Home | 28th September 1995 | Issue 42

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THE WORLD IS UNDER ATTACK!

SchNEWS
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CJA ARRESTOMETER
Hunt Sabs 154
Footie Fans 115
Road Protestors 84
Environmentalists 43
No Live Exports* 38
Peace Campaigners 35
Tree Defenders 14
Travellers# 11
Ravers 10
Illegal Gatherers 3
Druids 1
* 1000+ animal rights activists nicked this year
# not including grief and harassment

'BREAK THE LAW...'

AS JUDGE GIVES GANDHI THE THUMBS UP...

It could have been an historic case further undermining our right to protest. But a judge ruled that all but one of thirteen people taken to court by an animal exporter were within the law by taking direct action at the port. They appeared in the High Court last Friday in an attempt by Roger Mills and his company Live Sheep Traders to ban them from demonstrating against animal exports at Brightlingsea in Essex.

Arguing that the sheer number of arests - 583 to date - and the existence of Brightlingsea Against Live Exports (BALE) - whose leaflets were 'an attempt to whip up emotion and incite others to break the law' - was clearly a conspiracy to injure his business. He wanted costs and damages of more than £500,000 and a High Court injunction.

However, the Judge Mr Justice Forbes said that there were occasions when unlawful activities gained the admiration for law-abiding citizens "What Mahatma Gandhi did was certainly against the law... but most people approved of what he did."

One of the defendants Andrew Abbot argued that he had a moral right and duty to hinder the live export trade and that his protests had been aimed at the government "who not only allow but effectively encourage this abhorrence." He was given an injunction not to interfere with the trade thru' Brightlingsea for his troubles. However, the judge refused to grant injunctions against the other twelve.

If Mills had won with the use of civil law it would have meant protesters would have had a lot more to worry about than the Criminal Justice Act (CJA). There are very few ways in this country that people can change policies they consider to be wrong. That is why there has been such an upsurge in direct action in recent years. THE GOVERNMENT MUST LEARN THAT IT CANNOT STIFLE PEOPLES' VOICES THROUGH DRACONIAN LEGISLATION.

* In a similar case this year the Department of Transport (DoT) and Tarmac took out an injunction for costs of £3.5 million against 47 named people involved in the Twyford Down road protests. This was later changed to each defendant having to pay £500 to the DoT. Needless to say most haven't yet coughed up a penny.

* More than 1,200 people have been arrested during the protests against live animal exports at ports and airports across the country in operations costing more than £7 million, according to police figures.

* The RSPCA called for a new inquiry into the transport of live animals after it was revealed that a consignment of British sheep from Dover, travelled for more than 57 hours from Holland to Greece without water or rest.

RAMBLING ON..

Around four thousand people from the Ramblers Association staged rallies and walks at over 100 locations last Sunday declaring it Open Britain Day - as well as the launch of their Access Bill.

Labours Environment Secretary Frank Dobson pledged party support for ramblers' right to roam. In his speech he promised to "remove the threat of the new law of aggravated trespass being used against innocent people enjoying the countryside. When it comes to harming the countryside, when it comes to what I think of as aggravated trespass, it's not walkers who are the main culprits. It's not walkers who have covered whole swathes of our countryside with concrete and called it a transport policy. It's not walkers who have rooted out 100,000 miles of hedgerows in the last decade. It's not walkers who have polluted rivers with pesticides and chemical fertilisers." Fine words, but when SchNEWS pressed Dobson on whether or not he voted for or against the Criminal Justice Act or whether aggravated trespass should be used against protestors such as Hunt Sabs and Road protestors he refused to answer - and put the phone down on us! That's New Labour for yer- even the police aren't as rude as that to SchNEWS!

7 AGGRAVATIONS

Lindis Percy a health worker active in the peace movement since the days of Greenham Common (where Britain's cruise missiles used to be kept) has been charged with 'aggravated trespass' - seven times! Arrested at Alconbury (where the National Security Agency are based) under sections 68 & 69, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) decided just before the trial to add 5 more charges - at Feltwell, Chicksands, Creighton, Mildenhall and Molesworth army bases.

