Will the AF be the Death of Freedom?

THE recent actions of  Nick Heath and the Anarchist Federation may now be putting the paper of the anarchist movement 'Freedom' in danger:  there have been several reports of northerners in or close to, the Anarchist Fed. wanting to disassociate themselves from the two reported Bookfair incidents in London and Manchester last year.  Freedom must now be clear where it stands on freedom of the press.  Below is a letter sent to the editor of Freedom last week by one of the recent victims of the Anarchist Fed's low level bullying, Barry Woodling, a NAN supporter and member of the editorial panel of Northern Voices:

Dear Editor, 
Freedom as an anarchist paper has a long history of defending freedom of speech since its foundation by Peter Kropotkin in the 1880s. I am therefore greatly disturbed by the volte face committed at the paper in relation to the publishing of the Burnley NAN Statement to the Movement. You originally agreed to publish and then changed your mind claiming "naivety"

on your part. It appears that you succumbed to "nasty" letters from 2 leading members of the Anarchist Federation, one of whom was Nick Heath. 

My eviction from the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair was a shocking authoritarian action in which I was attacked both verbally and physically and smeared as an anti-semite. I find this monstrous allegation incredibly offensive in view of the fact that many members of my mothers family were murdered in Nazi concentration camps during WW2.

I would request that all the correspondence relating to the NAN statement be published. Furthermore failure to publish the NAN statement makes Freedom complicit in the cover up and is tantamount to condoning this unwarranted attack on a NAN supporter.

IN conclusion transparency and accountability is a sine qua non of the anarchist and libertarian movement and Freedom will lose all credibility if it does not adhere to these principles.

Yours in solidarity,
Barry Woodling