Thread by @copscampaign

Next at the #SpyCopsInquiry it's Imran Khan QC speaking for the Monitoring Group @MonitoringGroup

Khan: TMG was set up by Suresh Grover who is still a director. One of the oldest antiracist orgs in the UK, doing advocacy & supporting struggle for civil rights among BAME people & migrants

Khan: TMG started in Southall in the mid 1970s. Inspired by national and global struggles against apartheid. Many achievements over 40 years - trauma support to over 1500 victims of racism over the last decade.

Khan: Blair peach was killed on an antiracist demo in Southall in 1979. Peach's partner Celia Stubbs & their campaign was supported by TMG. It wasn't until 2010 the Met released the 1979 report that effectively admitted a police officer had killed Peach

Khan: TMG supported Stephen Lawrence's family campaign for a number of years. Also supported family of Ricky Reel, murdered by racists & whose family was targeted by #spycops. Also family of Michael Menson, killed in an racistattack which, as with Reel, police denied was racist

At least 18 such justice campaigns were targeted by #spycops campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/02/14/whi…

Khan: Given their involvement with so many spied-on campaigns, the Monitoring Group were surely spied upon too. The National Civil Rights Movement was founded by Grover in 1999 to support such campaigns,& to see the Macpherson recommendations implemented.

#spycops were at the NCRM founding conference. Yet Grover & TMG have had no formal admission they were ever spied on. They are losing hope that the #SpyCopsInquiry can be transparent & reveal the truth

Khan: Southall Monitoring Group were referred to in undercover police reports by Islington police, during a campaign to get the police to reveal the truth about a racist incident. The report has never been made public.

Khan: Police saw anti-racism as being somehow anti-police. The report was also scathing because SMG was working with the Greater London Council to dispel racism. The police seem distressed about SMG's ability to marshall support for causes and cases.

Khan: Grover noticed a reluctance from politicians to engage because they didn't want to be spied on; unexplained burglaries of the office; Grover being targeted for arrest. This wasn't, as the police claimed last week, merely 'collateral intrusion' on justice campaigns

Khan: It's a worry that the Chair of the #SpyCsopInquiry takes the police's word on that at face value.

Khan: The police self-investigation into #spycops treats a lack of surviving files as implication of inncence - absence of evidence as evidence of absence met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/…

Khan: Numerous racial justice groups in the 60s were non-violent yet apparently spied on. There was more uprising in the 70s. But, as Lord Scarman said in 1981, racism threatened all of British public life

Khan: The state took none of this on board, instead bringing in Sir Kenneth Newman to be Met Commissioner to apply his Northern Ireland targeting to bear on BAME communities in London. There was surely coordination with the Met's subunit of #spycops

Khan: Some people are core participants in the #SpyCopsInquiry directly because of Newman's legacy, they weren't 'collateral intrusion'.

Khan: After the 2005 bombings, TMG worked in Beeston in Leeds, where more than one bomber had come from. Grover was twice contacted in the 1st week by MI5 to discourage him from interaction with the 'suspect community'

Khan: Grover says Chair Mitting is simply incapable of investigating racism in the police & #spycops if the rejects the MacPherson definition of institutional racism.

Khan: There must be a diverse panel appointed to help the Chair before the #SpyCopsInquiry starts taking evidence. Otherwise it can't fulfil its remit, examining 40 years of #spycops who were guided by bias and discrimination

Khan: Empirical psychology shows many of us have implicit biases - the same object is seen as a weapon when in a black hand than a white; shooting tests show bias to shooting black people than whites doing the same thing. It proves right those who report subtle discrimination

Khan: BAME people have been bought, sold, raped, excluded and more for a very long time. Racism doesn't stand still, it changes size, shape and function. When it becomes institutionalized we're not dealing with prejudice but power - institutional practices

Khan: It will be nearly 20 years since the SDs disbanded by the time the #SpyCopsInquiry reports. Police will say it was a long time ago, but you must test every police claim.

Khan: TMG has participated in 3 public inquiries. They encouraged people to get involved with this. They even got the Inquiry's own legal team to participate in a public conference. But the secrecy has been disappointing & damaging to the Inquiries credibility.

Khan: The Inquiry has created its problems. Its secrecy and favouring of the police undermines its purpose. It is here because of the unshakeable spirit of the protesters who brought the fact to light.

Apologies for the quality of live tweeting of statement by Imran Khan on behalf of the @MonitoringGroup - the livestream kept sticking & jumping, & we may have missed some points, or some of Khan's characteristic elegant latticing of separate points to make a solid structure of

Khan has concluded, and there will now be a short break before we hear from Pete Weatherby QC, speaking for Newham Monitoring Project & other activists targeted by #spycops