Archive for the ‘Ukraine : Women Raped by Russian Invaders’ Category
“We condemn the hatred expressed towards people seeking refuge and seeking asylum” March with Le Chéile, February 18, Parnell Square Dublin, 1.30pm
John Lyons, am Independent Left Dublin City Councillor representing Artane/Whitehall, is supporting the Le Chéile Ireland for All Solidarity march at Dublin’s Parnell Square on February 18 at 1.30pm. John’ report is below. Irish Left With Ukraine is one of many organisations supporting this anti-racist mobilisation.
Over recent weeks there have been protests in the area targeting people seeking refuge in Ireland. It has been sad to see and it consequences can be traumatic for those directly targeted and can further disadvantage all our efforts to fight for a better Ireland for all as we can only secure housing for all, a better health service, more community, sports & social funding if we are united, not divided.
This country is extremely wealthy but we have a problem: the political class led by Fine Gael & Fianna Fail care only for the better off & wealthy.
They don’t care about our families, our communities.
Read the rest of this entry »Ireland Fought for Freedom against an Empire – Now we on the Irish Left Support Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Global Week of Action Events in Ireland – February 21-26 2023
A global week of action for solidarity with Ukraine – Stop the Russian war of aggression! Peace for Ukraine!
Friday February 24 will mark one year since the Russian army invaded Ukraine on the orders of Putin and his regime. A year of indescribable suffering and bloodshed for the Ukrainian people.
The completely unjustified invasion has already cost the lives of many tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military personnel. Every day the Ukrainian people face brutality and violence. Millions of civilians have been forced to flee abroad, millions are internally displaced.
Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble by Russian bombing and airstrikes. Civilian infrastructure (electricity and heating networks, schools, hospitals, railroads, ports, etc.) is being systematically destroyed, making the country unliveable.
Calendar of Events
February 21-26 2023 Events Supported or Organised by ILWU
Tuesday February 21, 7pm
Why You Should Support Ukraine (via Zoom)
Speakers :
Vladyslav Starodubtsev (Sotisalniy Rukh); Vlad Dziuba (Ukrainian Action in Ireland)
Join us on Tuesday February 21 at 7pm to discuss Why you should support Ukraine – Hear two Ukrainian activists. Email irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com for zoom link
Friday February 24 2023 Dublin, GPO, 2pm.
Called by Ukrainian Action on Ireland : 1st Anniversary of Russian Invasion of Ukraine : “Fighting for Europe”
Immigrants Involved in Irish Radical Left/National Liberation Movements – Before, During and After the Easter 1916 Rising
A Maurice Casey Walking Tour – supported by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU)
Saturday February 25 – 1-3pm – Portobello to the GPO
1pm to 3.00pm, starting at Portobello Square (at 1 Portobello Harbour, opposite BelloBar), finishing at the GPO.
The route and the stories Maurice Casey will be covering at each stop :
Portobello Place – Harry Kernoff
Harry Kernoff’s woodcut of James Connolly in the uniform of the Irish Citizen Army, whose flag is on the banner of the ILWU.
Lombard Street West – The Harmel Family
St Stephen´s Green – Casimir Dunin
Mansion House – Sidney Aronson and Rose McKenna, WILPF Ukraine
delegates
National Library of Ireland – Nora Dryhurst and Georgian Independence, Kropotkin
Peterson´s Pipe store – Conrad Peterson, Helen Lena Yeates
Trinity College Dublin – Russian Department – Daisy McMackin
GPO – The Bolshevik delegation to Dublin – Point up to the Mater
Hospital – End with story of the Finn and the Swede in 1916
Dublin Against the Far-Right – Successful Demonstration – February 6 2023
Two Anti-Racist Organizations – Le Chéile (Diversity Not Division) and United Against Racism – called a successful anti-racist demonstration in Dublin City Centre at the Spire, O’Connell Street, across the road from the General Post Office (GPO) – site of the Easter 1916 Rising.
