George, 64, was taken to the MRI Hospital last night with two broken legs and a fractured knee-cap. The incident took  place during a peaceful, lawful picket of BAM construction, one of the companies identified in blacklisting workers for trade union activity. Witnesses say the car drove deliberately and at speed into a crowd of protesters who were leafletting at the BAM construction site. BAM paid £38,371.85 to the Consulting Agency, a firm that ran anti-union blacklists, between 1996 and 2009.

Dave Smith, Secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, said: “George is a blacklist hero who has been campaigning with Steve Acheson for many years. He recently attended the Blacklist Support Group AGM and led a delegation of blacklisted workers who encouraged the Mayor of Salford to ban blacklisting firms from publicly funded contracts. We wish him a speedy recovery.’”

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna recently called for a Leveson-style inquiry into the blacklisting – an illegal process which prevents workers deemed troublesome or involved in trade unions from finding work.

For some background on the struggle against blacklisting in London at see our previous post about electrician Frank Morris, who is spearheading the campaign in the capital.

Messages of support can be sent to George via 07949 335 390.

Instead of thinking about police corruption, the Metropolitan Police would like you to concentrate on the cute puppies of their Puppy Police Academy while Wiltshire Police don’t mind if you laugh but would prefer that you don’t look too closely at video of their mobility scooter joyride, and wonder why all mobility scooters don’t need a police escort, were the patrol cars there to protect the public?

Cleveland Police continue to compete strongly with much larger forces when it comes to corruption, with revelations that an officer has been charged with five sexual offences including rape; and that they falsely imprisoned prominent local defence solicitor  James Watson leading to a £0.5m damages payout while the officer in charge retired on a full pension; seeming like just business-as-usual after the recent sackings of a Chief Constable and Deputy Chief Constable.

In neighbouring North Yorkshire, PC Matthew Fisher was jailed for sex assaults and using police databases to research his victims the best his barrister could say in defence was:

“He’s brought disgrace and shame upon himself but demonstrated that, on occasions, he was a brave police officer and, on occasions, he was prepared to put himself at risk for others.”

Twenty years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence the Met Police have gone too far in their battle against institutional racism, according to their own officers and faces a “white backlash” from within.  Recent examples of this PC-PCs-gone-mad-madness include using black and Asian officers as buffers in stop-and-search because “blacks don’t complain about blacks”, and suggesting that a gay black officer who complained should have moved to a less racist and homophobic unit if he didn’t like the Counter-Terrorism Command’s culture – strangely he won at an employment tribunal and the Met’s appeal against that ruling was rejected, raiding the home of a mother and son who won damages after being racially abused during a stop-and-search and refusing to allow officers to be questioned over a restraint-related death at a psychiatric hospital.

British police officers would like you to think that videos portraying extrajudicial killings by Brazilian police officers show that they are not too bad in the scheme of things, sure they might randomly attack you for criticising their driving and get away with it, they might have used your dead children’s identities as cover for Special Branch to infiltrate protest groups for nearly half a century, or retained the DNA of your living ones - a child’s DNA is being taken by the police once every 10 minutes - but they wouldn’t cover up a murder for Murdoch, would they? The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel had better remember that axe murderers are one oppressed minority the police do care about.

Don’t be distracted by the puppy police when it’s the bastards holding the leash you should be watching.

On Tuesday 7th May, Cap Gemini’s serene offices in Vauxhall, South London were once again rocked by a surprise visit by the Cleaners and activists of the Industrial Workers of Great Britain (IWGB). The dispute started when a senior manager told the predominately Latin American cleaners that they could never be British because “they were not white”.

The workers refuse to accept aggressive and racist abuse from bullying supervisors who work directly for the Cleaning Contractor ISS. This is their second action against racism and poverty pay at Cap Gemini. The IWGB haven’t given up their fight for the London Living Wage at Cap Gemini and this video shows that their determination to get dignity and respect for their members is resolute.

