Political Issues | >Re-PHOTO

Trafalgar Square, 20 to 1

The Met obviously thought that the second ‘Freedom to Protest‘ event scheduled for Saturday afternoon posed a great threat to their credibility, although surely even they can’t have felt it was any kind of real threat to public order. But in January they had been caught a little with their pants down – and it wasn’t going to happen again. Police outnumbered the small group of demonstrators who gathered in Trafalgar Square by at least 20 to 1, and there were many more extra on duty in Parliament Square and elsewhere across Westminster.

So we had hundreds if not thousands of extra police on duty around Westminster, costing us many thousands of pounds to save a little face for the police. And in the event, a demonstration that was just a little street theatre and would have best been completely ignored by the farces of law and order – a typo on my part that actually became reality when the FIT phtoographer ran scared, chased by a protester with a shopping trolley offering free cakes, taking refuge by running up the stairs of the National Gallery.

The only other real action by police I’m aware of was to stop and search a young protester walking down Whitehall, making him remove his balaclava. They appear to be using law against terrorism to impose their fashion sense.

He was on his way to join the continuing anti-war protest in Parliament Square, where Brian Haw will have been for 2500 days early next month. Eventually a small group of the protesters did walk there without apparently being noticed, although the police did trail them as they walked out of the square all the way to a pub on the Horseferry Road.

More pictures from the day on My London Dairy.

Plane Stupid – Heathrow Expansion

I was too busy sorting through thousands (literally) of pictures for my talk next week to go up to Parliament Square yesterday morning to photograph the lobby and rally about a referendum over the updating of the European union, so I missed getting a picture of Plane Stupid activists who had climbed onto the roof of the Houses of Parliament and hung two large banners down the front of the building, one reading ‘BAA HQ‘ and the other ‘no third runway www.planestupid.com‘

It was a protest not just at the expansion of Heathrow, but also at the false nature of the consultation process, where large parts of the consultation document were written by BAA and the government has already decided (barring horrific accidents – such as almost happened recently on the approach over Hounslow when a plane lost power and had to glide in, only just making the airport) on not just a 3rd runway but also a 6th terminal.

Apparently as well as hanging the banners, protesters also made paper planes of the secret documents they had obtained showing government duplicity and fixing of the consultation process and flew them down into the MPs car park.

Photographically I don’t regret the missed opportunity, because I think it only too likely that any pictures I had taken of the event would have been at least as boring as those published in all the papers and Internet accounts I’ve seen. Perhaps one of the 3 men and 2 women who carried out the protest took a camera and made some better pictures?

These are protesters on a rooftop at Heathrow in August, and marchers in London last December:

Of course the protest has been going on ever since the plans were first revealed to a stunned public, and I photographed the local protesters in Sipson and Harmondsworth in 2003.

Of course Gordon Brown doesn’t like the demonstrators, deploring their actions, although in fact this and other similar protests have actually been very useful in pointing out gaps in security. Brown doesn’t like it because it reveals the facts about the skewed consultation process and the alliance between the promoters of unbridled airport expansion and the government (an alliance that started in the 1940s, when the public were first duped about the setting up of a civil airport at Heathrow.) He doesn’t like it because it highlights the absurdity of his claims to an environmental policy.

I grew up under the flight path in Hounslow, in my dreams able to reach up from my back garden and touch the planes as they roared over. I live a short bus ride from the airport (though my post code excludes me from the consultation over flight paths – all those planes that come over me must have lost their way!)

Heathrow was always in the wrong place. Continued expansion over the years has made its position more and more untenable. It makes no more sense than Croydon. We should have begun a new airport to replace it thirty or more years ago. There shouldn’t be any debate at all over its expansion, but simply about how fast it can be run down.

Peter Marshall

Another View: Jason Parkinson

I first met Jason Parkinson when he was illegally detained by police while covering a demonstration at the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres in west London in April 2006. Police were refusing to accept that he was a journalist and denied that his press card, issued by the UK Press Card Authority was a real press card. On the back of the card it says “The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland recognise the holder of this card as a bona-fide newsgatherer”, but while this may be so, it often doesn’t seem to be good enough for the officers on the street.

Jason shows his press card to no avail at Harmonsdworth

Jason called out to the three of us standing on an earth bank a few yards away taking pictures, asking us to show our press cards and confirm his was genuine. This left me in a little of a quandary, as when getting things ready for the day I’d noticed that mine had expired at the end of the previous month, which had meant I’d had to hold it with a strategically placed thumb when I waved it at police earlier. Fortunately another colleague jumped forward with a valid card and confirmed that Jason’s was genuine, although even then he was not immediately allowed to exit the police bubble.

