Political Issues | >Re-PHOTO

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood – September 2016

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood: Saturday 10th September 2016 was one of quite a few protests I photographed at the Immigration Detention Centre at Yarls Wood, and it followed a similar pattern to the others.

The main difference to most other occasions I went there was the weather, with some heavy and rather persistent rain, which failed to dampen the energy of the protesters but did make the event more hazardous.

The 20ft high fence around the centre – essentially a prison – is at the bottom of a slope in the field where the protest took place. From higher up the slope you can see the upper floors of one of the detention blocks though the top 10ft of thick wire metal fencing.

Around the base of the fence is a concrete base several feet wide, and in front of that is a short level grass-covered section before the ground rises. In the rain the level section became waterlogged mud and climbing the slope became extremely treacherous, and nearly impossible and I had to walk some yards to one side where the slope was less steep.

Between speeches over the public address system the protesters had brought so the women inside the prison could hear them clearly – even those who the prison staff had prevented from coming to the rooms facing the fence – people kicked and banged the lower 10 feet of metal sheet fencing – which made a very satisfactory loud noise.

My account on My London Diary was short – so here it is in full, although there is more information in some of the captions to the many images in the post there:

Hundreds of protester braved persistent rain to stand for several hours in a protest organised by Movement for Justice waving and shouting support to the women asylum seekers held indefinitely inside Yarl’s Wood, who responded enthusiastically by shouting and waving back from the prison blocks behind the high fence, hindered by windows that hardly open.

Several spoke to the protesters on their mobile phones, some telling how Serco security guards had prevented them from coming to the windows and were threatening those who greeted the protesters with solitary confinement, and there were speeches by a procession of women who had been held, some for a year or more, inside the immigration prison.

*No Limits – Sin Fronteras states the Latin American Young Women’s banner*

Immigration detainees are held ‘indefinitely’ with no release date until their cases are determined. One of those then inside was 42-year-old Mabel Gawanas who had then been held in Yarls Wood for over 2 years, having fled Namibia after being tortured and raped. She has an an underage British daughter and several health problems. She was eventually released after being held one day short of three years.

*As well as the women there were some families on the lower floor*

Many of those who spoke had been detained inside Yarls Wood – and were able to speak to friends still inside and to encourage them to keep up the fight. Most who do fight will succeed eventually, but too many who should be granted asylum are being deported – and often back into very dangerous situations.

*Sisters Uncut and others set off flares on the hill facing Yarl’s Wood immigration prison.*

By the time the protest was coming to an end my boots were encased in heavy clay mud. I scraped off most of it on the long walk back to the coach, but still had to remove my boots and put them in a plastic bag before getting into the coach in my socks. But I was pleased with many of the pictures I had made and I think the bad weather brought out the best in the protesters.

Many more pictures at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood.

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Disarm DSEI – City of London 2009

Disarm DSEI – City of London: on Tuesday 8th September 2009, the day that year’s DSEI Arms Fair opened at the Excel centre in East London, campaigners came to protest outside the city offices of companies heavily involved in the arms trade.

There were also protests outside the Excel Centre, but the protest in the City would be seen by many more people and was more likely to receive coverage in the media. Later in the day protesters from CAAT (Campaign Against the Arms Trade) also came into central London for a protest outside the government offices of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) in Westminster. Their Defence and Security Organisation provides financial, political and logistical support for the arms fair, channelling our taxes to help private companies to profit from making the arms used to kill people.

The protest in the City of London was by Disarm DSEI, who had provided an excellently produced and well-researched ‘infopack’, 4 A4 pages with a map listing over 25 companies – including arms traders, law firms, institutional investors and banks with heavy involvement in the arms trade and which I quoted from extensively in my post on My London Diary. But Disarm DSEI stressed that the protest had no organisers but that those present would together decide on what it would do.

There were also people who had come prepared to speak at the stops the protest made about the activities of the companies, and after meeting outside the RBS in Aldgate (“the world’s leading creditor to the arms industry … over £44.6 billion in the last ten years including loans to producers of cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions” we went on to Barclays “the largest investor in the global arms trade with £7.3 billion in shares.”

From there the protest moved on to Schroders and Lloyds TSB, the “principal banker to BAE Systems and QinetiQ” and who have made loans “to produces of of cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions.”

