On the 12th December 1997 the parole board rejected my application for parole. I will have to serve an additional two years before my case next comes up for review.
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On the 12th December 1997 the parole board rejected my application for parole. I will have to serve an additional two years before my case next comes up for review.
I have now served over eleven years in prison, primarily for defending myself against a racially motivated attack. During this time I have consistently challenged the very basis of my conviction, my last appeal having been rejected in November 1985.
Had the parole board based their decision on the facts then I would not be in prison today. I have already served the sentence which was imposed upon me by the then Chief Justice, Lord Lane, who recommended ten years. This tariff expired in November 1996. I am now being made to serve an additional sentence, my tariff having been increased by the present Home Secretary, Jack Straw.
I have been the victim of two racist attacks. The first back in November 1986 when I was forced to defend my life against an assailant who stabbed me with broken glass after subjecting me to a torrent of racial abuse. The second has been a sustained attack by the British State -- the police, the judiciary and the penal system.
During my time in prison, I have suffered many indignities, hardships and systematic abuse that amount to a flagrant violation of human rights. I am frequently transferred (ghosted) from prison to prison -- 53 times to date. I have experienced mental cruelty (often held in total isolation in solitary confinement) and forced to endure prolonged periods of deprivation, psychological abuse, intimidation, starvation diets and physical torture. On numerous occasions I have been shackled in a body belt and thrown into strip cells. The guards often display sadistic tendencies and specialise in humiliation and degradation.
It is against this background that I have spent many years protesting against my wrongful conviction. I feel that I have suffered in more ways than one and my continued imprisonment is totally unjustifiable and goes against the principles of natural justice.
I would ask anyone concerned with justice to support me in my fight for freedom. Please send letters of protest to Jack Straw.
Satpal Ram, E94164, Nottingham Prison, NG 3AG.
Mandy Moore ("Why Ken Coates had to go" in last months' LLB) gives a completely distorted account of discussions in the North Nottinghamshire and Chesterfield ECLP regarding Ken Coates' position in the proportional representation controversy, and the train of events leading to his expulsion. She complains that Ken Coates did not tell the European Constituency of his position on the Code of Conduct for British Labour MEPs at the 3rd October GC.
But the Code was not even made known until 7th October, when it was sent to the EPLP. The October GC expressed virtually unanimous support for Ken Coates' trenchant criticism of the new system proposed for the European elections, which will entail the abolition of constituencies and the selection of MEPs by the Labour Party leadership. In these circumstances, he did not think it right to obey the gagging order written into the Code.
Neither Mandy Moore, nor her partner Reg Race (the Party Secretary), contacted Ken or his office to express solidarity or even sympathy with their MEP, who was in difficulties for his insistence on supporting openly the position endorsed by the Euro Constituency. Instead, they waited until the November GC to launch an attack on Ken Coates.
By the time this GC came round, Ken, with three colleagues, had been suspended on less than 24 hours notice by the EPLP whip. But it was subsequently discovered that the whip had exceeded his powers, and the suspension was declared invalid. Ken made it clear that he intended to continue speaking out publicly on this issue, and he received support from the large majority of the delegates present. So much so that Reg Race was not able to pursue his attempts to censure Ken. The Party did not feel that it needed any assurances from its MEP, and did not ask for any.
Contrary to what Mandy says, Ken Coates did not join the Green Group. This is an attempt to perpetuate the spindoctors' myth which was seized on by Tom Sawyer as an excuse to expel him. Ken Coates never applied to join the Greens. He wanted to stay with the Socialist Group, but as that has been made impossible by the Labour leadership, he is sitting as an Independent Labour member with the Confederal Left Group, while continuing to follow the Socialist whip.
If Reg Race and Mandy Moore were not so obsequious to New Labour, they would surely be much more supportive of their MEP, and recognise the importance of the stand he has taken for socialist principles and democratic practice, despite the massive pressures that have been brought to bear on him to keep quiet and to conform.
Ken Fleet, Political Assistant to Ken Coates
David Taylor ("The Party's Over", last month's LLB) attacks "a number of grim men ranted about the correctness of the regime in China and the old Soviet Union". Is David Taylor trying to say that Arthur Scargill should ban these people from the SLP? Of course, the development of socialism in the two countries named has not been without some very serious mistakes, and most would argue that China is currently embarked on the road to full capitalist restoration (although that doesn't mean that it will inevitably happen).
I object to the use of the term "Stalinist". Stalin has been the subject of one of the most intense hate campaigns in history and we cannot take at face value all of the things that capitalists say about him. Since Kruschev denounced him at the CPSU 20th Party Congress, the Soviet leadership tried to pretend that Stalin had never existed. This has made a true assessment of Stalin very difficult. Although I do not accept that everything Stalin did was beyond criticism, there is no doubt that many of his supposed "crimes" are simply fabrications. Much of what Kruschev said about him in his "secret speech" (which he kept secret from the Soviet people -- why?), is simply a lie.
What about those who totally reject these countries? Do they think that nothing worthwhile was achieved by them at all? Would the United States have been able to inflict such appalling suffering on the Iraqi people if the Soviet Union still stood, even though it were not a perfect model of socialism? Would the capitalists here have been able to make such bold attacks on the welfare state and the wages and conditions of workers? I think not.
Paul Lockwood, Socialist Labour Party, Cambridge
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