“We are here to offer our unconditional support in order to bring an end to all of these threats and abuses against us.” – Female IWGB activist

You can see more pictures at Peter Marshall’s London Diary.

Find more about Luqman’s campaign and his experiences as a migrant fighting deportation.

I recently saw the Oscar-nominated 5 Broken Cameras and it affected me deeply – though definitely not the first film to make me cry, it was the first film that made me cry audibly. It spurred me into learning more about the history & current situation in Palestine. So I was pleased to see another documentary film coming out of the region.

When The Boys Return is an hour-long portrait of a group of boys in a post-prison rehabilitation group. The Israeli army arrested them all as children, each serving between two months to two years in prison. The most common charge was throwing stones.

The film intimately captures the fragility of these boys caught between adolescence & occupation. The occupation determines their whole lives; it consumes them as they live to fight against it, constantly worrying about being monitored by the Israeli army & getting arrested again. One of the boys nonchalantly admits he sleeps fully clothed in case the army comes to arrest him at night.

When asked about what they hope to do in the future one of the boys responds, “to end the occupation” and when his counselor presses him as to what he will do if that happens, he quietly says he’ll “be free”. He can’t think beyond the occupation. The walls erected by Israel are physical for these boys but also mental. It blocks them from seeing a life beyond living in the shadow of it.

The film is fairly narrow in its scope and provides only the smallest amount of context. There is no explanation of what the occupation is or why the boys feel they have to fight against it. There is very little description of what life in an Israeli prison is actually like for a Palestinian child and only a brief moment where their counsellor explains that their arrests & prison stays were illegal & in breach of international human rights. There is no comment or representation from Israel, only shaky footage of IDF soldiers shooting from tanks, brandishing guns, stalking villages, rounding up child arrestees.

When the Boys Return is a melancholy picture of the seemingly inescapable cycle of anger, resistance, and arrest for many Palestinian boys but watching without a sound knowledge of the illegal occupation of the West Bank; the film might fail to have the emotional impact these stories should provoke.

Firstly, a word of calm. UKIP are far from knocking on the doors of power. In the recent local elections they got 25% of the vote (where they stood) – on a 30% turnout in the most backward areas of the country. That’s 7.5% in the bits of the country most suited to their rancid ideas.

They complained before the election that some of their candidates had been put under intense scrutiny as some people from the outside UKIP tried to find out who these people are. David Cameron was proved to have said one true thing since taking the office of Prime Minister – that UKIP were a party of closet racists, loonies and fruitcakes. Well, that’s if you count someone doing a nazi salute on facebook as closet rather than out and proud – your shout.

Since the election, more racists have been uncovered as UKIP members and councillors everywhere race to shut down their facebook accounts, rewrite the past and try to keep their mates happy lest one says something untoward to a journalist.

Nigel Farage, in the afterglow of a good day at the polls, is busy repeating on every news outlet he can reach, normally without any hint of a challenge, that because we’re in the EU 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians are being let into the UK come next year.

Estimates of the number of people who are actually going to arrive vary wildly, from a few thousand to 30-50,000, which is the Migration Watch ‘estimate’. Migration Watch are happy to vaunt this figure about, but they haven’t shown their workings. Other estimates, like the one the Government commissioned are not being published. But no one, not the maddest idiot writer in the Daily Express thinks 29 million people will come to the UK, for 29 million is the entire total population of the two countries, Bulgaria’s 7.5 million plus Romania’s 21.4 million.

For 29 million people to come EVERYONE would have to move to the UK, no one could head anywhere else in the EU and 200,000 would have to join them from elsewhere. It means the football team who just won the Bulgarian premiership would have to try to get signed by a shit team in the UK like Aldershot. The Bulgarian Prime Minister would have to suddenly decide that politics was a crap game to be in and he’d rather go picking spring onions on a farm in Lincolnshire instead. Landowners and company bosses would have to surrender any advantage they had at home and start up a hand car wash outside Woking. They’d have to empty their jails and give the prisoners tickets to Dover (don’t mention that last one to UKIP, they’ll pick it up and run with it).

