Man arrested over death threats made to NI councillor who vows not to be deterred




SDLP Councillor Lilian Seenoi-Barr

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY

Allison Morris

Sun 5 May 2024 

Police investigating online threats against SDLP councillor Lilian Seenoi-Barr have arrested a 30-year-old man.

Ms Seenoi-Barr has received death threats since it was announced she will become Northern Ireland’s first black mayor.

She was chosen last week by the SDLP as the next mayor of Derry City and Strabane. She said she was “proud to be a Maasai woman and a Derry girl”.

The PSNI said yesterday evening that a man was in custody after he attended Strand Road police station in Londonderry and was detained on suspicion of harassment, threats to kill and improper use of a public electronic communications network. Police are treating the alleged offences as a racially motivated hate crime.

The 42-year-old Kenyan has said racism will not deflect her but is “disappointed” two councillors from her party resigned after her selection. Current deputy mayor Jason Barr and Shauna Cusack, who both put themselves forward for the post, resigned over the “undemocratic” manner of the selection.

Read more

• SDLP leader slams far right over death threats against NI’s first black mayor Lilian Barr
• Second SDLP councillor announces resignation over Mayor ‘debacle’
• Who is Alex Jones? The conspiracy theorist who targeted Londonderry’s first black mayor

Speaking on BBC’s Sunday Politics programme, Ms Seenoi-Barr said despite the abuse and death threats, the majority of people in Derry stood with her.

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“It is an honour to be considered mayor and be selected, it is a lifetime opportunity,” she said.

“It was obviously a disappointment that two of my colleagues who I have worked with the last three years decided to resign, but I’m focused on the way forward.

“I was elected by the people of Derry who have really taken me into their hearts and been kind to me and I want to be able to serve them properly.

“It’s not about making history, but it is about delivering for the people and representing the people that elected me.”

She said her selection was an “open process... a robust interview, very competitive”.

She added: “I was very prepared for the interview, I work very hard for my community.”

The SDLP conceded communication with its representatives was poor and said is will change how it appoints civil leadership positions in the future.

The party is expected to propose an amendment at its next annual general meeting to “regularise the process”.

Councillor Lilian Barr will soon be appointed Mayor of Derry City and Strabane.

Ms Seenoi-Barr has received hundreds of messages of congratulations, including from party leader Colum Eastwood and First Minister Michelle O’Neill.

Her selection was also widely reported in Kenya.

Senator Ledama Olekina posted on X: “Please join me in congratulating my baby sister Councillor Lilian Seenoi for being elected as the first black Maasai Mayor of the City of Derry.”

In response to the abuse she has received, Ms Seenoi-Barr said: “Since I put myself forward to represent my community, since I came to this country, I’ve been experiencing racism.

“But obviously it’s beyond what I had been experiencing.

“The death threats have been extremely hurtful to my family and to myself too.

“But I’m more focused on the positives, I have had enormous support across the island.”

She joined the SDLP team on Derry City and Strabane District Council in June 2021 after being co-opted in the Foyleside ward.

She retained her seat in last year’s council local elections.

Condemning the racist abuse, Mr Eastwood said: “We will not be led into the gutter by far-right activists, whether they are coming from America, Dublin or Derry online.”

RESISTING RWANDA
Defiance in the face of immorality

Source: Sul Nowroz

TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2024
Real Media – The View From Below

Ruptures and Splinters

On Monday April 29th a new fracture line appeared across parts of the UK. A country already divided was about to splinter again. On one side – the Home Office, the Bibby Stockholm and the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024. On the other, a loose coalition including volunteers from Anti Raids Network, Black Lives Matter UK, Right to Remain, Solidarity Knows No Borders, SOAS Detainee Support and These Walls Must Fall. While the former represents the top-down authoritarian and violent reach of the current British government, the latter is a grassroots movement of defiance and solidarity.

The Act

The infamous Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 received Royal Assent and became law on Friday April 26th. The Act has been widely criticised for undermining human rights, and is nonsensical and hugely costly.

