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Anti-racists vow to take struggle to workplace

Murder victims’ families lead major Glasgow demonstration

ANTI-RACISTS must fight the capitalist system and take the struggle to the workplace, trade unionists stressed at the St Andrew’s Day anti-racist march in Glasgow this weekend.

Saturday’s major demonstration was led by the family of Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody in 2015. His relatives have been campaigning for an inquiry into his death, but authorities ruled last month there would be no criminal charges against the officers who restrained him.

Scottish TUC black workers' committee chair Suki Sangha, who marched alongside the family at the front of the parade, said: "The undertaking of anti-racist and anti-fascist work has never felt as important and urgent as it does in 2018.

"The far right are becoming more visible in public life across Britain, Europe and beyond.”

Ms Sangha, whose uncle Surjit Singh Chhokar was murdered in a racist attack in 1998, continued: "Years of constitutional, economic and political crisis have replaced hope with fear after fear. We know that racism is a by-product of capitalism, we know who our real enemy is.

"We need to learn and listen to what freedom and justice means for us all. Let us go beyond marches and build solidarity in every place we enter.”

The annual St Andrew’s Day event is an effort by trade unionists to stop racists hijacking the national day to spread hatred.

A large contingent of students joined trade union delegations and brass bands. Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard marched alongside Mr Bayoh’s family at the front.

A rally in central Glasgow was addressed by radical lawyer and Glasgow University rector Aamer Anwar, who is representing Mr Bayoh’s family.

“Within minutes of his death, the misinformation started,” Mr Anwar told the gathering.

“The police painted an image of a large black man in stereotypical characteristics of extraordinary strength and dangerousness, wielding a machete, in an attempt to blame Sheku for his own death. 

“The dead cannot cry out for justice, but it is the duty of the living to do so for them.”

Mr Bayoh was restrained using CS gas, pepper spray, batons and leg and arm restraints. His family say he died from positional asphyxia caused by officers’ restraining techniques. Police claim the tactics were proportionate.

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