Farage did, to be fair, claim on Twitter that 4 million would be arriving. Apparently this figure was worked out with the laboratory scientific preciseness of a TV programme asking “would you like to go to the UK?” of it’s viewers. Not a question more akin to reality such as “Would you like to go and live ten to a room in a hostile village with shit amenities and work your guts out on a farm or in a factory to up your earnings twofold?”

When asked sober and analytical questions, the attitude appears to be Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK if they have a secure offer of employment. Which seems fair enough.

When Farage or Migration Watch invoke the fact that about 1.1million A8 workers are in the UK, they draw a very incomparable comparison.  Poland (by far the biggest A8 country population wise, and the biggest source of migrants coming to the UK) has more cultural and historical links with the UK – especially since the 2nd World War – than either of the A2 states. A2 nationals have a choice of any other country in the EU, whereas Polish and other A8 nationals could choose from only the UK, Ireland or Sweden (it wasn’t until 2011 that Germany and Austria lifted restrictions on A8 migrants).

The total population of the A8 states is about 73 million. So, 1.5% of the A8 population made it (long term) to the UK having 3 countries to choose from. The A2 population faces a choice of destinations including Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Mediterranean Countries and Scandinavia. In 2004 the economy of the industrialised west in the EU was very healthy, now it is struggling and stymied by austerity. All these factors and variables make estimating potential immigration in January next year very difficult indeed.

The only numerical estimates circulating in the press at present are those from the anti-immigration lobby, the progressive side of the argument preferring to rely on facts that are few and far between in the forecasting game.

Nigel Farage was taken to Bulgaria by Channel 4 News. He spoke to a Roma family, living in appalling conditions.

He said:

“From next year, if you wanted to, you could move to London where the British Government would give you somewhere to live that’s heated, a chance of work, and you’d be financially a lot better of – do you think that would be attractive to people living here?” The answer came from the senior man in the household: “No, no, it’s different there, a lot of rain , we’re not used to the climate. We were born here, every stone has its place to rest. We love our homeland and wish to continue living here.”

Later he spoke to the son of one of the Roma leaders who told Farage

“They don’t want to move from here, they don’t want to because they are born here and they will stay here.”

Farage responded

“Well you may be right, I don’t know, I’m here on a fact finding mission”

Yes, Nigel, you do not know. No Nigel, you were on a fact ignoring mission.

Farage and UKIP have found an issue that divides the hard right from the thinking right. This division is reflected on the left, with the Miliband bandwagon veering towards a less tolerant standpoint dripping with apologies for previous ‘mistakes’ of the Labour Party, and the radical left alone in arguing for immigration to be based on human rights.

It’s about time the radical left went on the offensive on immigration, the issue is going to dominate mainstream politics for the next two years, we need to have a voice.

Hunt (Lab): Tories rebelling on EU. Why are Liberal Democrats so shit?
DPM: We had to break our pledges to satisfy the bond markets

Bone (Con): LibDems are lying scumbags on an In/Out Referendum
DPM: We made a deal with Cameron on referendum. Shut the fuck up

Harman (Lab): The PM is hiding isn’t he! 1 PMQs out of 8 Wednesdays is a joke.
DPM: I love Cameron, he allows me to do this.

Harman: Cameron is telling Obama how much he loves the EU.
DPM: Yes he does, err. but after negotiations in 2015/6

Harman: On Queen’s Speech vote, will the PM vote with his government?
DPM: We’ve given conditions on an EU Referendum

Harman: You can’t even say if the PM would vote with his own govt! Long-term Unemployment is up
DPM: I feel sorry for poor people

Harman: Fuck off. Wages are stagnating. Thanks Clegg
PM: You were sucking bankers’ organs & now we’re proudly hollowing the state

Harman: You weak shit. You’re cutting tax for the rich!
DPM: Whatevs. You didn’t exactly rush to raise taxes on the rich did you?

