NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear addresses supporters of Charles at bail hearing

Journalist Charles Atangana, who is being threatened with deportation back to Cameroon, won his bail hearing yesterday. Charles was being held in Dover Immigration Removal Centre while his case was being heard in a tribunal in central London.

A lively band of supporters, including NUJ and Unison members, were outside the tribunal in support of Charles. The news arrived of him winning bail in the afternoon. Now the campaign has won its first step but there is still a long way to go for Charles to win his asylum case.

Charles was arrested and tortured in Cameroon, a country where journalists and political activists who oppose the government are ill-treated and sometimes killed. he fled to the UK and lived in Scotland before being detained and threatened with deportation.

More on the campaign at the NUJ website

The NUJ is actively supporting Charles and is campaigning for him to be given indefinite leave to remain in the UK (he lives and works in Scotland)

Tomorrow he has a bail hearing in London and the NUJ will be present supporting him.

Protest on Thursday 12th August at 14.00 in London, Taylor House,  88 Rosebery Avenue, case number EC1R 4QU.

Read here for more about the campaign and the concerns over safety of journalists and human rights activists in Cameroon

G20 protest, 2009. Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk

Article by NUJ Left member Marc Vallée – originally published in The Guardian on 23 July 2010.

What will be the future of policing of protests following the CPS decision not to bring criminal charges against a highly trained Metropolitan police territorial support group officer who struck Ian Tomlinson? Will the policing of political dissent be safer now? Or will the police feel they can act with impunity?

As a journalist, I covered the G20 protests from the ground and watched the unfolding mess of the police operation lead by Commander Bob Broadhurst. I saw the violence of the state first-hand and documented it. What I saw that day was not new to me. It was not new to many of my colleagues and for many of the protesters. Many of us have seen this confrontational and violent policing before and since.

What was different about the G20 protests was that a man died.

Importantly, the attack on Ian Tomlinson was captured on film and a major newspaper – the Guardian – put its full weight behind finding out the truth. Surely this time things would be different? Surely it would be different for the family of Ian Tomlinson than the family of Blair Peach? Surely the weight of evidence and public opinion would lead to truth and justice? Surely?

A new generation of young people will now doubt whether the police will be held accountable by the criminal justice system if a citizen dies in a public order situation. This new generation will also now be aware of how the state seemingly closes ranks to protect one of its own – and, more importantly for the political and economic class, to protect the authority and power of the state machine.

Bottom line: if you or I had behaved in the same way as this officer that day, we would be on trial, especially if our actions had been targeted at a police officer.

The important thing to remember is that the officer was trained to behave like this. From the state’s point of view, he was doing what he was trained to do. The intelligence squad that came across Ian Tomlinson dealt with him in the same way I have seen protesters dealt with before. I have watched the TSG in action time and again. This was normal behaviour for the TSG – and that’s why this police unit should be scrapped.

Senior police officers have said many times that the policing of protests is intelligence-lead. Last year, the Guardian published detailed captions alongside a large picture explaining the role and jobs of the formation of officers standing over Ian Tomlinson just seconds after he was pushed to the ground – including four strategically place forward intelligence team (FIT) officers. It revealed that the TSG was acting as the muscle and FIT as the brain – and that’s why the FIT units should be scrapped as well.

FIT officers also give tactical advice to senior police officers. One wonders what intelligence was leading the actions of officers to strike an innocent man.

The chilling thing is that for anyone who is thinking about protesting against the enforced transfer of billions of pounds from the public sector to the private sector due to the Con-Dem government’s austerity measures will encounter the same police units, training, leadership, methodology and intelligence-lead policing.

So watch your back, folks.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that top managers at the corporation have a pension slush fund that gaurantees them big payouts while cutting those of staff.

The Daily Express had condemned a judge’s ruling that gay people facing oppression in their own country were entitled to asylum in this country. The Express ran a headline on its front page “Now asylum if you’re gay”. The papers also claimed that the ruling would mean that the UK would be overrun by gays people.

A coalition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists, trade unionists and NUJ members protested at the Express and Star building over the media attack and tried to enter the building to hand a petition to Richard Desmond, who sadly didn’t want to receive it.

Speakers at the protest included the NUJ’s vice president Donnacha DeLong who spoke about how the journalists working for Desmond were fed up with his editorial line and had in the past taken action against racist articles and even reported him to the Press Complaints Commission, with no luck.

There was also a letter sent to the Guardian from trade unionists, MPs and NUJ representatives pointing out the absurdity of the papers’ claims and how it was part of a general upsurge in racism and homophobia in the media. This included in the very week of the homophobic headlines a lying account from the Star about a council forced to cover up a swimming pool because of Muslim pressure. Go to the excellent tabloid watch blog for a dissection of the story.

More at NUJ site

Scarborough and Sheffield NUJ members at the company voted for strike action in protest against the way management has introduced Atex.

The votes came as NUJ chapels at Johnston Press are balloting for national action over Atex and the lack of serious negotiations over jobs,  increased workloads, and the creation of regional production hubs.

See stories on this site for more on the dispute

In a move described by the NUJ as a “jobs massacre”, Johnston Press is moving its remaining subs to a new regional production hub in Preston. This mirrors what is happening in Sheffield with the creation of a production hub and loss of subs jobs on surrounding areas such as Scarborough (see articles below).

There are plans for similar moves in Sunderland and on the Yorkshire Post/Evening Post.

Technology used to cut costs

The regional hubs are being introduced as a result of the new Atex content management system, which allows journalists to write directly to page without the need of subs. This has been tried before in the industry with a loss of quality, jobs and remaining staff becoming even more overworked.

It is also a threat to local democracy and accountability. Local papers will be produced some distance from the areas they are supposedly serving. The North West has been particularly hit already by the loss of local papers with the Scott Trust’s  sale of Manchester Evening News and other local titles to Trinity Mirror, which closed 44 tiles and axed 1,400 jobs in the past couple of years.

Bankers demand cuts

Staff have already walked out this year and are currently working to rule. There is a national ballot next week in the Johnston Press titles for strike action against the introduction of Atex.

The changes are made not to improve quality but to satisfy the bankers who are demanding Johnston Press pay off some of its debts. New technology is being used to cut staff, costs and quality.

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: “Editorial resources have been cut to the bone to pay for the Johnston debt mountain created a through a foolish policy of buying up other titles at high cost. Now their bankers are telling them to start making repayments. Our members refuse to be the victims of that mismanagement car crash.”

NUj Northern Organiser Lawrence Shaw told staff at the Johnson Press:  “Johnston Press bosses have now as much as admitted that they are not in control of their company any more – it is being run by the banks that have refinanced their escalating debts. These are debts that have been incurred due to the gross incompetence of the company bosses who failed to invest during times of heavy profit and instead squandered money on pointless projects and vast bonuses to shareholders and fat cat bosses.”

Vote Yes in national ballot

He added: “The only way for us to have any impact against Johnston Press is by means of a national ballot with the results coinciding with the Annual Shareholders Meeting in Edinburgh at which the NUJ will be organising a wide protest.”

The NUJ Left supports Johnson Press staff in their dispute with the bosses and bankers and calls on members to deliver a big Yes vote for strike action.  We believe a national strike in regional papers would be well supported and could act as a catalyst for other journalists to fight back against the bosses and bankers who are intent on destroying jobs and quality in the pursuit of greater profits.

We also call on members to start organising solidarity meetings with Johnston Press staff, speaking tours and collections at work.

Together we can win.