Category: Political Issues

The Foreign Office advises “against all travel to Baghdad and its surrounding area” on the grounds that it is unsafe, but somehow the UK Borders Agency thinks it’s fine to forcibly take Iraqis who have sought refuge in this country on planes, fly them back there under heavy guard and dump them back on its streets, leaving them to fend for themselves having shoved a few dollar bills in their hands.

They flew 44 to the airport last, but the Iraqis refused to let most of them disembark. One who was put off there was interviewed by a reporter for the BBC, obviously in fear of his life, in hiding there. He’d only left Baghdad after his brother was murdered, convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity and that the real target for the attack had been him. Now he feared to meet his attempted killers on every street he walked.

It’s a sorry tale of a government determined to look tough over migration into this country, to appear to take a harder line than the Tories – or even the ultra-right. More about this shameful failure to meet our obligations under the UN Convention on the Treatment of Refugees and the EU on My London Diary.

Standing alongside the lawyers, the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and others at the emergency demonstration on Saturday was Brian Haw who has become a public hero for his continued peace protest in Parliament Square since June 2001 – over 8 years. It is a vigil that has taken its toll on him, but he still spoke strongly at the event.

I’m not a great supporter of animal rights. I enjoy eating meat and fish – though I also eat a lot of vegetarian dishes. But I do think we should treat animals with a decent amount of care and respect, and avoid the kind of cruelty that is so much a part of factory farming. It isn’t all like that, and I’ve known farmers who really care for the animals they raise and spend a great deal of time and effort in making sure that they are well treated. Of course I can’t be sure that all the meat I eat or all the dairy products come from farms like this, but we do try as much as possible to avoid factory farmed produce when we are buying food.

But there is no such thing as cruelty-free fur. Wherever countries have tried to provide less cruel conditions in fur farms the result has always been to make the farms unable to compete with those in other countries that have no concern for animal cruelty. The UK policy banning fur farms is the only sensible policy and one that should be adopted across the world.

Trapping and hunting of wild animals for their furs also involves considerable cruelty, and around the world traps are still in use in many countries that were banned here years ago. Shooting too often fails to kill cleanly, with some wounded animals escaping to die a lingering death, and young animals whose parent is killed may be left to starve.

We don’t need to wear fur, and for almost any purpose that fur is used there are better vegetable or synthetic alternatives. Most fur used now is simply decorative, and even when produced under cruel regimes is still expensive. It’s become just a marginally less crass way than sewing large denomination notes onto clothes for people to say “look how effing rich I am darling.”

Wearing fur – including fur trimmings – had more or less become unacceptable in polite, civilised society, but recently some parts of the fashion trade have been trying to rehabilitate it. We shouldn’t need a Campaign to Abolish the Fur Trade in the twentyfirst century, but unfortunately we still do.

Boycott Harrods – the only department store still selling furs

More on My London Diary about the National Anti-Fur March and more pictures

Almost all these pictures were taken with the 24-70mm f2.8, which was pretty much an ideal lens, enabling me to work close in and at a reasonable shutter speed and ISO in the rather poor light. There were just a few times when I wanted something longer (usually considerably longer) and rather more where something just a little wider was called for.  I think the ideal kit on full frame would have at its centre something like a 20-50mm lens, but unfortunately they don’t exist.

It would be hard not to feel a great sympathy for the Tamils. The world – including the UN and of course our own government have for many years decided to turn a blind eye to the takeover of Sri Lanka by the majority Sinhalese. Britain failed to protect their interests when we gave Ceylon independence, failed to inspire Commonwealth action over the years, but particularly at the time of the creation of Sri Lanka. The world looked away (or gave encouragement and arms)  as the Sri Lankan government imposed a military solution on the Tamil areas, killing many thousands of civilians as well as the Tamil Tigers.

The Tamils were calling for the release of the  over 280,000 Tamil civilians – including at least 50,000 children  – still held in miserable and squalid conditions in camps run by the Sri Lankan military.  They want international aid agencies and press to have access to the camps and a full independent investigation of the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government and army. They have lost faith in the UN and its General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon.

At the start of the demonstration at Temple, protesters seemed rather thin on the ground and the mood seemed  one of resignation and dejection, rather than the energetic enthusiasm of the much larger demonstrations before the military defeat. Even the ‘prisoners’ in the mock concentration camp leading the march seemed subdued, although by the time I left the march as it turned up Northumberland Ave they were noticeably more animated.

But it was a difficult event to find anything to photography, which is perhaps why rather more than usual of my pictures were taken from a distance, looking down from the footbridge on the east side of the Hungerford Bridge (now one of the two bridges on each side of the rail bridge.)

I wasn’t particularly happy with the pictures I took. I had hoped to catch up with them later in the afternoon before the march reached Hyde Park, but with the smaller numbers the police were able to pressure them to walk rather faster than on previous occasions where they had taken over the roadway and by the time I was able to get back the march had finished. You can see them as usual on My London Diary.

While these were the questions asked over the toast and marmalade in many homes this morning, for once I knew all the answers. Because I was at the centre of David Wilshire MP’s constituency, Staines.  Spelthorne is at the centre of all those reservoirs visible on the left immediately after take-off from Heathrow as you wantonly increase your carbon footprint.