Section 69 is a worrying catch-all - a police officer only has to suspect that you are going to commit 'aggravated trespass' (i.e. disrupting a lawful activity) to make an arrest! On International Women's Day for Disarmament in May she was arrested and held overnight because she refused police bail conditions. The next day Thetford Magistrates told her not to go near Feltwell military base and report daily between 3-5 pm at Bradford police station!

Inside SchNEWS
Special Report

Get Your Hair Cut!!

The Job Seekers Allowance will not create a single new Job. It will force the unemployed into crap jobs or off the dole. It will undermine the pay and conditions of everyone with a Job. Half the staff In the Employment Service will be sacked. The other half will live in fear of attacks from angry claimants. 70,000 people will lose all benefits and have nothing to live on. The government will save £200 million to use on pre-election tax-cuts. And you thought the Criminal Justice Act was bad!

No Benefits - No Direct Action

Turn on the TV or open the paper and you'll find a whole spate of hysterical stories about scroungers sponging off the state. There's nothing new in this, politicians from all parties are always mouthing off about benefit fraud even as they line their own pockets, but this time it seems like they're really going to stick the boot in. Under this government, benefits have been withdrawn from students and 16-18 year olds, and under 25s have had their income support cut by 20%. Now they're all set to bring in the Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), Incapacity benefit, the capping of housing benefit, fraud hotlines, ID cards for claimants and maybe even workfare!! It's not just the government that's into slashing our benefits, Labour leader Tony Blair is calling for claimants to fulfil moral conditions before getting benefit, Shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has attacked the homeless; Frank Field. another Labour MP, is calling for claimants who are suspected of working to be made to sign on four times a day. Further, Reading Labour Council has set up a fraud line to encourage busy bodies to grass on people they suspect might be working whilst claiming benefits.

So what's all the fuss about?!

The government isn't just cracking down on benefits because they want to save a few million for pre-election tax cuts, they're trying to slash our benefits because welfare spending is threatening to get way out of control. The social security budget is almost £90 billion a year, by far the largest government department, and over a third of the population are dependent on some kind of benefit. This is especially true for our direct action movement which is dependent on the dole: Without dole and housing benefit protestors would not have the time to go around the country on various demos. Some naive people in the anti-CJA movement, however, agree with the government in that we shouldn't be taking benefits. They say that we should be independent, that we don't need benefits because we can make money busking, grow our own food or even eat out of skips. Fuck that! Being on benefits is bad enough without having to scrape for every last mouthful. If everyone tried busking or skipping they're wouldn't be enough money and food to go round. Even the government realises this. Dropping out of the benefit system solves nothing, it merely makes the government's job easier. But, getting together with other claimants to fight attacks on our benefits is difficult. Unlike the CJA which deals with us as a group, the benefit system deals with us as individuals, and so claimants tend to look for individual solutions rather than getting together.

Both the CJA and the JSA are trying to do the same thing - they attack us because we refuse to have our lives reduced to meaningless work, mindless consumption, and commercialised leisure.

To force us into the world of work they have to make being unemployed increasingly unattractive by making benefits more difficult to get and cracking down on alternative lifestyles like squatting and travelling. If the government gets away with implementing the JSA, being unemployed will not just mean having little money, it will also mean having to constantly look for work under the threat of having your benefit stopped if you don't. People will be desperate to work regardless of how long the hours and how bad the conditions are, and anyone who doesn't like it can be sacked and rapidly replaced.