Gale (Con): Let’s debate why we should be getting the fuck out of the EU
DPM: We’ve given a legal guarantee for next time. Honest

Flello (Lab): We need to stop price fixing in Oil. Why block it?
DPM: Jog on. What did you lot do over the last 13 years on this?

James (Con): Give these evil Asians the longest sentences possible.
DPM: Yup, evil Asians & brave girls. The Police fucked up too

Perkins (Lab): 69% of Remploy is still unemployed. Cheaper to keep them in jobs
DPM: I followed the advice of our chosen advisors

Turner (Con): What happened to your promise an In/Out referendum? Lying shitbag
DPM: It was on a condition. Read the small print

DPM: We promote the Queen’s speech

McCrea (DUP): The Police needs to work unhindered, I blame Sinn Fein. Do something.
DPM: Err… let’s just talk

Reid (LD): We’ve got the EU to invest in oil but stop price-fixing!
DPM: I support the Euro Commission’s investigation

McGovern (Lab): Remploy in my patch is closing. Workers not allowed to leave their jobs for new ones!
DPM: I care about the disabled

Stewart (Con): Electricity bills are too DAMN HIGH! Smart grids now!
DPM: Well done on this thingamyjig. Will look into it.

Donohoe (Lab): We used to have state price controls. Will you bring it back?
DPM: Thanks to the EU, Oil is being investigated!

Leigh (Con): You said it is time for In/Out referendum. An imposter or a hypocrite?
DPM: You can always trust the words of a Lib Dem.

Murray (Lab): Do you agree with yourself that Royal Mail privatisation is too far?
DPM: I believe in John Lewis style worker partnership.

Hughes (LD): More tears over Sri Lanka’s Human Rights record!
DPM: I’ll write a strong letter about Sri Lankan Government’s genocide

Jones (Lab): Youth Unemployment has trebled in this government! Give a shit?
DPM: It went down a bit. The kids have workfare too

Adams (Con): In Yorkshire, human exploitation is increasingly profitable!
DPM: Brilliant! My patch is in Yorkshire you know.

Hepburn (Lab): Workers that were poisoned by their bosses are getting nothing
DPM: We are paying out but we can’t help every poor git!

Gray (Con): “We will let the people decide”. Will you now?
DPM: Look let’s agree to cap benefits and shut up.

Long (All): Kids aren’t get enough food to survive.
DPM: Big love for @EnoughFoodIF. Make Poverty History did wonders for Labour

Lloyd (LD): We downgraded our maternity services in my patch now it is shit.
DPM: I’ll discuss this with Jeremy Cunt.

McDonagh (Lab): I’ve got a big Tamil community in my patch. Tell Sri Lankan Govt to FUCK OFF!
DPM: We need the Commonwealth for growth

Heaton-Harris (Con): Spread the legacy of the Paralympics and support the Special Olympic Games!
DPM: We’ve put Lord Coe on the case.

It will make you really give a damn about the life of a  stickman.

“It was so sad”, a young woman whispers as a single tear flows down her cheek. She shuffles in slow motion, pensive amidst the audience filtering out through the cinema doors. Only moments earlier belly clutching, eye wrinkling laughter ripples through the same darkened theatre. Why tears? Why unbridled joy? A theatre full of explorers had just returned from an expedition into an emotional enigma, the mind of Don Hertzfeldt.

“Dark comedy is the most intelligent form of comedy… it makes you think about why you’re laughing.” – Don Hertzfeldt

Don is a rarity amongst filmmakers. He steadfastly eschews commercial work, instead devoting years at a time to conjure mere minutes of his movies, hermetically sealed away, hand drawing his own stories frame by frame, using traditional methods much like the classic animators of an era fading far away. Hailing from Fremont, California, his body of work consists of a series of acclaimed and beloved independent short films that have garnered an enthusiastic following that has continued to grow since his late 90′s debut.

