Justice for Jay Abatan – 23 Years is Long Enough to Wait

SUSSEX POLICE ARE NOT INNOCENT – Jay Abatan is Brighton's Stephen Lawrence 

Last Saturday I attended a demonstration outside Brighton Police Station commemorating the murder of Jay Abatan.

On the 29^th January 1999 Jay Abatan was murdered by a White racist gang after he and his brother Michael had gone to the Ocean Rooms night club in Morley Street, Brighton. Sussex Police literally did nothing. An investigation by Essex Police uncovered 57 major failures - such as failing to secure the murder scene and failing to take witness statements. Essex Police found that earlier in the day a serving police officer was seen drinking with the murder suspects. It was a rerun of what happened with Stephen Lawrence. There too corrupt officers had contacts with the murderers and covered for them.

Jay Abatan

The video above of Aflo the Poet describes what happened. The police didn’t even bother to photograph Michael’s injuries, there was no investigation room, no computers, nothing.

This was not accidental but the result of police racism. And their excuse today that they will investigate if there’s new evidence begs the question. What are the Police there for if they are unable to go out and look for the evidence themselves?

When it comes to policing demonstrations or harassing groups like Extinction Rebellion or Palestine Action there are always police available. But when it comes to finding resources for an investigation into the murder of a Black man there are insufficient resources. The same goes for rape which according to Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird has virtually been decriminalised in this country.  Just 1.4% of rape complaints resulted in a charge.

But when I tell the Labour Party Disputes Team to f*** off and die then there are police aplenty for an offence which isn’t even imprisonable. It isn’t lack of resources but a question of priorities and racist attacks are not a priority.

Michael Abatan (centre) and Zita Holborne (speaking)

When there were weekly pickets outside the EDO-MBM arms factory in Moulsecoomb every week the Police had no problem in finding dozens of officers. They also used undercover officers to infiltrate the campaign against EDO. But when it comes to prosecuting racists then the Police plead they don’t have enough person power.

The murder of Jay Abatan took place in the wake of the MacPherson Inquiry into the racist behaviour of the Metropolitan Police regarding Stephen Lawrence’s murder but it hasn’t had the same publicity.

Michael Abatan speaking

It’s not a question of a few bad apples in the police force but that the barrel is rotten. Why? Because the priority of the Police is protection of property, capitalist property, not people.

In LB Southwark v Williams [1971] Lord Denning ruled that hunger was no defence against a charge of theft:

“necessity would open a door which no man could shut…If hunger were once allowed to be an excuse for stealing the plea would be an excuse for all sorts of wrong doing. The courts must take a firm stand.”

Sir Peter Bottomley Tory MP for Worthing West attended the demonstration unlike the 3 Brighton & Hove MPs - Green and Labour

The only MP who was at the demonstration was Sir Peter Bottomley, who represents Worthing West. Despite the fact that this murder happened in Brighton none of the 3 Brighton and Hove MPs were present. I wouldn’t expect Peter Kyle, the Red Tory MP for Hove to attend since the only thing that motivates him is support for Israeli Apartheid. But where was Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion or Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown? It is clear that to our political representatives racism is not a priority.

Racism, sexism and homophobia in the Police is often blamed on a ‘canteen culture, but this is too glib and answer. Police culture stems from the inherently racist and reactionary practices of the Police which results in most police being right-wing and assimilating to a culture of blaming minorities for capitalism’s problems.

Jay Abatan - Brighton Police refused to conduct an investigation into his murder

Police Culture of Racism, Sexism and Homophobia

In the Hotton Report the following were some of the messages recorded on WhatsApp groups or on mobile phone texts:

Ø Messages about police officers attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child

Ø numerous messages about rape and ‘raping’ each other in a WhatsApp group containing 19 police officers, and within a Facebook chat group containing four police officers).

Ø Homophobic comments such as “Gayyyyyy”, “You fucking gay!” and “Fuck you bender”

Ø One officer sent messages saying “I would happily rape you”; “if I was single I

Ø would actually hate fuck you” and “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”

Ø ‘Just walked past the big mosque all the fanatics turn up at to radicalise the young muslims....”

