United4Justice: Affected families speak out

Families & Friends United adapted from original by Harmit Athwal of IRR
22nd May 2010 (see footnote)

Families and campaigners gathered in Leicester to pay tribute to those that had died in custody.

At a meeting and event organised by the 4WardEver UK Campaign in association with the Friends of Mikey Powell Campaign for Justice, Habib Ullah Campaign and the Leicester Civil Rights Movement, there was no mistaking the serious issues being addressed.

Banners and posters of dead loved ones adorned the walls and stage, the hall was crowded with stalls of books and DVDs and information on families and organisations campaigning on deaths in custody, films were shown and family members and campaigners gave speeches. And, in a grand finale to the evening, entertainment was provided by Yaz Alexander, Lennox Carty, The Trooperz, Genesis Elijah and The Broombusters – which went down a storm.

4 May 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Blair Peach report: What the investigation has uncovered

originally published by: BBC News
27th April 2010

It is rare that an internal police document is exposed to the light of day – and so the publication of the investigation into the death of Blair Peach in 1979 makes extraordinary reading.

But from the very outset, the report by Metropolitan Police Commander John Cass makes it clear that there was no chance of any officer being prosecuted over the New Zealand teacher’s death. Some 31,000 man hours were spent trying to get to the bottom of what had happened – and in the end detectives reached the dead end of insufficient evidence.

The death came during the 1979 general election campaign when the National Front was meeting on St George’s Day at Southall, west London. The area was then emerging as one of the capital’s centres of Asian culture.

Anti-racism campaigners turned out in numbers to face down the National Front. And things quickly spiralled out of control. Some 3,000 people were on the streets and some 345 of them were arrested. Almost 100 police officers were injured, along with 65 protesters and members of the public.

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23 February 201015 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Russian policeman gets life for killings

originally published by: The Raw Story
19th February 2010

A Russian police major who shot two people dead and wounded seven others in a supermarket rampage that stoked public outrage over police brutality was sentenced on Friday to life in prison.

Denis Yevsyukov, the former head of police of the southern Moscow district of Tsaritsyno, was found guilty on two counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said. “The court found Denis Yevsyukov guilty of these crimes and sentenced him to life in prison in a maximum-security prison colony,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.

The life term imposed by a three-judge panel at Moscow City Court was the maximum sentence Yevsyukov could be given for his April 2009 shooting spree, which sparked calls to reform Russia’s notoriously corrupt and brutal police.

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