(Credit: Gobierno de la Ciudad de México) In London, cases of femicide in public spaces such as streets, squares and parks, perpetrated by strangers, including in one instance by a serving police officer, have dramatically illustrated that women and girls are not free...
Red Pepper
A poet, a composer and an unlikely Greek protest song
‘Denial’ is not an obviously political song. The reasons it took political dimensions are complex – both socio-political and aesthetic. It brings two worlds together, that of the measured diplomat Seferis, and the fiery, larger-than-life Theodorakis. So why is it that...
The Trojan Horse Affair highlights Prevent’s flaws
Park View School, now Rockwood Academy, was at the heart of the so-called trojan horse affair. The recent, gripping New York Times podcast on the trojan horse affair has re-opened the injustice dealt to a poor, mainly Muslim, community in Birmingham, its schools, and...
The tech fightback: An Interview with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW)
Credit: Phil Wrigglesworth Liam Kennedy: Could you tell me a bit about how the UTAW branch came to be? Why the Communications Workers Union (CWU), for instance? John Chadfield: The idea for UTAW, or a tech worker union led by tech workers, started in 2019 and...
Why we need to unite for peace and human rights across the old divides
Russians demonstrate in 2014 against military intervention in Ukraine. Image: Dhārmikatva / Wikimedia Commons One early initiative in the ‘no war’ movement of Russian citizens, now filling the squares of Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities and facing brutal...
Egypt at 100
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser waiving to a crowd in Mansoura, 1960 In 1919, a peasant-led revolt broke out in Egypt demanding an end to British occupation. In the aftermath of this widespread mobilisation, the country gained a nominal independence from 28...
Fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in China
Qiuyan Chen outside the Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing in 2015. Photo credit: Qiuyan Chen On 16 July 2021, 18 LGBTQ+ public accounts run by the members of ‘underground’ student rainbow societies were shut down by WeChat. These accounts now only appear on the...
Revitalising artistic activisism in the age of art-wash
The Stop Shopping Choir perform for ‘Joe’s Pub’ at the Public Theatre in New York. Photo: John Quilty Maybe we don’t need more artworks about icebergs. Or, more specifically, maybe we don’t need more fragmented blocks of ice left to melt poignantly in our city...
Education for an alternative
Photo credit: Alarichall Students and academics across the UK are preparing for a new round of strikes. They come at a time when university staff face extra difficulties with the cost of living crisis after a 20% real-term pay cut since 2010, postgraduate staff lack...
Compulsory voting: the debate
A map on which the countries marked in red have enforced compulsory voting. By SPQRobin (licensed under Creative Commons) Australia’s electoral mandate Should citizens be compelled to vote? Most of the world’s democracies say no, but a few compel electors to turn up...
The war on the Uyghurs
The Uyghur tribunal published its findings in December 2021. Photo credit: Lily Vetch In September 2021, I attended a London tribunal that heard evidence from several Uyghurs who had experienced persecution at the hands of China. Despite having given my own evidence...
Can Boric’s government end Chile’s Mapuche conflict?
Protesters wave the Mapuche flag on the streets of Chile. Photo by Pablo Bell (Instagram: @_pablobell) On 21 January, Chile’s new president Gabriel Boric unveiled his much anticipated cabinet of ministers. To the delight of Chile’s strong contingent of feminist...