His later work often veers towards the spiritual; life, existence, the thoughts in our head. Even with the enormity of such themes, he’ll manage to slip in a joke about a giant, talking, bug-eyed banana. You never know quite what to expect.

The  screening of ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’, currently showing at the ICA in London, starts with a choice selection of Hertzfeldt’s early short films, namely ‘Rejected’ and ‘The Meaning of Life’, before the main feature .

‘Rejected‘

Here, we see a series of imagined commercials for the ‘Family Learning Channel’, a composite of the vanilla antiseptic, falsely innocent aspect of the media . The ads veer into territory that is the anathema of family friendly, subverting the cutesy into crazy.

‘The Meaning of Life‘

This film evokes a kind of slack jawed awe, reminiscent of a classic David Attenborough documentary. There is a widely encompassing, sweeping look at human life and mortality, that stretches beyond to imagined creatures of the universe. All of this is interspliced with a recurring shimmering stream of stars that revolves, rolls and twinkles to make one ponder. We are privy to an alien son seemingly asking his father about the meaning of life. Their language is mostly unintelligible, but the emotions translate perfectly.

“Animation is supposed to be free from reality” – Don Hertzfeldt

‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day‘

The main feature, ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ consists of three parts woven into one epic; ‘Everything Will Be OK’, ‘I Am So Proud of You’ and ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’, from which the final feature takes its name.

Hertzfeldt narrates a patchwork of minor thoughts and observations that gradually thread together to reveal the life and times of Bill, a sympathetic, troubled, oft mysterious stick man… with a hat. Hertzfeldt’s voice has a mesmeric timbre that in concert with his cosmic themes conjures the scientific spirituality of Carl Sagan. The visual style is unique. Each thought is represented by a bright animated clearing in the darkness. Several thoughts appear or disappear simultaneously, or in succession creating a sense of holding several thoughts at one time, a stream of consciousness, a sense of being in Bill’s mind. Being in Bill’s mind is a fascinating experience. We navigates Bill’s troubling familial relationships, his remembered or misremembered past, his daydreams and his night dreams. Soon time itself seems to break free from all rules. Life lived on a loop. Life lived for eternity.  What would that be like?

The classical music score is apt. The primordial reverberations of Wagner’s ‘Das Rheingold’  usher the scenes perfectly, culminating in a spiritual crescendo. The animation is flat, fluid and simple; dot eyes, round faces, and stick limbs. The direction is sophisticated, switching from the slow motion parsing of a momentary passing by, atmospheric glimpses of grayscale live action, to the dramatic use of groundhog day repetition. The progression of the narrative is complex, deep and ultimately explosive like riding an atom through the barrel vault of the Hadron Collider. It is a sign of a great film if it can live on, as a lodger in your mind, moving your internal mental furniture, drawing the curtains, casting a new light; forcing you to re-evaluate, to ponder, to imagine.

‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ lives on in me, and it can live on in you too.

‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ is currently screening at the ICA, London until 26th May 2013.

For more information on Don Hertzfeldt, you can go to www.bitterfilms.com

Last night, my sort of boyfriend was competing in an “amateur” cage-fight. It was his 6th since he took up the sport. He’s not pro, doesn’t want to become pro, but enjoys the training and the discipline that comes with cage-fighting. His day job is a Physiotherapist and Sports Masseur. I’m competing in my first cage-fight in a couple of weeks, and although I’ve been to fights before, it was a different experience to be supporting a fighter in whom you have a personal interest. Also, his trainer had put him on a sex-ban before his fight, and I wanted dick.

