(only received this via another list today - sorry if you have already
seen it, but some might want to add their voice to the protest by
tomorrow! Deborah)

Community action needed to stop the BNP

By Wed, 16 April

Contact: John Page on Hackney Trade Union John.page45@...

Message from John Page, Hackney Trade Union

Join the campaign to stop Archant newspaper group, who also own the
Hackney Gazette from carrying election adverts from the BNP.

According to sources, the editor of the Hackney Gazette (who has
previously voiced his contempt for the BNP) refused to run the advert
in this week's paper but has been instructed by the parent group to
run the advert this week.

The presence of a BNP advert (which will also be a recruitment tool)
in a Hackney paper will be an insult to the people of Hackney who have
a strong tradition of resisting the BNP and their ilk. It will be an
insult to black people, to Jews, to people with disabilities, to trade
unionists, to gays and lesbians, to faith leaders, to women and to
anyone who opposes their politics of hatred. In fact, there can be
hardly anyone in Hackney who will not be repulsed by the thought of
the BNP seeking to establish a visible presence in Hackney.

Hackney already has it's fair share of problems, we must mobilise now
to ensure that the BNP is not able to use the GLA elections to form a
cell of racist activists in the borough.

The paper goes to press on Wednesday morning we have less than 100
hours to convince Archant to pull the advert.

We are advocating the following campaign plan

1) We want to approach every newsagent in Hackney and ask them to send
a fax to Archant protesting at the plan to give advertising space to
the BNP and cancelling their order for this week's paper unless
Archant drops the BNP advert. To do this, we need everyone (and I mean
everyone) to get out to dozens of newsagents in their part of the
borough and explain our concerns. We will, this afternoon, draft a
standard letter for shops, which also explains the campaigns
objections.

2) We need to approach the regular advertisers (principally estate
agents) and ask them to use their economic influence with the Gazette
to pressurise for the adverts to be dropped. We need a volunteer to
co-ordinate this, it will involve collating the email addresses from
the adverts in this week's paper and sending an email. It will then
need to be followed up with phone calls/personal visits.

3) We need some volunteer 'community leaders' to seek to meet with
Archant on Monday or Tuesday to put our case. This could include
representatives of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities as
well as groups representing particular ethnic and other groups.

4) Please send email's of (polite) protest to Archant's Chair:
richard.jewson@... and Chief Executive:
john.fry@..., copying in both our campaign co-ordinator,
John Page (John.page45@...) and the Hackney Gazette editor
Mick Ferris (Michael.ferris@...)

Please find attached two documents that we recommend you use to
approach Hackney Newsagents.

The first explains what we are asking them to do and why, the second
is a form of words which you should encourage them to use to express
their concern to Archant.

Please forward your emails to Archant to me, and also reply to this
email and let me know which newsagents you can cover (and what success
you have when you speak to them). Any other ideas of campaign activity
will be gratefully received.

If you visit http://www.hackneytuc.org.uk/node/385 you will see some
examples of emails already sent to Archant.

Finally, please remember that the staff at the Gazette are supportive,
so don't blame them!