The great and good who had mobilised to fight against attacks on the anarchists’ right to free speech recognised its true threat was broader …
Radical Reprint: A defence against State overreach
Tag: War Commentary
Radical Reprint: Defence of four London Anarchists
As the State’s machinery of repression ground slowly onwards, both the 10 March and 24 March 1945 issues of War Commentary, Freedom’s wartime newspaper, had extensive coverage of anarchists being sent to court, solidarity actions and continued police searches ~ Rob Ray ~ The headline case, following on from raids at the end of 1944
Radical Reprint: Arrests and jail terms for Freedom Press editors
Following raids on Freedom Press by Special Branch, at the behest of the Home Office, which had been reported in January 1945 (recounted in last month’s column), pressure was kept up with a succession of court cases, reported on at length by the right-wing press ~ Rob Ray ~ That the February 24th edition of
Radical Reprint: Freedom struggles against government raids
The beginning of 1945 was a turbulent time for Freedom Press, along with anarchism in Britain and western Europe ~ Rob Ray ~ While the Germans were mounting their last, doomed offensive, the outcome of World War II was already no longer in doubt.
Freedom Press and the MI5 vendetta
Today we’ve uploaded a new set of 25 War Commentary newspapers, mostly covering late 1943 through 1944, to our digital archive and to mark the occasion Jack Saundrs looks at a set of MI5 files which show exactly how angry the Freedom Group publication was making the State at the time.
Frank Leech: Why I went on Hunger Strike
The following article by a wartime conscientious objector is taken from an April 1944 issue of War Commentary, brought out by the Freedom Group during World War II shortly before its editors were arrested for sedition.
Recent Articles
Nantes: 4,000 on the streets for Bloquons Tout
French police directed the demonstration with flash grenades and tear gas ~ from Contre Attaque ~ Saturday, 13 September, a rainy day in Nantes.
Facing down the flagshaggers
To resist normalisation, we need enduring groundwork with attacked communities—and spaces for open strategising ~ Blade Runner ~ On Saturday 13 September, between 110,000 and 150,000 turned out in response to Tommy Robinson’s call, a mobilisation framed as a defence of “free speech” but saturated with white nationalist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric.
London arms fair disruption: A stark contrast to mass arrests for Palestine
Well-coordinated direct action catches the police off guard, showing the power of secure and strategic organising ~ Kevin Blowe ~ On 9 September, at around 7.30 in the morning, an advance bloc of about 150 protesters, their faces covered, suddenly appeared by London City Hall in east London, near to where Britain’s largest arms fair,
Anarchist prisoner released from Belarus
The regime deported 52 political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief ~ Nikita Ivansky ~ Anarchist Nikolai (Mikola) Dziadok was among 52 political prisoners released and deported from Belarus to Lithuania on 11 September, following negotiations between dictator Alexander Lukashenko and US envoy John Colae.
France blockades: The leaderless escalate
Yesterday’s day of action saw Bloquons Tout stepping out of the shadows nationwide—and facing major police repression ~ punkacademic ~ Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Wednesday (10 September) as the first day of action organised under the banner Bloquons Tout (“Block Everything”) saw widespread protests and blockades in defence