It’s typical of Jason that he was in there with the demonstrators covering events, as the strapline from his blog has it, “from an uncompromising angle.” Since then I’ve met him covering many events, and also suffered similar treatment from police who’ve refused to accept my press card as genuine – some officers appear to react rather negatively to the fact that it says ‘NUJ’ prominently on it.

Of course we shouldn’t need a press card. Citizens in a democratic countries enjoy various freedoms, including the right to photograph in public places, freedom of assembly and so on. But no longer so in England in areas designated under SOCPA or indeed most places where a political demonstration is taking place, where our police often assume arbitrary powers and misuse provisions intended by Parliament to prevent terrorism.

But having a press card doesn’t solve problems, nor does the existence of agreed guidelines. In his blog post on the police pay demonstration, Jason writes ‘This officer, CO35, then decided to ignore Metropolitan Police guidelines and halted photojournalists from doing their job. Not just once, but twice. When asked if he knew he was restricting freedom of press CO35 answered by saying, “go away”.’ The only thing that surprises me is the mild language of his response – but of course he knew that Jason was recording every word on video, and that the footage would almost certainly be published.

Its always interesting to me to see how other photographers have covered events that I’ve attended, and on Jason’s blog there are several recent examples of events that you will also find on ‘My London Diary’, including my view of the Anonymous protest against Scientology, Police Pay and Freedom of Protest events. But Jason also gets to places and stories that are harder to reach, and February’s entries include a lengthy report on the ‘Beyond Slavery‘ conference and an interesting feature on Football for Change Iraq.

O I L and the second invasion of Iraq

Three letters O I L were always the key to the otherwise inexplicable invasion of Iraq. Oil, state owned, was Saddam’s greatest – almost his only – asset. The giant multinationals wanted rid of him so they could make a killing – and now they are getting their way through the Iraqi government. The first invasion was military, the second is economic. The first has been a disaster for the Iraqi people, and the second will ensure that disaster continues long-term.

Pirates in New Bond St

The tour last Saturday was a fun event – about a very serious problem. People enjoyed dressing up and it certainly helped to gain some attention from the West End crowds.

Police Apology for Photographer

The good news came today that photographer Marc Vallée, injured by police while photographing the ‘Sack Parliament’ event in Parliament Square, London on 9 October 2006, has accepted an apology and out-of-court settlement from the Metropolitan Police. You can also read some comments about the case on the NUJ site.

Police medics treat Marc after he was assaulted by police

The incident happened after a stand-off between demonstrators and police on the edge of the square facing the Houses of Parliament. This involved around 20 demonstrators who made an attempt to push through a police line, while perhaps a hundred more watched, together with a large number of media. Marc was assaulted despite very obviously being a photographer rather than a demonstrator, holding a camera, carrying a camera bag and with his NUJ press card clearly visible. Like the rest of the press present he had already been asked to show his press card, and is in any case well known to many of the police – as are the others of us who photograph such events. The attack on him was clearly an attack on a member of the press, and could have happened to any of us.

The policing on the day was entirely an over-reaction to a threat of no consequence posed by a small number of anarchists, mainly students, whose actions are largely symbolic and at most threaten minor damage to property. They might well graffiti a wall or even throw an egg or custard pie a politician, but they are in no way a serious threat.

I was stunned on arriving in Westminster that day to find more police than I’ve ever seen before (or since unless you count their plain-clothes demonstration for more pay.) I don’t know the official number, but my estimate was around a thousand.

As well as forming a line along the front of the Houses of Parliament there were more in Parliament Square and in the other streets around, who apparently stopped many of those intending to come to the demonstration, threatening them with detention under an Act brought in to prevent terrorism.

Of course I’m against terrorism. But I am opposed to the use of law to prevent the normal freedom of movement and of political protest. As too are many individual police I’ve talked to at demonstrations.

It was inevitable that a small group of demonstrators would confront the police. Their aim wasn’t to blow up Parliament but simply to block traffic by sitting down in the road in the front of the buildings.

Police line up to face demonstrators

A ritual scrum attempts to push through the police line

But the line holds

A few minutes later, the police charged the demonstrators and surrounded them, along with a large number of people who had done nothing more than stand in the square and watch. I left more or less straight away, but some other press who stayed inside were apparently not allowed to leave, being treated exactly as the demonstrators. The demonstrators were then held for several hours, with the police making occasional violent raids inside their cordon to grab individuals and take them to the waiting police vans, the others were only allowed to leave after giving police their details.

Various others around the square were also set on by police and taken inside the cordon, or in a few cases put directly into police vans. Most protested they were simply bystanders and had taken no part in the demonstration.

