This International Women’s Day we answer the call from Palestinian feminists to resist the British state’s collusion with Israel in the ongoing genocide. We take instruction from the rich history of the Palestinian women’s movement, a movement that exists despite settler colonial fragmentation through occupation of the West Bank, besiegement of Gaza, settlement of ’48 and incarceration across seventy five years of the Israeli state. We follow in the footsteps of freedom fighters like Leila Khaled and Shadia Abu Ghazalah, whose participation in armed struggle against occupying forces reminds us of the rich and varied nature of feminist resistance. We recognise this revolutionary spirit in the present day Tal’at movement, who fight, like us, for an end to femicide, exploitation, domestic and state violence. Today, we honour the origins of International Working Women’s Day. FREEDOM OVER EQUALITY.
Feminism means an end to the occupation, an end to arming the settler-colonial Israeli occupying forces who murder and maim Palestinian people with impunity. An end to the devastation caused by starvation, disease, assault, aerial bombardment, and exile. This IWD, we note how gendered and sexual violence has always been central to settler colonialism: Israeli occupiers have, for decades, consistently used sexual harassment, degradation, and torture on Palestinians as a weapon of war. They proudly loot and rifle through the intimate belongings of Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinian women have been violently sexually assaulted. Alongside this, we witness how the decimation of healthcare infrastructure has caused unspeakable reproductive horrors. Living in tents under siege, under constant threat of bombings and starvation, pregnant women are forced to give birth under horrific circumstances without pain medication, dehydrated and injured, in unsanitary and unresourced maternity hospitals and on the street. Susan Abulhawa’s words haunt us, “The reality on the ground is infinitely worse than the worst videos and photos that we’re seeing in the West.” Entire bloodlines are being erased. The scale of the destruction is unfathomable.
Feminism is not about smashing glass ceilings or climbing the corporate ladder. The freedom we desire will abolish hierarchy. Womanhood does not absolve participation in genocide because identity is no guarantee of a shared political ethic. We reject the notion that women cannot be perpetrators of violence and that colonised men are our enemies; we have seen how easily the British State has conscripted women into the state-sanctioned annihilation of the Palestinian people. We know our history: groups like The Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent and the Brixton Black Women’s Group, in their historic solidarity with anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Chile and Mozambique, instruct us to strengthen and solidify our connections with struggles for freedom across the world. We stand with the Palestinian feminist resistance, we honour the Martyrs. We acknowledge how gendered labour has kept many alive during the last five months of genocide.
We answer the call from our Palestinian sisters and siblings across borders and join their struggle by committing to the disruption of business-as-usual operations, against the architects of genocide who maintain our complicity. We are against violence on our streets so we are against violence anywhere in the world. This International Working Women’s Day, we remember to fight for the living. We remember to lift the names of Palestinian women who are forced to fight for their liberation right now. There are so many names we do not know, whole words that have been crossed off the census. Women who are tethered to communities, families and each other are now displaced in the Gaza Strip. They are in the occupied West Bank, resisting the illegal settlements, settler violence and encroachments on Palestinian land.
Today, on March 8th, we share just 9 examples of the countless Palestinian women who have fought for their liberation from the settler-colonial Israeli project by participating in different arenas of struggle and so inspiring revolt in others. See their struggle and stand with them against the tyranny of occupation, famine and genocide. See their spirit and be moved to action against the architects of genocide in the United Kingdom and occupied Palestinian territories.
1. Moheba and Nariman “Arabiya” Khorsheed
The Khorsheed sisters founded the first women’s armed resistance organization in occupied Palestine.
Moheba and Arabiya were born and raised in Yafa, Palestine in 1920’s, when it was under colonial British Mandate, and witnessed the rise of Zionist militancy and settler occupation. They were actively involved in resistance movements in the 30’s and 40’s. At one point Moheba was called to be interrogated by British generals and went into hiding. During this time, Arabiya picked up her roles speaking at demonstrations.
In 1947, the sisters founded Zahrat at-Uqhawan (Chrysanthemum Flowers), originally an organization focused on supporting women’s rights and access to education.
While they will have witnessed colonial violence repeatedly throughout their upbringings, both sisters have shared defining moments that lead them to believe that the only way to liberation was armed resistance involving women.
When Arabiya returned home from work one day, she saw the remains of a Palestinian residential building that had been destroyed by a Zionist militia. Fuelled by rage, she spoke out in front of all her neighbours, exclaiming: “what a horrific catastrophe, what a calamity that befell the Arab countries? It is truly a tragedy so great that tongue and heart cannot describe it.” This speech got her fired from her job the next day.
Moheba witnessed a British sniper shooting a six-year-old Palestinian boy in the head in front of his mother. She claims that “on that day [she] went home and decided to take revenge.”
It was after this experience that Zahrat at-Uqhwawan transformed into an all-women armed organisation. They started funding weapons for resistance fighters and launched several militant operations. Some of their methods involved disguising themselves as men and launching surprise attacks on Zionist gangs.
Bisan Owda is a journalist, community activist, and filmmaker from Gaza. Bisan’s work has garnered international attention through her near daily documentation since October 8th of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. On instagram, she shares her on-the-ground experience with her growing 4.4 million followers. Israeli forces do not allow foreign press into Gaza. Documentation of the genocide has therefore been entirely reliant on Palestinian civilians and journalists like Bisan.
Bisan and other Palestinian journalists are consistent with their reporting, despite lack of internet access and regular loss of phone service, and in the midst of what has been dubbed ‘the most dangerous war for journalists’. 75% of journalists killed in 2023 were killed in Gaza, at least 103 journalists killed in 150 days. It is in this context that Bisan has become known for video introductions “It’s Bisan from Gaza, I’m still alive.”
