*30 Years On Southall Riots*

[SaRpAnCh]

Next week marks 30 years of the Southall Riots and marks 30 years since Blair Peach was brutally assaulted and killed by the British Polce while protesting alongside Sikhs against the Nazi Fascists BNP gathering in Southall.It was a day when our forefathers took a stand and made their mark in history.This event was and still is of great signifigance to Sikhs living in the UK it was then we had to decide either we stay here or move elsewhere and as we Sikhs do - we took a stand and fought for our rights and fought against oppression.

It marks 30 years from the day when the innocent young Sikh Gurdeep Chaggar was murdered outside the Tudor Rose in Old Southall this lead to the revolution which followed.

Lets take time out to remember a great friend to the Sikh Community in the UK Blair Peach who died after being hit by Police on the corner of Beachcroft and Orchard Avenue a memorial will be held on the spot he died in the comming week details will be in papers and on the net very soon as well as a meetnig at the Dominion Centre Old Southall - all Sikhs are asked to come and remember a man who died fighting for the rights of us Sikhs to stay in Britain.

Facebook memorial for dead Kiwi protester

The anniversary of the death of a New Zealander at a London protest 30 years ago is to be remembered next week.

Blair Peach, a 33-year-old special needs teacher living in East London, died during a protest by the Anti-Nazi League on April 23, 1979.

It was alleged he died after being struck on the head by a police officer with a truncheon.

Even 30 years on his death is drawing appeals for information, as no one was prosecuted for the killing.

An international group, Friends of Blair Peach, has created a Facebook group in his memory.

It was appealing for his friends or people who had information on his death to get in touch.

The Anti-Nazi League protest, in the largely-Asian suburb of Southall, West London, was against anti-immigration group the National Front , who were holding a meeting in preparation for their general election campaign.

Their candidate reportedly said he would "bulldoze Southall to the ground and replace it with an English hamlet", the Socialist Worker newspaper reported at the time.

Police used truncheons to disperse the crowd as it marched toward Southall town hall, and shut down the protesters' makeshift headquarters.

Parminder Atwal, a local resident who saw Mr Peach hit on the head by police, said it was clear he was seriously hurt, and couldn't stand.

Police told him to move on and "were very rough with him", London weekly newspaper First Post reported.

Mr Peach was found injured around 8.30pm by an Asian family who took him in and called an ambulance.

He began having fits and was pronounced dead at hospital.

A public inquiry into his death, requested by 79 MPs, was refused.

The coroner's ruling of 'death by misadventure' came after one of the longest inquests in legal history, with a total of 84 witnesses, including 40 members of the Metropolitan Police special patrol group.

Witnesses testified to Mr Peach being beaten by police in a street, and a pathologist said the damage to his skull could not have come from a truncheon, but a rubberised police radio.

The result of an internal police investigation was never made public, but Mr Peach's family were shown part of it in 1986.

His brother reached an out-of-court settlement with the Metropolitan Police in 1989.

Mr Peach became a hero to the Sikh community in Britain, and a Southall primary school was named after him.

The death of 47-year-old British man Ian Tomlinson during a G20 protest in London a fortnight ago brought back memories of Mr Peach's death, and prompted calls for an investigation into police involvement in his death.

A video showed a police officer shoving Mr Tomlinson to the ground, minutes before he was found dead from an apparent heart attack in a nearby street.

Memorials will take place in New Zealand and Britain next week, including a vigil at the spot where Mr Peach was allegedly struck by police.

A memorial concert would be held at an Auckland bar on April 23.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ng-1671342.html

An approaching anniversary should give you the shivers. On 23 April – St George's Day – in 1979 the Metropolitan Police Force used violence and intimidation to contain anti-fascist protesters in Ealing and Southall, West London. The much feared SPG (Special Patrol Group) apparently used metal filled coshes and other weaponry.

Blair Peach, a 33-year-old special needs teacher from New Zealand, died as a result of alleged police brutality. No one was charged or convicted. And today we are confronted with the deplorable conduct of individual Met officers at another demonstration. A blameless working man, Ian Tomlinson, is dead and many activists are traumatised from being apparently abused and beaten by professionals whose job is to protect legitimate demonstrators and others who happen to be passing by.

I was at that highly charged march in Southall in 1979 to protest against the National Front, which was meeting in Ealing Town Hall to discuss how they would repatriate "niggers and Pakis" and "bulldoze Southall to the ground and replace it with an English hamlet". It was well known that racists were active in the borough, my borough, and in 1976 had killed a young Asian man, Gurdeep Singh Chagger.

We the residents were both afraid and enraged, but as witnesses attested, the demo was peaceful until the state sent in helicopters, and armed, masked and shielded men who charged at us. Clarence Baker, a black Briton thus attacked after being racially abused, ended up in intensive care. They tried to corral us – "kettling", before the word was invented. I saw officers kicking women and savaging teenagers near me so I ran into a side street and begged for refuge in a house belonging to a Sikh family.

