On 25 April the trial of 18 black youths from Islington, North London, begins at the Old Bailey. The most serious charge against them is conspiracy to rob, which carries sentences as long as ten years.
The trial is the police revenge for the defeat they suffered at the hands of black youth at last year's Notting Hill Carnival. But, as CLEMENTE MAHARAJ, one of the main organisers of the Islington 18 Defence Committee, explains: *The police think they can put black kidsaway to keep them in their place, instead they have stirred up the whole black community. background to it which reveal that the racism of the police is just the tip of the iceberg for black people in Britain. Clem talked to Red Weekly about the case and the picked bim un after a hushand and wite quarrel. They put him in jude hold, pressed the wrong vein and stopped the blood going to his brain. He was black. They rar Stephen MoCarthy's head into a lamp post in Upper Street.
They brutalised the youth from Wood Grees. They brutalised the 18. The police have been allowed ta get away wirh murder in this area, hoping that they're the fucking law and people will accept Clem is particularly bitter about the role that the Labour Party has played in the area. When a motion to the Cieneral Management Comminee asking them to support the Islingson 18 was discussed recently. the North Islington Labour