Show caption ‘The events of Hillsborough devastated our community, and that heartbreak is still felt today’ Photograph: Liverpool FC/Getty Images Opinion Excluding the Sun from our festival isn’t censorship, it’s Hillsborough solidarity Christine Howard Our festival takes place in Liverpool alongside the Labour conference. Our ‘boycott’ is about standing with local people Thu 20 Sep 2018 10.05 EDT Share on Facebook

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Yesterday outraged Sun journalists took to Twitter to denounce the decision taken by The World Transformed to not grant them press passes for our four-day festival of politics, arts and music taking place alongside the Labour party conference in Liverpool next week. The World Transformed released a statement explaining that this decision was an act of solidarity with the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, and a show of support for the boycott of the newspaper observed by community groups and businesses across Liverpool.

As an organiser with The World Transformed, and a proud Liverpudlian, I feel it’s crucial to explain why those attacking this decision as an act of “censorship” are so misguided.

Over the past 29 years, people in my city have been fighting tooth and nail for justice for their dead loved ones. The events of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 devastated our entire community, and that heartbreak is still felt today across Liverpool and across generations. But it was not only the Hillsborough disaster itself that we had to deal with, it was also the libellous and deeply disrespectful smears against victims and Liverpool fans that were fuelled by the Sun newspaper in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

And in Liverpool, we not only have a collective feeling of pain over Hillsborough, we also have a collective resolve to honour the memory of the victims and, crucially, to win justice for them. That’s exactly why businesses and community groups across the city have built and grown a campaign to say loud and clear that the Sun – an outlet that wilfully lied in order to attack and smear working-class football fans – is not welcome in Liverpool. And we are fiercely proud of that.

When The World Transformed comes to Liverpool next week, both Total Eclipse of the S*n and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, alongside many other local community activists, will be a key part of our festival. The decision by The World Transformed to respect the boycott of the Sun represents an important political choice to stand with the community in which the event is happening, to demonstrate sensitive political understanding at a local level, and to commit to building positive relationships with grassroots social movements. And this is exactly how politics should be.

In Liverpool, through our ongoing campaigns to ban the Sun and win justice for the 96 who died at Hillsborough, we are reimagining the kind of community and society that we want to live in, and we are collectively working together to make this a reality. Organisations like The World Transformed should absolutely be supporting campaigns like this which are locally rooted and seeking to bring about change in our communities.

Politics is about so much more than the Westminster bubble, news rooms and stale traditions. Politics is everywhere – in our classrooms, workplaces and communities – and it involves everyone. When people experience injustice in their lives, as many in Liverpool have done, we need political institutions that can reach out and support grassroots campaigns which have the power to engage people of all ages, identities and background and unite them around common causes.

That ethos is embedded in The World Transformed. We want our festival to be a home for anyone who wants to be part of creating a fairer and more just society which is run in the interests of the many. We aim to bring together grassroots activists and MPs on the same platforms to share ideas and skills, and to discuss and debate some of the biggest issues facing the Labour movement at local and national levels.

In order to achieve this, we have to make meaningful efforts to understand the political struggles playing out a local level and to find a way that we can support them. That’s why excluding Sun reporters isn’t censorship or an attack on freedom of press – it is an act of solidarity with Liverpool activists, campaigns and the wider community at large.