LOBBY TUC 16 JUNE EAST LONDON: In one week last month four separate attacks were made on Bengalis in East London by gangs of white youths armed with sticks and broken bottles. A few days later two black students were murdered in another part of London.
Racial violence is spilling onto the streets. One Bengali was hospitalised on 17 May when a dozen youths attacked him in York Square as he was returning from work. They split his head open with broken bottles while shouting racist abuse.
One the same night three or four mini-cabs from a firm owned by a member of the National Front were seen cruising round the Aston Street area. They appeared to be using their car radios to coordinate the action of the youths who attacked the Bengalis.
The first steps towards self-defence have itself. been taken. On 18 May Bengalis and squatters living nearby came onto the streets to make sure that the attacks were not repeated. Youths who threatened a group of Bengalis were told that they had been identified as members of the gang that had carried out the previous night's attack, and warned against future attacks.
The job facing the Bengalis and squatters now is to take the issue of the racist attacks into the. unions and local Labour Parties, calling for support for the self-defence efforts and action against the racist gangs in the area. The police, who have turned a blind eye to the racist attacks, can be expected to come down hard on moves towards self-defence. A labour movement campaign can not only counter this danger but confront head-on the racism that exists inside the working class Obstacle
2 Racism/Bill Brand STEVE POTTER explains why Red Weekly demands of all immigration controls Red Weekly 3 June 1976 the repeal of the 1971 Immigration Act and the abolition