Under the Act the UK Home Office pays into a fund misleadingly named the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF). The fund is a smokescreen, an attempt to legitimise payments to the Rwandan government to traffic asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda. The Home Office has paid some £200 million into ETIF since 2022, and further instalments of £50 million will be made each year for the next three years. Using the Home Office’s ‘five-year processing and integration package’ assumptions, it will cost the UK £150,874 for each person forcibly relocated to Rwanda.

The twisted nature of the Bill isn’t limited to its economics. More disturbingly, it casts asylum seekers as tradable chattel, cargo that can be shipped over the horizon without care or concern about what happens to them next. The commodification of this population is particularly distressing as they come from high-risk environments, often displaced by war and brutal conflicts, forcibly separated from friends and family. It is traumatic to leave your home unplanned and motivated only by fear, taking with you only what you can carry.



Rwanda

Source: Yvonne Deeney/BristolLive

There is a peculiar perversion to it all. A white nation state (ranked the sixth largest economy in the world), whose government and parts of its population fetishize on othering, commandeers a black nation state (ranked the 140th largest economy in the world) and unashamedly uses it as a type of purification filter; a place where the unwanted are discharged.

Rwanda has been violated. The territory has been raped and ruled, first by Germany, then by Belgium. It has been plagued with mass killing sprees, even genocide. Abusive colonial rule has left the country in a semi psychotic state, unstable and prone to violence. It is a country conditioned to normalise abuse, and preferences self-preservation over collective humanity. So, when the colonial carriages rode into town, with bags of silver and crooked smiles, a broken country responded in the only way it knew how: servitude.

A Landless Nation

Refugee Nation Flag: Yara Said

There are around 110 million forcibly displaced people world-wide, of which sixty million are internally displaced, thirty-five million have refugee status, and about six million are asylum seekers, or in the process of becoming refugees. Approximately forty million are below the age of eighteen. It’s enough to populate a nation.

The 2016 Olympics were memorable. Held in the iconic city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, several records were broken including the men’s 400 metres, the women’s 5,000 metres, the women’s hammer throw, and the men’s pole vault. It was also the first-year refugees were allowed to participate. A squad of ten athletes competed under the officially recognised black and orange flag of the Refugee Nation.

Syrian Yara Said later shared that she designed the flag using inspiration from the life vests worn by many “brothers and sisters who were searching for a safer land to live on.” The expanse of orange represents the vast horizons that so often surrounded them as they moved across land and water.

Said continued: “The design is meant to evoke a sense of hope and solidarity, and to show that refugees are not just victims but also survivors and fighters.” With the introduction of the flag, Said was reclaiming the status of displaced people, who for too long have been marginalised and denied the most basic rights. On Monday, several hundred campaigners assembled at immigration centres across the UK to act in solidarity with asylum seekers, whose rights are once again under threat.

Small Boats

It is a singularly English phenomenon: Small Boats. Large parts of the English psyche are obsessed with separation. Integration is a nauseating word, a concept that repels and repulses in equal measure. The channel, a god-given gift, is designed solely to keep ‘them’ over ‘there.’ Why have equality when you can have exceptionalism?

The government feed the media – unchecked – who embellish and entertain the public, who get frenzied and kick the government, who obsess and blame the foreigner, and the easiest foreigner to blame is the one with the fewest rights. It’s a loop: small boats, dark faces, tricksters, undeserving, stigmatized. Sadly, the lie goes largely unchallenged, and soon it becomes the truth.

Monday Morning Raids

Source – Sul Nowroz

On Monday the Home Office swung into action emboldened by the depraved Rwanda act. Raids followed, some were filmed and pushed through government channels: The Sun and The Daily Mail. By Thursday, immigration offices, where asylum seekers are asked to periodically sign-in, were being targeted. Instead of their regular check-in meetings, asylum seekers were being challenged to see if they met the Rwandan criteria: an asylum claim on or after 1st January 2022, a journey to the UK that could be described as having been dangerous (the small boat clause), and no family members under the age of 18. If the criteria were met individuals were escorted onto vans and coaches to be transported to a holding pen, the controversial Bibby Stockholm. Asylum seekers were not allowed to collect their personal belongings or say goodbye to friends and neighbours. The process was callous, mentally and emotionally harmful and designed to humiliate and degrade. It was painful to watch.