By start time of 1.30pm over 200 people turned up – nearly two hours later numbers rose to nearly 1000 people, and the column marched to the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square. The mood was determined and cheerful. Several people on passing buses and trams demonstrated open solidarity. The scene is set for a bigger and broader demonstration on Saturday February 18. In recent days far-right demonstrations have spread across Dublin and other parts of Ireland like a plague.
Today’s event showed that mass opposition exists, and activists will positively work on this issue provided all shades of the left work in unity together. The photographs below are a visual record of a positive event.
Read the rest of this entry »Zero Tolerance for intimidation – Anthony McIntyre reports on a Labour Party Public Meeting in Drogheda – Unity in Action Against a Common Far-Right Racist Enemy
Differences exist on the left-wing spectrum in Ireland – some of them concern fundamental disagreements about political principles. One clear example is opposition to entering any coalition government with right wing ruling class parties in Ireland such as Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Democratic Unionist party or the Alliance party.
Other issues place a duty on parties in the broadly left-wing spectrum to put aside tactical differences, and explore methods of practical co-operation. Building effective practical opposition to the dangerous growth of far-right racism in Ireland is on the agenda today. In this spirit we re-publish an Anthony McIntyre article which reports on a well-attended Irish Labour Party rally in Drogheda which tackled the issues of racism, immigration, and Russia’s fascist and genocidal invasion of Ukraine head-on.
Anthony pulls no punches discussing his political differences with the Labour Party!
John Meehan February 3 2023
link : https://www.thepensivequill.com/2023/02/zero-tolerance-for-intimidation.html
Zero Tolerance For Intimidation
Anthony McIntyre Wednesday, February 1, 2023
It has long struck me that the Irish Labour Party more than any other has abandoned the constituency that returns it in pursuit of office. It promises a left package then delivers the Rabbitte punch to the recipients of the promise so that it may become the prop sustaining governments which view left packages much as a dog does a lamppost.
Whatever the Labour leadership sought to project onto the screen, the filtering process left the electorate feeling that it had just viewed Pensions Before People. Last time out those who had voted the party in such numbers in the previous general election followed through on Eamon Gilmore’s promise, while still with the Workers Party, to destroy the Labour Party. Since then Labour has struggled to make any impact on the Irish political scene.
None of that stopped me from turning up at a Labour Party Town Hall meeting in Drogheda’s D Hotel on Monday evening. I actually left Dublin early to make the event which was attended by around one hundred people. I had never been at any of the party’s gatherings before although any time I have approached its elected representatives or party workers, the response has been nothing less than helpful. Their members also have been to the fore in defusing the moral panic that the far right has been trying to stoke and amplify over a range of issues, most notably refugees.
‘REFUGEES WELCOME’ THE OTHER SIDE OF PROTESTS – When far-right protests against asylum seekers housed in the former ESB building started in Dublin’s East Wall, Molly Hennessy wanted to do something. So she went down on her own with a cardboard sign that said, “Refugees Welcome”.
This report was published in the January 28 2023 edition of the Irish Times. The author is Patrick Freyne
‘REFUGEES WELCOME’ THE OTHER SIDE OF PROTESTS
Community groups are stepping up their opposition to those demonstrating about asylum seekers being housed in their areas
When far-right protests against asylum seekers housed in the former ESB building started in Dublin’s East Wall, Molly Hennessy wanted to do something. So she went down on her own with a cardboard sign that said, “Refugees Welcome”.
She says some of the protesters there on November 21st, 2022, were chanting “Refugees out” and “Ireland is full”. A man started shouting at her, she says. “He said he was going to follow me and burn my house down. And I was like, ‘okay, that’s mad, seeing as you’re here saying, “protect our women and children”.’ He was up in my face. I’m not even going to say some of the things he was saying about the people …I was crying walking away.”