When we reached the BT offices, some protesters made a rush for the door and managed to push their way into the atrium, with others following them for a short protest inside – with staff and visitors to the building gathering on the balconies to watch.

Apart from a little possible damage to the door and from jumping over the security gates I saw little if any deliberate vandalism and no attempt to attack any of the people inside. “BT hold £59 million worth of shares in the international arms trade.” And after making their point, the protesters simply walked out.

Things got a little rougher at AXA Investments (“£2,259 million worth of shares in the UK arms trade and &6,207 million investment in the international arms industry”) where some smashed the glass with a reinforced banner, but the protest then moved away to the Stock Exchange (“where all the dirty dealing gets done“) – where after a short protest the banners were put away and the protest ended.

Police had not tried to stop the march and seemed to just stand back and watch, though there was a FIT team taking photographs. The ‘infopack’ had advised protesters to ‘mask up’ and many did as you can see in my photographs.

From there I took the tube to Westminster, where CAAT had brought a white elephant with doves on it along with a petition calling for an end to the support of the arms trade by the UKTI Defence and Security Organisation. Another banner had the message “Civil Servant … Or Arms Dealer” and accused the government of handing out arms export licences to repressive regimes – some of whom also sell arms as well as buy them at DSEI.

This year, 2025, the government made a highly publicised statement about not inviting the Israeli government delegation to the DSEI arms fair – but failed to mention that Israeli arms manufacturers will still be selling their weapons there, selling them as being “battle-tested” after their use in the long series of attacks on Gaza, killing Palestinians in the ongoing genocide.

Among those at protest outside the UKTI was peace activist Dan Viesnik on his 100 hour Famine for Victims of the Arms Trade at various government offices and other locations around the city.

More about these protests and many more pictures on My London Diary at Disarm DSEi and CAAT: Close UKTI DSO.

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Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson – 2009

Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson: On Saturday 5th September 2009 I went to Hayes to join a small group of Climate Rushers at a service at the start of a walk by the London Churches Environmental Network. We joined the marchers for the first part of their walk to the Sipson Airplot, set up to oppose plans for a third runway at Heathrow, rushing back there to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance which took place in the afternoon.

Climate Rush on the Run – Hayes & Sipson

On My London Diary you can read more about the Climate Rush, a group of women who had come together to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 ‘Suffragette Rush‘. In 1908 more than 40 women were arrested in an attempt to rush into the Houses of Parliament, and on 13 Oct, 2008, at the end of a rally in Parliament Square Climate Rush again tried to rush in.

Their protest in 2008 called for “men and women alike” to stand together and support three key demands:

* No airport expansion.
* No new coal-fired power stations.
* The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.

Since then Climate Rush had organised and taken part in various other climate protests and in September 2009 were taking part in “a rollicking tour of South West England“, staging events, supporting campaigns and “entertaining the towns, villages and hamlets” on their route with “16 Climate Suffragettes, 3 horses and 2 glorious caravans“. The Airplot at Sipson was their starting point and I’d photographed their procession to Heathrow the previous day, and later photographed them at a Green Fayre in Aylesbury.

After a service at St Anselm’s Church, Hayes attended by several Climate Rushers we set off with the the London Churches Environmental Network to walk back to Sipson. We left the marchers at Cranford Park to take a shorter route to get back to the Airplot to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance taking place there in the afternoon.

Much more on My London Diary at Climate Rush On the Run!

Climate Rush: Celebration of Community Resistance – Sipson

Greenpeace had the idea of setting up the Airplot, an orchard in the centre of the village of Sipson, one of those under threat from Heathrow’s plans for expansion. They bought the site and created one metre square plots of land there and invited the public to become “beneficial owners“, I think paying one pound for the privilege and receiving a certificate of ownership. Somewhere I may still have mine, but here is one on Wikimedia.

It had seemed a good idea which would make the development more complex, though I suspect would have had little or no effect in practice, but it was never put to the test as plans for the third runway were scrapped by the government in 2010 on environmental grounds – though they have since been revived.

The Airplot was the first stop on the Climate Rush tour and for the Celebration of Community Resistance they had invited activists from around the country to come and give short presentations on their campaigns.

The first example of community resistance we heard about was Radley Lakes at Didcot which npower wanted to fill in with pulverised fuel ash. Although some lakes had been filled, the campaign managed to save three of them. You can see more about them on the Radley Lakes Trust web site.

