Category: Political Issues

End the Siege of Gaza – Another Demo

Around 50 people turned up to protest opposite Downing Street on a wet and wintry Saturday afternoon (5 April 2008) calling for and end to the Israeli siege of Gaza. The measures imposed in September 2007 are an illegal collective punishment against the population and have already resulted in many dying.

At Downing st

The demonstration was one in a series organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign , which calls on the British government to end the arms trade with Israel, and to press Israel to abide by international law, end its illegal occupation and allow the return of refugees.

Man with Palestinian flag

While the demonstration was taking place on the opposite side of the road with friendly cooperation from the police, one young man with a Palestinian flag went and stood on the pavement outside the gates to Downing Street. He was pulled to one side and questioned, and his flag taken from him and dropped on the ground, the officers explaining to him that because of the SOCPA law he was not allowed to demonstrate there. He picked up the flag again, and one of the officers swore at him, grabbed the flag out of his hands and dropped it on the pavement.

While I was there the man with the flag was informed that he was being stopped and searched under (I think) section 44 of the Terrorism Act, 2000. I could see no evidence of any specific terrorist threat in his behaviour that would justify this – waving a flag is not terrorism.

Another officer moved in front of me to prevent me from photographing this and on learning that I was press insisted I move further away as he alleged I was interfering with the actions of the police – although I was clearly at a reasonable distance by this time. After making my opinion clear I moved back as ordered.

At this point a woman officer came up and held her hand in front of my lens. I told her that this was illegal and that one of the senior officers in the Met had told a colleague that he would consider it “a sacking offence” and she hurriedly moved off across the road and away from the area. Unfortunately I failed to get her number, or that of the other officer who impeded me – I was still busy trying to take pictures.

I left and returned across the road where the protest was continuing. The man was still being held by the police when I left the area. You can see more pictures from the demonstration on My London Diary.

Light the Passion, Share the Dream, Free Tibet?

Argyle Square Gardens is a relatively small park just south of Kings Cross, and I arrived just as the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay was starting, to find it absolutely jam-packed, and it was a rather difficult job to make my way to the stage at the centre where there was a space for the press to work.

This too was pretty packed, and it wasn’t always possible to find a position from which one could photograph those appearing on stage adequately. Working in confined spaces is made considerably harder by the increasing trend of photographers to use backpacks rather than shoulder bags. There were also too many inexperienced photographers moving in front of others taking pictures without thinking about it. It’s something we all do occasionally by accident, but when working with others most try to avoid as much as possible. The worst offenders are people with camera phones or similar who think nothing about holding them out at arms length in front of other’s lenses.

Face in crowd

There were stirring speeches and some fine performances on stage, but mostly the interest there was for the ear rather than the eye, and it was the members of the audience that attracted the photographers’ attention. The exception came at the end of the event with a short drama depicting the treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese and the Tibetan response, followed by the introduction to the Tibetan Freedom Torch and Team Tibet.

Athletes of Tibetan origin living around the world want to compete for Tibet in the Olympic Games and formed a national Olympic committee and mad an application to the International Olympic Committee to compete in Beijing. They received no response to this and last month withdrew their application, demanding the IOC remove all Olympic Torch relay stops in Tibet, including those in the Tibetan areas now a part of Chinese provinces.

I’d stood on the pavement where the press were cleared to by police in Bloomsbury thinking that the Olympic slogan – Light the Passion, Share the Dream – really needed a third statement to seem complete, and ‘Free Tibet’ made the obvious one. That supplied by the Tibetan Freedom Torch organisation, ‘Freedom and Justice for Tibet’ is just too long to chant.

Team Tibet also appealed to athletes around the world to show solidarity with them by visible actions to protest about human rights abuses by China, and have started their own alternative Olympic torch relay. This began in Olympia, Greece on March 10th, the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising and has travelled across Europe, with ceremonies in Budapest, Rome, Munich and Edinburgh and London.

Tibetan Torch Relay

I photographed the torch as it was carried by one of the Drapchi nuns, imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese, on its route to St Pancras Station for the train to Paris – – like the other Olympic torch was going on to Paris. From there it will travel through North and South America and Asia, with its arrival in Tibet planned for the first day of the Beijing Olympics.

Text and more pictures on My London Diary

Chinese Torture Torch Relay Shames Olympic Ideals

Four years ago I photographed the Olympic torch relay as it made its way through Brixton.

Brixton torch

At the time I described it as a rather sad non-event, which seemed to lack the kind of real community involvement that might have made it worthwhile. Unfortunately the whole Olympic movement has become so tied up with the commercial exploitation of sport that it is now impossible to see much evidence of the original ideals that led to its foundation.

