Dear friends,

We are writing to you on an urgent matter. As you know, the streets of London and other British cities erupted in rebellion earlier this week, following the police killing of a young Black man and father of three, Mark Duggan, in the Tottenham area on August 4.

Many thousands of youths of all colors and nationalities took to the streets in angry protest, not only at the killing of Mark Duggan, but at rampant police brutality, high unemployment, and brutal cuts to education and social services.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead while refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard."

Today a smear campaign is well underway in the media and halls of power in both Britain and the United States. The youth are labeled "criminals" and "looters," while authorities downplay the crimes of the London police, who first claimed to have shot Duggan in self-defense, only to have their lies exposed by ballistics tests and eyewitnesses.

We have seen endless footage of burning cars and people taking consumer goods from shattered storefronts during the nights of August 6-9. Meanwhile, there has been little coverage of the massacre of 85 civilians, including 33 children, in the town of Zlitan, Libya, by NATO forces overnight August 8. Britain, like the U.S., is central to that war of unbridled aggression against a sovereign African country.

Who are the real looters? In Britain, like the U.S., banks and big business were bailed out of their economic crisis and the war machine rolls on - while workers, students and the unemployed, especially youths and people of color, are expected to shoulder the burden of cutbacks and high unemployment.

Now an unprecedented wave of repression is underway. Close to, 2,000 people have been arrested so far, and Scotland Yard has begun raiding homes of suspected "rioters." Some 16,000 riot police occupy London's streets.

Prime Minister David Cameron, whose government of bailouts for the rich and cutbacks for the poor has done so much to create an environment ripe for rebellion, called parliament into emergency session. Cameron and other establishment politicians are whipping up a lynch-mob atmosphere against rebel youths, urging people to turn in those they recognize from security camera footage broadcast over the major media.

In conditions of deepening poverty, joblessness and racist repression, it is inevitable that people will rise up. What happened in London could happen tomorrow in New York, Los Angeles or any other U.S. city.

We call on progressives and people of conscience to stand with the people of Britain against state repression.

We urge you to help organize protests at British consulates, BBC News offices and other sites in cities across North America.

Endorse and circulate this call of action in solidarity with the British uprisings

We Demand:

• JUSTICE FOR MARK DUGGAN - JAIL THE KILLER COPS
  
  
• FREEDOM & AMNESTY FOR THE 2000 WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED
  
  
• STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST YOUTH & END RACIST POLICE VIOLENCE
  
  
• JOBS & EDUCATION - NOT JAIL & AUSTERITY - Make Cameron's government and big business create jobs, restore vital services, and rebuild affected communities

ENDORSE THIS CALL and DOWNLOAD NEW YORK FLYER

Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
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