Next we heard about the scandal of opencast mining at Ffos-y-Fran, common land at Merthyr Tydfil. I photographed a Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration against this mine at the London offices of Argent Group plc in April 2008.

“Argent form half of Miller-Argent who run the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, Ffos-y-Fran in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. Just 36 metres from the nearest houses, extraction will continue for more than 15 years (perhaps as along as 40 years), producing coal that will add at least 30 million tons of CO2 to to our atmosphere. Scottish safety standards demand a minimum gap of 500 metres from housing, but the implementation of a 350 metres limit by the Welsh office has been delayed – allegedly to allow the Merthyr working to go ahead.”

Coal mining continued here until November 2023, and local residents say that the plans for the future of the site represent the “ultimate betrayal“.

Protesters had come earlier in the year from County Mayo in Ireland for a St Patrick’s Day protest at the Shell building against the Corrib Gas Project. We heard how the Rossport Solidarity Camp and the Shell to Sea campaign were fighting this against a corrupt government and thugs who protect the oil companies interest by illegal methods. While the protests failed to stop the project, the environmental groups involved continue to highlight related issues.

Cathy McCormack, a community activist in Glasgow Easterhouse was unable to attend but a colleague came to read her views on poverty and the financial crisis, and in particular the part played by the World Bank and the IMF.

Next we heard from two former Vestas workers who sat in their factory in Newport on the Isle of White when the company proposed the closure of what was then the UK’s only major wind turbine production site. Unfortunately they failed to prevent the closure.

The last group to talk were the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTRAG), and Geraldine described how they had opposed the BAA plans for airport expansion.

In the audience watching the presentation were local MP John McDonnell and airport campaigner John Stewart of HACAN. The campaigners won that round against Heathrow’s plans – and we celebrated in 2010, but today there are new plans – and a government which only plays lip-service to the coming environmental diaster seems sure to back either Heathrow’s own proposals or that from the Arora group, and the fight is on again.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Celebration of Community Resistance.

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The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour – 2004

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour: On Saturday 4th September 2004 I met campaigners from organisations including Voices in the Wilderness UK, a group opposed to the sanctions on Iraq and the war in Iraq, which between March 1996 and May 2003 had sent over 70 sanction-breaking delegations to Iraq.

I had photographed many of the protests leading up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – and there are pictures and accounts from some of these on My London Diary, and of the protests after the invasion, particularly when it became clear that Tony Blair had deliberately misled Parliament and the facts about the “dodgy dossier” became clear. Many called for Blair to be indicted as a war criminal.

Despite the huge protests and determined opposition of a huge proportion of the British people to the war, we failed to stop our army supporting the US, and many thought the protest movement had deliberately failed to press home its position – as Tony Benn and others had urged – thanks to the domination of its leadership by members of the SWP. Let’s hope that “Your Party” does not get sunk by the same hands – or by the efforts of those close advisers to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader.

If anyone needs reminding about what happened in Iraq you can see a brief time-line “What happened when Iraq was invaded 20 years ago?” on Al Jazeera.

I only wrote a short piece about the protest back in 2004, now rather hard to find on that web site, so here it is, with a few of the pictures from it in this post and there are more here on My London Diary.

After the initial military victory in Iraq, the American government were determined that their friends would profit from the situation. Lucrative contracts went largely to US companies that just happened to have friends and beneficiaries in the top level in the USA. Capitalism is always a winner from wars, with arms suppliers laughing all the way to the bank, but this extended the gravy train rather more widely and rather too obviously. Bush’s cronies sell the arms that knock the infrastructure to pieces, then get high margin contracts to rebuild.

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour of London aimed to visit some key sites to point out the profiteering from the occupation of Iraq. it started at the Shell Centre (Western oil companies look set to make $2.5 trillion from Iraqi oil over the next 50 years), then made its way across the new Hungerford Bridge to the Cavell statue at the north east of Trafalgar Square (where I left it) and continuing to some other key sites.

*More street theatre in front of the Cavell memorial*

There was singing from the Strawberry Theives Socialist Choir (the name a reference to a William Morris wallpaper design), who thoughtfully provided the words for the Internationale in case any of us had momentarily forgotten them, (Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers, Arise! ye criminals of want… ), samba playing from Rhythms Of Resistance, and a couple of street theatre groups.