It turned out a lot of local people were as upset by the protests as Hennessy and were contacting with one another. Soon East Wall Here for All was born. It’s one of a number of groups springing up across the city – Ballymun for All, Clondalkin for All, Tallaght for All, Drimnagh for All – that seek to show solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees. The groundwork was partly laid in the local Starbucks, where I meet some volunteers. “This place is to us what Liberty Hall was to James Connolly,” laughs Roxanna Nic Liam. “My family all live here and I work in a cafe in here. I saw the protests and I was mortified. I texted people in the area I knew and a few of us met up here in these very seats.”
“I was really shocked,” says her neighbour Paddy O’Dea. “I thought, ‘is this where I live now?’ I’ve a two-year-old and seeing parents at the protests with kids, I was like, ‘are these the views that are going to be passed on to my little man’?”
Read the rest of this entry »Ukrainian Action on Ireland; Free Russians Ireland; Woman Life Freedom (Iran) – Dublin City Protests January 22 2023 – Russian Troops out of Ukraine Now
Irish Left With Ukraine activists attended two well-supported Dublin city protests on January 22 2023 connected to the genocidal Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Free Russians Ireland event at Stephens Green/Grafton St. was supported by over 80 citizens, including Woman-Life-Freedom, an Iranian-led solidarity organization. Similar numbers supported the Ukrainian Action Ireland protest on the Halfpenny Bridge.
Free Russians Ireland, which regularly works with Woman-Life-Freedom, is a striking instance of woman led protests and solidarity.
Gregor Kerr photographed the Ukrainian Action Ireland Protest at the Halfpenny Bridge https://m.facebook.com/FreeRussiansIreland?eav=AfblU6Xlq_0_WZroeEfTwK93iOqoLz-1S7oKFbmqNucT4NYMrng6ZvHGuI90JO1sjgA&paipv=0
Irish Left With Ukraine supports calls for mass action against the Imperialist Genocidal Russian invasion of Ukraine on dates around the first anniversary of the invasion, February 24 2023.
Towards a global week of action for solidarity with Ukraine
Stop the Russian war of aggression! Peace for Ukraine!
Read the rest of this entry »Razem: Building a left alternative in Poland – Federico Fuentes interviews Zofia Malisz
Polish left-wing party Razem (Together) International Office member Zofia Malisz speaks to Green Left’s Federico Fuentes about the party’s history, Polish politics and Razem’s views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The source is an Australian website, Greemn Left Weekly https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/razem-building-left-alternative-poland
Razem supports the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/
January 10, 2023
Members of Razem at May Day in Warsaw in 2022. The banner reads: ‘Housing! Jobs! Decent Pay!’. Inset: Zofia Malesz. Photo: @RazemWM/Twitter
Could you tell us about Razem’s history and politics?
Razem was formed in 2015 by a group of leftist activists with years of experience in the Polish green and feminist movements, along with members of the Young Socialists.
The impetus for creating a new party was two-fold.
One was the frustration that emerged under the liberal Donald Tusk government (2007‒14). Whenever voices started to demand the government focus on social spending instead of cuts and privatisations, Tusk’s response was to say Poland was still in its transformation stage [towards a market economy] and that now was not the time to build up a welfare state.
See also
Poland sets up ‘terrifying’ pregnancy register after banning abortion
Poland: Caught between Western and Russian imperialism
Frustration grew as neoliberal policies were implemented at breakneck speed to indulge business elites, while people were denied even modest social benefits and public services were being dismantled.
All this occurred as anti-austerity protests were taking place in Greece, something we supported and that inspired Razem.
The other major factor was the protests against the Iraq war and against Poland’s participation in the occupation of Afghanistan. Several activists who went on to build Razem came from these protest movements.
The revelations of alleged illegal US prisons in Poland used to torture al-Qaeda members created huge outrage. Seeing the Polish government bow down to US imperialism unchallenged — and in fact encouraged by the mainstream, including former Solidarność activists — fuelled frustration on the left.