Ø “My dad kidnapped some African children and used them to make dog food.”

Ø “PWPEHCLM - People with pre-existing heart conditions lives matter. Should of offered him a kit kat and a nice lie down. Murdering cunts.”

Ø “Bring all the lefties I say, we can sing ““cum by ya” and embrace our multi gender/ethnic and sexual backgrounds whilst denouncing all the fascists in the MET...yay for Xmas partied [sic]...except of course that's a Christian celebration and I believe in ALL religions so it's not on!! Stick to our own...”

Ø  “Some uniform or plain clothes work on Somalian rats... I battered one the other day...weighed less than [police officer’s name].”

Ø “Opened my balcony door and loads of flies flew into the front room. So I got the fly spray and turned my gaff into Auschwitz.”

Ø A police officer sent another officer an image of a Black man wearing a white shirt. His colleague asked, “What’s good about it I don’t get it lol.” He replied, “Ignore the robber...I like the shirt.”

Ø Use of derogatory terms about people with disabilities, including “spastics” and “retard”.

Ø One police officer was referred to as “mcrapey raperson” in a WhatsApp exchange. When officers on his team were asked to provide an explanation for this nickname, it was explained that there were rumours about him bringing a woman back to the police station to have sex with. Others reported it related to his “particular fondness of IC3 and IC4.” (IC3/4 refer to standard codes for Black and Asian people).

Ø A further officer clarified that he thought the nickname related to “harassing them [women], getting on them, do you know what I mean being like, just a dick.”

A WhatsApp conversation between two police officers:

Ø Officer 1: “And my bird won't stop taking the piss. Swear to got [sic] I'm going to smack her”

Ø Officer 2: “Slap her one...say you didn’t”

Ø Officer 1: “I`ll fucking do it. She`s fucked off home.”

A separate WhatsApp conversation between two police officers:

Ø Officer 1: “I fucking need to take my bird out, won’t see her until next Saturday. Then I have to work. Promised to take her out the Friday after. Making it up to her from when I backhanded her”

Ø Officer 2: “Grab her by the pussy”

Ø Officer 1: “You ever slapped your missus?”

Ø Officer 1: “It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone. Now I know why these daft cunts are getting murdered by their spastic boyfriends. Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature. They are biologically programmed to like that shit.”

Ø Officer 2: “Lmao”

Ø Officer 1: “I’m right though”

Ø Officer 1: “I had that massive fight with my bird because she found out I'd been out on the piss with this girl who's a high class hooker a couple of weeks ago Hahahah”

Ø Officer 1: “Make friends with high class hookers”

Ø Officer 2: “I had one in Watford from adult work. Used to fuck her all the time”

Ø Officer 1: “Yes! Hahaha”

Ø Officer 2: “used just hang out and blast her on the sly”

Ø Officer 2: “when I was on roids and needed it every hour”

Messages sent by a male officer to a female officer:

Ø “I would happily rape you”

Ø “if I was single I would actually hate fuck you”

Ø “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”

Further messages sent about women, include:

Ø “Getting a woman in to bed is like spreading butter. It can be done with a bit of effort using a credit card, but it's quicker and easier just to use a knife.”

Ø “Fuck knows what she's on about I just wanna spuff on her” (sent by an officer in reference to another police officer’s girlfriend).

Ø “Mate my Mrs is driving me mad - come and shag a baby into her it might shut her up bro.”

Ø Female officers told us they would be treated as the “weary female,” told it was part of police culture, that they should accept, “play the game or stay quiet”, or leave.

The Report also said that ‘We also obtained evidence that reports of sexual harassment were not dealt with sensitively within the MPS.’ Which surely can’t come as a surprise!

This is not a ‘cultural’ problem but a political problem stemming from the politics of the officers and their role as they (quite correctly) see it.

What is interesting is that these comments focussed on officers at Charing Cross Police Station near Trafalgar Square. I joined a picket there about 6 months ago. A supporter of Palestine Action, Richard, was being charged with Blackmail no less. This was because the landlord of the Death Merchants Elbit Systems Ltd. which supplies weapons to Israeli war criminals were told that if they didn’t stop leasing properties to Israel’s Elbit Systems they too would be targeted.

