Remembering Mohamud Hassan - continuing the fight against police brutality
Louise Smith, Cardiff East Socialist Party
On a freezing-cold Tuesday evening in February, over 100 people gathered outside Cardiff Bay police station. They were there to show solidarity with the friends and family of Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, who are demanding a thorough investigation into his death after being released from police custody last month.
Mohamud was released without charge, his family report that "he had lots of wounds and bruises on his body". He said to friends after leaving custody that "the police beat the shit out of me." South Wales police have recently admitted that he came into contact with 52 individual police officers during his arrest and custody. Already, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has been forced to serve a misconduct notice against one police officer who ignored Mohamud Hassan's pleas for help while in custody. How can the arrest and overnight custody of one person warrant such excessive attention?
Standing up to injustice
Stood in front of the officers stationed to guard the entrance to the station, Bianca Ali, coordinator of Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale, said: "We've got to make sure Mohamud isn't forgotten. He was a father-to-be, a loved son, a man, a person. And these people behind me took him from us."
Her words reminded us in the crowd that it is essential that ordinary people stand up for each other in the face of injustice at the hands of the capitalist establishment and their right hand, the police.
Socialist Party member Ross Saunders reported to the gathering that Cardiff Trades Council, to which thousands of workers are affiliated through their union branches, voted to back the campaign - demanding the suspension of the officers involved and the release of the footage. The trades council also agreed, in order to drastically change the system that allowed this to happen in the first place, to demand the establishment of democratic community control of the police. This motion will now go to the Wales Trades Union Congress to which hundreds of thousands of workers are affiliated.
It is clear that this campaign is not going away and the fight goes on until there is justice; justice for Mohamud and justice for all ordinary people who have had their lives taken from them by this exploitative and predatory capitalist system.
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In The Socialist 17 February 2021:
News
Tory consultation on home-use abortion pills
Tory cladding money will not make us safe
Sham inquiry into 'progressive extremism' will not stop movements against capitalism
Cumbria mine: How can we fight for jobs and stop climate change?
Cryptocurrency bubble: Insanity of capitalism
NSSN meeting
Online workers' rally: Taking fight to the bosses
Scotland
SNP's independence referendum 2 'roadmap'
NHS
NHS white paper: no solution to failed Tory policies
Boot private companies out of our NHS
Workplace safety
Derby Toyota plant Covid crisis
Workplace News
Hackney teaching assistants strike against cruel and unnecessary job cuts
Manchester Go North West bus drivers in all-out strike over fire and rehire dispute
London bus drivers set to strike over pay and conditions
Socialist Students
Strike back for free education
Socialist Students conference - Sunday 28 February
Campaigns
Socialist Party Black and Asian caucus
Remembering Mohamud Hassan - continuing the fight against police brutality
How you can amplify the Socialist's voice - Help us build subscriptions to the Socialist
Swarming the London Mayor's question time
Southern new members meeting - a vivid illustration of the appetite for socialist ideas
Doing all we can to fund the anti-cuts stand at the ballot box
Readers' Opinion
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