The Job Seekers Allowance vs. the Job Shirkers Alliance

The JSA is set to come into force in October next year, when it replaces Unemployment Benefit and Income Support. In some areas parts of the JSA have already been introduced, in Reading, for example, 'Active Signing' has been brought in as part of a 'Stricter Benefits Regime'. Under this scheme dole workers have been formed into teams to target the 'long term' unemployed (over 6 months). Every time you sign on they try and force you to apply for crap jobs under the threat of cutting your benefit by 40% if you don't. Under the JSA we are going to see even more of this as claimants will be forced to fill out a Job-Seekers Contract in order to get the dole. This sets out what claimants are prepared to do to get work and every time you sign on you will be grilled about what efforts you have made to get a job. If the Employment Service staff don't think you're trying hard enough they can issue you with a Job-Seekers Direction. These directions can cover everything and anything from altering your appearance, improving your attitude, to going on a course, or attending Job Club.

Potentially Employment Service staff can tell you to change any aspect of your life in order to make you more available for work.

If you disobey a Job-Seekers direction they may cut off your benefit totally for two weeks (at the moment they can only cut your benefit by 40%), and it may also mean that other payments like housing benefit also get stopped.

And it gets worse!

If you leave your job, are sacked, or refuse to take a job you can lose all benefit for up to 26 weeks, that's 6 months. There is no right to a hearing before your benefits are cut off and no automatic right to hardship payments. Under the JSA 250,000 people are expected to lose between 20-70% of their benefits. And 70,000 people are expected to lose all benefits and have nothing to live on. Also the JSA will cheat workers out of part of their National Insurance contributions. At the moment non-means tested unemployment benefit is paid for 12 months to people who are unemployed and who have paid sufficient NI contributions. But under the JSA benefit will be only be paid for 6 months after which it will be means tested. This means that people with redundancy money over £3,000 left after 6 months will be cut off. Also people under 25 who have worked will not get the full rate of benefit of £46 a week as they currently do under Unemployment Benefit. Under the JSA they will get the same rate as under 25s currently on Income Support which is £36 a week.

National emergency plans admit that if giros were not paid out there would be full scale rioting and looting across the country within three weeks!!

Not only does the JSA not create any new jobs it will sack the very people who are implementing it. The DSS and the Job Centres will be merged and E. S. management reckon that by 1996/97 24,000 of the present 46,000 staff will have been sacked. Anyone who's had grief from Job Centre staff won't feel like shedding too many tears at the thought of them being unemployed but it's the front-line staff, many of whom were previously claimants, not the supervisors and managers who are going to be put out of work. Employment Service staff have already effectively had their pay cut by being put on an incentive scheme. The more cases they refer to Adjudication (i.e. deny benefit to) the higher their pay. For those staff who manage to hang onto their job's, conditions are going to get worse, much worse. The whole point of the JSA is that front-line staff in Job Centres will decide who gets their benefit cut off. Claimants naturally don't like having their money stopped, and so it can get personal. In the last three years attacks on ES staff by claimants have gone up 240% and things can only get worse. To prevent attacks open-plan Job Centres will be turned into fortresses with grills, close-circuit TV and private security.

The anti-JSA campaign, or more accurately the threat of a national movement combining the unemployed and dole workers, has already brought concessions from the government.

Unsurprisingly ES staff are a little pissed off. They're either going to lose their jobs or get a punch in the head from claimants, or both if they're really unlucky. Dole workers don't want the JSA and their union has a policy of industrial action to oppose it. In 1994,400 union members staged a protest against the JSA in Sheffield when Michael Portillo tried to visit the Employment Service HQ - his visit was cancelled. But there's a big difference between a union having a policy of industrial action and actually doing anything about it. We can't sit back and hope the unions will stop the JSA for us. As claimants we should be trying to link up with dole workers to get info. on the JSA and to encourage them to sabotage pilot schemes. But we need to start by organising ourselves collectively as claimants to publicise the anti-JSA campaign through leaflets, pickets of Job Centres, and disruption of training schemes. The JSA has been put back from April 96 to October 96 and there is even talk that it may be postponed until after the election, but don't count on it.

Resistance - Monday October 2nd National Anti-JSA Day
Already there have been two national anti JSA conferences held in Oxford. At the second of these Groundswell conferences it was decided to organise a national day of action against the JSA on Monday 2nd October - one year from when the JSA will be fully implemented. Regionally based actions will take place on that day. The action for the south-east will be in Brighton, and will coincide with the Labour Party conference.

