Jasiewicz, Ewa

If you’ve been an activist in the UK for any length of time then it’s likely – whether you know it or not — that you’ve rubbed shoulders with one or more spies. In 15 years of activism, I can think of three definite cases of infiltration of the groups that I’ve been involved with.

There was ‘Rod’, the undercover police officer who infiltrated the WOMBLES (the ‘White Overall Movement Building Liberation Effective Struggles’, a UK anti-capitalist group who adopted some of the…

This year’s Freedom Flotilla 2 still managed to make waves, despite failing to make it out of Greece, as Israel extended its blockade of Gaza to the entire Mediterranean. Nine ships participated in the venture this year – three up on last year’s effort. Named “FF2 – Stay Human” in memory of slain Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni [see PN 2533], the mission included: the Italian and Dutch ship Stefano Chiarini named after the prolific Italian journalist; the French ships Dignité and Louise…

I was in Hackney when I got the text, on my way to an organising meeting on local responses to the riots/uprisings. Police vans were cruising up and down Dalston High Street, nervous shopkeepers were standing in doorways and hipster NGO/graphic designer types were sinking pints outside a trendy pub. “Deptford Community defence meeting outside Ladbrokes on the high street @ 8.30 – to put out fires should they occur.”

I made a U-turn and got there early. I used to live in Hackney but…

Greg Muttitt’s first solo book follows on from joint projects with socio-environmental arts project Platform, taking on the oil industry, British foreign policy past and present, market dynamics, and the grassroots impact of big powers at play. With this book we see Muttitt shifting into top gear, drawing on the interdisciplinary analysis and corporate super-sleuthing he’s honed over the past 15 years with Platform and Corporate Watch (which he helped co-found) to navigate the neo-con, neo-…

Climate scientists have reached an international consensus that devastating runaway climate change is inevitable unless significant changes are made. How radical do these changes have to be? Is it possible to make these changes within the current framework of industrial capitalism? Below are edited highlights of responses from a variety of activists from radical movements – the full text of the interviews are available on the Peace News blog.

PN: In your view, can we halt runaway…

PN: Can we halt runaway climate change without overthrowing capitalism?

EJ: It’s interesting that you talk about overthrowing capitalism because I think there’s a commonly used expression—overthrowing or dismantling or smashing—and I think that can sometimes be a little bit inaccurate about the nature of capitalism, which is a social relationship, an economic relationship that we are all participating in and reproducing on a daily basis. So I liked John Holloway’s description of how…

On first approach, Hollow Land appears to be very much an academic study, aimed at architecture/political science/anthropology students.

The language is convoluted, and challenging and demands much of the reader's existing understanding of both post-modern academic discourse and the history and context of the Israeli occupation.

But stick with it. Hollow Land deconstructs and reconstructs architecture and archaeology as never neutral - but instead fundamentally political -…

An opinion poll released in August found that Iraqis oppose plans to open the country's oil fields to foreign investment - by a factor of two to one.

The poll, conducted by US- based Custom Strategic Research, found that there are no ethnic, sectarian or geographical groups that prefer foreign companies.

The poll also found that most Iraqis feel kept in the dark about future oil plans. Only 4% of respondents felt the information they'd been given about the oil…

The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) is a 26,000 member-strong trade union based in the south of Iraq, which is also organising in the centre and north of Iraq. The Federation recently held a conference in Wasit province in the centre of Iraq on the oil law .
Activists have been meeting workers, management, tribal leaders, religious authorities, political party representatives, academics and oil policy experts to organise cross-constituency unified opposition to the oil law.…

There were solidarity pickets outside Tesco stores up and down Britain on 4 August after two Polish agency workers were sacked. Zbyszek Bukala and Radek Sawicki were both dismissed from Greenhills Distribution Centre in Dublin by their respective employment agencies - they say at the behest of Tesco - after refusing to load boxes based on excessive quotas.

In a joint day of action, pickets took place in Dublin, Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham, Oxford and London. The aim was to…