Fatima Bernawi was born in Jerusalem in 1939 to a Palestinian-Jordanian mother, and a Nigerian father who participated in the 1936-39 revolution in Mandatory Palestine against the British adminstration. At 9 years old, she and her mother had to flee Palestine for Jordan due to the Nakba. She later smuggled herself back into Jerusalem to reunite with her father, and lived in the African quarter of the city. She joined Fatah when she was 18.
Bernawi worked as an UNRWA nurse in Qalqilya during the 1967 occupation and witnessed Zionist onslaughts on the West Bank. Later, she cited the destruction of Qalqilya as her reason for taking up armed resistance.
Bernawi was one of the first women to plan an militant operation in Palestine. She planted a handbag containing an explosive in a cinema screening of a film celebrating the occupation of 1967. It was found before detonating and she was arrested by occupation forces on 19 October 1967. She became the first Palestinian woman political prisoner of the contemporary Palestinian revolution.
Bernawi always honoured the Palestinian women who came before her; who were imprisoned, detained, and forced into labour camps by occupation forces.
Hind was born in Jerusalem in 1916 to a wealthy and politically prominent family and funnelled this wealth into educational resources and institutions, as she believed that women’s education was the path to their involvement and leadership in politics.
Hind became a teacher and took part in establishing the Social Cooperation Society for Women in Jerusalem, which had twenty-two branches in Palestine. The society studied the conditions of women and children in Palestinian villages and organized campaigns to combat illiteracy, as well as running other programs.
After the massacre in Deir Yasin in 1948, she took a group of 55 orphaned children into her home. Soon after, she established Dar al-Tifel all-Arabi, a charity to serve the needs of orphaned Palestinian children. This later became a prominent national educational institution, which included nurseries, kindergardens and schools. During the Israeli aggression in 1967, she transformed the charity into a clinic to treat the wounded. Israeli attackers shelled and destroyed the clinic, but it was later rebuilt. Later in her life, Hind founded a library and women’s college, Hind Al-Husseini College for Women, was part of Al-Quds University’s campus.
Hanady Halawani was born in Jerusalem in 1980 and was educated in a school set up by Hind El-Husseini (see above). Israeli press has labelled her one of the most dangerous Palestinians in 48 Israel.
She is a religious teacher, activist, and self-appointed Murabitat (steadfast women). The Murabitat are Muslim women who practice ‘ribat’ and feel that it is their duty to protect Al-Aqsa mosque from Israeli occupiers.
The first grassroots defence of the holy mosque began in September 2000, after then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed Al-Aqsa with more than 1,000 armed police and soldiers. This sparked the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. After this event, locals started organising groups to protect the site.
In 2011 Halawani started working as a coordinator for an educational programme that revived old practices in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Students would sit in a circle around their teachers to learn about Islam and a wide range of subjects. The program started with 50 female students, and by 2015, the figure had reached 650, in addition to 650 more male students. The group included young women, mothers and grandmothers, with ages ranging from 18 and 70 years.
In 2015, the Israeli occupation forces shut down Islamic programmes inside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, persecuting all those who were active. Since then, Halawani has been slapped with consecutive six-month expulsion orders that have been systematically renewed. She has been banned from Al-Aqsa as well as other parts of the country on many occasions. Her family’s home is regularly raided.
Born in Gaza City in 1940, Leila Shawa is an artist whose work confronts the harsh realities of structural violence in Palestine.
After living in Beirut during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Shawa returned to Gaza during the Lebanese Civil War. In Gaza, she played a pivotal role in birthing the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre. This vibrant sanctuary became a haven for artistic expression, pulsating with life through art exhibitions, film screenings, and celebratory graduations. Despite its tragic demise in 2023 due to Israeli airstrikes, the spirit of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre persists, an enduring testament to Gaza’s indomitable spirit and collective resilience.
Shawa’s “The Walls of Gaza” series explores the physical and metaphorical barriers that confine the Palestinian people. Through her striking imagery, she translates the experience of confinement and the yearning for freedom. Shawa’s art is deeply interconnected with the history of graffiti in Gaza, a form of grassroots communication and resistance against the occupation. In a landscape scarred by conflict, graffiti is a tool for reclaiming public space and asserting Palestinian identity in the face of erasure.
Born in 1941 in Nablus, Sahar Khalifeh is a leading feminist writer in the anti-colonial movement. She has written eleven novels that explore the complexities of living under settler colonial occupation. Her works have been widely translated and have won major Arab and international accolades.
Before writing Novels, Khalifeh wrote resistance poetry, influenced by Mahmoud Darwish. In 1974, she published her first novel, “We Are No Longer Your Slaves,” which made headlines. Following the success of her debut, Khalifeh further cemented her reputation with her second novel, “Wild Thorns” (1976). In this work, she delves into the intersecting issues of class, gender, and settler colonialism, shedding light on the complexities of Palestinian society under occupation.
Through all her literary work, Khalifeh intricately weaves together the feminist struggle with the broader Palestinian quest for liberation.
Khalifeh now lives in Nablus, within the occupied West Bank. Here, she serves as the General Director of the Women and Family Affairs Center. In her autobiography, Khalifeh discusses the inseparable bond between women’s liberation and national struggle. She asserts: “Women’s struggle for liberation isn’t much different from that of the nation. One is as political as the other… The road to freedom is political. And freedom in any field, for any issue, has its price.”
The literary works of Sahar Khalifeh are a potent illustration of how oppression and resistance are intertwined. She explores numerous facets of injustice and challenges readers to address these injustices and work toward an equitable and more just society.
