, machinists at the transport company KM Tranco stopped work, with 300 of them gathering in front of the management, which by 12 December was forced to give up a thirteenth month’s pay and a 45% increase. It is possible that the approach of the legislative elections explains this setback, as the company belongs to a member of the Nazarbaev family (in power since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 editor’s note). On 27 December, the oil workers of the Chinese company CNPC, in the Kyzyl-Orda region, addressed their director, the President of the Republic and the Federation of Trade Unions (former official trade unions still subservient to the current regime [...]

International Campaign Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal

2021-03-23

The international campaign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal launched by the International Workers Committee Against War and Exploitation, For a Workers International (IWC) is under way. The IWC Campaign Appeal, issued on March 6, has now received support from labor and democratic rights organizations and activists in countries the world over. It is our contribution to the mass-based campaign to free Mumia. France Dear Governor Tom Wolf, On behalf of the Democratic Independent Workers’ Party (POID) of France, we urge you to order the immediate release and hospitalization of Pennsylvania’s most well-known inmate in the world : Mumia Abu-Jamal. As you know, Mumia Abu-Jamal has tested positive for covid-19 and is being warehoused in a completely inadequate prison infirmary. Given his age, 67, his liver disease, and his blood-pressure challenges, his life is seriously in danger. Mumia needs to be released from prison. The name of Mumia Abu-Jamal is known internationally, as it is known in our [...]

CHINA/HONG KONG Call for support of Hong Kong’s independent labour movement launched by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions HKCTU

2021-02-21

Please find below, the call launched by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions HKCTU on 13 February as the trial of its General Secretary Lee Cheuk-yan is about to begin after the arrest of its President Carol Ng last month.  We invite you to respond with a short message in English to hkctu@hkctu.org.hk (see below) Full support to the autonomous labour movement in Hong Kong!  Drop all charges against Lee Cheuk-yan and Hong Kong trade unionists!  Don’t forget to mention your name, surname, trade union and city. Please send us a copy of your message. Thank you  CHINA/HONG KONG  Call for support of Hong Kong’s independent labour movement launched by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions HKCTU, February 13, 2021  Dear Comrades,  Shortly before the 2019 movement against the extradition bill started, the Beijing regime had, little by little, restricted Hong Kong’s political space, and the people’s demands – as well as the [...]

“Social murder…at the very least” Editorial of La Tribune des Travailleurs (Workers’ Tribune) Issue no.277 – 17 February 2021 published by the POID (Independent and democratic Workers Party)

2021-02-21

 By Daniel Gluckstein “Murder is an emotive word. In law, it requires premeditation. (…) How could “murder” apply to failures of a pandemic response? Perhaps it can’t, and never will, but it is worth considering.”  This is how the editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), published at the start of this month, began.  The general medical journal – founded in 1840, and one of the world’s most widely-read medical journals – did not content itself with asking the question: “When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths for the sake of population immunity or in the hope of propping up the economy, is that not premeditated and reckless indifference to human life? If policy failures lead to recurrent and mistimed lockdowns, who is responsible for the resulting non-covid excess deaths? When politicians willfully neglect scientific advice, international and historical experience, and their own [...]

CHINA/HONG KONG Release and Drop all Charges Against all the Trade Unionists Arrested!

2021-01-17

On the morning of January 6, 2021, as part of a wave of arrests, Carol Ng, president of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), Winnie Yu Wai-ming, president of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance Trade Union, and other HKCTU activists were arrested. An interview with Carol Ng, president of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) You were arrested on 6 January. Can you tell us about it?  Carol Ng: “This happened at around 6 a.m. At that time, everyone is still sleeping in Hong Kong. That was the case at home. All of a sudden there was a long uninterrupted ringing at the door. I had to answer it to make it stop. It was the police telling me that they were coming to arrest me for violating the National Security Act.  “The police blamed me for participating in last summer’s primaries, which were held to select the best possible candidates for the legislative elections. They asked me to come with them to the police station.  “Early [...]

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