Is it any wonder that this right-wing dross and collection of bigots should go the extra mile to defend the manufacture of weapons that kill Palestinian children and civilians? After all they find ‘jokes’ about turning Black children into dogfood amusing and compare spraying insecticide to ‘Auschwitz’.

Tony Greenstein

For information on the campaign contact abatanm@hotmail.com See also the Jay Abatan Campaign Facebook Page

Family of man killed in ‘racist attack’ continue fight for justice 23 years on

Jay Abatan: Vigil calls for justice 23 years after Brighton killing

3,000 Demonstrate in Brighton Against State Racism and the Police and Crime Bill - But the Police Back Off

Zionist Gatekeeper Tries to Prevent Me Speaking at Rally

When I heard news of a Brighton demonstration at The Level, the traditional meeting place for socialists and radicals, I assumed that maybe a couple of hundred would turn up.

Instead there were thousands there. There was a massive police presence but they decided not to make themselves look stupid, unlike their counterparts in the Metropolitan Police. It was organised by Black Lives Matter Brighton and other unnamed individuals.

After various handpicked speakers had finished I got up to speak. About half a minute in, after I had announced that I had just been released from prison for trying to redecorate Elbit, an Israeli arms factory near Birmingham, the mike was cut off. A mysterious woman in red, a Zionist who was apparently one of the organisers, muttered that I was an ‘anti-Semite’.

Clearly one of Keir Starmer’s lapdogs had been let off the leash and the innocents of BLM had ignored the racist cuckoo in their nest. The organisers tried to explain to me that it wasn’t an open mike, which was untrue, and then the crowd started barracking them and demanding that I should continue.

Faced with appearing like the authoritarians they were demonstrating against, the organisers turned the mike back on!  And for 3 minutes I explained why it was that racism in Britain was not separate from the racist of the British Empire and Israel. The United States unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East was at the heart of Islamaphobia internationally which is why people like Tommy Robinson declare that they are Zionists.

I finished with a quotation from Nelson Mandela that 

‘we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

The Zionists have not hesitated to attack BLM for its support for the Palestinians. It would seem that some in the Brighton group have therefore tried to appease these Jewish supremacists and their New Labour hangers on rather than confront the fact that Zionism is just another variant of White supremacism.  It's not for nothing that racists and neo-Nazis like Tommy Robinson declare that they are Zionists. I guess I forced this contradiction into the open!

After I had spoken many people came up, including Palestinians, to say that they appreciated that I had spoken out as a Jewish anti-Zionist. One old trade unionist told me about the battles he had as an engineer with the Police 50 years ago at the Battle of Saltley Gate when thousands of miners and engineers forced the Police to close a large coke depot. This was the key even in the victory of the miners in 1972. 

We marched about 2 miles from The Level to the Hove Lawns on the seafront.  It was an exhilarating march and the chants made clear that Sussex Police, with their failures over the Jay Abatan murder 20 years ago and the tasering of a Black man on the Pier a year ago. The reception from ordinary people was uniformly supportive.

Afterwards and having spoken to other organisers I approached the woman in question and asked why she had called me an anti-Semite.  Apparently ‘other people’ had told her I was.  I asked for her name but she scurried away refusing to divulge her identity.

I have penned a letter to the organisers asking certain pertinent questions. The main point I have made in them is that you cannot divorce the racism stemming from Britain’s imperialist past from racism today and the establishment of Israel was very much part of the legacy of Empire.

Keir Starmer - a 'Zionist without qualification'

Below are a series of photos of the demonstration. It is clear that as the British State seeks to attack hard won democratic rights that we have a battle on our hands.  We have to get rid of the illusion that the Police are our friend. The State may appear benign but when, as seems certain, we enter a new period of austerity, the Police will be the Boris Johnson's boot boys.

The Labour Party is led, as Oliver Eagleton's excellent article demonstrates, by a 'long time servant of the British Security State' who declared that “I support Zionism without qualification.”

Tony Greenstein

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Letter to the Organisers of Brighton March Against the Police Bill and Black Lives Matter

Hi,

I’m sorry I didn’t get your name but you are I assume one of the organisers of today’s march against the Police Bill. 