But by the time the first vans were ready to depart there was a problem. Anti-raid campaigners blocked immigration vehicles, immobilising them through sheer strength of numbers. The Rwanda roundup, much touted by Home Office Minister James Cleverly, came to a standstill as acts of solidarity and resistance blocked roads in Croydon and Peckham and Hounslow and Loughborough and Solihull and Birmingham and Perth and Glasgow. Police were called, force was used, and vehicles were freed. State thuggery can be effective.

More immigration swoops followed on Friday; most were met with resistance. A coach hired by immigration services in Peckham was rendered useless after Lime bikes were wedged underneath it. Others resisted by staffing pop-up information centres advising asylum seekers of their rights.

By Friday evening some forty-five campaigners had been arrested. The Home Office didn’t disclose how many asylum seekers had been detained but did confirm that the initial list for relocation to Rwanda consisted of some 5,700 individuals.

Solidarity is Resistance

When the powerful deliberately attempt to purge humanity, solidarity becomes a daring act, a subversive act that will get you arrested. Over the last few days, we witnessed a natural coming together, a self-forming, self-governing community that rose to challenge a law that is morally wrong, and a government that is ethically bankrupt. The campaigners applied nothing more than their bodies against a menacing state apparatus that traffics people who have been forcibly displaced and still carry the scars of war and conflict.

While watching last week’s acts of solidarity, of citizen-against-state, I am reminded of a quote: “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.“

©2024 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer

   

Rwandan government ‘cannot say’ how many migrants it will take from UK

Ross Hunter
Sun, 5 May 2024 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomes the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, to 10 Downing Street (Image: Stefan Rousseau)


THE Rwandan government cannot guarantee how many migrants it will take from the UK under Rishi Sunak’s flagship deportation scheme.

But Yolande Makolo, a spokeswoman for the east African state, did say Rwanda would be able to welcome more than 200 migrants initially.

The Prime Minister’s plan to deal with asylum seekers arriving in the UK via irregular routes including the English Channel crossing is to place them on a one-way flight to Kigali.


He hopes this will deter other small boats attempting the journey from France.

Rwanda has entered into a five-year deal to take in migrants from the UK.

Asked by the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg if Rwanda would be able to process tens of thousands of migrants as part of the deal, Makolo said: “We will be able to welcome the migrants that the UK sends over the lifetime of this partnership.

READ MORE: John Swinney: Leadership challenge from SNP activist will 'delay' rebuild

“What I cannot tell you is how many thousands we are taking in the first year or the second year. This will depend on very many factors that are being worked out right now.”

She had earlier claimed there was a “misconception” that Rwanda was only prepared to take 200 initial migrants, telling the BBC: “Journalists have been visiting the initial accommodation that we have secured since the beginning of the partnership. This is Hope Hostel.

“That particular facility is able to take up to 200 people.

“However, we have already started initial discussions with other facilities around Kigali and further afield and these will be firmed up and signed once we know how many migrants are coming and when they are coming.

“So it has never been the case that we can only take 200 initially, that has been a misconception.”

The National:

Keir Starmer has said Labour will not keep the Rwanda policy if it wins the next election, but this has prompted questions about what the party would do instead.

Makolo urged critics of the plan not to attack Rwanda “unjustly”, and to present a solution to the migrant crisis which was “not just deterrence and enforcement”.

“People are suffering here so we need good solutions and we need to rethink the migration crisis,” she said.

The spokeswoman later added: “Living in Rwanda is not a punishment. It is a beautiful country, including the weather.”

Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said if the party was in power it would spend the cash set aside for the Rwanda scheme on “a proper operation to crack down on the criminal gangs”.

READ MORE: Independence support unchanged as Labour take lead over SNP, poll finds

A PA news agency fact check found payments to the Rwandan government as part of the deal would add up to £490 million by the end of the 2026/27 financial year, should a milestone of 300 migrants sent to Rwanda be reached.

PA found Labour’s claim that the scheme would cost £2 million per migrant to be mostly true, with the price tag decreasing substantially if many more were deported to Rwanda.

McFadden said Labour believed the Government “will get flights off” but did not believe the scheme would provide “value for money for the taxpayer”.

He also said he doubted Labour would work to return migrants to the UK from Rwanda should they form the next government.

Gaza war surgeon feels ‘criminalised’ after being denied entry to France

Geneva Abdul
Sun, 5 May 2024 

THE GUARDIAN


Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a Palestinian-British surgeon, was due to speak at the French senate about the Israel-Gaza war.Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

A London surgeon who provided testimony on Israel’s war in Gaza after operating during the conflict has said he feels criminalised after being denied entry to France over the weekend.

Prof Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon was due to speak about the war to the French parliament’s upper house on Saturday. However, after arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on a morning flight from London, he was informed by French authorities that Germany had enforced a Schengen-wide ban on his entry to Europe.

Abu-Sitta said he had no knowledge that German authorities, who had previously refused his entry to Berlin in April, had put an administrative visa ban on him for a year, meaning he was banned from entering any Schengen country.

“What I find most difficult to accept is this complete criminalisation,” Abu-Sitta said on Sunday, adding that he was previously told by authorities he would be unable to enter Germany for the month of April.

“I was put in a holding cell and marched in front of people at Charles de Gaulle with armed guards and then handed over to the staff in the plane, all so that I’m unable to give evidence,” he said.

Instead of taking part in a conference at the French senate to speak about Gaza, on invitation from Green party parliamentarians, Abu-Sitta was stripped of his possessions and taken to a holding cell. Before being deported to the UK, he was able to attend the conference via video on his lawyer’s phone from the detention centre.

“It was critical for me that we do this, that they’re unable to silence us,” said Abu-Sitta, who has worked in Gaza since 2009, as well as in wars in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

During October and November 2023, at the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has since killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, Abu-Sitta operated from al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals. During his 43 days, he described witnessing a “massacre unfold” in Gaza and the use of white phosphorus munitions, which Israel has denied.

Abu-Sitta has since provided evidence to Scotland Yard and the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague. He intends to challenge his entry ban in the German courts and is considering going to the European court of human rights.

In April, Abu-Sitta travelled to Berlin to participate in the Palestine Congress forum, where he was denied entry by authorities because they “could not ensure the safety of attendees in the conference”, he said. The German federal police have been approached for comment.

His lawyer, Tayab Ali, said the German government issued the Schengen-wide ban without any consultation with Abu-Sitta, and without disclosing the information the ban is based on.

“It is clear to us that there is an organised attempt to discredit medical witnesses and in particular Prof Ghassan from providing details about the consequences of Israel’s military action in Gaza,” said Ali, who is also the director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).

“The ban appears to be a cynical attempt to silence eyewitnesses giving testimony to parliamentarians and law enforcement agencies.”

The incident comes after diplomats from G7 nations urged officials at the ICC not to announce war crimes charges against Israel or Hamas officials, amid concerns that such a move could disrupt the chances of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks.

Germany, widely seen as the second largest arms exporter to Israel behind the US, is facing a domestic lawsuit over weapons sales to Israel. Last week, the international court of justice (ICJ) rejected a request by Nicaragua to issue Germany emergency orders to desist selling arms to Israel, but declined to throw out the case altogether.

“The only reason the Germans would want a European-wide ban is to stop me from getting to The Hague,” said Abu-Sitta.

“It communicates to me the complete complicity of the German government in the genocidal war.”

