originally by: Harmit Athwal
published: 8 August 2013

On Saturday 3 August, over 500 people gathered at the North London Community House in Tottenham to remember Joy Gardner, Mark Duggan, Roger Sylvester and Cynthia Jarrett, who all died locally at the hands of the police.

The event was held to mark the two years since the death of Mark Duggan and the twenty years that has passed since the death of Joy Gardner, who died during a brutal deportation attempt in 1993. The meeting was organised by the Mark Duggan Family Campaign and Joy Gardner Memorial Campaign and supported by the United Families and Friends Campaign, Tottenham Rights, The Monitoring Group, the Tottenham Defence Campaign and 4WardEver UK.

This was an emotional meeting themed around the long struggles for justice by four local families. There was standing room only. The atmosphere was electric; the evening was punctuated by chants of ‘No Justice, No peace!’; cheering for speakers and their comments, standing ovations, floor stamping and clapping.

Ken Fero’s film, Justice Denied, details the campaign fought by Myrna Simpson for justice for her daughter Joy, was shown first. The film also records the struggles faced by the families of Joseph Nnalue and Kwanele Siziba, both of whom fell to their deaths after fearing immigration officers had arrived at their homes.

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