It was an organised but low-key event, with little apparent security and I was able to stand only a couple of feet from Frank Bruno and as Davina McCall as they carried the torch, which had arrived by taxi and was accompanied by dancers as it made its way along the high street.

Davina
This is Davina and not Frank

Sunday was in contrast a giant security operation, with crowds of police, and a rather sinister phalanx of Chinese security men. I’d chosen the Bloomsbury leg as the torch was to have been carried there by the Chinese ambassador, but these ‘secret’ plans were altered at the last minute (she carried it instead in Chinatown) apparently as police decided it would be too dangerous. Instead the torch was smuggled through hidden inside a vehicle, with no sign of it visible to the waiting crowds. About all we got to see – apart from a huge security operation were some very silly looking dancing girls.

There were probably around a thousand demonstrators for human rights in Tibet on and around Great Russell Street, mainly penned behind barriers in Bedford Place, roughly ten yards back from the road. Probably about the same number of Chinese with pro-Olympic banners and flags were allowed to remain behind banners along the route. This seemed to me to be a very debatable taking of a particular side by the police.
British Museum
Police hold Free Tibet protesters outside the British Museum

Similarly when the motorcade had passed, the police attempted to detain the Tibet supporters, while allowing others to disperse freely. The crowd pushed through a double line of police close to the Montague Street junction but were held for some minutes further down the road before eventually being allowed to disperse down Coptic Street. Presumably this was a delaying tactic to stop them catching up with the Chinese ambassador in Chinatown.

By this time I’d decided it was probably too late – given the traffic disruption caused by the event and the likely crowds – to get to a worthwhile position in Whitehall (a BBC reporter who had been in Bloomsbury and hurried there had to rely on a man standing on a wall to tell her what was happening – less practical but not entirely unknown for a photographer, and at least one of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s well-known pictures from India was taken by a man up a pole he handed his Leica. But I did walk down to see the crowds in Trafalgar Square, arriving just minutes after the relay had left. The square was still full of people, with crowds of Chinese arguing heatedly (if seldom very cogently) with mainly British human rights demonstrators, and the police in general seemed to be doing a decent job of preventing actual conflict, warning those who became overheated or abusive.

Police step in
Police try and cool down the argument

After a short while they decided to clear the square, and I got on a bus to go the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay in Argyle Square. More pictures from the London Olympic Torch Relay on My London Diary as usual.

‘Bangladesh 1971’ at Autograph

I was surprised not to see more people at the press view of ‘Bangladesh 1971‘ yesterday, at Autograph ABP‘s superb new premises that opened last year in Rivington Place in London’s now-trendy Shoreditch.

Women preparing for battle prior to the crackdown of 25th March 1971
Women preparing for battle prior to the crackdown of 25th March 1971
Photographer: Rashid Talukder, courtesy of Drik and Autograph ABP

Produced in partnership with Shahidul Alam and the Drik Picture Library (I was disappointed not to meet Shahidul, having corresponded with him over the years, and read his newsletters, but he was held up getting his visa for Croatia) this is in several ways an important show, and one that curators Mark Sealy of Autograph and Shahidul Alam can be proud of.

The show in the superb ground-floor gallery is of photographs, taken mainly by Bangladeshi photographers, of the events that led to independence for Bangladesh. One of the bitterest and bloodiest conflicts ever, many of the details are not widely known and still contested, and one of the aims of the curators was simply to provide a true account through photographs.

As they state, “For Bangladesh, ravaged by the war and subsequent political turmoil, it has been a difficult task to reconstruct its own history. It is only during the last few years that this important Bangladeshi photographic history has begun to emerge.” After showing here it is hoped that this exhibition will return to Bangladesh and become a part of a museum collection there. Although it is a show with considerable photographic interest, it is also one where the historical background is vital for fuller appreciation.

In an attempt to impose its will on the country the Pakistan army implemented the systematic killing of Bengali members of military forces, intellectuals and students, along with any other able-boded men they came across. Estimates of the number killed range from 200,000 to three millions (although an official Pakistan government investigation somehow arrived at a figure of only 26,000.) Similarly, estimates of the number of women raped during the atrocities cover range between 3000 and 400,000.

Over two million refugees fled from the army atrocities over the border to India. I also watched the film ‘Bangladesh 1971‘, part of the associated ‘Bangladesh 1971 Film Season‘ at nearby Rich Mix Cultural Centre, which includes powerful scenes from film made during the liberation struggle. We see refugees stepping through deep mud on their journey and of an old, near blind woman making her way by putting down a bamboo staff flat on the ground every few steps to find a route.