UK
Rail services will be 'severely impacted' by strikes


Alice Cunningham,BBC News, Essex

Greater AngliaGreater Anglia services will be impacted this week by strikes

Strikes will impact rail commuters in the East of England next week.

The Aslef union announced action from Tuesday through to Thursday impacting different rail operators, including Greater Anglia, each day.

An overtime ban was also called between Monday and Saturday.

Passengers have been advised to check before travelling and plan accordingly.

What is happening on Tuesday?

Greater Anglia said services would be "severely impacted" on Tuesday.

It planned to run a reduced train service on a small number of key routes into London across fewer hours.

The affected routes are:Norwich/Colchester and London Liverpool Street
Southend Victoria and London Liverpool Street
Stansted Airport and London Liverpool Street
Cambridge and London Liverpool Street

The operator added that most routes would have no services at all.

Other operators including c2c, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern and South Western Railway including Island Line are also expected to be impacted on Tuesday.

What is happening on Wednesday and Thursday?

On Wednesday, Greater Anglia's first trains of the day on most routes will start at about 07:00 BST.

"Most of our train services will be running," a Greater Anglia spokesperson said.

"West Anglia services are expected to be extremely busy, passengers are advised to check before they travel and consider travelling at alternative times.

"Stansted Express will be operating a reduced service of two or three trains per hour."

Wednesday will see operators including Avanti, Chiltern, CrossCountry and others impacted by the strike.

Thursday will similarly see LNER, Northern and TransPennine disrupted.

Some engineering works on Saturday may also impact journeys on Greater Anglia routes.

Greater Anglia recommended making use of its journey planner before setting out.

UK

Reading Sikh street parade returns after five years

By Minreet Kaur and Marcus White,

BBC

Jasmeet Singh

The Nagar Kirtan parade has been staged in Reading since 2002

An annual Sikh street procession has been staged in a town for the first time in five years.

The Nagar Kirtan parade was held in Reading from 2002 until 2019 before stopping because of the Covid pandemic.

About 2,000 priests and worshippers joined the procession from Cumberland Road to London Road earlier.

The event celebrates the festival of Vaisakhi, which marks the founding of the Sikh community, the Khalsa, in 1699.

Jasmeet Singh

The event marks the important Sikh festival of Vaisakhi

The parade included prayers and the singing of hymns as well as flag-waving and martial arts displays.

Organiser Gurpal Singh said: "In British society Sikhs have been well integrated for many years.


"We have fought wars together and have seen good and bad times together. But still it's about educating people."

Avi Kaur Birdi, who attended, said: "With people leading busy lives it's not always easy to see the community, so coming to one place to mark a huge festival makes me feel really happy to be with my family and friends."
J

asmeet Singh

About 2,000 people joined the procession

UK

Labour’s youngest councillor, 18, wins seat a week before her A-level exams


The teenager ousted the sitting Tory councillor as she was elected to Peterborough City Council

Athena Stavrou

Daisy Blakemore-Creedon with Andrew Pakes, Labour’s candidate for Peterborough in the coming general election (Supplied)

One of the youngest councillors ever to be elected in the UK has won her seat just a week before she is due to take her A-level exams.

Daisy Blakemore-Creedon, 18, was elected to Peterborough City Council after beating the sitting Tory councillor Andy Coles in the Fletton & Woodston ward.

The Labour candidate said she was “overwhelmed” by the local support when she gained 940 votes to beat her opponent by 282 ballots

Just one day after her victory, she told The Independent that she had thrown herself into her new role and had already begun to carry out her new duties – despite having to sit exams next week.

“I wasn’t expecting to win as it was quite a short campaign, so I was feeling very overwhelmed when it happened,” she said. “My priorities as a councillor are supporting the community – especially those who are the most disadvantaged.”

Blakemore-Creedon’s campaign team with Labour candidate Andrew Pakes (Supplied)

At only 18-and-a-half years old, the teenager said she is the youngest sitting Labour councillor and perhaps the youngest across all parties. She hopes to inspire more young people to go into politics and urges them to strive for achievement.


