Solidarity Day 2018 – to be held on 16th June

This year’s Solidarity Day will take place on 16 June 2018 between 12 noon and 15.30 at the Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square W1T 6AQ.

Tamil Solidarity would be joining various activist organisations and trade unions to discuss and debate the current situation in Sri Lanka and to link up the Tamil struggle with the workers’ movement in Britain. We urge all members and supporters to join us on this day to take part in live active discussions, analysing the way forward and to discuss the various political strategies and how to win our rights.

The first discussions are open to those who wish to speak in Tamil, thereby also explaining the active roles implemented by Tamil Solidarity thus far and what we intend to implement in the future. This will be followed by a trade union rally – with speakers from the UK’s biggest public sector union, UNISON, Britain’s largest civil service union, PCS, and Refugee Rights

We are also happy to announce that we will also be joined by Phil Miller, journalist and researcher, who has written extensively on Sri Lanka and the Tamil rights struggle.

Entry to this event is free but donations are most welcome – and extremely important in helping us develop this vital work.

 

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Tami Solidarity, previously known as Stop the Slaughter of Tamils (SST), was set up in 2009. It was set up in response to the massacre of Tamils living in the north of Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces. Tamil solidarity was one of the many diaspora organisations that took up the struggle of its people to the world stage highlighting the plight of an ethnic minority that has been systematically wiped out whilst the rest of the world spectated the events leading to it.

Tamil Solidarity has been in the forefront of these mass staged protests and demonstrations, standing in solidarity and voicing the concerns of the common man and woman, who have been oppressed, persecuted, systematically ignored and their rights denied. Tamil Solidarity’s active and assertive approach in standing for the rights of the underdog led to its support being branched out to various other ethnicities, communities and countries whose people have been denied, persecuted or oppressed. This in turn led to wide recognition of this campaign leading to various members from different ethnicities joining hands for a common cause. The cause being, of course, one voice for the persecuted.

The current political times we live in surely does not look into the wants and needs of the working class people and communities. Big businesses and corporate agendas take precedence over our basic needs. The masses, however, stand divided for various reasons. Corporate silence over various issues have been highlighted by Tamil Solidarity and, very recently, we have been actively involved in trying to get Vedanta Group (an entity that has been systematically polluting the environment and illegally mining for resources in India) de-listed from the London Stock Exchange.

A campaign that was born to address the issues of ethnic Tamils living in Sri Lanka is now an establishment that is very popular with many ethnicities, various organisations and campaigning groups. The reason for this is the selfless nature of this organisation in championing for the rights of the oppressed whoever they may be. The recent affiliation of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) with Tamil Solidarity is just another example of how we are being identified and approached – because of its ethos and for who, what and why Tamil Solidarity champions.

S Ketheswaran