16th March 2003. 26-year-old Italian anti-fascist Davide Cesare is stabbed to death by fascists after leaving a bar in Rome.

13th November 2005. 20-year-old Russian anti-fascist Timur Kacharava is murdered by fascists in St Petersburg after a Food Not Bombs action.

16th April 2006. 19-year-old Russian anti-fascist Alexander Ryuchin is stabbed in the heart by fascists on his way to a concert.

21st July 2007. 21-year-old Russian anti-fascist Ilya Borodaenko is attacked by fascists during the night at a protest camp and dies from head injuries.

12th November 2007. 16-year-old Spanish anti-fascist Carlos Javier Palomino is stabbed in the heart by fascists while on his way to a demonstration in Madrid.

18th January 2008. 18-year-old Czech anti-fascist Jan Kučera is stabbed to death after confronting a knife-wielding fascist.

16th November 2009. 26-year-old Russian anti-fascist Ivan Khutorskoy is shot to death by fascists at the entrance to his home.

Today, on Sunday 17th January 2010, Bristol and Czech anti-fascists gathered beneath the Spanish Civil War memorial in Castle Park to honour these fallen comrades. Like others before them, they have paid the ultimate price for their beliefs. We will never forget the debt we owe to every one of these men and women who gave their lives in defence of freedom.

But we do no justice to these heroes simply with words and monuments. While the cancer of fascism threatens, we will continue to attack and destroy it. And we will not stop until the disease is eradicated.

Even as we remember and mourn our losses, we resolve to fight harder for all of our futures. Our message to the fascists is simple and defiant -

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

(Report in Czech here)

Received today from Liverpool Antifascists:

It would seem that the Freepost Against Fascism campaign has been successful. From the BNP website:

"Please be aware that our FREEPOST address is no longer operational due to sustained abuse and illegal activity from our political opponents. This matter is currently under police investigation and until further notice we would request that you use the following postal address instead" etc. etc.

No doubt the police investigation will fail to materialise, unlike the slew of desperate, begging letters from Gri££in!

RESULT! Thanks to our friends everwhere for spreading the word, taking part and making this happen.

Received from a friendly anti-fascist postie:

Bankrupt the BNP!

Well, maybe not quite bankrupt, but folks in the UK can help make this bunch of fascists considerably poorer.

They've just got themselves a freepost address:

British Heritage FREEPOST

Nice and easy to remember eh? Every 'letter' to this address costs them 42p, and can simply be an empty envelope with the address on it. It's cheap to buy a bunch of these (you can get 50 self-seal ones for 75p from Wilkos) and run them through your printer while you're off doing far more interesting things. A friend has so far sent 1250 envelopes, costing the fash over 500 quid. That's less than £20 of my mate's hard-earned cash very well spent!

Please feel free to join in.

42p may not sound like much, but it would pay for dozens of BNP leaflets. Multiply that by potentially tens of thousands of empty envelopes sent their way and the impact on their activities becomes much more obvious. And when an envelope costs little more than a penny, it really does make sound economic sense!

We're advised that it's not worth sending heavy objects as they'll be filtered out at the sorting office, and we don't want to make our posties' jobs even harder than they already are.

We've received this report from Hereford Solidarity League, publishers of the excellent 'Hereford Heckler', on fascist activity in their area. They've also adapted our anti-BNP election leaflet for mass distribution around the town, and are busy countering the fascists' lies on the street and in the media. Good work!

Christopher Gower (Supreme Leader of Hereford BNP) and his ragtag bunch of numpties

Hereford Solidarity League (HSL) has been busy organising against and exposing racism and fascism in rural Herefordshire for almost two years. Through their bimonthly news sheet the Hereford Heckler, they have been making life very uncomfortable for the local British National Party.

The recent behaviour of the Hereford BNP numpties has been particularly sickening. The murder of a local teenager in March was seized on in an attempt to stir up anti-eastern European feelings. The two men arrested for the murder are Lithuanian nationals, but that didn’t stop the BNP from calling on all Polish people to be kicked out of Hereford!