The 60 minute film, produced by a group at the Rainbow Film Society in Bethnal Green, describes the events in a clear time line, with footage of some of the key scenes also covered by the still photographs – and I think one or two of the featured photographers may be seen in it.

This show is politically important, and not just for Bangladesh, or the British Bangladeshi community- many of whom live in neighbouring Tower Hamlets – but also is very much relates to the British history of involvement in India since the days of ‘John Company‘, founded in 1600 “for the honour of the nation, the wealth of the peoples” of England, leading to over 300 years of colonial exploitation (in some respects little changed by independence in 1947.) The partition of India at independence was an unsatisfactory (and also extremely bloody) solution, and one which underlies the events of 1971.

US support of Pakistan, both through military aid and at the UN, also had disastrous consequences, and it would be good to see this show put on in the America. President Nixon even urged the Chinese (who also armed and supported Pakistan) to mobilise its forces on the Indian border, as well as sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal. Such support encouraged Pakistan to launch a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on India, and it was the failure of this followed by the rapid intervention of Indian forces against the Pakistan army in Bangladesh that brought the war for independence there to a speedy victory.

If I’ve spent too long on history and politics, it is because this show is in several respects an importantly political one (and if I have a criticism it would be that the exhibition needs to have more background material on display, including a time-line of the main events.)

But it is also an powerful show in terms of the actual photography – and also one that relates to the politics of photography. These are pictures taken by photographers from Bangladesh, several of whom deserve to be far more widely known. Although some of the images are important simply for what they show and in other respects are typical or even rather poor press images, there are also some outstanding pictures here. There are several very fine photographers among the dozen or so included here (and at least one excellent anonymous image) but the work of Rashid Talukder (b1939, India) and Abdul Hamid Raihan is outstanding.

Two Boys
Two boys stand among rocket bombs left by Pakistani army at the picnic corner in Jessore, Bangladesh. 11/12/1971
 Photographer: Abdul Hamid Raihan, Courtesy of Drik and Autograph ABP

One picture by Raihan which stays in my mind is of a man standing in the ruins that were once his house. You can see it, along with another 32 of his pictures at Majority World, a “collaboration between The Drik Picture Library of Bangladesh and kijijiVision in the UK to champion the cause of indigenous photographers from the developing world and the global South.”

Talukder’s work is also striking, and in many cases not for the squeamish, with a startling picture of the discarded head of an intellectual along with bricks in a puddle, or the public bayoneting of a collaborator by guerillas. He also has a fine images of more peaceful events, including the release of a dove by Bangabandhu in 1973. Again you can see more of his work – over 90 images – on Majority World.

Drik, set up in 1989 by a small group including Shahidul Alam, its name the Sanskit for ‘vision,’ has pioneered the representation of photographers from the majority world, seeing it “vibrant source of human energy and a challenge to an exploitative global economic system.” It has very much challenged “western media hegemony“, promoting work from the majority world, running education programmes and setting up the first Asian photography festival, Chobi Mela.

The show – and the work of Drik – also raise questions about the future. We live in a rapidly changing world, one where India is fast becoming a leading power in the world economy, and also one where Bangladesh itself is under considerable threat from rising sea levels as a result of global warming.

The exhibition opens April 4 and runs until May 31, 2008. It is hoped it may also show elsewhere in the UK.

April 1

Photo Safety Identity Checking Observation (PSICO) in EPUK’s April 1 post is great stuff – worth a look if you’ve not already seen it.

Met Police to relax London photography restrictions in pilot scheme is the headline, and the feature gives some pretty full details of the pilot scheme for tagging photographers – including the cost of licences and a map of the area covered. And of course, “There will nevertheless be full consultation with the NUJ and other interested parties once the scheme is up and running.”

Of course you can read several true stories related to police and photography on the web, including my own piece on Jeremy Dear’s one-person protest at New Scotland Yard last week.

Kingsnorth - Parliament Sq
‘No New Coal’ read the cooling towers in Parliament Square

I was too busy to read the April Fool post on 1 April, being out taking pictures of protests in London on ‘Fossil Fools Day’ against the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station and opencast mining in Merthyr Tydfil.

St Patrick comes to London

St Patrick outside Shell HQ

St Patrick came to London, bringing with him a rather large pipeline, which his friends from environmental and social justice movement Gluaiseacht tried to take into the Shell HQ near Waterloo.