David Wilshire and his partner and office manager Ann Palmer

All that water is not enough for our local council, which also goes under the rather silly name of Spelthorne, and despite the fact that the River Thames was only a few yards behind me they had to install the rather fatuous ‘water feature’ (a concrete ditch) that you can see behind the Spelthorne MP and his very personal assistant taking part in a very worthwhile charity event Stepping Out for Water that I photographed last year.

Mr Wilshire has earned some local respect for getting involved in events such as this, where he came to speak at the meeting in the Staines Riverside Gardens/Car Park at the end of a walk raising concern and cash about the one fifth of the world who lack clean water and the 40% who lack basic sanitation – and our failure to do our part to meet the Millennium Development Goals, one of which included the aim to halve those without clean water and sanitation by 2015.  He’s also supported other events, such as a Trade Justice demonstration in Staines. So he isn’t all bad.

Wilshire at a Trade Justice demonstration in Staines in 2003

He also regularly replies to letters from me and Linda, telling us of his support for various things we oppose – such as the wasting of vast amounts of money on Trident and the expansion of Heathrow – an issue where he is one of few local MPs to defy official Conservative policy. But he does keep in contact with constituents and argue the case even if he almost invariably ends up coming to the wrong conclusion.

He must have been doing something right, as there is a group of local Tories reported to be trying to get rid of him since August – though their main beef is over his expenses claims, others criticise him for not living in the borough (reportedly he has homes in Somerset, Hanworth and London.)  The current allegations are about payments to Moorlands Research Services, an unregistered company owned by himself and his partner, Ann Palmer.

Spelthorne exists because of opposition by Conservative backwoodsmen and women back in the 1960s, who fought tooth and nail to keep this true blue area out of Greater London and in particular the London Borough of Hounslow (thus ensuring it remained under Labour control. Oh dear!)  It then jumped over the Thames to become part of Surrey, although that country has never quite accepted it, and even now some local activities get missed out from Surrey listings because they are in Middlesex. But Staines really isn’t Surrey. We have the crime rates, unemployment and social problems  you’d expect for outer London, with an extra dose of pollution from Heathrow and three motorways around our edges – the M25, M3 and M4.

David Wilshire MP speaks. Rather a lot of nonsense as usual.

Wilshire, a former Conservative whip, probably last made the national headlines for the controversial Section 28 which he introduced into the Local Government Act, 1988 aimed at preventing “local authorities from promoting homosexuality“.  A half-baked and largely ineffectual attempt at discrimination, it had the effect of uniting and galvanising LGBT groups in protest and thus advancing the cause of equality in the period until it was repealed (in Scotland in 2000 and the rest of the UK in 2003 – hard to comprehend why it took New Labour so long.)

It seems inevitable in the current climate that Wilshire will have to go – whatever the justice of his case. But I don’t hold out any great hope that the conservative candidate that replaces him as MP (a monkey with a blue rosette would get elected here) will be any better.

Another picture from ‘Stepping Out For Water‘

I was sorry not to be at Grosvenor Square on Friday when the the news came through that the 36 men detained in Iraq had been released. The account on the Free Iran web site says:

Upon hearing the news of the hostages’ release, everyone was crying, dancing, singing in the street in Grosvenor square in front of the US Embassy.

and gives a link to a video on YouTube of the release in Iraq after 72 days of hunger strike.

I was also unable to attend the celebrations at Grosvenor Square on Saturday evening, however it is good to be able to report some success. But  the release of the prisoners was only one of the demands.

Many of the 36, who had also been refusing fluids for a week, as well as those who went on hunger strike around the world in sympathy – including the 12 in London – may have permanently damaged their health – and according the the report I heard early on Sunday morning on the ‘Sunday’ programme on Radio 4,  five of the London hunger strikers have been kept in hospital.

The Church of England often gets a pretty poor press, but the Archbishop of Canterbury took a prominent role in the campaign – and kept the issue in the religious media while the mainstream largely ignored it. Here’s another quote from ‘Free Iran’

Huge international pressure, prompted by hunger strikers, helped bring about their release.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the vice president of the European Parliament, Dr Alejo Vidal-Quadras, and the former Prime Minister of Algeria, Sid Ahmed Ghozali, and thousands of parliamentarians, jurists, human rights icons, dignitaries and personalities across the world condemned the Iraqi regime for failing to release the refugees, despite three separate rulings by Iraqi judges.

Amnesty International joined the chorus of voices denouncing the actions of Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri Al-Maliki with another Urgent Action appeal which was its 12th statement since the ordeal started.

You can see my earlier pictures and comments on the Grosvenor Square hunger strike in Serbian Pride and Camp Ashraf, and more on My London Diary.

A week or so on ago on Friday afternoon I photographed two demonstrations that haven’t otherwise got a lot of media coverage. And perhaps if I had not been coming to London for a couple of other things I would not have made it to them. I’m pleased that I did, as it meant both got some publicity through Indymedia and Demotix, but neither is likely to do a lot for my bottom line.

