Partisan Defence Committee, Summer 2024/25

Defend Palestinian and anti-war protesters!

The brutal police assault on Disrupt Land Forces (DLF) protesters on 11 September, and spate of arrests which accompanied it, is an attack on all opponents of Australian militarism and defenders of Palestine. Over three days, scores were arrested, with further raids and arrests ongoing. Almost 100 people have been charged. Now, in a wave of threatened state repression, opponents of the Israeli attack on Lebanon are being targeted. Already one protester is facing a year in jail for carrying a Hezbollah flag. Drop all charges against DLF protesters! Drop all charges against victims of the Zionist witchhunt! Defend all opponents of the genocide in Gaza!

The Victorian Labor government allocated police an estimated $30 million to suppress the protests, imposing a “ring of steel” protecting the professional merchants of death at the Land Forces weapons expo. In the biggest police operation in 24 years anyone within a designated area was subject to extraordinary anti-terror laws and extreme violence by the bosses’ thugs in blue. Echoing the description Zionists use to justify their slaughter of Palestinians, the secretary of The Police Association Victoria labelled protesters “dirty, filthy, disgusting animals.”

While the intent of DLF protesters is laudable, small-scale actions facing down state repression cannot stop Australia’s military build-up and support to the slaughter in Gaza. The power to do that lies with the unions, which have the capacity to shut down Australia’s war industry and black ban military goods to Israel. Making this happen would require a determined struggle against the Laborite union bureaucracy, including those who declare their support to Palestine while not lifting a finger to mobilise their base.

Regardless of political differences, united-front action in defence of these pro-Palestine protesters is urgently necessary—mobilising the combined forces of the workers movement, the left, and all supporters of Palestine. The Partisan Defence Committee (PDC) has contributed $100 towards the legal costs of those DLF activists facing charges. We urge others to contribute at chuffed.org/project/113528-disrupt-land-forces-legal-costs and to contact the PDC to organise co-ordinated actions in defence of DLF protesters and other supporters of Palestine.

Nigerian protesters face death penalty

From Lagos to Melbourne, Mexico City to Hamburg, London to New York, on 7 and 8 November protesters rallied in cities around the world to denounce the repression of #EndBadGovernance protesters in Nigeria. The Partisan Defence Committees and ICL sections mobilised for these protests, including working together with supporters of International Socialist Alternative, the Committee for a Workers’ International and other left groups. In Melbourne approximately 70 people mobilised following endorsements from numerous organisations including the Black Peoples Union, Revolutionary Communist Organisation, and the Victorian and Sydney branches of the Maritime Union of Australia.

As the protests were being held, the Nigerian government postponed the 8 November trial of eleven. These activists, including socialists and trade unionists, continue to face the death penalty on trumped-up “treason” charges. We must mobilise broader forces and continue to up the pressure on the Nigerian government, including with demonstrations, publicity and union protest letters! We reprint below a PDC call for the internationally coordinated united-front defence campaign, originally published on 16 October.

The left and trade-union movement must take action in defense of Nigerian activists. Nearly 2,500 people were arrested in August for participating in #EndBadGovernance protests against the starvation policies of the Bola Tinubu government. More than 40 were shot dead by security forces, and many of those arrested still languish in jail. Ominously, eleven face the death penalty on trumped-up treason charges. Their trial is set to start November 8 [subsequently postponed]. Drop the charges now! Release all arrested protesters!

Protesters facing treason charges

Inspired by the youthful uprising in Kenya in July, the protesters in Nigeria demanded an end to devastating economic austerity. To pay off debt imposed by the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank, the Nigerian government last year abolished fuel subsidies and devalued the currency, leading to a dramatic spike in the cost of food, transportation and other necessities. The subsidies were a lifeline for many Nigerians in a country with almost no public transportation infrastructure. Coupled with soaring inflation, the austerity measures have pushed many more millions into starvation.

The Tinubu regime’s brutal repression targeted protest leaders with the most draconian penalties. Socialist activists from the Youth Rights Campaign and the Solidarity Network for Workers’ Rights are among those now facing the death penalty. Tortured in jail, some were released on harsh bail conditions.

Showing that this crackdown is aimed at the entire working-class movement, the government detained Nigeria Labour Congress president Joe Ajaero as he was on his way to attend the September Trades Union Congress in Britain. The Tinubu regime has also outrageously charged Andrew Wynne (also known as Drew Povey), who for years has run a pro-labor bookshop located in the headquarters of the NLC, with seeking to overthrow the government. While Wynne was not in the country at the time, police raided the bookshop and arrested his assistant Adeyemi Abayomi, one of those facing a possible death sentence.

ACT NOW!

• Publicise the case far and wide on social media, union newsletters and newspapers. Break the blackout of news about the repression.
• Get your union to protest this outrage. Letters such as the one by ILWU Local 10 are a good start.
• Donate to the PDC.
• Organize demonstrations and protests around the world. Contact the PDC to coordinate our efforts at partisandefense@earthlink.net

Free all the Kanak militants now!

Since the youth-centred Kanak revolt against the reform of the electoral body broke out in May, a reform which would make the Kanak a minority in their own country, about fifteen militants have been killed by French cops and loyalist militias, and hundreds have been imprisoned. Seven of them have been transported to metropolitan France, where they remain in prison 17,000 km from home and families.

The struggle of the Kanak people for liberation from the colonial yoke is in the interests of all French workers and those in the other colonies of decrepit French imperialism. Each blow struck against the French imperialists in Kanaky would reinforce the position of the French working class to fight for better working and living conditions. Each blow struck by the Kanak against our exploiters aids the struggle of the French Muslim minority against the conditions of oppression and segregation they endure, as well as the struggle of the Martinican masses who are fighting today against the high cost of living and racist oppression. A free and socialist Kanaky would give an immense impulse to class struggle in France and to the struggle of the masses of the Antilles, whose fight to realise true liberation must also lead to independence and socialism.

Solidarity with the Kanak people must not remain at the level of fine words—it must be made concrete! The Committee for Social Defence calls on union militants, the left and anti-racist youth to contribute financially to the defence of the imprisoned Kanak militants!

Every dollar counts! Send your donations to the CDDS!

Pröbsting appeal denied

The 6-month suspended sentence for Michael Pröbsting, leader of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, was upheld by the court in Vienna at a 21 August appeal hearing. This means that at any time he can be thrown in prison at the state’s whim. Michael’s conviction in May for the RCIT’s staunch defence of the Palestinian people sets a sinister precedent for increasing repression of pro-Palestinian activists throughout Western Europe. It is urgently necessary to unite in defence of the RCIT and all opponents of the genocide in Gaza facing similar prosecution.