For equality, against bigotry

Anti-fascism, anti-racism, fighting anti-semitism, lesbian/gay/bisexual rights, immigration and asylum, travellers, women's rights and feminism, ...

Could the Online Sex Trafficking Act be the new war on drugs?

In 2018 the Trump administration signed into law the ‘Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017’, often referred to as FOSTA. Fighting sex trafficking is an aim that no right-minded person could disagree with. It’s not necessary to explain that sex trafficking (of anyone of any age, but especially minors) is one of the most abhorrent acts on earth. Dig a little deeper, however, and you quickly find this Act is far from what it claims to be. Freedom of expression advocates, sex worker rights advocates and even some anti-human trafficking organisations have been quick...

A new generation of Kyrgyz heroines

The kidnapping of brides has been banned for decades in Kyrgyzstan, an ex-USSR Central Asian Republic lying north of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The law was tightened in 2013, with sentences of up to 10 years in prison for those who kidnap a woman to force her into marriage. Previously it was a fine of 2,000 soms, about £20. Despite that, the medieval practise of ala kachuu (“take and run”) persists to this day. The Women Support Centre in Bishkek has estimated that 12,000 forced marriages take place every year and very few perpetrators are convicted. About 80% of the girls kidnapped accept...

Support Afghan women against the Taliban

Following the announcement that almost all foreign troops would leave Afghanistan by September, the Taliban has made rapid territorial gains. Within a month they had taken Kabul and on Saturday 11th September (at the time of writing), had raised their flag over the presidential palace to mark the beginning of the newly formed Islamic emirate. Tens of thousands of Afghans, who fear Taliban reprisals, have tried to flee the country and thousands have headed to the airport to get on flights out of the country. However, now, the borders are largely closed. Workers’ Liberty has never supported the...

A feminist speaks from inside Afghanistan

Mariam is an activist in the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), living in Afghanistan. Women’s demonstrations started in the first week of full Taliban rule, particularly in Herat and Kabul and other cities. In these cities at least, women previously had some basic rights, like having jobs and going to school and university. These were small demonstrations, mostly dozens rather than many hundreds or thousands. But they took place in a lot of places, and that showed the power and strength that women in Afghanistan have. Some were attacked by the Taliban. A lot of...

Afghan sportswomen abandoned

Kelly Lindsey, former head coach of the Afghanistan women’s football team — and before that, US international player — spoke to supporters before Lewes FC women’s home friendly against West Ham on 22 August. She has been working to secure safe evacuation of footballing women and girls from Afghanistan, along with the director of women’s football, a human rights lawyer and FIFPRO (the international professional footballers’ federation, their trade union body). “For seven days straight we’ve created a team in the US, a team in Australia, a team in Europe, we have passed the baton all day and all...

Run

A verse by Janine Booth Her cover drive and how she ran are now haram under the rule of the Taliban Can she stay in? For sure she can She can’t be out without a man in ancient, new Afghanistan She’d tackle assumptions and she’d score but won’t be playing any more She’s fallen foul of holy law Her parents murdered, house burned down She grabbed her sisters, fled the town and walked two hundred miles of ground To reach a place they might take flight to wait at the gate and hope despite the odds that there’s an end in sight While those who gave the battle orders to storm across a nation’s borders...

Labour activists demand neurodiversity policy - support the reference back!

Labour Party policy is a set of measures that the Party campaigns for in society and would implement in government to better the lives of working class and oppressed people. A good example of this would be actions to end discrimination against neurologically atypical people. So it is shocking and disappointing that despite a comprehensive and popular submission to the National Policy Forum (NPF) on this issue, the NPF report contains not a word about it. Millions of people are autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, dyscalculic or otherwise neurodivergent. We experience systematic discrimination and...

Sheikh Jarrah in suspense

On 2 August Israel’s Supreme Court proposed a compromise in the Sheikh Jarrah court case. A Jewish settler group, claiming ownership on pre-1948 authority, seeks to evict Palestinian families from houses in the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jerusalem in which they were settled by the Jordanian authorities when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, before 1967. The judges proposed that the Palestinian families pay a token annual fee to the settler group and in return get permanent and inheritable rights to live in the houses. The settler group demands that the families give signed recognition that...

How an Indian MP led right-wing campaigning against Jewish migrants

In the last year Workers’ Liberty has published material about both Shapurji Sakatvala and Dadabhai Naoroji – two opponents of British rule in India and, in their different ways, socialists elected to the UK Parliament a century ago (Naoroji was MP for Central Finsbury 1892-5 and Saklatvala MP for Battersea North 1922-3 and 1924-9). Saklatvala was very much part of the Marxist tradition and Naoroji part of our tradition in a broader sense. Naoroji was the first person from one of the Empire’s subject peoples beyond the British Isles to be elected to Parliament; Saklatvala the third. The second...

Pimlico Academy: near a tipping point

On 8 June, National Education Union (NEU) members at Pimlico Academy (London) held their first strike day. A sunny Tuesday morning saw a strong turnout from members, with the picket line stretching all the way down the road. Workers carried placards with slogans including: “kick racism out of school...

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