Razem was formed as an expression of this anger and frustration that had built up during the transformation process.
Read the rest of this entry »Russia’s Road Toward Fascism
Sunday 1 January 2023, by POPOVYCH Zakhar
Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article65239
WAR IN UKRAINE is plunging more and more into massacre but possibly the worst is about to come. Mass killings of prisoners and civilians, numerous and systematic rape in Russian-occupied territories are now “normal” news from Ukraine. Millions could be killed this winter by freezing alive in their apartments without heat, water and electricity.
The daily count of dead is far higher than at any moment of the Donbas wars of 2014-2021. According to reports from both sides, the death toll probably exceeds 100,000 from the beginning of the war, and may now be higher than a thousand combatants and civilians daily. [1]
Not just the scale but the cruelty of violence is steadily rising and Russian state propaganda is systematically pushing for escalation. If it is not genocide yet, the ideology for eliminating Ukrainians in the millions is already announced on Russian state TV, and by high-ranking officials.
Russians claim it is “denazification,” but it turns closer and closer to the ideology of fascism and Nazi state practices. [2] It is hard to say how deep Ukraine will dive into this abyss of terror, but it is clear that withdrawal of Russian troops is the best way to “denazify” Ukraine — and possibly Russia.
In October, Russian armed forces began systematic attacks against the Ukrainian electricity grid and civilian infrastructure including water supply facilities of the major cities. These activities don’t have immediate military significance and don’t influence Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to fight. But these attacks are affecting the chances of the civil population to survive this winter.
Read the rest of this entry »Call for solidarity actions with anti‑war activists in Russia – Week of January 19 to 24
The article below is written by Ilya Budraitskis on behalf of The Russian Socialist Movement. Source : https://anticapitalistresistance.org/call-for-solidarity-actions-with-anti-war-activists-in-russia/
Irish Left With Ukraine will work with other organisations and individuals answering this call.
See also : https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/01/to-remember-is-to-fight/?fbclid=IwAR0WOTwC6AqdjHclwo59krczHCaYZPE39Av4HxNTXW1ZuySXwwI9t9Qhf3g – Tempest shares the call of the Russian Socialist Movement for solidarity with Russian anti-war and anti-fascist activists.
For over a decade, Russian antifascists have commemorated January 19 as their day of solidarity. This is the date when in 2009, in the center of Moscow, the human rights and leftist activist Stanislav Markelov and the journalist and anarchist Anastasia Baburova were gunned down by neo-Nazis.
The murder of Markelov and Baburova became the culmination of the ultra-right terror of the 2000s, which killed hundreds of migrants and dozens of anti-fascists. For many years, while it was still possible, Russian activists held antifascist demonstrations and rallies on January 19 under the slogan “To remember is to fight!”
Today, when the Putin regime has invaded Ukraine and unleashed unprecedented repression against its own citizens who oppose the war, the date of January 19 takes on a new meaning. Back then the danger was posed by neo-Nazi groups, often acting with the connivance of the authorities.
Read the rest of this entry »Social Movement (Ukraine): Looking back at 2022
Social Movement (Ukraine) [Sotsialniy Rukh] is a left-wing organisation. These comrades have published a review of 2022, which is full of interesting news. The organisation participates in the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU).
Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) was honoured to hold a public meeting about Ukraine in November 2022 – the main speaker was Sotsialniy Rukh comrade Yuliya Yurchenko, who was joined on the platform by spokespersons affiliated to the Irish Trade Union movement.
Summing up :
2022 was a difficult year for all of us. We hope that 2023 will be better. We will work just as hard for a social, independent and just Ukraine, and we wish everyone security, victory and social progress in the new year.
January 1, 2023 Source : https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/to-read/social-movement-ukraine-looking-back-at-2022?fbclid=IwAR2pxU3Kl5MegBhKSoDgz37CUalhQJ24sR2izZrMOo8fvO7yjC3eOsNqrTg
Tomás Ó Flatharta 