Mr Singh, who worked on the buses, hid us in the back rooms and lined up his little children at the window to wave at the police as they went from house to house looking for "troublemakers". They sheltered dozens of us until nightfall – fed us too. One woman in a sari had a large gash across her forehead after being pushed face down by a policemen who then pressed on her head with his boot. She was delirious and bleeding profusely.

When writing about that frightful day in my new memoir, I remember feeling that old panic again and the nightmares I had of cells and diabolical interrogators. This sort of thing happened in Uganda, my old homeland. I had never expected to see British police turning into enemies of the people.

[Jeevan]

We have the Tory and Labour Governments to blame in not conducting a full independent enquiry.

RIP Blair Peach a hero to the Sikh People!!!

[Harvinder singh Babbar]

dad and other relatives were present at these riots, long live blair peach and any1 else who fought for human rights.....

[SaRpAnCh]

‘Southall was under state occupation’ the day Blair Peach died

Police storm into demonstrators in Southall<span class='black'> (Pic: John Sturrock)</span>

Police storm into demonstrators in Southall (Pic: John Sturrock)

When the Nazi NF announced that that they were to hold a general election meeting at Southall town hall people in the area were sickened.

“The news spread like wildfire,” Balwinder Rana, a local Anti Nazi League (ANL) activist told Socialist Worker on the 20th anniversary of Blair’s killing. “People felt very angry and very insulted.”

The people of Southall found themselves under police occupation. Forces, including a helicopter and units of the notorious Special Patrol Group (SPG), poured in.

As far as the police were concerned the NF were to be protected, while the people of Southall were the enemy.

Blair Peach, who was a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the ANL, joined other campaigners for a protest in Southall.

As Balwinder recalls, “At 6.30pm people started to go towards the town hall. Suddenly the cordon parted and police on horseback came through and started hitting people with long batons. They attacked men, women and children.”

Inside the hall the NF election candidate pledged to “bulldoze Southall to the ground and replace it with an English hamlet”.

Outside people were hit by a full-blown police riot. Demonstrators were chased down the road, cornered and clubbed. Others took refuge in a nearby church.

Screaming

The Daily Telegraph newspaper recorded the scene: “As we watched, several dozen crying, screaming, coloured demonstrators were dragged bodily to the police station. Nearly every demonstrator had blood flowing from some sort of injury.”

Blair’s friend Jo Lang remembers, “The police forced us down Beachcroft Avenue. At least two SPG vans came up. The officers got out and charged at us.

“We ran, but Blair wasn’t with us so we went back to look for him. An Asian family had taken him into their living room. You couldn’t see how badly injured he was. There was no blood – it was later said that he had been struck by a lead-filled cosh.”

The day before he was buried, 4,000 locals filed past Blair as he lay in Southall’s Dominion Cinema. Throughout that night Southall youth maintained a guard of honour over him. The next day the cortege travelled to east London. Bengali people from Brick Lane, who Blair had stood with against Nazi terror, paid their respects.

A mighty funeral procession 10,000-strong followed. Union delegations from across Britain paid their respects. TUC president Ken Gill spoke at the graveside alongside Socialist Workers Party founder Tony Cliff.

Everyone knew that Blair had stood up for what he believed in – black and white unity – and for that the police had struck him down.

And 30 years later, his killers are still walking around free

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17688

[SaRpAnCh]

Sikhs carrying Blair Peaches Coffin

East London teacher Blair Peach was murdered 30 years ago protesting against the Nazi National Front. His friend Nick Grant recalls how the tragedy unfolded

Monday 23 April 1979 was a stormy day in west London. Schools were still on Easter holiday. Ealing’s arterial Uxbridge Road was strangely quiet because the buses were on strike, as were many food and textile factories.

Workers were striking against a National Front (NF) meeting to be held in the borough that day. The Nazi NF had come third in London’s local elections the year before.

I met up for a lunchtime drink with Blair Peach and three others in the Castle pub in central Ealing.

Blair was the president of East London NUT branch. He was known for his passion and energy. We had got to know each other better at the National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference in Scarborough ten days earlier.

The NF had been granted permission to use Southall town hall for a public meeting to rally support for their general election candidate Ernest Pendrous.

The party hoped to do well in the upcoming election but had been confronted by the Anti Nazi League (ANL), a mass anti-racist movement launched two years earlier.

The ANL was exposing the NF as Nazis and organising a huge movement to confront them whenever they attempted to march.

The NF meeting at Southall followed a similar one two days before in Leicester. There the police attacked anti-racists in an attempt to allow the NF to hold a rally. But the anti-racists had stopped the meeting from taking place.

