The following letter was sent by the Western Suburbs Community Campaign Against Racism (to the residents of the Redfern Block in mid-February.
Dear friends,
We wish to express our condolences to the family and friends of Thomas "TJ" Hickey. This young man was taken too early as a result of a police racism that we are only too familiar with here. We understand that TJ was beaten by police in the weeks prior to his death.
The WSCCAR was formed by members of the Somali and Eritrean communities, with the help of the Socialist Alliance, in October 2003.
We organised as a response to ongoing racial and religious profiling, harassment and assaults by Victoria Police against members of the African communities in Melbourne.
In October 2003 a young Somali man (Hussein Farah) was beaten unconscious by police at the Footscray police station. This was the catalyst to our actions.
We organised our communities through radio, mosque and leafleting.
On November 22, in the face of intense police pressure to cancel our protest, we marched with over 350 people on the Footscray police station to demand: "Stop Police Racism" "Stop Police Violence".
We can say that as a result of our actions there has been a marked reduction in incidents of police harassment of our communities.
This may be temporary, but it has shown us that repression and racism and bigotry must be fought. To do otherwise is to submit to sub-human status.
The police can be challenged if we stand together.
We extend our hand in solidarity with your struggle.
It is right to resist.
Axmed Ali, Hussein Farah and Linda Waldron for the Western Suburbs Community Campaign Against Racism
From Green Left Weekly, March 3, 2004.
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