Her political journey began when she was just 10 years old when she would attend protests with her family.

She then went on to join the Labour Party in 2020, aged just 14.

She told The Independent: “It wasn’t until last year that I decided that this is the right time. Austerity was on the rise, we were close to having a recession, and I thought I wanted to be part of this change.”

Speaking of when she decided to run as a candidate for councillor, she added: “People were very supportive – a lot of my friends said this is so good that you’re going into politics and following your dreams.”

Ms Blakemore-Creedon’s win was one of many for the Labour Party in this week’s local elections as the Conservatives faced shocking blows.


Rishi Sunak suffered terrible losses in council elections as the Conservatives lost more than 400 councillors and control of 10 councils.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan has secured a third term as mayor of London, beating Conservative Susan Hall on Saturday.

Mr Khan secured just over 1,088,000 votes to be re-elected as London mayor, a majority of some 275,000 over his Conservative rival Hall, who secured just under 813,000 votes

Anti-monarchists celebrate Republic Day for 1st time in UK

Republican groups call for 'better, fairer, and more equitable democracy'

Behlül Çetinkaya |06.05.2024

Anti-monarchists, holding banners, gather to stage a protest against the Royal Family and to demand the abolition of the monarchy on Commonwealth Day in front of the Westminster Abbey Church in London, United Kingdom on March 11, 2024.

LONDON

For the first time, anti-monarchists in the UK celebrated "Republic Day" on Sunday, the same day as King Charles' first coronation anniversary.​​​​​​​

Representatives of republican groups from Norway and the Netherlands also attended the Republic Day celebration held at Trafalgar Square in London.

The event was organized by anti-monarchist group Republic, whose members carried banners and signs saying "Not my king" and "Abolish the monarchy."

"You have public days every year, on this anniversary of the coronation, on this anniversary of Charles being anointed our head of state, refusing to stand for election and we will keep on going until the monarchy is abolished," Graham Smith, leader of Republic, said at the celebration.

Smith added the group wanted "better, fairer, and more equitable democracy."

Arguing that the members of Britain's Royal Family do not deserve the positions they hold, he said that when the royals leave, the country would elect parliamentarians and presidents its people could be proud of.

"We are responsible for those decisions because we might get it wrong. Yes, you might choose someone who is no good, but then we can choose someone else later," he added.

 CALLING BIBI'S BLUFF

The Big Story

Israel balks after Hamas agrees to cease-fire deal

Hamas says it has accepted an offer for a temporary cease-fire with Israel, as diplomatic negotiations intensify to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas and ward off an Israeli military operation on the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

© AP

Hamas’s head of political and international relations, Basem Naim, confirmed to The Hill that Hamas had communicated with Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal.   The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, has engaged intensively for weeks on a truce proposal between Israel and Hamas.   Israel on Monday said it would send a delegation to engage in negotiations over efforts to secure a temporary cease-fire, but said “Hamas’s proposal is far from Israel’s necessary requirements,” according to a Hebrew-language statement from the prime minister’s office.   At the same time, the Israeli wartime Cabinet on Monday decided unanimously to continue military operations against Hamas targets in Rafah.   The Biden administration, which has sought to warn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching an attack on Rafah, expressed caution over Hamas’s cease-fire response.    “We want to get these hostages out, we want to get a cease-fire for six weeks, we want to increase humanitarian assistance and the last thing I want to do is say anything at this podium that’s going to put that process at risk,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said at a press briefing Monday afternoon.   The administration says a temporary cease-fire is the best way to secure the release of Israeli hostages, and protect more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah.   The broad contours of the deal is a six-to-eight week pause in fighting, in which Hamas would release Israeli hostages it has held since it kidnapped them from Israel on Oct. 7. The release of the hostages would occur in phases, with the most vulnerable of the 133 believed to be in Gaza released first.   Read the full report at TheHill.com.