Unfortunately for the clueless fash, Hereford is a small town and word gets around. People immediately contacted HSL to let them know what was going on and where the BNP were organising. A quick phone call to the Hereford Farmers Club (right, tel: 01432 272247) confirmed that the venue was being used by the aforementioned numpties. An article followed in the Heckler calling for members to boycott the club. The chairman of the Farmers Club was interviewed by BBC local radio where he predictably claimed that they had no idea that the BNP were meeting there. He went on to say that they are a non-political club and there is nothing stopping the BNP meeting there in future. A spokesperson for HSL, also speaking on BBC Hereford & Worcester, warned that everything will be done to stop fascist groups organising in Hereford and hoped that the Farmers Club would see sense and stop allowing the BNP to use their premises.

At present the Farmers Club haven’t commented further, but HSL are determined to stop the BNP meeting anywhere in the city.

We have produced a new leaflet for the upcoming local and European elections.

You can download the leaflet here.

Please print or copy as many as you can and distribute them as widely as possible – in your workplace, the pub, the library, the community centre, the local health centre or surgery, and anywhere else you can think of. Even if you can only do your own street, it all counts. Or get together with friends, family and neighbours and spread them across your local area.

Our message is simple:

We have it on good authority that Nazi Nick Griffin, lardbucket leader of the BNP, is due to attend a 'fundraising dinner' in South Gloucestershire on Sunday night.

Party members have been told to meet in the car park of the Huntsman Pub in Falfield (just off junction 14 of the M5) at 6.45pm. They'll then drive the mile or so to the Park Hotel, which is south of the Huntsman, along the A38 and down a single track road on the left. The BNP has booked a function room at the Park Hotel under a false name.

You may want to inform the owners or managers of these establishments of your opposition to having nazi scum in our midst, and ask them to take the necessary steps to prevent this gathering taking place on their premises. The phone numbers are:

Huntsman Inn 01454 260 239
Park Hotel 01454 260 550

Please remember that whoever answers the phone may not have any sympathy with the BNP. And they certainly shouldn't have to endure the sight and sound of fascist pigs stuffing their overfed faces and spewing out nazi crap.

Bristol Antifa are pleased to announce the publication of our first newsletter (PDF file). The first issue puts into print the main articles published on this site over the last couple of months.

We would encourage our friends to print or photocopy it and leave it in public places – libraries, doctors surgeries, buses, workplaces, pubs etc. We would also welcome news, articles, info and suggestions from you for the next edition. Please use our contact form to send in your items or constructive criticisms.

The 'Three Arrows' anti-fascist circle on our newsletter was originally used by the Iron Front, a German anti-fascist umbrella group that took direct action (including street battles) against Hitler's supporters and allies in the early 1930s. The logo was designed to easily cover up the swastika.

Today, the symbol has been adopted by militant working class anti-fascists as the symbol of united international resistance to fascism. Bristol Antifa are proud to stand by and continue that tradition.

The BNP make much of the housing crisis (it was the basis of the leaflet they attempted to distribute in Bedminster last week) but, as ever, look for scapegoats that fit their racist outlook rather than address the real issues. Bristol Antifa prefer to deal in facts. To this end, we've produced an information poster (PDF) that challenges common misconceptions about housing and immigration. All of the information was provided by an independent housing expert and can be easily verified. The poster also briefly examines the true nature of the housing crisis and offers up a genuine solution that would benefit all working class people. It would be great if you would download the poster, copy it and put it in convenient locations around your neighbourhoods.

Full text from the poster:

Do immigrants and asylum seekers get housed first?

Immigrants or asylum seekers from outside Europe are specifically excluded from any 'recourse to public funds' and this includes housing and benefits. Only asylum seekers who have been accepted as genuinely fleeing violence or torture may be given indefinite leave to remain in the UK. They can then work or apply for housing if they are eligible. The same rules apply to them as apply to anyone else. Don’t believe the racist lies of the BNP and tabloids.