Regional action
Brighton Monday 2nd October - mass direct action (meet 11 am the Clock tower junction)

Contact Brighton Claimants Action Group on (01273 671213) Contact your local claimants groups for details of regional actions in your area or organise your own!

INCAPACITY BENEFIT

Incapacity Benefit, which will replace invalidity benefit, is already in force. Like all the other benefit changes it is merely designed to save money, and it is thought that the changes will mean that at least 20,000 who qualified for invalidity benefit will not get the new incapacity benefit. It is estimated that Incapacity Benefit will save the government £1 billion by the year 2000. This is a sick irony as a few years ago people were openly encouraged to sign off by the government and to claim sickness benefit in order to reduce unemployment figures. But disabled people are not going to take having their benefits cut off. This was shown on July 11th when a group of people with disabilities, working under the name Incapacity Action, pelted Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley with eggs in protest against Incapacity Benefit.

The tests for incapacity benefit are designed to remove as many people from the sick as possible. For example getting to work doesn't count as part of the test for Incapacity Benefit, so people deemed able to work but who have no means of getting there will be cut off. Also claimants will be disqualified from claiming Incapacity Benefit even if they pass the tests if (be authorities decide that: 'you didn't accept medical/other treatment which could improve your condition'. So either you agree to be filled full of drugs or they cut your benefits off. Also physical examinations are carried out by DSS doctors, none of whom are specialists, who have quotas of people to get off benefits that they must reach. This even gores to the extent of holding the examinations in first floor offices and then cutting off anyone who is able to climb the stairs on the grounds that they're not sick!

For more information on the campaign see contact below.

Who are the scroungers?

Cabinet ministers' basic salary is £69,650 a year, with at least an additional £20,000 worth of expenses - and this is not even including all their many directorships and consultancy payments!! Compare that to an under-25's income support for the year: a measly £2,000. Even amongst those people who work, life is not much better. There are a million people who work for less than £2.50 an hour, and 300,000 who earn less than £1.50 an hour.

Contacts

Oxford Unemployed Workers And Claimants Union
East Oxford Community Centre, Princes Street, Oxford OX4 1HU. (contact for details of next Groundswell conference)

Reading Claimants Union
C/o The Info Shop, 26 Silver Street, Reading RGl. (much of this article was nicked from their leaflets)

Haringey Solidarity Group
Box 2474, London N8. (North London contact, anti-JSA campaign)

Box-JSA
l2l RailtonRd, London, SE24 0LR. (South East London contact anti-JSA campaign)

Exeter Claimants
The Flying Post, PO Box 185, Exeter EX4 4EW.

Bristol Claimants
Box 51, 82 Colston St, Bristol, BS1 5BB.

Edinburgh Autonomous Group
c/o Peace and Justice Centre, St Johns, Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Bradford 1 in 12 Club
20-23 Albion Street, Bradford BD1 2LI.

Plymouth Claimants Union
P0 Box 21, Plymouth PL1 1QS.

Somerset Community Defence Campaign
4 Gordon Terrace, Bridgwater, TA6 5JP

Westfield Association
6 South Baffin Street, Dundee DD4 6SW.

Brighton Claimants Action Group
C/o Prior House, 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton BN2 2GY.

Incapacity Action
P0 Box 9, 136-138 Kingsland High Street, London E8. (co-ordinating campaign against Incapacity Benefit)

ILLEGAL GATHERERS

The first two people nicked under the Draconian 'trespassory assembly' sections of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) are up in court this Tuesday (Oct 3rd) Margaret Jones and Richard Lloyd were arrested outside Stonehenge in June - whilst commemorating ten years since the Battle of the Beanfield.