Dr Ameera Al-Assouli is a retired obstetrician from Gaza. Israeli bombs destroyed her home in Abasan Al-Jadeeda, east of Khan Yunis, during the current genocide. After this, she took shelter in the besieged Al-Nasser hospital, treating the wounded and supporting the other refugees.
A video, released on 10th February, shows Dr Al-Assouli running from an inner hospital gate across the hospital courtyard amid the sound of bullets and drones, risking her own life to rescue a person who was left alone bleeding after being shot by an Israeli sniper. Reflecting on the incident, she said: “Our fear was removed from our hearts when I felt that someone needed help. I didn’t think about myself; I thought about saving people.” A few days after, Israeli occupation forces raided the hospital, cutting oxygen and electric supplies and killing patients.
Rather than simply ‘celebrate’ these women we stand in solidarity with Palestinian feminist resistance. We call on all feminists in the United Kingdom to take all and any action they can to stand with the Palestinian people. We call on you to strike for Gaza and honour the demands of Palestinian feminists
We call on you to respect the targetedboycott of Barclays Bank – Barclays is the 6th largest creditor of companies that fund the settlements that push Palestinians out of their home. Their financial investments maintain illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Barclays funds genocide.
The genocide in Palestine calls us to remember what is at stake for feminists across the world. This is an international women’s day of resistance. Join the boycott. Take to the streets and take direct action. Politically educate yourself and each other. Pressure for sanctions.
We will stand and struggle in solidarity with Palestinian resistance until the genocide stops, until the occupation ends, until we see a free Palestine.
“Join us on March 8th and organise with us for a global strike that will shake the thrones of the patriarchal and colonial systems. Mobilize with us the revolutionary forces that are ready to take the lead in transforming this day into a revolt against patriarchy, genocide, capitalism, and colonialism by all means possible. Through protests, sit-ins, strikes from all forms of work, both paid and unpaid, boycotting purchases and daily activities that profit the economic system, call for an arms embargo on the Zionist entity, intensify efforts seeking to prevent and disrupt the supply of weapons to it, taking platforms to speak about the Palestinian women of Gaza, blogging and writing on social media, and spreading tweets, flyers, or images bearing messages of solidarity with Gaza. Let this day be an escalation in the struggle against the genocidal war on Gaza and the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine. Join the strike and rattle the globe in the days ahead, spurring action and affirming the incontestable fact that there can be no feminist struggle without the women of Gaza.
The title of this piece is inspired by Sojourner Truth, and later bell hooks’, famous clapback: “Ain’t I a woman?”. Black feminists have always been asked to justify our tactics and sympathies to white women.
An article about us in the Jewish Chronicle asks: Why does a feminist group care about Gaza? What has bombs and genocide got to do with women and feminism? To our Black and migrant Sisters whose feminism has, by necessity, always been about more than domestic patriarchy, this is a familiar question. It translates roughly to: ‘why do you care about things beyond white Western women’s sympathies or concerns?’
This question sets up a false binary between two things conceived as being opposed to each other: justice for Palestinians on the one hand, and feminism on the other. This is an entirely disgusting and depraved juxtaposition, if you pay attention to conditions on the ground for women in Gaza. So in response we ask the Jewish Chronicle: aren’t Palestinians women too?
50,000 women in Gaza are pregnant. 5,500 are due to give birth in the next month. The collapse of the Gazan healthcare system due to Israel’s genocidal actions, and the lack of medicine and medical supplies as a result, means women in Gaza are facing medieval-style childbirths. We already know caesarian sections are taking place without anaesthesia, on the floors of hospitals. Hospitals that could at any second be blasted by Israeli missiles.
Women who give birth over the coming days, weeks and months will likely have no homes to take their newborn children to, nor can mothers produce sufficient milk to keep them alive due to Israel’s starving of Gaza. Feminists have long fought to improve the quality of, and ensure universal access to, women’s healthcare: today in Gaza the act of bringing life into the world has become a potential death sentence – for mother and baby.
We know that in times of human catastrophe and crisis, barbarity and oppression, women experience the brunt of violence: both at an interpersonal and institutional level. We know that with war comes brutal, unflinching gendered violence. These universal facts – that come out of living in a patriarchal and violent world – don’t change when the women are Palestinian.
More broadly, we know that the mutually sustaining systems of apartheid, settler colonialism and occupation, that keep Palestinians cruelly oppressed, have devastating effects on the psyche of women, and is incompatible with women’s liberation. This is why Palestinian women’s rights organisations and activists have themselves long insisted that women’s struggle and the struggle for national liberation are inseparable.
We know divisions of labour exist in Palestine in similar ways they do in the West: when Palestinian men are caged in Israeli jails, or killed by Israeli guns it is women who pick up the additional work to raise Palestinian families. Traumatised Palestinian mothers, having to raise traumatised Palestinian children, in conditions of inhumane oppression.
This is a dynamic too many Black women in the West know well: it is almost always Black women who run the justice campaigns, and are the ballast that holds a family upright, when a Black man has been murdered by police, or locked up due to the systematic targeting of Black men and boys in Western criminal justice systems.
It’s important to peer through a feminist lens when looking at the ongoing genocide and 100 year oppression of Palestinians. However, with reports of sexualised torture being used to brutalise Palestinian men and boys by Israeli authorities, long before this moment; silenced narratives of the rape of Palestinian women during the Nakba; reports of sexualised violence being meted out on Israeli women by Hamas; as well as the Islamophobic and racist weaponisation of sexual violence that presents it as an Arab, as opposed to a global, problem* there are multiple, overlapping ways feminists must speak out.
