Young, Sarah

UN World Peace Day was marked in Edinburgh with the rededication of the Peace Pole at the city’s Peace and Justice (P&J) Resource Centre. The P&J Centre was celebrating its 30th birthday and friends gathered for the re-dedication and to enjoy a celebratory lunch. The centre, co-ordinated by Janet Fenton, supports all groups and individuals committed to issues of peace and justice. Later that day one such group, Scotland’s for Peace, launched their Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons…

The highlight of the Edinburgh festival for me was John Holloway launching his latest book Crack Capitalism (Pluto Press) in the city that was his home before he moved to work at the Autonomous University of Mexico.

John has spent recent years theorising about the meaning of revolution today. His earlier book Change the World Without Taking Power has stimulated discussion amongst activists the world over who, like John, reject the antics of revolutionary…

On 18 May, UK immigration minister Damian Green announced there would be no more child detainees at Dungavel, Scotland’s immigration removal centre.

Good news you might think? Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister has welcomed the announcement, allowing him to make the high moral claim that no children are imprisoned in Scotland. But the consequence for refugee families is a traumatic removal to England in sealed vans. Families will be isolated from their friends, and personal…

Public shareholders of RBS put the case for sustainable investment at the bank’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Edinburgh on 28 April. Since the bank bailout in 2008 the UK government owns 84% of RBS shares, effectively taking the bank into public ownership.

However, the public who amassed outside Edinburgh International Conference Centre, many suited and booted for the occasion, held their meeting from behind police barriers.

The meeting was supported by the World…

Scottish CND held a post-election conference in Glasgow on 15 May to discuss the consequences for lobbying against Trident renewal in the new parliamentary world of the Lib-Con alliance.

Initial gate

John Ainslie, SCND co-ordinator, started with the projected timescales and costs of Trident replacement. According to the MoD’s 2006 guidelines, the design phase of Trident renewal should have commenced last year. However, the “initial gate” decision which would have given the…

Approximately one year ago, Israel unleashed its attack on the Gaza Strip – amidst its ongoing siege and occupation – killing more than 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians.

From Alaska to Adelaide, on 27 December, people worldwide demonstrated in their towns to remember the assault, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. At the Edinburgh gathering, fifty people held banners and placards at the foot of the Mound, appealing to passing bargain hunters to remember the…

The long-awaited report from the Scottish Parliament Working Group on Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons was published on 18 November. It concluded that “there is a bright future for Scotland without nuclear weapons”, recommending that a route map be created for disarmament. The route map would include identifying the needs of the key communities and businesses most affected by the removal of nuclear weapons, so that assistance, including the allocation of a “disarmament dividend”, could be…

On 14 November, a small but perfectly formed march against NATO and for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan took place in Edinburgh. The demo was called by Stop the War Scotland.

In keeping with the tradition of most Edinburgh protests, only five men and their dog were present at the official start time of the march. However, after going to fetch myself a coffee, about 300 had appeared.

Numbers were diminished due to an anti-fascist counter-protest against the…

SY What do you do?
CS I meet up with prisoners who have literacies issues and discuss how improving their literacy levels can open up opportunities for them.

SY But what is the importance of literacies education for offenders?
CS It can help prisoners understand why they are where they are. Generally a lot of it is not their own fault. A lot of them have suffered an educational system that has probably failed them and they have internalised that failure. They have blamed…

On 14 June, Ayrshire Friends of Refugees held a gathering outside the Dungavel Detention Centre. Isolated in the rolling green Lanarkshire countryside, near to the picturesque market town of Strathaven, Dungavel houses people whilst they await deportation. The small crowd had travelled some miles, coming together to demonstrate ongoing solidarity with the inmates.

Several informal contributions were made, touching on the importance of maintaining support for refugee communities,…

PN last interviewed Tilly Giffin following her arrest at Aberdeen Airport during a Plane Stupid action (PN 2508). On 22 March, she was arrested again, outside a derelict building in Glasgow, which her group were considering for use as an exhibition venue. She was charged with “intention to commit theft” and her personal possessions were confiscated.

It was a few days later, when she went to pick up her belongings from Partick police station, that she was persuaded to enter a…

On 1 May, former Prisme workers re-launched themselves as Discovery Packaging and Design (DPD) after the “long hard slog” of a seven-week occupation (see PN 2508). A week later, David Taylor from DPD told me how business was looking promising for the new company, which employs half of the original workforce of 12. There are potential customers in the pipeline and an open day was planned, aiming at small- to medium-sized clients from the engineering, confectionery and whisky industries.…

When Fred Goodwin’s house was vandalised on 25 March, the media portrayed this action against the former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland as political opposition to the financial crisis. The Telegraph claimed that anti-G20 activists had responded “gleefully” to the news of windows being broken at Sir Fred’s £3 million home.

What failed to get onto the news channels was the authentic and coordinated activity of an Edinburgh campaign that has adopted an assertive approach to…

Palestinian online shopping
Sarah Young

Edinburgh has just launched the UK’s only online store specialising in handicrafts produced by Palestinian community groups and cooperatives. www.hadeel.org.
Many of the fair-trade producers provide health, education and emergency services to their communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Galilee and Negev. Any profits go back to the producers via small development grants, through the Scottish charity…

More news on the disruption of the Israeli Jerusalem Quartet’s concert at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival (see PN 2502).

Campaigners from Scottish Palestine Solidarity (SPS) stopped the string quartet from playing several times during a concert in August 2008. They were protesting against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and in support of a cultural boycott of Israel. Four were arrested and charged with “breach of the peace”. This charge was dropped, in favour of the more serious…