Several Cardiff militant activists came together on the 18th December to show solidarity with the call-out for international solidarity with Human Rights Day demonstrations in France and beyond North-West Europe on the 10th of December, and December demonstrations continuing at the ZAD (near Nantes, Loire-Atlantique) and in major French cities as part of International Migrants Day on 18/12.The Cardiff crew came from groups including the South Wales No Borders, Cardiff ABC, the new network of Cardiff squatters, and a local traveller site, just as many groups had come together on Human Rights Day to call for an end on the attacks on migrants, Roma and the homeless.
Banners with the group included statements “Against police repression”, “No-one is illegal” and “We are ungovernable” and the militants used them to block the entrance to the French consulate, symbolic of the actions of the French state which is blocking people’s normal activities and movements (not to mention rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including articles 2, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 25 and parts of many others).
The group assembled just as the sun was setting on the north-eastern corner of the Welsh capital, and attached leaflets to the gate posts, ripping off a national symbol from the gate posts in the process. The leaflets, reproducing the French comrades’ call-out from December 10th in English, French, Arabic and Welsh also showed the worst of the French repression in Calais and at the ZAD. It also included images stating our solidarity with sans-papiers and militants fighting against the airport and facing the repression on their homes and struggle at the ZAD.
After posting some of these leaflets through the letter box of the consulate and deciding that the group’s message had been delivered by gathering there, we also post this message to authorities in Calais and wherever the French authorities have been involved in heavy repression.
The world is watching. We are many. We stand by those making the call-out in France, and call for all authorities to:
– end evictions of migrants, Roma, the homeless and squatters
– resettle slum dwellers in terms defined in consultation with residents, associations and local communities
– end the use of police violence against communities.