I haven’t been too invested in this guy, but he’s grown on me, we rarely fight, he’s very polite and respectful and KIND. So kind. Apart from when he called me a fussy shitbag for making him wait in Tesco, while I went to hunt out the Orange Juice with the bits in it. Also, he buys me Halal meat and keeps his alcohol away from my drinks when I stay over. See: kind. He won his fight pretty easy, but his face did get battered, as he was a bit too slow for my liking in blocking his opponent’s head shots and punches. So, after the fight, he pretty much looked like this:

Even with a battered face, he still fwine.

It hasn’t been easy for me navigating this new relationship, and I had even considered ending things with him, not because he’s done anything wrong. It’s just me. But he’s taking me to Istanbul for my birthday after my fight, so I’m sucking it up a bit and trying to be a bit more focussed on him. To this end, I booked us a Spa & Hotel this weekend here. I thought it would be a nice thing to do after all his intense training, and also most importantly I get dick. I didn’t use the loo last night at the venue, because I didn’t want to catch anything, like Cholera for example. The toilets were pretty skanky, so we rushed off after his fight around midnight, as I wanted to take him toTinselTown in Farringdon for big people food. (Also the best halal burgers in London).

The Mr drives a Benz, CL-class. He’s worked fucking hard for it. He also lives in deep Essex, where most people drive nice cars, because they can afford it. The fight was all in deep bumbaclaarting Essex, and stupid me insisted that we go to Tinsel Town in Central. He was tired and just wanted to go home, but because he’s a nice, kind bre; he drove us there. He’s not the type of person to blast his music loud, especially late at night, he’s always been a bit conscious of how other people may view him as a black man driving a ridiculously expensive car. He’s a good driver, by good, I mean “safe.” He doesn’t like to be a passenger in my car when I’m driving as I’m Lil Miss Illegal Left Turns, and I have a need for speed. So we were surprised when a police car flashed their light and signalled to the Mr for him to pull over near Liverpool St. Remember, I still needed the loo, it wasn’t too bad at this point, as in I didn’t think there was a risk of leaking if he drove over a bump or anything, but I was still conscious that I NEEDED the loo. We both instinctively rolled our eyes as the two coppers walked up to the car. One came around to my side, the other was on the Mr’s side. The Mr’s window was already down. The copper who was on my side looked at me, peered into the window and then looked too hard at my legs, I have him a stink look.

The copper on the Mr’s side asked him to switch off his engine, I started shaking my head and he kissed his teeth. The copper then asked the Mr to step out of the car. He looked at me and I looked at him, the Mr was wearing a hoodie as it was a BIT COLD and HELLO HIS FACE WAS FUCKING MASH UP FROM THE FIGHT.  When he stepped out of the car, the copper immediately took a step back when he realised the Mr’s face was bruised and cut. Before the Mr could explain, the copper put his hand up, signalling he needed to shut up. The copper signalled to the one on my side, who started to walk around the car and got out his little torch thing and I could see him bend down and look hard at the number plate. The following is what happened next:

Copper: “Is this your vehicle Sir?”

Mr: “Yes.”

Copper: “Where are you going?”

Mr to me: “Babes, where we going again?”

Me: “Farringdon.”

Copper to the Mr: “So you’re driving, but you don’t know where you’re going.”

Mr: “I don’t know where this place is, my girlfriend was directing me.”

At this point, the Copper wrote something down.

I looked at the Mr, he knew I was losing patience.

Mr: “Look, I’m not being funny, but my girlfriend really needs to use the bathroom, can you tell me why you’ve stopped me please?”

Both coppers ignored this question. The copper who was looking for fuck knows what on the body of the car, called his colleague over, they conferred. The Mr mouthed “Are you ok?” to me. I looked at him and felt bad for him, this was all because I insisted like a fucking brat that we go to Farringdon. I wanted to touch his hand and say I was sorry for this, but both coppers came back at this point.

“Can you explain why your face appears to be so beaten Sir?”

The Mr gritted his teeth at this, it was a half sneering question: “appear to be so beaten Sir.”

