Anti-racism campaigner’s London book events cancelled amid threat of far-right violence

1 day ago

Hanif Kureishi, Billy Bragg and freedom of speech groups have voiced alarm after a number of venues cancelled events to promote a book by an anti-racism campaigner amid threats and fears that the recent riots have emboldened the far right.An east London bookshop this week became the latest venue to pull plans to promote Rebel Sounds, a book about the role music plays in the fight against racism and other struggles.It follows the scrapping of similar events at bookshops and pubs over the last few weeks, and the cancellation by the BFI London film festival (LFF) last month of a screening of a documentary about the far right.Joe Mulhall, the author of Rebel Sounds and director of research at the anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate, said: “Sadly, it feels like we are going backwards.”Mulhall held an event at a secret location last Sunday night after a pub cancelled what was intended to be an evening of discussion and music about the book.

“The irony wasn’t lost on us that we were having to meet in secret when this is a book about people being forced to do things in a clandestine way in the past in Britain because of the rise of the National Front or other countries because of repressive regimes,” he said,“You can’t blame small independent venues like bookshops and pubs but you would think that the LFF is big enough that they shouldn’t have cancelled,They have the capacity and resources to protect an event if they wanted to,”Another bookshop that cancelled a few weeks ago after receiving threats has now pulled out of plans to restage the event in December after getting new threats immediately after it was listed online,Threats have been made by email and in phone calls, while extremists from groups angered by Hope Not Hate’s work have been publishing numbers on social media and urging supporters to call.

Police were called to a branch of Waterstones in late September when a far-right activist took a seat in the front row and attempted to disrupt the event.The development has shocked artists and veterans of anti-racist campaigns who had believed the days of venues being in fear of the far right had been consigned to the past.But the summer violence – described by Keir Starmer as far-right riots – has contributed to a changed atmosphere.It comes after the far right and conspiracy theorists have mobilised aggressive protests against venues hosting shows featuring drag queens reading to young children.Bragg, the socialist singer-songwriter whose own anti-fascist activism through music features in Mulhall’s book, told the Guardian: “This reminds me of the 1970s and 80s when we had to do solidarity gigs for people.

Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotion“People’s safety is so important but we need to stand up to this kind of thing, which really is a freedom of speech issue and in this case there are threats of violence.”Kureishi, whose fiction has drawn from his own experience of the threat posed to British Asians by the National Front in his youth, said he was shocked to hear about Mulhall’s experience.Another British writer, Guy Gunaratne, said: “That these readings are now being conducted clandestinely should concern everyone committed to free speech.”Jemimah Steinfeld, the CEO of Index on Censorship, said she was concerned about what appeared to be a “worrying trend”.“If even an organisation like the BFI is afraid then what hope is there for smaller venues and what message does it send out? You have to put the people working at those places first, but we are also seeing a retreat into safer spaces and it’s something we as a society will regret.

”Daniel Gorman, the director of English PEN, said: “English PEN is deeply concerned that threats from the far right have led to venues cancelling planned events with writers and artists,This is part of a worrying trend curtailing the freedom of expression of authors and performers,”Last month the LFF cancelled the screening of Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, a documentary that followed Hope Not Hate campaigners,It remains unclear whether the BFI was acting in the face of viable threats,Kristy Matheson, the director of the LFF, said: “I took onboard the expert opinion of colleagues around the safety and wellbeing risks that the screening could have created for audiences and the team and that informed our decision.

”The documentary’s director, Havana Marking, said: “I don’t think it was taken seriously enough in London at the beginning and then there was a panic,What needs to really happen now is that there is a conversation to ensure this does not happen again,”

technologySee all

Jeff Jarvis: ‘Elon Musk’s investment in Twitter seemed insane, but it gave him this power’

Jeff Jarvis was born in 1954 and studied journalism at Illinois’s Northwestern University. He worked as a TV critic and created the magazine Entertainment Weekly, later leading the online arm of US media company Advance Publications. Since 2001, he has been blogging at Buzzmachine.com and in 2005 he became an associate professor at City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism, directing its new media programme before retiring last year. Jarvis, who lives in New York, is the co-host of the podcasts This Week in Google and AI Inside

1 day ago

Wire cutters: how the world’s vital undersea data cables are being targeted

The lead-clad telegraphic cable seemed to weigh tons, according to Lt Cameron Winslow of the US navy, and the weather wasn’t helping their attempts to lift it up from the seabed and sever it. “The rough water knocked the heavy boats together, breaking and almost crushing in their planking,” he wrote.Eventually, Winslow’s men managed to cut the cable with hacksaws and disrupt the enemy’s communications by slicing off a 46-metre (150ft) section.This was in 1898 off the cost of Cuba during the Spanish-American war. More than a century later, subsea communications cables remain a target during times of geopolitical tension

2 days ago

Tesla’s path in China clears as Musk courts both Trump and Xi

Billionaire CEO is well connected in the US and China, something that could smooth the road ahead for the electric vehicle maker amid a looming tariff warIf it pays to have friends in high places, few among us can claim to be better placed than Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the only people to have cosy relationships with both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. His commercial and political connections to both may prove pivotal as the feud between the US and China plays out over the next four years, particularly as Trump promises steep tariffs.Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, once supported Joe Biden. But his relationship with the current US president soured over the past four years as, among other insults, Musk felt that the White House gave Telsa, his car and green energy company, “the cold shoulder”. Trump, meanwhile, has described Tesla as “incredible” even while pledging to do away with subsidies for electric vehicles

3 days ago

What does the US Department of Justice want Google to do?

The US Department of Justice has proposed a range of punchy remedies to address Google’s dominance of the internet search market, including the forced divestment of its Chrome browser.Google said the proposals represented a “radical interventionist agenda” that would harm America’s standing as a tech superpower.Big tech’s power, and whether and how it should be tamed, has become a political and regulatory talking point on both sides of the Atlantic. This will be one of the defining confrontations of that debate.The DoJ has asked a federal judge to consider several remedies after a ruling in August that found Google was operating an illegal monopoly in the search market

3 days ago

Deus in machina: Swiss church installs AI-powered Jesus

The small, unadorned church has long ranked as the oldest in the Swiss city of Lucerne. But Peter’s chapel has become synonymous with all that is new after it installed an artificial intelligence-powered Jesus capable of dialoguing in 100 different languages.“It was really an experiment,” said Marco Schmid, a theologian with the Peterskapelle church. “We wanted to see and understand how people react to an AI Jesus. What would they talk with him about? Would there be interest in talking to him? We’re probably pioneers in this

3 days ago

Elon Musk to ‘summon MPs to US to explain threats to American citizens’

Elon Musk has said UK MPs “will be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens” in a fresh escalation of tensions between the world’s richest man and Labour.Musk, who has been a fixture at the side of Donald Trump since his re-election as US president, was responding to a Guardian report on Wednesday that the Commons’ science and technology select committee would call him to give evidence in the new year in its inquiry into the spread of harmful content on social media after the August riots.The committee’s chair, Chi Onwurah, a Labour MP, said she wanted to see how Musk, who owns the X social media platform, “reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation”.X hosts accounts by figures including Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate, who were accused of inciting people to join Islamophobic protests.Musk, who has more than 205 million followers on X, responded by saying the MPs would be summoned to the US

3 days ago

foodSee all

;