Pro-Palestinian protesters try to disrupt Met Gala

BY MIRANDA NAZZARO - 05/06/24 - THE HILL

AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Police arrest a pro-Palestinian protester during the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York.


Pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out near the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday night as celebrities gathered for the annual Met Gala event.

The New York Police Department confirmed multiple people were arrested in the protests, though did not specify a number. Footage on social media showed groups of people marching near the Met Gala, shouting “free Palestine” and banging drums.

In some videos, traffic on Park Avenue appeared at a standstill as protestors flooded the streets. Some protestors set off smoke bombs and flares

NBC News reported the protesters were rallying across the city in a “citywide day of rage,” marching from Hunter College and through Central Park to attempt to disrupt the fundraising event. The NYPD set up various blockades in the area surrounding the Met Gala to prevent protestors from getting close to the gala and instructed protestors to leave the roadways, NBC News added.

The demonstration comes as pro-Palestinian protests roil college campuses across the country, prompting the arrests of hundreds of students and faculty over the past three weeks. Demonstrators are calling for universities and the U.S. to sever ties with Israel over the country’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since early October.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Insitute Benefit involves scores of high-profile stars who dress in adherence with a specific code. This year’s theme was “The Garden of Time,” in honor of the exhibit’s theme, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”

Celebrities dawned flora and fauna looks on a green carpet Monday before they attended cocktails and dinner with the about 400 invited guests. Last year, the gala raised about $22 million for the Met’s Costume Insitute, according to the Associated Press.

Condé Nast reaches agreement with staffers, avoiding strike at Met Gala

BY MIRANDA NAZZARO - 05/06/24 

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Publishing company Condé Nast reached a last-minute agreement with staffers on Monday morning, averting a strike ahead of Monday night’s Met Gala in New York, according to union leaders.

“We are excited to announce that we have a tentative agreement with @condenast on our first contract,” the Condé union said in a statement on X. “Our pledge to do ‘whatever it takes’ ahead of the #metgala2024 moved the company and our progress at the bargaining table kicked into high gear.”


The union said it secured a $61,500 starting salary floor and total of $3.3 million in wage increases. The tentative agreement also includes expanded bereavement leave and two more weeks of family leave, bringing the total to 14.

The union represents more than 500 editorial, video, and production workers across all Condé Nast’s brands that haven’t already unionized, including publications it owns like Vogue, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and GQ. The union was created in 2022 and has alleged the company provided low pay and shows a lack of diversity and equity.

It comes months after the media conglomerate announced late last year it will cut hundreds of jobs in the wake of recent digital advertising pressures and a decline in social media traffic across the industry.

For those laid off, the union said Monday’s contract includes eight weeks severance, three months of COBRA coverage, or continuation of health coverage. Or in lieu of COBRA, laid off employees will receive a onetime lump sum payment, or additional $1,000 payment.

Two days prior to the deal, the union demanded Condé Nast management meet the union “at the table,” or “we’ll meet you at the Met,” in reference to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute Benefit.

The media company is one of the top news outlets to cover the annual event, with a Condé Union bargaining committee member calling it “fashion’s big night” and likened it to the Super Bowl” in an interview with The Washington Post.


“Once the work stoppage entered the conversation, all of a sudden the company was like, ‘Okay, well we can give you a little more,’” bargaining committee member Alma Avalle told The Post.

The union has increased pressure on Condé Nast in recent months. In January, it staged a one-day walkout to coincide with the release of the Academy Award nominations, the Post reported, and in April, union members marched in front of the home of Condé global chief content officer Anna Wintour to post fliers reading, “Anna wears Prada, workers get nada.”

In a statement shared with The Hill, Stan Duncan, Condé Nast’s chief people officer, said the company is “pleased” at the tentative agreement.


“We are happy to have a contract that reflects and supports our core values – our content and journalism; our commitment to diversity and professional development; our industry-leading hiring practices; and our competitive wages and benefits,” he said. “We look forward to the ratification of the contract by its members.”

This story was updated at 10:53 p.m.TAGS