Important Public Meeting: July 26

Facebook group here.

Tuesday, July 26 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Conway Hall

MURDOCH, POWER & CORRUPTION - HOW DO WE GET JUSTICE?

Public Forum

Called by National Union of Journalists members
Supported by Defend the Right to Protest

Speakers include:

TONY BENN
MATT FOOT Campaigning Lawyer/DTRTP
MICHELLE STANISTREET NUJ General Secretary
MERLIN EMMANUEL Justice for Smiley Culture
… and others tbc

Some sections of the media have a long history of demonising protesters and strikers. This week the Daily Express condemned the peaceful occupation of Fortnum & Mason as “yobs” in a “riot” even as new evidence has come to light showing they were arrested under false pretences. The Daily Mail has recently had to apologise for harrassment after hounding the family of arrested student Bryan Simpson.

Among of the worst offenders have been the papers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Now their links to Britain’s most senior politicians and police officials are being exposed. According to disgraced former Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the Met was “too busy fighting terrorism to tackle hacking” - yet it wasn’t too busy to assign up to 200 officers to arresting several hundred students for their involvement in anti-fees protests.

This collusion goes back a long way. 25 years ago, when Rupert Murdoch moved to wipe out trade unions in the Wapping dispute, he could count on the Metropolitan police as a private, strikebreaking army. This contributed, perhaps more than any other single event, to the squeezing out of independent voices in the Murdoch press.

Now that the powerful executives and senior police officials are being exposed, it raises the question of how we fight for justice. How do we keep up the pressure on the Met - especially now it has appointed Cressida Dick, the commander of the operation that killed Jean-Charles de Menezes, to replace Yates?