Yet, the bottom line is a fundamentally human one. We believe in freedom for all Palestinians.
Quite rightly, no people would ever accept being murdered, humiliated, dispossessed, racially targeted, oppressed, cleansed, exiled – and colonised – without resisting. This means lasting peace will only ever be possible when Palestinians are free. Period.
Freedom means Palestinians having full human rights; to live, love and laugh as equal human beings in a democracy, for all the people on all the land, built on equal rights – not demographic majorities and racial supremacy. This requires political, not military, solutions and that begins with a ceasefire now!
We care about Gaza because we care about women. And we care about women because we care about humanity.
*We added this following generous and loving feedback from our Arab/Muslim comrades – thank you.
At 17:30 on Tuesday 31st October, direct action group Sisters Uncut coordinated activists from across the Palestinian liberation movement to stage a sit-in during rush hour on Halloween at Liverpool Street station.
Demanding an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s UK-backed attacks on Gaza and an end to arms exports to Israel, speakers from Palestinian Youth Movement, Na’Amod, No More Exclusions, Sisters Uncut and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network spoke to the gathered crowds, Palestinian music was played and chants were led.
Chants included “Ceasefire now!” and “Stop bombing Gaza!”
The protest follows the continued refusal of UK politicians to call for a ceasefire in Palestine and their continued support of Israel’s aggressions on Palestine.
Following Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls for ‘a time for war’ and Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire, the group calls for there to be a ceasefire now and for the UK to end its arms exports to Israel, in the same way apartheid South Africa was isolated.
The group is also urging Keir Starmer and the UK Government to represent the demands of the 500,000+ people taking to the streets every weekend.
The groups pointed out that between 2016 – 2010 alone, Britain approved arms licences to Israel worth £387 million and most recently prime minister Rishi Sunak sent Royal Navy war ships and RAP planes to Israel. Britain has also allowed Israel to breach international law with impunity.
The protest is taking place in Liverpool Street Station due to its connection to the City of London, notorious for funnelling arms trade money through it. Banks includingLegal & General, HSBC andBarclays invest in the arms trade with Israel, and HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and Standard Chartered all helpprovide loans to companies that arm Israel.
Crossrail is currently advising the Israeli government on building a national transit service. Britain continues to profit from not standing up to this genocide.
QUOTES:
Aditi Wilson said:
“It cannot be business as usual when businesses in the City fund and profit from the murders of Palestinians. The UK has a moral obligation to stop fuelling this war with weapons and with its public endorsement. The UK must speak in strong favour of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel. Has everyone lost their minds? How is it possible that we are condoning such obvious war crimes and racist rhetoric from Netanyahu?”
Another protestor, named Eda Gencer said:
“It’s clear to see the UK won’t challenge Israel as they are once again putting profit over humanity. How anyone can see the pictures emerging from Gaza and not be calling an immediate ceasefire is beyond me! We are here today to tell the government, this is genocide and it must stop! They bombed Jabalia refugee camp just today! They are literally committing war crimes in front of us!”
“As Israel continues to bomb hospitals, like the Al-Ahli hospital, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Al-Quds hospital and with threats made against Al-Shifa Hospital, the UK government must stop endorsing war crimes and stand up to Israel. Until then there can be no business as usual.”
Referencing the Kindertransport statue at Liverpool Street station, Jewish protester Miriam Eppenheim said:
“In 1938 the British Government allowed 10,000 Jewish children to find refuge here, whilst abandoning their parents to murder at the hands of the Nazis. Today our Government has not only abandoned but enabled the murder of thousands of Palestinian children, together with their parents and families, at the hands of the Israeli war machine.The British Government has long been complicit in colonial violence, one example marked by the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – the anniversary is this Thursday!”.
[1] As well as describing Palestinians as “human animals”, multiple senior Israeli military and political officials have beenstating openly that “The emphasis is on damage, not accuracy,” that “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents,” and that “There will be no buildings.”
[2] Israel’s actions to stop fuel, electricity, food and water entering Gaza have deliberately created a dire humanitarian crisis of ‘unprecedented’ proportions,according to the United Nations. Charity Oxfam stated this week that Israel is using ‘starvation as a weapon of war’.
[3] UK arms exports to Israelinclude engines for drones, ammunition and light arms. Over 30 licences allowing unlimited delivery of equipment to Israel have been granted between 2016-2022, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade’s database.
NO POLICE IN OUR WOMEN’S BUILDING – Fill out the survey
Friday, June 9, 2023
The Women’s Building* that Peabody has promised to build on the site of Holloway Prison is at risk of housing probationary services.
Formerly the largest women’s prison in Europe, Holloway prison was a site of intense violence and harm. The Women’s Building was demanded by the community, to be a space for healing and support for people who have experienced violence at the hand of the state.
Embedding probationary services into the Women’s Building would be the complete opposite of what the community demanded. We do not want more policing of our communities. We do not want a prison under another name. We want a Women’s Building that works in the interests of us all.
We are asking people to fill out this survey from Peabody to make it clear that we want no probationary services in the Women’s building, that the building should provide specialised services for all survivors and that the building should be for women, non-binary and intersex people, and their children.
Please use our answers below as a guide, but use your own words.
GUIDE ANSWERS
QUESTION ONE
Choose ‘not important’ to the suggestion of ‘Probation referrals’.
Choose ‘other’ and in the text box specify that:
We need specialist services for Black survivors and survivors of colour, LGBT* survivors (emphasise the need for all services to be fully trans-inclusive), D/disabled survivors, and women, intersex and non-binary people who were formerly incarcerated.