* The new law bans gatherings of more than 20 people on private land - but was recently defeated in court when self proclaimed King Arthur Uther Pendragon, official sword bearer of the Secular Order of Druids - was acquitted. Police evidence that there were 27 people there included a German TV crew, some legal observers, a couple of drunk Italians (and a partridge in a Pear tree!). Because of this ruling the defendants feel that their is a strong vested interest in convicting them. They need your support! 9.30 am Salisbury Magistrates Court, Market Square.

*When riot police trashed travellers and their vehicles to stop the Stonehenge Free Festival, and carried out the largest mass arrest of civilians for centuries - see SchNEWS 25

SchNEWS IN BRIEF

An independent study commissioned by Friends of the Earth has shown that over 60% of Newbury's traffic is local - so the proposed bypass won't work. There's a walk along the route this Sunday (1^st Oct) and the two protest camps need more people. 01635 45544

*** SchNEWS has heard that 2 people have been nicked under Section 51 of the CJA 'Intimidation of witnesses + jurors' by Liverpool Police. Details are sketchy but we'll let you know if we find out more

*** 'Getting Our Act Together' is a pamphlet about Quakers and the CJA by Katy Colbeck hoping to stir Quakers into action! £1 + SAE from the Justice? address

*** Manchester University students are set to strike over a planned rent increase of 13%

*** The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh - who ran for six months before being violently evicted - have now found suitable rented accommodation but are in need of finance - help and info from A.C.E. do Peace & Justice, St.John's, Princes St., Edinburgh, EH1

*** The Solidarity Centre in Glasgow has completely surpassed the targets it set itself and is helping to ferment a whole host of community campaigns from anti-racist struggles to anti CJA activity as well as plenty of illegal festivals 3 Royal Exchange Court, 85-87 Queen Street, Glasgow, G1 3PA. 0141 226 5066

*** A Free legal advice line has been set up at the Colin Roach Centre every Monday from 6.30 till 8 pm 0181 533 7111

CHRISTIAN CAPERS!

Two homeless people in Bristol could be the first in the country to face prosecution under the new squatting sections of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA). Bristol Council refused to use the CJA to evict so the Bristol Church Housing Association who own the building which had been empty for two months has taken the squatters to court. The new laws mean that if you fail to get out after being served an Interim Possession Order (IPO) you could face a 6 month jail sentence or a £5,000 fine - all for the crime of being homeless! SchNEWS rang the Church to get their opinion but we're told they'd have to check our credentials before answering any questions! Give 'em a ring 0117 944 5710 .... and get to the court case on Monday 10 am Corn St., Bristol

** Just in: Brighton squatters occupying an old Nunnery on Lansdowne Road have been granted an adjournment at their High Court appearance yesterday

INSIDE SchNEWS

MIKE ROBERTS, 55 year old and founder member of CALF (Campaign Against Live Freight) was arrested 10 days ago on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal damage. Police have denied bail because they said he was going to abscond - they based this on the fact that cuddly toys were missing from his mantelpiece! This is the second time the police have arrested and raided Mike's house in just over a month. An animal rights activist told SchNEWS that Mike was well known to the police as his trusty camcorder had been used in video evidence to get people off trumped up charges at the Shoreham demonstrations. In fact earlier this week a hearing was postponed because police refused to release some of his confiscated video evidence to the defendant News just in.. Mike has been questioned from 7 am to 10 pm every day last week and had to be treated for high blood pressure at the end of it. Please write to him: GE3743, HM Prison Lewes, 1 ,Brighton Road, Lewes, BN7, 1EQ

MICHELLE RATCLIFFE has had her charges dropped and DUNCAN GEORGE has been granted bail this week with regard to charges of arson in connection with the Shoreham protests. However, three people are still on remand. BARBARA TRENDHOME RL1292, is at Wing B3, HMP Holloway, Parkhurst Rd., London, N7 ONU and JUSTIN WRIGHT GE3 046 and KEVIN CHAPMAN GE3 148 are at segregation unit, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd., Lewes, BN7 1EO. Could it all be kicking off in Shoreham again? An insider told us to keep an eye on October 14^th

STUART EDWARDS PB1864 and JIM CHAMBERS PV2504 recently got 18 months apiece for alleged damage to a road construction site. HMP Pentonville, Caledonman Road, London, N7 8TT

M-POWER?