An incident later in the day involving gratuitous violence on a man protesting his innocence but making no attempt to resist his arrest.

Despite my press card, I was also threatened with arrest and issued a warning that I might be committing an offence under SOCPA.

The officer in charge reads the announcement that those present are being detained

Among those bundled into a police van was one man attending the event as a ‘legal observer’ in a high visibility jacket. A woman walking her bicycle across the square against the flow of traffic in the one-way system was also manhandled by police briefly before other officers rescued her.

It was a day the seriously eroded my respect for the police force. They got the intelligence severely wrong, totally misunderstanding the nature of the event. They showed a lack of control, acting with totally uncalled for violence on a number of occasions. They threatened the media – and injured one of them. You can see more of what happened in my account and pictures on My London Diary.

In any other job, those responsible would have been severely reprimanded, but I was later to hear a senior officer defending the actions of the day. It is rare to get an apology from the police, but I think almost all of us who were there deserve one, and I’m very pleased to see that Marc has received not only an apology but also a settlement.

Media Attacks on Muslims

Sometimes it’s hard to make interesting images of important events. Often things just aren’t that interesting. Press photographers, at least in the UK tend to ‘set up’ a picture, but its something I always try to avoid. We don’t seem to have the clear distinction between news and features that is always made in the USA, where the kind of things that many British newspaper photographers do as a matter of course would soon get them fired.

But at least it is rather more difficult for photographers to completely fabricate stories. Or to ask other people to make up stories and phone them in to you. One of the more appalling stories to hit the UK political blogs recently is a leaked email apparently from Diana Appleyard of the Daily Mail offering £100 to anyone who wanted to phone her with “anonymous horror stories of people who have employed Eastern European staff.” I don’t know how many responded to her call, but it seems a golden opportunity for spreading nasty racist slurs – and for the Daily Mail to stoke the prejudices of its readership.

But it was the Daily Express where in 2004 NUJ members objected to the pressure being put on them to write articles denigrating gypsies, who ran the headline: “CHRISTMAS IS BANNED: IT OFFENDS MUSLIMS” (our Muslim relatives send us Christmas Cards – and expect to get them,) and much more designed to stir up and encourage anti-Islamic prejudice. And on Thursday, around 20 people picketed the Express offices on Lower Thames Street with placards asking for an end to media attacks on Muslims.

My framing cropped the placard that said “Stop Media Attacks on Muslims” but otherwise I think it was the best picture I took.

You can read more about it, and see a few of the pictures I took at the event on My London Diary, where I hope you will notice some changes to the site. It took a lot of fiddling to get the new design to work in Internet Explorer 6, which just doesn’t do some things right. It isn’t really possible to get it to work properly, and the site is best viewed in more up-to-date browsers such as Firefox, where the improved navigation really seems to help.

Back to thinking about photographing events that lack the kind of visual interest that photographers would like. I think photographers have got to sometimes admit that a particular event was not that visually interesting, and be prepared to turn in pictures that show it as it was. Setting up pictures is putting a foot on a slippery slope and we owe it to those who see our pictures not to mislead them.

One in Love

One of my photographer friends came up to see what was happening while I was taking pictures of the ‘Reclaim Love‘ party at Piccadilly Circus on Saturday and talked to me briefly before turning around and making for Oxford Street, where he was going to photograph what he called “the real world.”

In so far as the world has gone mad, of course he was right. Spending money we don’t have on goods we don’t need is what keeps our economy expanding, generating ever-increasing consumption to fuel global warming. Cheap clothes and consumer goods have proved far more effective than bread and circuses, and the new religion of the masses is a far more potent opiate than Marx’s old foe.

Of course it can’t continue for ever. Exponentially increasing consumption is not in the longer term compatible with a finite planet. As someone who has been talking about such things for 40 years – and in some ways as least living as if it mattered (though I have a fairly comfortable hair shirt) I find it heartening that a few more people now realise this too, although it may be too late to save civilisation – and certainly if it has a future it is not as we know it.

But the good news is that it might be rather better. It could be much more centred around people (though very possibly less of them) and less on profit. Events like ‘Reclaim Love’ are perhaps a small foretaste of one possible future.

Of course as well as things like this, we also need the kind of more obviously political actions – such as those I’ve photographed in London that were the subject of my show for FotoArte in Brasilia. And the kind of practical things that were also included in the example of the Manor Gardens allotments, another place were people mattered.

But there is also bad news. Although those of us in the wealthier countries cause most of the problem, our wealth also insulates us to some extent from the consequences, as too does our geography. Sea level rise and the perturbation of climate through global warming will cause more frequent and harsher catastrophes, in particular the flooding of low lying countries without the protection of expensive sea defences.