First can I say what a wonderful gathering and march it was. I expected a couple of hundred, not a few thousand to attend and I pay tribute to the organisers. It shows the depth of opposition to this new attempt to deprive us of basic democratic rights.

I am sorry that there was an attempt to stop me speaking at today’s rally and it is that which I am writing to you about in an attempt to explain who I am, why I wanted to speak and why I found the purported reason for trying to prevent me speaking, ‘anti-Semitism’, so disconcerting given that Black Lives Matter has been accused of precisely the same.

I stepped forward to speak because I was only released on Tuesday from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham where I’d been remanded. I was one of a group of 6 Palestine Action activists who were driving to the Shenstone factory owned by  Elbit when the police stopped us. Elbit is an Israeli arms company which specializes in building the drones which are used to kill civilians in Gaza, Yemen, the Middle East generally and Kashmir.

The Police are now targeting Palestine Action for repression in a big way and that was why I wished to speak. I am also Vice President of Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council. 

My first political activities were against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. When I was 16 I took part in demonstrations against the visiting South African Springbok rugby tour.

In Brighton I was a co-founder of the Brighton & Hove Anti-fascist Committee and Secretary of the local Anti-Nazi League in the early 80s when the National Front was active. 

It is because I am Jewish that I could not oppose Apartheid in South Africa and then turn a blind eye to Apartheid in Israel. Israel was South Africa’s closest ally, militarily and economically during the Apartheid years.

In 1976 South Africa’s Premier John Vorster was a guest of the Israeli state. As Henrik Verwoerd, the architect of Apartheid said:

The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. In this I agree with them. Israel like South Africa is an apartheid state.

There is an excellent 2 part article in the Guardian on Israel’s links with South Africa here and here. Israel is a state of Jewish Supremacy and Apartheid.  Even B’Tselem, the main Israeli human rights organisation has, after 30 years, come to this conclusion in a statement issued earlier this year.

The accusation of ‘anti-Semitism’ made against supporters of the Palestinians and anti-Zionists is not new or surprising. How do you defend distributing vaccines to Jews but not Palestinians or other racist practices? You accuse your opponents of ‘anti-Semitism’.

In the same way defenders of South African Apartheid accused us of being ‘anti-White’ as did the National Front/BNP who used to organise under the slogan ‘rights for Whites’. 

When I stepped forward to speak a woman in red referred to me as an ‘anti-Semite’. I was expelled from the Labour Party as part of the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations against Jeremy Corbyn. The British press – from the Guardian to the Mail – supported these accusations, as did Boris Johnson and the Tory Party.

Friends such as Jackie Walker, a Black-Jewish woman was also expelled as part of this weaponisation of anti-Semitism. So too was Marc Wadworth, a long standing Black anti-racist activist. It was Marc who, more than any other single person, put the Stephen Lawrence campaign on the map when he introduced Nelson Mandela to Stephen’s parents.

The same Zionists who attack us as ‘anti-Semites’ are happy to hold hands with people like Donald Trump. But then it was Winston Churchill who divided Jews into good and bad when he wrote Zionism v Bolshevism. The point I made today is that racism in Britain cannot be separated from the history of the British Empire. We justified our conquests on the basis that those we colonised were uncivilized savages. In Kipling’s words it was the ‘white man’s burden.’  Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state and Jewish supremacy, was in alliance with the British Empire.

Those who orchestrated the false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign against the left in the Labour Party, such as the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism are also attacking BLM as anti-Semitic. In the United States one of the main Zionist organisations, the Anti-Defamation League, has boasted of using Israeli Police to train 150,000 US cops as Amnesty has confirmed.

I am writing to you for two reasons. Firstly I find it disconcerting that someone involved in the organisation of today’s march echoes the accusations of the supporters of Israel that I am anti-Semitic. I would like confirmation that that is not the position of the organisers.

Secondly there is a large and active Palestine solidarity campaign group in Brighton and it would be good for there to be greater communication and work between the groups.  After all our enemy is the same.

In solidarity 

Tony Greenstein