A few more pictures

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Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors – 2014

Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors: On Wednesday 3rd September 2014 the weather was fine with blue skies and clouds and I decided to spend the afternoon photographing in the Isle of Dogs before meeting with Class War for one of their ongoing series of protests against separate entrances for the wealthy and social housing residents of a tower block in Aldgate.

Isle of Dogs Panoramas – Island Gardens to South Quay

The main purpose of my visit to the Isle of Dogs was to make panoramas of scenes which I had photographed more conventionally over the years, including the black and white images that I included in my book ‘City to Blackwall‘ and more of them are now in my albums on Flickr.

I had gone back so make some panoramas in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, using various panoramic film cameras, but the switch to digital had made creating panoramic images much simpler for me.

Perhaps the most important change was in accurate viewfinding – with my first panoramic film camera the most accurate way to see the extent of my pictures was by viewing along two arrows on the top of the body – much more reliable than its viewfinder. But of course digital also gave a wider range of shutter speeds and ISO.

And to do this, the camera needed to be firmly mounted on a tripod – and I carried a rather heavy Manfrotto around with me. This also enabled me – with the aid of a spirit level – to ensure that the camera was level. The Nikon I used for these panoramas had level indicators in the viewfinder and was easy to use handheld.

However to make these on digital I needed to use a fisheye lens – the 16mm Nikon fisheye. Not the kind that gives a circular image, but a full-frame fisheye where the image circle goes through the corners of the frame. This gives a 180 degree image across the frame diagonal, but rather less horizontally and vertical, with considerable curvature of straight lines.

Software – I then used PTGUi for these – than comes to the rescue, converting the spherical perspective into a cylindrical one which rendered verticals upright (there are several ways this can be done with slightly different results.) Later I moved to simpler software.

With the 36Mp Nikon D800E there were far more pixels than necessary even after this stretching and this was no longer a problem. I could work with single exposures rather than stitching together several images as I had done earlier with digital cameras.

Many more pictures at Isle of Dogs Panoramas.

Isle of Dogs – Wideangle Images

Although I had mainly gone to make panoramas I also took a Nikon D700 body and made pictures with a 16-35mm Nikon zoom. Not everything is best suited by the panoramic treatment.

Again there are many more pictures at Isle of Dogs.

Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate

*A police officer watches as people walk down the alley leading to the ‘poor door’ of the luxury development*

Class War and friends held their sixth weekly protest outside 1 Commercial St in Aldgate and it was a relatively uneventful one.

As the protesters arrived, two police officers came out from the building and talked with the protesters making clear that they expected the protesters not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building. More officers soon arrived to police the event.

There were a few heated arguments between protesters and police but nothing of any consequence. The protesters held their banner well in front of the door.

They talked and handed out leaflets to people leaving and entering the ‘rich door’ as well as to people walking past – and to at least one cyclist stopped at the traffic lights.

After keeping up the picket for an hour as intended, Class War packed up and left – until the next week.

More pictures – Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6.

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The Battle of Walthamstow – 2012

The Battle of Walthamstow: On Saturday 1st of September the extreme right English Defence League attempted to march into Walthamstow and hold a rally outside the Waltham Forest Civic Centre on Forest Road. Several thousand people from all of Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ determined to oppose them.

From a long rally in Walthamstow’s main square with speeches by many community leaders and performances by local drummers and singers, the people of Walthamstow marched to Forest Road, arriving an hour or so before the EDL march was due.

As they made their way along Hoe Street there was no doubt of their wide support from the community, with people coming out from virtually every shop and building, many waving and cheering in support.

When the march reached Forest Road many of the marchers sat down on the road at the key junction on the EDL march route. I left them there and walked back towards where the EDL march was to start.

When I saw the EDL march coming towards me, it looked more like a police march as the EDL were probably surrounded by more officers than there were supporters on the march. None of the main EDL leaders was on the march as they had gone separately to where they intended to hold a rally and were setting up the PA system.

It was hard to get a clear view of the marchers through the lines of police around them, and I only had a short telephoto when a much longer lens would have been useful.

But I managed to take some pictures of the marchers and many of them saw me and shouted abuse or made offensive gestures. Others tried to hold up hands in front of their faces – in one case making a woman look as if she was giving a Nazi salute. One man even rushed through a gap between police officers and put his hand over my lens before police dragged him back into the march. Although they got in my way I was rather glad the police were there.

