...in support of the Uyghur people is the
PCS union, the Public & Commercial Services
the main trade union in the civil service
in this country.
I'm very pleased that John Moloney, who is
Assistant General Secretary of the PCS,
has come here to support the demo and say a few
words.
[applause]
First of all it's an honour to be invited
here.
And it's also fantastic that I'm not speaking
in a personal capacity - though everything
I'm about to say now, I genuinely believe
- but I'm officially here on behalf of the
PCS union, which has nearly 180,000 members
in this country, which organises in every
government department, which organises cleaners,
which organises security guards, which organises
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
What our National Executive Committee has
decided, is that we must support this campaign.
The reason why we must support this
campaign is that it's a simple matter
of a crime against humanity.
Let's imagine, what reason could you not be
against this campaign?
You hear that a whole people are rounded up,
solely because of their ethnicity.
That's a crime.
They're put into camps, solely because of
their ethnicity.
That's a crime.
They're forced into re-education, solely because
of their ethnicity.
That is a crime.
It's also a crime how small this gathering
is.
You're the faithful who've come here, but
the trade union movement
as a whole is not here.
If this was another country, other than China,
I think we would have mass demonstrations
by unions.
But for some reason, a lot of trade union
members - or activists, or certain activists
at least - give China a go, in a way they
wouldn't do with another country.
Now I think partly, it's because somehow,
it's perceived that China is different from
America, and that America is, if you like,
the "antichrist", and anybody "against" America
automatically must be a good country.
That's not true, is it.
What you have to judge is each government's
actions as each government's actions.
And that's how I judge, and my union judges,
the Chinese government's actions.
They have wantonly rounded up an entire people.
They have wantonly imprisoned that entire
people.
In fact, today I was reading, actually they're starting
to hire out, almost as slaves, these people
to work for big, multinational companies.
So in other words, there's lots of money to
be made.
What can we do, though?
What we have to do is minimally, as everybody
here is doing, is bear witness.
In other words, we have to turn up month after
month after month.
If that's all we can do, that is something
amazing.
Because what it is is that every time we're
out there, a report will go back to Peking.
Every time we're out here, some people will
notice it.
More importantly, people from the ethnic group
will actually know about it.
What we know is from social media, is that
news of these sort of demonstrations, as small
as they may be, on a wet day in London, will
get, through that camera, and through other
means, back to the people, back in China,
to the Uyghur people themselves.
And from every story I've ever read about
an oppressed people, they've taken tremendous
succor from just hearing about a small handful
of people sometimes, hopefully larger as we
get building the campaign, who are protesting.
Because what they... the worst thing you can
imagine if you're in prison, or in a camp,
is to believe that you've been totally abandoned
by everybody.
You're proving that is not the case.
The fact that my union is backing this campaign,
proves that that's not the case.
But we have to do so, so much more.
As Dave has said, we have to win the trade
union movement.
Just not one union, but every union.
As I said, it's a straightforward human rights
argument.
Is it right to imprison a whole people?
If the answer's no - and it's got to be no
- then you have to be with us.
So I say, first of all, congratulations for
doing that, congratulations to the people
who are organising this.
What we have to do is next time, I'll try
to get more PCS people here.
What we have to do afterwards is get Unite
people here, RMT people here, and everybody
here.
Now, hopefully as the weather gets better
we can get more and more people.
But minimally as I said, what we're going
to do today is bear witness.
We're going to shout at those people, powerful
people.
They will report it.
We'll take videos that will go back to China.
So what we're doing today is right and proper.
What we have to do is people like me, is make
sure it's much bigger next time, with people
from PCS.
On that basis, thanks very much for inviting
me.
Thank you.
[applause] Thank you John!
Okay!
