Paul Doyle, Sarah Thomas's boyfriend, picketing Stoke Newington police station 30 years after the Stonewall riots led to the rebirth of the lesbian and gay movement - a good time to take stock of what we have achieved.
There was a good deal of controversy this year in the run up to lesbian and gay pride in London about the expensive Mardi Gras festival. The Pride march itself was transformed into a parade, and numbers dropped from 100,000 of the 1998 march to 25,000.
In recent years a free festival had been an important component of the Pride celebrations, which had moved on from being small marches of lesbian and gay activists in the early seventies into huge carnivals which continued to raise political ideas and demands but involved far wider sections of the communities than those involved in on-going campaigning. But if the charge made for this years Mardi Gras festival was not bad enough a greater threat has now been made to the traditions of lesbian and gay organising. Reports have been circulating that the interests behind Mardi Gras intend to take over the march and hold it as a "Mardi Gras parade". Further rumours suggest that another plan may be to prevent any march at all. Pride London, the non-profit company that has organised the march in the last few years has become very dependent on Mardi Gras, with the only other significant sponsorship coming from UNISON. It seems more than a little suspicious that this should be taking place when Pride London was about to discuss broadening its base amongst lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups. But trade unionists and other activists are determined to fight black woman from Tottenham, was arrested and taken into Stoke Newington Police station in August.
A doctor was called, only to find that she had suffered a seizure, at which point she was taken to Homerton Hospital - where she died two days later.
Sarah's death is just one in a long line of deaths in police custody and, although in numerous cases the coroner has delivered a verdict of unlawful killing, not one police officer has ever been prosecuted for a death in custody.
Any investigation into the conduct of the police will be carried out by the police back. A letter has been submitted to the September issue of Gay Times signed by members of the TUC Lesbian and Gay Committee, the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights and a number of individual unions challenging these moves. The signatories state that they will be calling on their organisations to sponsor Pride and that they will be calling on others to do likewise. They urge the maximum possible attendance at the Special meeting of company members of Pride (London) that has been called for October 16- the meeting that will decide the direction of next year's event. Their appeal should be supported.
To vote at the meeting you need to join Pride (London) at least a week before. Send £10 (£5 concessions) to Pride (London), BCM Box 6097, London WCIN 3XX the officers concerned is made by the Crown Prosecution service - acting upon the recommendations of the police. Despite the inadequacies of this system being consistently raised throughout the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the inquiry refused to offer any criticisms of the police complaints procedures. Stoke Newington Police has had it's share of deaths in custody and has a widespread reputation for corruption and violence against black people. The Justice for Sarah Thomas! campaign has been launched with the support of Paul Doyle (Sarah Thomas' wich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks, Hackney Monitoring Group, Inquest, Movement for Justice, Newham Monitoring Project, the 1990 Trust and the United Families and Friends The campaign is demanding the immediate suspension of the officers involved pending an investigation by the Police Complaints Authority, a high profile campaign appealing for witnesses to come forward and an Independent Public Inquiry into Sarah's death.
To contact the campaign call Hackney Monitoring Group on 0181-806 0742 between 11am and 7pm.