A few people had come out onto the side of the streets to watch the marchers. Most did so in silence, but some held posters against the marchers or shouted at them. I saw only one supporter, an elderly man who came out of his house to greet them and was greeted with cheers from the marchers. As I commented, “Clearly here the silent majority they claim to represent was overwhelmingly against them.”

As the crucial road junction was blocked, police diverted the march down a side road shortly before it. Some of the EDL were angry at leaving the route and wanted to get at those blocking the road and there were some minor scuffles between the EDL stewards and police.

I went to the junction where the EDL march was led across the Chingford Rd and joined other photographers who were photographing the march and residents who had come to oppose them. Here EDL stewards dragged back marchers who tried to attack us and police and managed to keep their march more or less in order.

Police halted the march in Farnan Avenue at the side of the Civic Centre, but it was now clearly impossible for them to continue to the planned rally location because of the mass of protesters opposed to the EDL who were mainly held by police behind barriers on the opposite side of the road.

I went to where Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll had come with a few others to set up for the rally and took a few pictures before I was stopped by an EDL steward who insisted I was a Unite Against Fascism photographer and called over a police officer. I showed the officer my press card, but he still insisted I leave the area. I unhitched a barrier and went across to the other side of the road.

*Facing them were hundreds of people from Waltham Forest with the message ‘EDL not welcome’*

‘We Are Waltham Forest’ organisers had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some had other ideas and a few sticks and other objects were begining to be thrown towards the EDL. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence.

I moved to one side to avoid being hit as more objects began to be thrown – unlike many other photographers I wear no protective headgear. The situation appeared to be a stalemate, and although many of the counter-protesters had left it seemed unlikely that the EDL rally would be possible. When I left the EDL marchers were still surrounded by police in the side road.

Police later told the EDL that the rally could not go ahead, and the EDL leaders left. Police then kept the marchers surrounded for several hours for their own protection and after RMT members told police they would not allow hooligans to endanger the public by boarding trains, police decide to arrest them all and take them in vans to various police stations. They were apparently de-arrested and released in the early hours of Sunday morning.

This defeat was important in the demise of the EDL and you can see many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths – 2012

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths: On a wet Wednesday 29th August 2012, the opening day of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, I photographed two protests by disabled people. At Stratford, close to the Olympic site, Remploy workers and supporters protested at the closure the previous week of 27 Remploy factories which had employed disabled workers, and in Central London DPAC and other disabled activists took a coffin to the offices of Paralympic sponsor Atos, responsible for carrying out fitness to work tests which have driven many disabled people to suicide.

Remploy Protest at Stratford Station

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths - 2012

Remploy, then the Disabled Person’s Employment Corporation, opened its first factory in 1946 to provide jobs for men and women who had been injured fighting for their country in the Second World War – just the kind of ex-servicemen who now make up a significant proportion of our Paralympic Team GB.

Remploy made it possible for disabled people to do useful and productive work including producing printed circuit boards and electrical assemblies, recycling used computers and much more. They gave disabled workers and those with special health conditions who would otherwise be unemployed useful jobs, a decent income and the satisfaction of working with others rather than being isolated in their homes.

The leaflets being handed out had an Olympic theme, with the message ‘We are NOT going for Gold, We are Condemned to Dole’ and the five Olympic rings were labelled ‘Unemployment, Discrimination, Poverty, Ill Health and Death.’

All Remploy factories were closed by the end of 2013, with Remploy continuing only to provide employment placement services for disabled people. In 2015 it was privatised and became owned by US service provider Maximus. They continue to use the Remploy name in Scotland.

Remploy Protest at Stratford

Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims – Triton Sq

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) were holding a national week of protests around the country against Paralympics sponsor Atos, whose computer based ‘fitness for work’ tests have led to stress, hardship deaths and suicides among the disabled.

I photographed their Opening Ceremony for the Atos Games on Monday and also the closing of the week on Friday when they again came to the Atos offices in Triton Square for a closing ceremony and then went on to occupy the foyer at the Work & Pensions ministry.

On the Wednesday 29th August I met the protesters in a café on Triton Square on Euston Road where they were meeting in preparation for a vigil to remember those who have died as a result of the deliberately unfair Work Capability Assessments carried out by Paralympic sponsor Atos, and to deliver a coffin on to them on the day the Paralympic Games was opening.

As we were told, Atos was delivering “a relentless health and disability assessment regime which has been used to slash vital benefits from hundred of thousands of sick and disabled people” with assessors told they have to reach strict targets in failing the great majority of claimants, which led them to often deliberately misinterpret the claimants responses and misrepresent their medical conditions.

