CARF

The magazine CARF was first published in 1977 as a newspaper by a local Kingston anti-fascist group and later adopted as its publication by the All London Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Co-ordinating Committee. It continued as an occasional publication under the auspices of the voluntary group CARF Collective until 1979. This edition, published in 1978, falls within this era of the paper’s history and focuses on the murder of Altab Ali. Ali was a 24 year old British Bangladeshi textile worker. On 4th May 1978 he was stabbed to death by three teenagers in Whitechapel, in a racially motivated attack. Ali's murder focused national attention on racial tension in the Brick Lane, Spitalfields and Whitechapel area of east London where the Bangladeshi community was regularly attacked and abused by the far right National Front who had established a Sunday morning recruitment stall at the corner of Brick Lane and Bethnal Green Road. A report by the Brick Lane Mosque before Ali was killed recorded 33 racial attacks on the Bangladeshi community in the first few months of 1978. Ali was murdered on the day of local elections where the National Front ran in every Tower Hamlets ward and gained nearly 10 per cent of the vote. The images on the magazine cover depict a protest through central London initiated by the local community 10 days after his death. The protest involved 7000 mainly Bangladeshi men from the Whitechapel area who marched to Downing Street and a rally in Hyde Park behind the hearse carrying Altab Ali's coffin.
The pro-active response to Altab Ali’s murder, led by Bengali youth movements, was a turning point for the community. In the following months, the local Blangladeshi community united with other local immigrant communities and white, local Trade Union leaders to organise further anti-racist protests in the Whitechapel area.
In 1998 St Mary's Park, the site of Ali's murder, was renamed Altab Ali park to commemorate his murder and remind the community of the sustained racist attacks and abuse they faced in the 1970s from the National Front.
In 1991 the CARF collective began to publish a bi-monthly magazine featuring articles and news on the anti-racist campaign. The magazine later went quarterly and ceased publication in 2003.