There should also be a safe injection site/needle exchange.
No services in the building should be linked to the Criminal Justice System.
All services should be run by organisations that recognise the harms perpetuated by the Criminal Justice System.
All services should be free at the point of use.
QUESTION TWO
Choose ‘not important’ for ‘commercial space’.
Choose ‘other’ and note that the space should also:
Include a kitchen
Be fully accessible
Be free at the point of use
Note that there should be no commercial space in the building.
QUESTION FOUR
Choose ‘not relevant’ for ‘exclusive use for women only’ and then clarify in the text box below that it is important that the space is for women (trans and cis), non-binary and intersex people and their children.
Choose ‘other’ and note in the text box that:
There must be no connection to the Criminal Justice System (including immigration enforcement).
All services, including childcare, must be offered free at the point of use.
QUESTION FIVE
Strongly state that there must be no probation services in the building. Probation services are an arm of the Criminal Justice System that entrench state surveillance in the lives of formerly incarcerated people and set near impossible standards and codes of behaviour that they must adhere to. Probation services are another way that the Criminal Justice System cements itself in the lives of those currently and formerly imprisoned.
Probation services are not spaces for healing or support.
When the Community came together to demand a Women’s Building, the vision was that it would be a place of healing for those who have experienced violence at the hands of the state. It should work to rectify the pain and trauma inflicted by prisons and the Criminal Justice System. This can only happen if it is completely independent of these systems. No services that are linked to or co-operate with the Criminal Justice System should be housed in the building.
Services provided must not cooperate with the Home Office or Ministry of Justice in any capacity or deny access to individuals on the basis of immigration status.
*’Women’s Building’ is the term used by the Council, Peabody and some community groups. We insist that the building must be inclusive of all women (trans and cis), non-binary and intersex people.
At 6pm on Saturday 12 March, members of feminist direct action group Sisters Uncut set off 1000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station, the centre of the Met’s misogyny controversy this year. On Twitter, the group said “One year ago today, the police waited until sunset to brutalise us at Clapham Common. Today, we waited until sunset to detonate 1000 rape alarms at Charing Cross station”.
The group were joined by Patsy Stevenson, who gave a brief speech before the alarms were detonated. She said: “I was arrested on the floor for putting down a candle”, and said “shame on you” to police officers present at the protest.
An IOPC report released in February investigated various allegations against officers at Charing Cross police station, including a police officer assaulting his partner, officers having sex while on duty, racist and sexist Whatsapp messages, including some sent within a police officer Whatsapp group that said ‘I would happily rape you’ and ‘if I was single I would happily chloroform you.’(4)
The investigation is the latest in an outpouring of abuse reports within the Metropolitan Police since the Clapham Common vigil, most recently culminating in the resignation of Cressida Dick.
The date of this action marks the one-year anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard, which saw police officers ordered to violently manhandle women. The vigil kickstarted the Kill the Bill movement, which has seen thousands of people protest the introduction of expanded policing powers in the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
This week, two judges ruled that the Met Police breached the rights of the organisers of the planned vigil for Sarah Everard, who did not attend the vigil itself.
The action calls for the public to “withdraw consent from policing”, in reference to the tradition of ‘policing by consent’ in the UK. Sisters Uncut say, given the repeated reports of misogyny embedded in the institution, there is no way for women to consent to police power. Sisters Uncut maintain that more police powers will lead to more police violence and a society without police would be much safer.
Sisters Uncut advocate for police budgets to be cut, and funding for domestic and sexual abuse services reinstated.
Quotes
Sisters Uncut member Olga Smith said : ”When we found out about Sarah’s disappearance at the hands of a serving cop, we asked the police, how will you keep us safe? And the police said: stay home. Stay hidden. Carry a rape alarm. When we refused to hide away, when we gathered in grief and anger at Clapham Common to mourn our sister, Sarah Everard, the police brutalised us. Today we say: police are the perpetrators. Police don’t keep us safe. That is why have thrown our rape alarms back at the perpetrators in the infamous Charing Cross police station.”
Cassie Robinson, a 36 year old from London who attended the action said “I was there last year on Clapham Common, and the police’s behaviour was disgraceful. I’ve completely lost faith in the police to take violence against women seriously, and I participated in today’s protest because I am withdrawing my consent for violent men to have any authority in this society.”
Sisters Uncut are a direct action group protesting cuts to domestic and sexual violence services. The group was formed by domestic violence survivors and sector workers in 2014, and now has a network of groups across the country.
The Guardian reported that, according to the Bureau for investigative Journalism, 700+ reports of domestic abuse were made against police officers between April 2015 and April 2018 (1)
Between 2012-18, there were 1,500 accusations of sexual misconduct (including sexual harassment, exploitation of crime victims and child abuse) resulting in only 197 officers being sacked (2)
Between 2015-17, 415 referrals were made for officers that had abused their position to sexually assault someone, with domestic and sexual violence victims, sex workers and drug users being most at risk of being abused by an on-duty police officer (3)
The IOPIC (Independent Office for Police Conduct)’s Operation Hotton report can be read here (4). Coverage in the Independent here (5).
At 5pm on Saturday 12 March, feminist activist group Sisters Uncut will host a mass direct action at New Scotland Yard for the public to withdraw their consent from British policing. Details of the action will not be revealed until the day.
The date marks the one-year anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard, which saw police officers ordered to violently manhandle women. This event kickstarted the Kill the Bill movement.
The year since the vigil has seen an outpouring of abuse reports within the Metropolitan Police, most recently culminating in the resignation of Cressida Dick.