On a much more local scale, the Manor Gardens allotment holders are now sadly having great problems with their temporary accommodation on the Leyton Lammas Lands. The soil was taken there from the highly contaminated Olympic site, has been treated – which may have removed contamination, but has also removed the living elements, including worms which are vital to a healthy structure. It also appears to have been put on top of a barrier which prevents proper drainage and is currently waterlogged.

Anonymous Protest

‘Fair game‘ isn’t fair, or a game, and it isn’t either legal or moral. Wikipedia describes it as “various aggressive policies and practices carried out by the Church of Scientology towards people and groups it perceives as its enemies.” So if you plan to protest against them, it is probably a good idea to hide your identity.

Last month, part of a Scientology video featuring Tom Cruise was posted onto YouTube, and the Church of Scientology (C0oS) successfully demanded its removal, although it and other material about them has since been reposted. The unauthorised biography of Cruise by Andrew Morton has also stirred up controversy, with its allegations – repeated on YouTube – that Cruise is ‘Number 2’ in the organisation. There are also YouTube videos which allege that the CoS had pressurised some Australian booksellers not to stock the book. CoS is also alleged to have forced YouTube to remove some other material that describes its doctrines and practices.

The Internet movement ‘Anonymous‘ emerged to oppose these CoS activities in mid January, aiming to remain anonymous to avoid retailiation under the ‘fair game’ policy. In a couple of weeks it managed to set up an international day of action with demonstrations in 50 cities in 14 countries against the CoS, including two in London.

Demonstrators work masks, many choosing the mask used in the film ‘V for Vendetta’, with some also togged up in the matching wig, hat and the rest. The ‘Anonymous’ YouTube videos also had some resemblance to the Warner Bros product, and I’m sure that at one point I heard “People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.”

Pictures from both London demos

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is of course a much more serious day, the start of Lent, and a time for sack-cloth and ashes, which I did get to photograph, although my photographic day started with a couple of hundred people opposite Downing Street as a reception committee for ‘war criminal’ Condoleezza Rice. Unfortunately she came in to visit Gordon Brown by the back door and so missed our welcome – and a much-needed Geography lesson from the Friends of Lebanon:

The Middle East

I felt sorry for the guys inside the stockade opposite the famous door, cooped up for hours with nothing to photograph, perhaps because it was too noisy for Condi to emerge in case her delicate ears might hear the shouted advice from the road opposite. It really was much more fun outside, and the picture opportunities were also much better. I’m sure this would have made a better picture for the paper than another boring shot of a politician:

By 3pm we had all had enough and went away – but they were still waiting and hoping. I hope they did finally get to take something, although a quick look through the papers the next day certainly failed to find anything of interest.
More pictures.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Defence was getting more and more barriers and a policeman every few metres around its periphery, as if a huge and violent demonstration was imminent. Others were gathering across the road.

I walked past them and into Embankment Gardens, where a small circle of around 50 people was holding an Ash Wednesday service. This was the combined forces of Pax Christi, along with Catholic Peace Action and Christian CND. One man held a simple wooden cross on which were small photographs, I think of modern Christian martyrs, another a megaphone. The only other weapons – and ones that had seemingly struck fear into the hearts of the Metropolitan Police were ash and charcoal (and later I was also to see a hammer, some nails and sack-cloth.)

This was a Lenten Witness for Peace, an Ash Wednesday Liturgy of Repentence and Resistance to Nuclear War. The vast police presence was because a small number of those taking part were prepared for an act of civil disobedience, writing on the walls of buildings using charcoal. In fact all of those taking part were almost certainly in breach of the SOCPA legislation as the organisers “have never sought permission from the police to engage in the act of prayer and resistance which has taken place here every year since 1982.”

The ashes and charcoal were blessed with holy water and then those present took part in an act of penitence, symbolised by the marking of each of them with a cross of ashes on the forehead. After some further prayers there was a procession to ‘Station 1′, the pavement outside the Old War Office, where the service continued.

This was fittingly a situation begging for a ‘Hail Mary‘ shot, holding my camera above my head at the fullest height I could get, cursing Nikon for their cheapskate omission of a viewfinder curtain from the D200 (actually they give you a small rectangle of black plastic which you lose in ten seconds and isn’t exactly convenient) which means you have to hold one thumb over the viewfinder to get correct exposure while doing so. They did build one into the D2X, but over a thousand pounds and a large weight penalty is a lot to pay for this fairly essential but cheap for Nikon to implement feature. My first attempt (above) was possibly the best.