Have asylum seekers got all the housing?

It’s important to look at the facts, not the hype. Across the country, asylum seekers granted indefinite leave occupy less than 2% of council and housing association properties. The main reasons for getting housed by the council are relationship breakdown and parental eviction, not immigration, and the biggest share of social housing goes to elderly people.

So why was my friend turned away by the council?

There simply isn't enough social housing to go around. Successive governments have left it to the private landlords to provide more houses but this just hasn't happened. As always, the system we are ruled by prioritises profit over the needs of real people, whatever our colour or race. If we want people to have access to decent housing, then more social housing has to be created.

Where have all the council houses gone?

The policy of 'right to buy' has led to the sale of millions of council houses. The houses are far cheaper than if bought in the open market, were often heavily discounted further to encourage people to buy them, and are a total bargain. However, councils are not allowed to build new houses with the money from the sales, and housing associations have built very few. This has meant that total social housing has reduced from 35% of housing stock in 1965 to about 21% today.

Why is renting so expensive?

Councils and housing associations charge what it costs to provide housing, about £250 a month for a flat. Private landlords, who as well as getting their mortgage paid are also making a profit, usually charge at least £500 a month. Modern built social housing is built to better standards than private housing. Private renting is basically a rip off! This is an insult to all of us simply trying to get by. Such greed is a genuine threat to our lives, unlike living with people of other races who are also just trying to get by.

Don’t be divided and ruled –

ZERO TOLERANCE OF FASCISTS ON THESE STREETS!

The far-right in Bristol are presently weak and disorganised. Years of political and physical opposition in the 90's ensured that they could not operate in any meaningful way. The after-effects of that anti-fascist work are still being felt by them today.

But that does not mean that our job is done. As the present system lurches from crisis to crisis, with the bosses and politicians huddling ever-closer together to protect their own interests at the expense of ours, the working class are left to take the full force of the failures of capitalism. And the far-right are exploiting this political and economic assault on our class. By presenting themselves as some kind of radical alternative to this madness, they are seeking to take advantage of our misery for their benefit. The reality is that fascist politics, whether from the 'respectable' BNP or their knuckle-dragging mates in Combat 18 and the like, are violently anti-working class. Their ideology can best be summed up by that old expression 'divide and conquer'. Rest assured, fascism offers us nothing.

Bristol Antifa are working hard to ensure that the BNP cannot re-establish themselves in our city. We aren't going to pretend that this will be easy, particularly given the state of society and the willingness of 'our' politicians to screw us over at every opportunity. But we will use whatever resources we have to step up to the challenge.

To do this as effectively as we can, we need information about fascists and fascist activity in your area. Antifa supporters live and work in the communities that the BNP are likely to try and target in the coming months. Although we are aware of many of the people involved with nazi politics in Bristol, we also know that things can change pretty quickly. If you see or hear of fascists trying to organise in your community, don't ignore it. Tell your friends, family and workmates and remind them that nazi politics are not our politics. Stand together and let the fascist goons know in no uncertain terms that they're not welcome on our doorsteps. And please pass any information on to Bristol Antifa. We will work with you to make sure that the fascists have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide if they dare to show their ugly faces.

From Friday 15th August to Sunday 17th August the British National Party will hold their 'Red, White & Blue' festival. The RWB event (the largest annual gathering of alcoholic, fascist inbreds in the country) will be held on the farm of BNP supporter (and former Tory) Alan Warner (left), which is located on Codnor Denby Lane near Ripley, Derbyshire.

Bristol Antifa will be joining the national mobilisation against the RWB festival. We would like to ask anti-fascists from Bristol, the South West and beyond to descend upon Warner’s farm during this weekend in order to shut down the RWB festival once and for all. Please contact us, or call the national number below for further information.