It was clear that the police were becoming more violent and more desperate to crush opposition to the NF.

Banned

The day before the meeting in Southall thousands of anti-racists had marched over two miles to Ealing town hall – we had collected a petition demanding that the meeting be banned.

We were stunned to be met by ranks of mounted police surrounding the building. Such an excessive display of power was a scary declaration of intent by the police and the state.

Mainstream political parties could not see that the meeting was a deliberate attempt to rub the noses of local people in the dirt.

It followed a spate of racist attacks and the murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar, who was knifed to death in July 1976.

We chatted in the pub with a sense of foreboding. The Nazis and, indirectly, the coppers had taken a pasting in Leicester.

Would the police and the NF seek their revenge in Southall?

Blair was called a “Paki” as he waited to be served at the bar. His black beard and thick hair gave a racist some encouragement to stereotype him as such.

But he just happened to be a relatively dark-skinned 33 year-old New Zealander who taught at Phoenix Special School in Bow, east London.

We left the pub about 3 o’clock. Much as I wanted to be in Southall, there was a parents’ lobby of an Ealing council education committee meeting that my union branch had agreed to support.

So we arranged to meet up at 8pm in the Grosvenor pub in west Ealing. I reached the pub just before 8pm.

Regulars were talking about a huge confrontation that had taken place with police. There were rumours of mass arrests and many injuries.

A friend arrived. She had heard that Blair had been hurt and was at Ealing hospital.

We got in her car and drove towards Southall, but were turned back by police roadblocks. So we headed to another friend’s house.

There were about 12 of us there. Three people were sure that they had seen Blair being hit on the head when police charged the march.

One of our group found him after a local family had taken him in. Blair had been conscious but groggy.

He was able to walk into the emergency reception at Ealing hospital, but doctors were worried and admitted him immediately. Police already knew there was something to be worried about. They quizzed his companions.

At around 10pm we were told that Blair was undergoing surgery to treat his head injuries. At 11.40pm we were told that he had died in the operating theatre. With only one phone we set about informing as many people as possible about the truth.

We told Radio 4, the Times newspaper and the BBC news that the riot police – known as the Special Patrol Group (SPG) – had murdered Blair.

Within an hour of Blair’s death, police raided the house we were in. They knew where we were and were desperately attempting to cover their tracks.

Over the next day the full picture began to emerge. We found that

thousands of local protesters managed to block all the roads around the meeting. Many more arrived on foot.

The police were determined to allow the handful of NF supporters into the meeting. They charged the demonstration with brutality, resulting in over 700 arrests. Hundreds were hurt.

Police trashed the offices and recording studio of the community group Peoples Unite, where the legal and medical support staffs were based.

Gauntlet

The SPG forced everyone to run a gauntlet of truncheon blows.

One of their victims was Clarence Baker, a singer of the popular reggae band Misty in Roots. He only emerged out of a coma some five months later.

A subsequent investigation revealed that “homemade” weapons were found in police lockers.

Blair died from a blow inflicted by something strong enough to cave in his skull, but malleable enough not to cause any external bleeding.

A lead-filled plastic hose was the most likely instrument – one of the weapons found in police lockers.

But the coroner returned verdict of death by misadventure, letting the police off the hook.

One of the six SPG Unit One police who attacked protesters in Beachcroft Avenue struck the fatal blow.

The officers were transferred out of service before any action could be taken against them.

We need to mobilise the kind of solidarity today that stopped the Nazi NF in the 1970s.

The Nazi British National Party (BNP), the heirs to the NF, and ruthless state forces, threaten us once more.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17687

[mala]

Thanks for the collections of articles. Let's see if the CPS investigations holds the Police accountable for Blair Peach's murder.

Many of my relatives stood there that day and got beaten up by the Police. White Britain hated us in 1979 and still thought they would bulldoze us out of the country. The whole system was against us, the brutal tactics of the Police on April 1979 showed what we were up against. Inoccent Sikh women and children were hit with truncheons for just being on the Southall streets that day. Sikhs or any other Asians did not walk the streets (even in Southall) in the dark as "paki" bashing was common occurance. Gurdeep Singh Chaggar was killed by Skinheads on the streets of Southall...On the 23 April day Southall Sikhs took a massive stand and changed the face of Southall. The Skinheads never came back and organised gang beatings of turbanned men or NF "paki" bashing disappeared.

The NF became the BNP , as we know them today...And those Skinheads have become BNP "party" members

[rupinder singh]

Gurdeep Singh Chaggar was killed by Skinheads on the streets of Southall...

It's time the Met Police re-opened this cold case. Does anyone know the family?

[apnepart2]

The NF became the BNP , as we know them today...And those Skinheads have become BNP "party" members

what has become of sikhs? after reading this article, i think sikhsangat users from the uk need to launch an inquiry on mr. 'fordcapri'.