As this section of the event ended, one of those taking part pulled me to one side to tell me to watch out for people trying to write on the building, and so distracted me from actually taking a photograph of it happening (and I’d already changed lenses and added the flash for that very eventuality.) Of course he meant well, and I was able to photograph the police holding the guy and the unfinished message. Later I saw a woman writing on another wall, and ran, but was too far away to get to her before a policeman had stopped her and was telling her off.

A fisheye used in ‘Hail Mary’ mode to give an overall view. More curses on Nikon.

Outside the Ministry of Defence itself, a large sheet of sackcloth was used to cover the pavement and the cross laid on it. A set of theses for the modern church was read and each of them nailed to the cross while the congregation continuously repeated their chant of a short ‘Litany of the Martyrs.’

Unfortunately I think my curses must have upset Nikon, because halfway through the event my D200 stopped working. I think it had crashed, always a possibility with computers (and modern cameras are computers.) I tried the standard treatment of removing the battery for a few second, and it came back to life, though just to make sure I also changed the battery as it was below 30% left.

Somehow in doing all this, the camera went from the RAW setting I always used and on to basic quality JPEG, and I didn’t notice until I got home, and got rather a nasty surprise on viewing my work. Using my normal LightRoom import settings on jpegs always gives very contrasty poor quality images (they work best using the Linear . Once I had realised the problem I was able to get surprisingly decent results, but the lighting had been extremely tricky and I really missed the flexibility of RAW.

More pictures on My London Diary.

A Busy Friday

Demonstrations are sometimes rather like buses, with none for ages and then three come along together. On the afternoon of Friday 25 Jan it was four rather than three, and I think there were a couple more I didn’t manage to get to.

Stop Kingsnorth – No new coal fired power stations

The first I photographed was outside the Pall Mall offices of energy company E.ON who have recently got planning permission from Medway Council to build a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth on the Thames Estuary. It’s now up to the government to decide whether to give it the go-ahead – another test of whether they take environmental issues seriously.

Of course it’s time we were moving away from large power stations and the high energy losses that come with transferring electricity long distances on the grid, moving to a decentralised low energy use society.

I like the picture above because of the way it lines up demonstrators and police facing each other and shows the whole situation with a speaker addressing the demonstration at the left of picture.

In fact I largely had to work from the side as the officer in charge told me I was obstructing the pavement when I stopped in front of the demonstrators to take photographs. We had a small argument and I reminded him that the police had reached an agreement with the press that recognised we had a job to do and should be allowed to do it, but it didn’t help. I pointed out that if I stood in the large gaps between the officers on the kerb I would not be either obstructing the pavement or impeding the police in any way, but was simply refused permission to do so, without any attempt to justify the decision – but with the clear suggestion I would be arrested if I disobeyed the instruction. So much for police cooperation. As you can see from the other pictures I took, I didn’t entirely do as I was told, but it did make my work difficult.

From Pall Mall I walked along to Trafalgar Square, stopping briefly outside the Uganda High Commission where a group of Kenyans was beginning to gather to demonstrate against the Ugandan president who has given support to the fraudulent Kenyan President. I didn’t stop long as I wanted to go to a larger gathering in Whitehall.

President Musharraf was visiting England, and expected to arrive in Horseguards Avenue by car. A group of around 50 Pakistanis was waiting their to protest against him. I took some pictures of them (and as with the other demonstrations you can see them on ‘My London Diary’.)

Finally I went to Borough in Southwark, where ‘Feminist Fightback‘ were demonstrating outside the offices of the Christian Medical Fellowship.

The CMF gave misleading evidence to the Parliamentary Committee which was considering possible reforms of the abortion act last year, and a number of its members with little direct scientific knowledge also gave evidence as if they were expert witnesses. They also support (and hosts) the minority report, which is in part based on their unreliable evidence.

Here there were no police and I was able to work without hindrance. Several people came out of the CMF office to talk to the demonstrators and they also had a table with soft drinks and biscuits although I don’t think anyone took any.

Although it was only a small demo, it was more interesting than many to photograph, and presented a few interesting problems, particularly because of a stiff breeze that kept blowing the items of ‘washing’ on the line that the demonstrators strung between a couple of roadside posts, making it hard or impossible to read the slogans on them. But I also liked the contrast between the CMF people and the demonstrators (with whom I felt considerably more at home despite a religious background.) Abortion is a subject that arouses strong and not always rational feelings, often with a failure to understand or appreciate what others are saying.

More about all these events – and of course more pictures – on My London Diary:
Stop Kingsnorth – No New Coal
Kenyans protest against Ugandan President
Protest against Musharraf
Feminist Fightback