The action calls for the public to “withdraw consent from policing”, in reference to the tradition of ‘policing by consent’ in the UK.
Given the repeated reports of misogyny embedded in the institution, the group states that there is no way for women to consent to police power. Sisters Uncut maintain that more police powers will lead to more police violence and a society without police would be much safer.
Sisters Uncut advocate for police budgets to be cut, and funding for domestic and sexual abuse services reinstated.
Quotes
Sisters Uncut member Gina Cane said: “The police are perpetrators of violence. We saw this in the way they beat women at Clapham Common last year, we saw it in the murder of Sarah Everard, and we’ve seen it in the countless reports of police sexual abuse. When the policing bill passes, we can expect to see more police powers lead to even more police violence. We reject the authority of the police, a racist misogynist institution built on coercion and control.”
Cassie Robinson, a 36 year old from London who plans to attend the action said “policing by consent means the power of the police is dependent on public approval. I am withdrawing my consent for violent men to have any authority in this society.”
Notes for Editors:
Sisters Uncut are a direct action group protesting cuts to domestic and sexual violence services. The group was formed by domestic violence survivors and sector workers in 2014, and now has a network of groups across the country.
The Guardian reported that, according to the Bureau for investigative Journalism, 700+ reports of domestic abuse were made against police officers between April 2015 and April 2018 (1)
Between 2012-18, there were 1,500 accusations of sexual misconduct (including sexual harassment, exploitation of crime victims and child abuse) resulting in only 197 officers being sacked (2)
Between 2015-17, 415 referrals were made for officers that had abused their position to sexually assault someone, with domestic and sexual violence victims, sex workers and drug users being most at risk of being abused by an on-duty police officer (3)
Police are the perpetrators: Sisters Uncut call mass national action against police
Friday, February 11, 2022
Feminist direct action group Sisters Uncut are calling a national demonstration for people to withdraw their consent from police power.
On Saturday 12 March, Sisters Uncut invite the public to gather outside Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, at 5pm. No further details are revealed at this stage.
The date marks the one-year anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil, led by Sisters Uncut, where women were beaten and arrested by Metropolitan police officers. The police violence triggered Sisters Uncut to launch the ‘Kill the Bill’ mass movement, which has mobilised thousands of members and the public and politicians to reject the proposed expansion of police powers in the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Sisters Uncut maintain that more police powers will lead to more police violence.
In the past year, there have been countless reports of serving police officers committing rape, sexual harassment and domestic abuse. As public trust has been severed, Sisters Uncut maintain that a society without police would be much safer.
A spokesperson from Sisters Uncut said:
“Cressida Dick is resigning but she is leaving behind an institution that is rotten to the core. The police are perpetrators of violence, whose power remains unchallenged and intact. The Met police who beat women at Clapham Common are still yet to be handed unprecedented powers through the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill. The issue has always been institutional, not individual.
“Policing by consent is a story this country likes to tell about itself. The reality is that policing is unaccountable, aggressive and violent. We withdraw our consent from policing, and encourage the wider public to as well.”
Justice for Jasmine: Sisters Uncut solidarity with Jasmine York, facing jail for Kill the Bill protest
Monday, January 31, 2022
Today we are picketing the trial of Jasmine York at Bristol Crown Court. We stand in unconditional solidarity with her. Jasmine was charged by police after she complained about her injuries.
Jasmine York was brutalised by police and badly bitten by police dogs at last year’s Bristol Kill the Bill demonstration. But today she’s the one on trial, facing up to 14 years in prison. Her case symbolises the very worst of police violence against women, and abuse of police powers.
Whilst attending the protest against increased police powers on 21 March 2021, Jasmine was badly beaten by police officers and bitten by a police dog. Photographs of her injuries have been widely circulated on social media, and received press attention in the Guardian at the time.
On 22 March 2021, Jasmine complained to the police about her injuries, who informed her that an investigation would be opened.
On 31 March 2021, Jasmine was informed by police that no investigation into her injuries would take place, and instead Jasmine was arrested and charged. It seems that the police used her complaint, and her comment in the Guardian, as an opportunity to avoid scrutiny for their actions and make an example of her.
On 31 January 2022, Jasmine faces trial for riot and arson in Bristol Crown Court, and could spend 14 years in prison.
We stand in unconditional solidarity with Jasmine. She could be any one of us. Police violence against women protestors like Jasmine is state-sanctioned violence against women. We launched the Kill the Bill movement last year in response to the police violence against women protestors at Clapham Common. It was evident then, as it is now, that police are drunk on the powers they already have, and Jasmine’s case is further proof that police cannot be trusted to have more. More police powers will lead to more violence against women.
The events surrounding the disappearance and murder of Sarah Everard ignited a movement against policing. Jasmine is part of that movement. This movement, to kill the police crime sentencing and courts bill, was ignited after Sarah Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serving metropolitan police officer and after the police brutality meted out against mourners at Sarah’s vigil disgusted millions of horrified onlookers.
We attended the vigil for Sarah and everyone who faces gendered violence. We attended because the police told women to stay indoors when Sarah went missing, and when a vigil was called to stand up to this example of police sexism, the cops took every opportunity to intimidate the organisers into calling it off. We attended because we would not obey police orders.
We attended on the principle of defending the right to protest, the right to freedom of assembly, and the right to hold the police to account when they rape and murder our sisters! When 1000 of us turned out to stand up to police intimidation, they lay their hands on us, they chased us, they forced us to the ground, they handcuffed us, and they carried us away into the dead of night on Clapham Common. This was just minutes away from where one of their own kidnapped Sarah Everard. The outcry over Sarah’s murder and the police brutality at the vigil in her name quickly pivoted towards the governments planned power grab the following week, which would give the police unprecedented powers to unleash violence against women, protestors and working class, Black and Gypsy Roma Traveller communities.