A new group has been set up to try aid encourage young people to register to vote. M-Power is part of Activ88, the youth wing of Charter 88. "We do believe that a mass registration of young people, all making coherent demands for what they believe in, would be a powerful force to back up the campaigns that are happening around the country," says spokesman Colin Harvard.

With so many young people excluded from the voting process due to DSS hassle, apathy, homelessness and a variety of other problems, M-Power sees itself as encouraging a wider debate on the subject including those who feel that voting is simply a waste of time. Even if a lot of young people decided not to vote in the next election, then this would prompt the question why? M-Power hope to address these issues now.

Party and Protest

MON 2nd Oct National Day of Action against the Job Seekers Allowance (JSA)

TUE 3rd : People charged with 'illegal gathering' sections of the CJA outside Stonehenge in court. 01179 653140

SAT 7th Demonstrate for Justice - end police brutality and murder, free Winston Silcott & hundreds of others framed by the state, scrap the immigration regulations. 12.30 pm Hackney Downs Park, London E5 0181 533 4533

SAT 7th Space Goats + friends at the Rainbow Church, Highgate Road, Kentish Town, London

7- 9th ALIEN - an action to end all wars! Faslane Peace Camp 01436 820901

7-13th Eco-villages and sustainable communities: Models for 21st Century Living. 01309 673655

10- 12th London to Bristol sponsored cycle ride for the British Coalition for East Timor 0l8l 761 9965

11- 15th Green party Conference Southport, Lancashire 0181 882 0955

THUR 12th Day of Solidarity with McDonalds workers (3rd anniversary of death of Mark Hopkins, killed by electrocution). 0181 533 7111

Thur 12th Anti-roads demo (its National Asthma Week) 10.30 am Bristol Templemeads Train station. 01225 248556

THUR 12th Black Moon in court (again!) 10 am Corby magistrates - first people in country to be charged under rave sections of CJA.

SAT 14th National Demonstration - Hands off Cuba - End the US Blockade 12 noon Marble Arch, London - Details Cuba Solidarity Campaign 0171 263 6452

SAT 14th National Day of Action against new laws on asylum-seekers, refuges and other members of ethnic minorities. Picket 10 Downing St., 12 noon (Westminster tube)

SUN 15th Squatting extravaganza - exhibitions, films + discussion WECH Community Centre, Elgin Ave., Harrow Rd., London W9 0171 277 7639

CJA Birthday Bash SQUALL magazine + Wango Riley benefit at the Rocket in London. Tribal Energy DJ's, System 7, Joi, Pashm, Azukz, Citizenfish, Dub Warriors, Doo The Moog, Tofu Love Frogs, Tragics and loads more. Alnighter £7/£5 concession . more details to follow...

and Finally

It started with William Waldegrave. He went to Bristol for a walkabout a few days after the death Jill Phillips, only to get chased by twenty people. They tried to punch him in the head and succeeded in giving him a knee in the bollocks. Then last week his mate Brian Mawhinney got a taste of it too. 10 people demonstrated against nuclear testing outside the club where he was speaking but were driven away by security.

Then some bright spark realised there was a fire escape leading up to the room where the meeting was. So up they all went and burst in through the door. One woman pushed over a load of displays and tipped up Bri's desk. "That was one for the Newbury bypass" she said. Then it went right off, with a hundred Tories joining in the ruck. The police showed but didn't even bother arresting anyone. "It was a pretty cool day" said one of the protesters. We don't suppose any more Tories will be heading off there again in a hurry.

DISCLAIMER

The SchNEWS warns all readers not to attend any illegal gatherings or take part in any criminal activities. Always stay within the law. In fact please just sit in, watch TV and go on endless shopping sprees filling your home and lives with endless consumer crap. you will then feel content. Honest.

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