Pipeline at Shell HQ

Shell have the major share in the Corrib Gas Project in Mayo, Ireland, given away at a bargain price by the Irish government, and the associated high pressure pipeline and refinery will pollute the local countryside. Around half the Irish protesters were from Mayo, and they brought the pipeline to Shell’s HQ to remind them, in the words of one of the many songs sung during the protest, ‘Shell Sells Suicide’, that “they forgot about the will of the people, and the people of Mayo say “No, no, no, no, no, no, no… ” There was music and dancing too, and despite a chill wind around those drearily Soviet-style blocks of the Waterloo steppes it felt good, as you can I think see from the pictures.

Brent St Patrick’s Day Parade

Another St Patrick, slightly older, was at Willesden Green for the Brent St Patrick’s Day Parade later in the day, and you can see his picture on My London Diary along with others from the event. I have to admit I enjoyed photographing the women at the event more than the saint, and here are a few of them – more of course on MLD.

Brent St Pat's Day Parade
Sorting out the Irish county flags
Brent St Pat's Parade
Waiting for the start of the parade
Brent - Celebrating difference

I think this last image says something about one of London’s most culturally diverse Boroughs, which celebrates Diwali, Eid and other festivals as well as St Patrick’s Day.

Stop the Wars

Saturday’s anti-war demonstration in London was a large one, with estimates of 50,000 by the organisers. It took roughly 40 minutes to pass me going over Westminster Bridge, and by the time I’d photographed the final protesters opposite Westminster station I had to run the hundred yards or so to catch up with the head of the event going round Parliament Square. They had arrived there by walking a roughly 2km circuit, coming back across the Thames over Lambeth Bridge and up Millbank.

It was remarkable too for the range of different people and groups supporting it, many adding their own causes to the general aims of getting our troops back from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not going to war with Iran and ending the Israeli seige of Gaza.

I tried to reflect the whole range in my pictures, though I’m sure I missed some. And although thankfully the police did largely leave the conduct of the demonstration to the march organisers, the event did show the continuing fascination of FIT teams with the anarchist fringe, which only serves to encourage them. The only real clash, when four were arrested on what seems a very dubious pretext, predictably came when I was taking a break from the event as little seemed to be happening.

Although I’ve written a little on My London Diary about the event, mostly I’ve just put up pictures, roughly in chronological order, that cover the event. It was a big event, so I took a lot of pictures and there are rather a lot on line, perhaps about one in ten of what I took.

Thinking again about Winogrand, he liked to keep his work for a couple of years before he looked at it and selected the pictures that worked. Although nothing on My London Diary is in the same league, my serious edit will also be in a few years time. For the moment the site is really more like my digital version of contact sheets, as the name suggests a diary of how I saw things in London.

Close Down Yarl’s Wood

The last of three events linked to International Women’s Day I attended was a picket close to the offices of SERCO, organised by Feminist Fightback, All African Women’s Group and Black Women’s Rape Action Project. Unlike the Million Women Rise march, but as also the Dignity! Period rally, this involved both women and men.

Few people recognise the name SERCO, though increasingly around the world it is running their lives. Around the world, governments are turning to SERCO to run what used to be public services – hospitals, prisons, schools and even military services. Increasingly what used to be public is being sold off and run for profit. When they think of a way to charge for the air that you breathe, it will be SERCO – or another company like it – collecting the cash.

In the UK, if you go to prison it may be run by SERCO, and you will be taken there in a SERCO van. SERCO also own and run Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, where around 400 women and children seeking asylum are imprisoned.

Around 70% of the women at Yarl’s Wood at any time claim they are survivors of rape. Conditions are appalling, with inadequate food, racist and sexist abuse, and profiteering from the sale of essential items. Apparently SERCO were forced to investigate claims that women there weren’t getting the miniscule government allowance of 71p a day passed on to them, and according to the women they have at times been prevented from contacting their lawyers.

Women there have responded with hunger strikes as well as letters and petitions to Gordon Brown and others demanding investigation of their treatment.

SERCO London picket

SERCO have a Research Institute in London in a court off High Holborn, and a picket there after the Million Women Rise event on Saturday March 8.

Around 40 people turned up to demand the immediate closure of Yarl’s Wood and an end to the criminalisation of rape and torture survivors. They also called for an end to SERCO and other private companies profiting from the oppression and misery of others.

Detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood are in any case a nasty stain on British justice, going against all our long-held principles of fair trial and the opposition to arbitrary detention dating back at least to the time of Magna Carta, signed a short distance from where I live.

American Bar Memorial to Magna Carta, Runnemede
American Bar Memorial to Magna Carta, Runnemede (more pictures)

That such centres should so badly treat those held inside them for the profit of their shareholders is reminiscent of the worst days of the slave trade – the abolition of which we celebrated last year.