In the days after the vigil, Jasmine joined thousands across the country to protest the government’s plans to give the police any more powers through the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Jasmine joined them to stand up against police misogyny, police racism, police brutality, and police intimidation. When Jasmine came out on the streets, as is her right, she was beaten by police, and viciously attacked by police dogs. She went home with the evidence of police brutality across her body.
Jasmine has a protected right to protest, a right to assemble. In exercising that right, she made a complaint to the police about her injuries. In what seems like an attempt to avoid accountability and scrutiny, the police made a counter claim against Jasmine, accusing her of initiating the violence. This is an age-old tactic by the police. The cops cannot tolerate any challenge to their authority and have repeatedly shown that they will smear the reputation of those who seek to hold them for their violence and corruption.
The cops are so intolerant of any scrutiny, they will mete out violence against anyone who challenges them. Last week, we heard that Dr Koshka Duff was arrested for giving a 15-year-old boy a bust card while he was being stop and searched. She was pinned to the ground by police officecrs, strip-searched, subjected to misogynistic jokes and humiliation for exercising her right not to give her name. This can only be described as state sanctioned sexual assault.
The police sent police to infiltrate and spy on Doreen Lawrence’s justice campaign for her murdered baby boy Stephen. Spy cop tactics were used against a string of women in the climate justice movement such as Kate Wilson, who was targeted with state-sponsored rape to gain access to and dismantle a movement fighting against the destruction of our planet.
Since Sarah Everard’s murder, the media have finally shone a light on what some of us have known for years: that the police are an institutionally misogynistic gang that use their powers to beat, sexual assault and murder women both on and off duty. Thousands of reports of domestic and sexual violence by cops continue to go uninvestigated.
From 2015-17, 415 reports were made against officers who abused their position to commit sexual assault. And who do the cops target for sexual assault when they are on duty? Domestic and sexual violence victims, sex workers and drug users. Women they are banking on being unprotected, vulnerable and unlikely to be believed. What happened to Sarah Everard, to Doreen Lawrence, to Kate Wilson, to Koshka Duff, to Jasmine and the countless women subjected to violations and violence at the hands of cops show us that the police are the perpetrators.
The police have the monopoly on violence in our society, and the only way they can maintain that violence is through a culture of impunity. They know that if they are to maintain their authority, they must resist any criticism from outsiders.
If you give a class of people legal powers, handcuffs, tasers, spray, batons and even guns to carry out their legal powers and then ensure that they are only accountable to themselves, they are going to use those powers both within the law and outside of it, to hurt and oppress those most exploitered in our society. Because the job of the police is to side with and protect the powerful.
Police will repeatedly use their powers to ensure those most exploited stay in line, whether women, black and white working-class communities, Gypsy Roma and Travellers, migrants, queer, trans or disabled people. We are in the midst of an abolitionist movement based on solidarity between all those who face police oppression. Through deep community organizing such as community self-defense and CopWatch, we will resist every stop and search, every police assault, every police kidnapping, and we will make ourselves ungovernable to the police crime sentencing and courts bill and all police power. We will withdraw our consent.
If we have any hope of winning, we must also stand in active solidarity with all those facing police repression for holding cops to account. We are proud to stand in solidarity with our brave sister and comrade Jasmine. We demand that Jasmine is found not guilty of all charges and we make a promise here today: if they won’t give us justice than we won’t give them peace.
Sisters Uncut raise the alarm on police violence against women
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Feminist protest group Sisters Uncut delivered a formal complaint to the Royal Courts of Justice about ‘routine and systemic violence against women’ in the police force.
As hundreds of people gathered, Sisters Uncut activists entered the Royal Courts of Justice to deliver a scathing complaint against police violence and brutality.
As the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill is set to pass, Sisters Uncut encourage people across the country to “withdraw consent” from UK policing, and join CopWatch intervention groups.
On Tuesday 2 November at 15:30, feminist protest group Sisters Uncut delivered a letter of complaint against the rampant violence against women within the UK police force.
Crowds gathered outside as activists from Sisters Uncut took the letter into the Royal Courts of Justice and read its contents for all to hear. As the sound of hundreds of rape alarms filled the Court, and whistles and chants filtered in from outside, their message was clear “Met Police are the perpetrators of violence against women and they do not keep us safe”.
In typical Sisters Uncut style, smoke flares billowed whilst banners emblazoned with ‘Met Police Blood on Your Hands!’ caught the eye of all who passed by.
Security guards manhandled activists out of the Royals Courts of Justice, hitting two black sisters in the face as the crowd chanted ‘Hey Mister! Get Your Hands Off My Sister!” Thankfully no one was seriously harmed or arrested, but the irony of this kind of treatment at a protest violence against women wasn’t lost on anyone who witnessed it.
The full letter, available on the group’s website here, reads:
“Today we withdraw our consent to police power. This is our super complaint on behalf of all women and all victims of police violence and corrupt criminal justice institutions.”
“The police claim Wayne Couzens was one bad apple, a lone monster, but we know 15 officers have killed women since 2009. We know colleagues referred to Couzens as ‘the rapist’. They did nothing. We know he exposed himself not once, but multiple times. They did nothing. We know he sent vile misogynistic racist and homophobic messages to colleagues on WhatsApp. They did nothing. We know that even after Couzens pled guilty, colleagues attended court to provide positive character references for him.”