LGBT Solidarity at Serbian Embassy

The first was a LGBT demonstration outside the Serbian Embassy in Belgrave Square to protest at the last-minute cancellation of the Serbian government of Belgrade Pride. There is a strong homophobic right-wing there, and a previous attempt in 2001 to hold a procession there ended in violence with the parade having to be abandoned.

This time the government had promised to ensure it could happen, but at the last minute backed down to the right-wing pressure and cancelled it just hours before it was due to take place.

There wasn’t really a lot to photograph, some rather straightforward pictures of people standing on the steps, handing over a letter… It was really an occasion where I start to understand why press photographers so often set things up. But that just isn’t how I work.

Perhaps the best opportunity was with the picture above (and a few variations of it of course) but here the difficulty was in the lighting contrast between the very bright sunlight coming in low on the left of picture and the deep shadow at the right. Of course I had my flash, the Nikon SB800, but for once it simply refused to work properly, and wouldn’t go into BL (balanced light) mode at all.  I made a few exposures, trying several ways to get the balance I wanted, but couldn’t really make it.

I still don’t know why it wasn’t working, but I think it was the camera rather than the flash that wasn’t playing ball, as when I got home and tried with my second SB800 I had exactly the same problem. I cleaned the flash contacts on camera and flash, fiddled with the menus on both flash and camera with no luck. Then finally it did start to work again, but I’ve no idea why. Modern automatic systems are great when they work, but can be so frustrating when something goes wrong.

More at: LGBT Solidarity at Serbian Embassy

Camp Ashraf Hunger Strike – Day 60

Camp Ashraf is in Iraq. After the 1979 Iranian revolution a number of camps were set up in Iraq for Iranian refugees, and some of them were also armed to continue resistance. The main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, was housed in Camp Ashraf. After the US led invasion, the US took over responsibility for refugees in Iraq, and after a short while decided to disarm the PMOI.

At the start of the year, the US handed over control of the camp to Iraq, giving promises that those living in it would be treated humanely and not deported to any country where they had a “well-founded fear of persecution“. The Iraqi government apparently has other ideas, as it wants to improve relations with Iran it wants to send the PMOI back there, possibly as a part of a prisoner exchange. Iraqi forces came into the camp, attacked the residents, killing 11 and injuring hundreds and took 36 men into detention. They are still detained despite a court ruling they must be released.

The detainees started a hunger strike in Iraq, and 12 Iranians in Britain also gone on hunger strike as a protest outside the US embassy in London, as the US is still thought to be responsible under the Geneva Conventions for the safety of the men in Iraq. When I was there they were on their 60th day and several had already been taken into hospital but had returned to continue their protest.

Although the awnings under which the hunger strikers were sitting or lying on beds were fairly dim, the lighting under them was reasonably even and I could work at ISO 1600-3200 without great problems.

My problem was how to dramatise the story to make it more likely to be taken up by the media, and I couldn’t find a solution. I’m not sure if I was having a bad day or there really wasn’t anything there, or perhaps I just didn’t spend long enough or work hard enough at it.

Of course the story and picture did get out on Indymedia and Demotix, but I would have like it to get more publicity. The failure of the US and our governments to do anything at all about it is truly shameful.

More at: Camp Ashraf Hunger Strike – Day 60

After I’d taken this picture of a demonstrator waiting to scream insults at the AlQuds day march as it passed the pen at Piccadilly Circus, he complained loudly to a policeman about  being photographed. The policeman, who had been watching me take the picture smiled at me and told him that I was perfectly within my rights to photograph people in public, adding the “Sir” at the end of his reply with more than usual ironic emphasis.

It is a curiously strongly held belief among many of the general public (perhaps mainly the less-educated) that they have some kind of right over their image when they appear (perform might be more accurate) in public, shared by some demonstrators on the extreme right and left. Fortunately the law thinks otherwise, or photography as we know it would be extremely limited. Of course there is the law about defamation, that sometimes rightly restricts how you many use an image, but in general if people are in public, unless they are in situations where they have a genuine expectation of privacy, they can be photographed, at least so long as you don’t continually harass them in a way that could be interpreted as stalking, or they are very rich and famous and can employ extremely expensive briefs to bamboozle judges.

Of course people are free to cover their faces – though the police may force them to remove masks to be photographed. And some of the English Defence League or March for England supporters did so, though not very effectively, having failed to think sufficiently in advance to bring masks.

Photographers to a person like masks. Not just because we’re fans of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, though some of us undoubtedly are (and some of Saul Steinberg) but because they make for more interesting pictures. But on those occasions when I’ve taken a decision to demonstrate – even where that meant breaking the law – I’ve always wanted to do so openly.

While the demonstrators in the pen made me feel ashamed of my fellow countrymen (and there was also one woman among the football supporters) I felt among brothers and sisters in the march itself, as it made its noisy way along Piccadilly, chanting slogans and carrying banners including “We are all Palestinians” in a display of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The text on My London Diary is more or less the same as that I posted on the day to Demotix (where my story made the front page as fairly often) and Indymedia, but there are many more pictures.