Thank you to Defend The Right To Protest for organising today’s event and to all the speakers for sharing their insight and experience.Of course it’s wonderful to be in one of the three ‘axis of evil’ in the UK - the other two being The City of London and Oxford University. Nothing like being in the belly of the colonial and empirical beast!
You probably expected to hear from Trenton this afternoon - not from myself or Hamja Ahasan. I hope you’re not too disappointed. Trenton is here and will be happy to answer any questions about his situation during the discussion.
We decided late last night that given the context - Trenton is out of prison and the speakers were all white - that Hamja and I should join the panel.
What is happening in the UK is horrific. As many of you know “we are not all in this together”. Something very serious is happening in front of our eyes. I am going to read a number of statistics (easily available to everyone) that show there are specific peoples and communities (namely non-white) who are disproportionately targeted by the police and judiciary more then others (white).
With the new legislation being pushed through this situation is going to get worse for so-called ‘minorities’. And this is what we feel together, our brothers and sisters in the fight against oppression - and this Cambridge arm of Defend The Right To Protest - could put at the core of its organisational activities:
- 25% of the prison population is classified as ‘ethnic minority’, while we are only 10% of the general population
- Black men account for the largest percentage of this population
- More Afro-Caribbean men and women are in prison then in UK universities
- We all know the USA has a massively racist prison industrial complex - it may surprise you to know that there is a higher percentage of black men in prison in the UK then in the USA
- Currently it is the highest rate of using the ‘mental health act’ to detain black men
- There is a massive increase in deaths in state custody - 5998 people since 1998
- 12% of the prison population is Muslim, while only 2% of the general population
- There is a far greater likelihood to be held without charge and extradited to another country if one is not white
- Of the 3151 judges in the UK and Wales, 14% are women and 4% are non-white
- There are NO non-white judges in the high court
In addition to this, there is a general increase in incarcerations which reflects the scale of what is happening. I hope you’ll forgive me for reading more statistics, but I think it’s important in understanding what we are up against:
- Prison population has doubled in the last 20 years. The last decade has seen a 30% increase
- 70% increase in the demand for prison places in the last 5 years
- The UK is the only other ‘European’ nation to disallow prisoners the right to vote - to be citizens - aside from Romania and Bulgaria
- In the last decade the length of prison sentences has increased by 20%
- In 2011 55,000 people were held on remand - meaning imprisoned whist awaiting trial to fight charges levied against them
- Spending on prisons has increased by 40% in a decade
I will give you one case study - the uprising of the summer of 2011 (a response to the murder of Mark Duggan by police):
- 1400 people were sentenced to over 1800 years for their apparent involvement in the protests
- The ‘processing’ of these people was done rapidly through all night courts
- These sentences are without a doubt unfair and severely disproportionate
- There was little to no assistance in supporting the protesters
- 56% of those brought before the courts were ‘black’ or ‘mixed’, however we are just 12% of London’s population (statistics outside London were even more disproportionate)
To conclude: Trenton and I know that if he had been non-white or white-Muslim, his situation would have been extremely different. I was teaching art criticism in Saudi Arabia at the time - no doubt that would have been used to incriminate him. It’s very uncomfortable to recognise ones privilege within a racist system - but absolutely fundamental.
As we continue to fight the new legislation it is critical not to universalise experiences and the impact of the law. We are not all in this together.
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