He explained that he had been competing earlier in a cage fight. Both coppers rolled their eyes at this, the one who had been checking out my legs earlier, then started looking at the Mr and me in an odd way. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I didn’t appreciate him looking at me up and down or what he could have possibly been thinking. Other people were driving past slowly now, I remember in one car was a group of young black girls, looking like they were going raving. They shouted at the coppers “Fucking pigs.” I was beginning to do the “Ho.Ly. Fuck, I need a toilet NOW dance. The Mr kept looking over at me and now the pride in his shoulders after he had won his fight had now deflated to resignation and humiliation. The copper asked the Mr to open his boot. I looked at the copper and asked him why. The copper then said “Routine check Madam.” I had to walk away before I lost my shit. The Mr’s face was stone by this point, he opened his boot and stood back. In the boot of his car was all his kit from the fight, he had some weights in there and 3 tubs of his LA Muscle LA Whey Protein Powder. (He’s lactose intolerant, and this is one of the few protein powders that is lactose free).     These tubs cost nearly £100 each.

“What’s in the tubs Sir?” The Copper asked the Mr.
We both looked at each now incredulous with rage, both he and I knew what the coppers were getting at. Black man driving a nice top of the range car, with a fit Missus in a short skirt and tubs of powdered substance in his boot. COME THE FUCK ON.

Mr: “It’s protein powder, I told you before, I’m a Cage Fighter, I need it for training.”

The Copper asked the Mr to open a tub, he sniffed it (Cappuccino flavour), he then stuck his fucking dirty finger in the tub and tasted it. He looked at the Mr hard in his face. The other dirty-minded one looked at me. They moved away again and started to confer. They came back to the boot and picked up all 3 tubs, they removed them and placed them in their car.  They took the Mr to their car and spoke to him, I don’t know what they said and he won’t tell me. He didn’t get his tubs of LA Whey back. They drove off, 45 mins after first stopping us. As they drove off, the copper with the legs fetish looked at me and bit his lip.

Just another night in London for a black couple.

According to the gov.uk website, the Police can stop you at any time: https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights

Last year, the Guardian reported that Police forces were likely to use stop and search powers on black people 28 times MORE than white people with the MET being the heaviest user.

Ps, we didn’t make it to Tinsel Town after that, but I still needed the loo, he drove to his sister’s place in Bow and I burst in, to the downstairs loo to piss for England. It was only when I looked at the loo roll holder, I saw that there was no fucking toilet roll, I wanted to cry. I text the Mr from the loo saying “No loo roll, bring me some!” He knocked on the door and handed me the loo roll. See: a kind man.

Originally posted at Bananas are not the only fruit

Thursday 16th May | Rich Mix Cinema | 8.00pm | £7 (£5 conc)

DocHouse Presents: When the Boys Return – With Q&A with Director via Skype

Dir. Tone Anderson
Norway – 2012 – 58mins

In a room at their local YMCA in Hebron, the West Bank, a group of teenage boys come together each week to discuss their shared traumatic experiences. They are just a few of the 7,500 Palestinian minors aged 12-18 who, over the past decade, have been arrested on a daily basis and placed in Israeli jails, where their rights as children are completely ignored.

Most have committed crimes no worse than throwing stones, but each is subjected to an average of two years in jail and rarely escapes without suffering the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Following these young boys as they undergo three months of group therapy, all the while struggling to integrate back into the routines they once knew, director Tone Anderson takes us deep into the lives of some of the conflict’s biggest victims.

Astute in its observations and rich with the energy and courage of its characters, When the Boys Return highlights the fear and uncertainty that blights the development of much of Palestine’s youth.

Director Tone Anderson will join us via Skype for a post-screening Q&A. The film will also be screened alongside MY NEIGHBOURHOOD (25 mins), more information here: http://bit.ly/13uzaV5

*Winner: Best Mid-Length Documentary IDFA 2103
*Winner: Family & Child Award for Mid-Length Documentary Al Jazeera Film Festival 2013

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