“We know the police treated the family of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman with utter contempt: officers took photos of their dead bodies and turned the horrific violence they’d experienced into a joke. Women in Black, immigrant, disabled and working class communities bear the brunt of complicity in this corruption.”
The Met police officers who took selfies with the dead bodies of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman have still yet to face justice. The sisters were murdered in June 2020, and officers were charged with misconduct last week and made a guilty plea in a court hearing earlier today.
As police are set to be handed even more powers through the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts bill, Sisters Uncut call on everyone to sign up to their Police Intervention Training here.
At least 15 women have been killed by police officers since 2009. As reported in the Guardian, according to the Centre for Women’s Justice, one woman a week comes forward to report a serving police officer for domestic or sexual violence.
The Guardian also reported that, according to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, 700+ reports of domestic abuse were made against police officers between April 2015 and April 2018
Between 2012-18, there were 1,500 accusations of sexual misconduct (including sexual harassment, exploitation of crime victims and child abuse) resulting in only 197 officers being sacked.
Speeches were delivered at the protest by members of Sisters Uncut, Feminist Fightback, Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike and Women Against Rape. Also joining the speakers was Patsy Stevenson, the woman who was thrust into the headlines when she was brutally pinned to the ground by Police during the vigil for Sarah Everard in March 2020.
Speakers spoke in solidarity with Bristol activist Ryan Reynolds (22) who was handed a severe custodial sentence last week for their part in demonstrations against police brutality and increased powers in March this year. Speakers made the clear connection between police violence against women, impunity in the courts, suppression of the right to protest and the systemic racism, misogyny and oppression evident in the Police force.
An anonymous member of Sisters Uncut said:
“We are raising the alarm on police corruption and violence in the UK – and spotlighting who the true dangers to our society are: the police. Police officers took selfies with the dead bodies of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman back in June 2020, and have only just been charged with misconduct. Meanwhile, several people who attended the Bristol Kill the Bill protest in March 2021 have already been sent to prison for a number of years. Time and time again, the police have shown that their priority is to protect themselves and their own power, whilst repeatedly enacting violence against women. And the courts are complicit: they are too busy prosecuting protestors to hold the real perpetrators of violence in our society to account: the police.”
Angela Lloyd, a secondary school teacher who has recently joined a CopWatch group in West London said:
“I joined my local CopWatch group because after all the news this year, I can no longer trust the police. The relentless reports of the police’s violence against women has left me totally disgusted and disillusioned. It has felt like every single day since Sarah Everard was murdered, more stories of horrific police violence have come out, and nothing is being done to hold them to account, so it feels like it’s up to us to hold them to account now.”
Sisters Uncut are a direct action group protesting cuts to domestic violence services. The group was formed by domestic violence survivors and support workers in 2014.
Sisters Uncut are part of the ‘Kill the Bill’ movement – a coalition of over 40 activist groups who have joined forces and taken to the streets repeatedly since March to reject the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill – demand no more police powers.
LETTER: Raising the alarm on police violence against women
Monday, November 1, 2021
WE ARE RAISING THE ALARM ON POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
WE ARE CALLING ON THE PUBLIC TO JOIN US TO DELIVER A LETTER OF COMPLAINT ON BEHALF OF ALL WOMEN.
There is an epidemic of police violence against women in this country. Today we withdraw our consent to police power.
This is our super complaint on behalf of all women and all victims of police violence and corrupt criminal justice institutions.
This week, 63 police officers have been found abusing their powers for sexual gain. We know this is just the tip of the iceberg.
750 Metropolitan police officers have been accused of sexual misconduct since 2010, only 83 were sacked. Police are a third less likely to be convicted of domestic abuse than the general public. This is a CRISIS.
The police claim Wayne Couzens was one bad apple, a lone monster. But we know 15 officers have killed women since 2009.
We know colleagues referred to Couzens as ‘The Rapist’. They did nothing.
We know he exposed himself not once, but multiple times. They did nothing.
We know he sent vile misogynistic, racist and homophobic messages to colleages on WhatsApp. They did nothing.
We know, even after Couzens pled guilty, colleagues attended court to provide positive character references for him.
We know the police treated the family of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman with utter contempt: officers took photos of their dead bodies and turned the horrific violence they’d experienced into a joke.
Women in Black, immigrant, disabled and working class communities bear the brunt of complicity in this corruption. We withdraw our consent NOW.
There is an epidemic of impunity protecting the police across the entire criminal justice system. From the streets to the courts: the whole system is guilty.
We call out these institutions: the police, CPS, courts, Home Office, psychiatric institutions, the DWP, Family Courts, and Social Services.
Whilst violent police are protected, activists and mourners who protest police violence are punished.
Courts in Bristol are handing down draconian sentences to campaigners against police violence, like Ryan Roberts who is facing riot and arson charges for standing against police brutality.
Yet the police who brutalised women at Clapham Common vigil have faced no consequences.
The Government is pushing through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would give even more powers to police already drunk on the ones they have.
We are raising the alarm because the police are entirely unaccountable. There is no recourse to justice or safety for victims of police violence.
We will take action until we are safe from police. CopWatch groups are forming around the country to intervene in police activity to keep our communities safe. Expect us.
We raise the alarm with our sisters, siblings and communities at the sharpest edge of state cruelty.
In rage and grief we will resist, we refuse to be silent.
Sisters Uncut Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike Women Against Rape Feminist Fightback
Black Lives Matter
HUNDREDS OF PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVISTS SHUT DOWN LIVERPOOL STREET TO DEMAND CEASEFIRE ON THE EVE OF THE BOMBING OF JABALIA REFUGEE CAMP.