Million Women Rise

Just over a week ago I photographed the London march of the ‘Million Women Rise‘ campaign on International Women’s Day, March 8. The weather was dull but the several thousand women who took part in this all-woman event were generally exultant. The banner at the front of the march proclaimed ‘Million Women Rise – together we can end violence against women …’ and it was aimed at all forms of male violence against women, and supported by women from a very wide range of groups.

Million WOmen Rise - Start of march

Behind it there appeared to be a remarkable solidarity between very disparate groups, with women from all kinds of organisations (and none), including the WI (Womens Institute) and X:Talk (offering free English classes for sex workers) all taking part in an event dedicated to the dignity of women across the world.

Of course there were many placards, banners and T-shirts from all of the organisations, but what moved me most were those women carrying obviously very strongly personally felt statements against male violence.

Man Stop to Beat Woman with Belt

This was an all-women march and to respect this I had to work from the sidelines. Normally I like to photograph from the middle of things as much as possible. I did feel a little of an outsider, though it was good to be waved at and greeted by many of those who knew me from other events I’ve photographed over the years – including at previous International Women’s Day events that have welcomed male support.

I photographed the march as it entered Trafalgar Square, and then decided I needed a rest rather than stay to hear the speeches, and made for a nearby pub, getting there just before it became crowded with marchers. I wasn’t sure if a ‘Shropshire Lass’ was the most appropriate beer for the day, but can report it’s a very decent blonde bitter.

Later I was dismayed to hear that at least one of those expected to speak had been prevented after the organisers had read her draft text. This kind of censorship didn’t seem to be at all in the spirit of the event.

Photographing the World – in London

Last night I dreamed I was presenting a show of my work to my wife and grown-up son in a curiously expanded version of my front room. These were a set of pictures that had been put in the corner and forgotten for a long time, several large prints mounted on polystyrene that was beginning to fall to pieces. But the most curious piece was a large black cloth-bound bible, which, when you opened it, it kind of folded out to give not a book, but a small prospectus of the show, four prints.

The only picture I remember well was a landscape image. From the cathedral tower visible in the distance we worked out that it was taken near Chichester. A metal fence ran across the foreground, but on closer inspection you could see that only part of it was an actual fence, and the rest was a shadow of a fence. The posts (and shadows) divided the space into a number of vertical strips, and if your eye continued up the print, across the fairly flat scrubby landscape, you could see that various features in the distance echoed this division, fitting neatly into the strips across the image. It was a subtle but powerful image, taken in such an ordinary place. Another image was more striking, I don’t remember its details, but it reminded me of Giacomelli or Fontana, some kind of more clearly graphic – and perhaps Italian – landscape. (I showed work in the same festival as Giacomelli in Poland in 2005 – five years after his death; two years later I was back speaking at the same festival and Fontana’s work was showing – but he didn’t come. I’m not a great fan of either man’s landscape work, so why should I dream of having done something like it?)

Several of the pictures had been bent or folded, or otherwise damaged, partly by attempts to push a vacuum cleaner into the (non-existent) corner where they were stored. The overall title of the show, as the ‘bible’ stated was something like ‘Photographs Around the World‘.

I woke up and gradually realised that it was all a dream, and that I hadn’t actually taken these pictures, and I felt distinctly disappointed. I did go to Chichester last year, but the scene didn’t resemble anything I remember as we walked around the area there.

Well, I’ve no idea what this dream meant (if dreams mean anything) but there was perhaps a slight connection with part of the work I’d been doing the previous day, which included preparing some images of rather untidy artists studios for use in the final issue of the magazine ‘Art and Cities‘, due out shortly. But the title of the ‘show’ rather interested me, as I have a well-deserved reputation for seldom photographing anything beyond the reach of a Travelcard.


A corner of David Hepher’s studio in Camberwell

I’ve long felt that living in London you don’t have to travel, because the world comes to you. So, as yesterday’s post here showed, on Saturday I started by photographing a demo about Tibet. I left that as it passed Trafalgar Square to catch the Rally for Dignity and Democracy in Zimbabwe organised by ACTSA as a part of their Dignity! Period campaign to provide sanitary pads for the women and girls of Zimbabwe. Mugabe’s madness has destroyed the economy and caused unbelievable levels of inflation, making such essential supplies unobtainable.

For various reasons the rally, held on International Womens Day, was very badly attended, despite high level trade union support – with the TUC General Secretary coming to speak. Probably many who might otherwise have attended were instead at Hyde Park for the start of the Million Women Rise march in London.


Brendan Barber speaking in Trafalgar Square

Later that afternoon I also called in at the regular weekly Zimbabwe Vigil, started in 2002 and continuing to protest at human rights violations in Zimbabwe. As usual there was drumming and dancing as well as handing out of leaflets.

Peter Marshall