Zone of Non-Being:Guantanamo - Screening & Q&A Thursday

'Sell Off' - The abolition of the NHS. Free film screening Wembley Nov 3rd

Free film screening in Wembley (followed by a discussion with Dr Bob Gill)

Thursday November 3rd from 6.30pm

Hospitals around the country are under imminent threat of closure, and our NHS is being privatised, dismantled and taken away from us. This one-hour documentary entitled 'Sell Off' explains how it has happened, for how long, and by whom. Please join us to find out what we're up against, and to discuss what we can do to stop and reverse it.

This important free NHS film event takes place in Wembley. The venue is the IHRC (Book Shop), 202 Preston Road (close to Preston Road tube station), Wembley, HA9 8PA.

http://www.facebook.com/events/1124280487662983/

SELL-OFF film about the transformation of the NHS into a business ready for corporate takeover - Tonight 7pm

Your NHS has been quietly transformed into a business ready for corporate takeover and conversion to the American private insurance model. In 'Sell-Off', filmmaker Peter Bach exposes the two decade covert privatisation which has occurred without public mandate and against the public interest. It challenges the lies put out by politicians and mainstream media.

Join us at IHRC for a screening of 'Sell-Off'

WHEN: Wednesday, 26 August from 7-9pm

WHERE: IHRC Bookshop & Gallery, 202 Preston Road, Wembley, HA9 8PA (Nearest tube: Preston Road / Metropolitan Line)

Refreshments will be provided. Call 020 8904 4222

Peter Bach's powerful new film, "Sell-Off" maps out the steady privatisation of the National Health Service which is going on right now. Nobody listening to the evidence of a range of practitioners on the film can be in any doubt that this coalition government has accelerated the process of outsourcing of NHS services started by the Blair government, using the vehicle of the Care Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and Foundation Trusts. Despite this, MPs and the government at continue to insist that the NHS is not being privatised. - The HuffingtonPost UK

Watch the trailer: https://vimeo.com/108492812

Barry Gardiner caught in August storm over Modi visit

Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner has upped his profile in India considerably as can be seen on the many versions of the above interview on the internet and the highly partisan comments it has attracted.

Reaction to the invitation he submitted in his role as Chair of Labour Friends of India to Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP, is also building in the UK. Modi is a controversial figure because of his role in the 2002 communal riots in the Gujerat and he is only just becoming rehabilitated with Barry Gardiner, who counts himself a friend, leading the process. Indeed the India Times called him Modi's 'biggest fan'. LINK

The Conservative Friends of India have joined Gardiner in issuing the  invitation for Modi to speak on the 'Future of India' but the Labour Party is divided on the issue.

John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, told The Hindu that he was “deeply shocked that Mr. Modi has been invited to meet British Parliamentarians, given the continuing concerns in India and across the world at his record on human rights and the sectarian politics of his party.”

He said the invitation

....should certainly not be seen as an endorsement of Modi by the British Labour Party or the British Parliament. I do not believe Modi should be associated with by any true friend of democracy or India.

He added that he “along with others” would “boycott any meetings or events with Modi present.”

Kamaljeet Jandu of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Labour has written to Ed Miliband slamming the invitation LINK :

....So, to my dismay I have learnt that Narendra Modi, who is still the Chief Minister of Gujarat, was invited by Barry Gardiner, Chair of Labour Friends of India, to speak at the House of Commons.

Mr Gardiner believes that since Britain does more business with Gujarat than with the rest of India put together, and he could possibly be India’s next Prime Minister, this is enough to whitewash Mr Modi’s past

Kalpana Wilson, of the South Asian Solidarity Group, strongly disagrees with the invitation.

[They] have invited somebody to address the House of Commons who has been responsible for what can only be called genocidal attacks in which more than two thousand members of the Muslim minority community in Gujarat were targeted for the most horrendous forms of violence and were murdered,

Women and children were particularly targeted, and this is something which South Asian communities in Britain simply are not able to forget.

We're not prepared to see Modi being rehabilitated as a respectable leading politician, which is what this invitation seems to suggest.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission Bookshop, based in Preston Road Wembley, has tweeted a link to the IHRC Report on the riots  in which more than 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died LINK

A Change.Org petition LINK which has only been up for a day or so has already attracted more than 2,000 signatures calling for the invitation to be withdrawn. It reads:

Stop the Visit of Narendra Modi to the UK! Remember the Gujarat genocide of 2002

We the undersigned write to express our concern at the invitation to address the House of Commons issued to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the Labour Friends of India and the Conservative Friends of India. We strongly believe that Narendra Modi, who is responsible for the 2002 genocidal attacks in which over 2,000 men, women and children from Gujarat’s Muslim minority community were systematically killed, must not be allowed to visit the UK. Modi’s past visits to the UK have been used to raise extensive funds and support for communal violence, and a visit at this time when Modi is launching a campaign to become India’s next Prime Minister, and continues to try to gain votes using openly fascistic and anti-minority rhetoric, would be particularly dangerous.

In the wake of the 2002 genocide and the extensive documentation of Modi’s role in co-ordinating and sponsoring it. the UK, other EU, and US governments were compelled to distance themselves from Modi and the Gujarat government. However recently we have seen the British government take steps to rehabilitate Modi, as evidenced by meetings between the British High Commissioner and Modi in Ahmedabad. This puts the interests of British corporates wishing to invest in Gujarat ahead of any concerns for human rights and justice, and makes a mockery of the rights of the three British citizens who were murdered during the genocide and whose families are yet to receive justice. We condemn this collusion in Modi’s attempts to deny his role as a mass murderer. We demand that the invitation to Modi is withdrawn and he is refused a visa to the UK.