“The was a solemn and moving reminder of the scandal of the work capability assessments and the terrible effect they are having on the disabled. Many are losing the allowances that enable them to travel to work, others housing benefits, and are being told they are fit to work when patently they are unable to do so.”

And as I commented in 2012: “It really is a cruel paradox that at a time when the nation is celebrating the great achievements of disabled people in the sporting world, our government is trying to reverse the moves toward equality of treatment of disabled people, and that the company that is trying to take the credit for sponsoring the Paralympics is profiting from contracts to dishonestly deny benefits to the disabled who need them.”

More at Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims.

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Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka – 2014

Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka: Saturday 23rd August 2014 was a busy day for protests around Whitehall. I began at Downing Street with a protest by family members kept apart from their loved ones by Teresa May’s cruel and unfair immigration rules in a deliberate breach of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, then photographed a protest against arms sales to Israel and an end to Israeli war crimes. Then in Trafalgar Square Syrians marked the first anniversary of The chemical massacre at Ghouta before marching to Downing Street, where Tamils were protesting the rapes and killing in Sri Lanka.

Divided Families protest over cruelty – Downing St

Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka - 2014

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights states:

'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.'

But British citizens who are married to foreign nationals from outside the EU and may have children with them can only bring their partners to the UK if they are in well-paid jobs. And even then the visas needed are expensive and there are tough English Language tests, a need to prove greater attachment to the UK than of any other country and a five year probationary period.

The rules are complex and hard to understand and have changed since 2014, particularly by Brexit. Then those earning less than £18,600 a year were unable to bring on-EU spouses to join them – and couples with two children needed an annual income of £24,800. Visa application was also (and still is) very expensive.

More at Divided Families protest over cruelty

Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel – Downing St

Back in 2014 as now people were calling for an end to UK arms sales to Israel and for an end to Israeli war crimes.

The 2014 conflict in Gaza resulted in over 2000 Palestinians being killed including almost 1500 civilians and many more injured, leaving around a thousand children with life-changing disabilities.

Fighting lasted 50 days with many schools and health centres being damaged and over 12,600 homes being destroyed and around a further 6,500 seriously damaged. At the time of this protest UNRWA was housing around 300,000 internally displaced people in the roughly half of its school buildings which had not been destroyed or seriously damaged.

Among the protesters were several groups of Jews, including ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’. Also there were Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews with banners opposing Zionism and the idea of a Jewish political state; they call for all to live peacefully together in Palestine – as Jews and Arabs did before the partition and formation of Israel.

A small group of pro-Israel protesters, one dressed as Superman, tried to disrupt the protest but after a short while were led away by police.

More pictures at Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel.

Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary – Trafalgar Square

The chemical attack using the nerve gas Sarin by the Assad regime on Ghouta on 21st August killed 1,477 residents including over 400 children in this Damascus suburb.

Leaders in countries around the world expressed outrage at the attack, called for action to be taken. Pressure did lead to Syria agreeing to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and the US and Russia agreed on a framework to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, and much of Syria’s stock was destroyed in the year following the massacre.

‘I am Chemical Bashar Al Assad and one year on I am still gassing Syrian children.
Thank you for UN veto’

But Assad continued to use chemical weapons, including many attacks with chlorine gas which was not covered by the framework because of its widespread chemical uses, as well as some attacks involving Sarin or a similar nerve gas. In 2023 the UN Security council declared that Syria’s chemical weapons declaration was incomplete and demanded full disclosure and cooperation with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary

Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing – Downing St

Following the Sri Lankan military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, Tamils allege that the Tamils who make up around 11% of the population of Sri Lankan have been the subject of a continuing genocide by the government and the Sinhalese majority.

The protest called for the UN to conduct a referendum over setting up a Tamil state and investigate Sri Lankan genocide of Tamils. The Sri Lankan government had not kept the promises it made to the international community at the time of the Tamil defeat and has subjected the Tamil region to military occupation, rapes and killing.

Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing

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EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford – 2012

EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford: On Saturday 18th August I made my first (and quite possibly my last) trip to Chelmsford, Essex where the extreme right English Defence League were marching against plans to build a large mosque in the city. Chelmsford, the County Town of Essex, had in the previous month been given City status to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Until 1979 Muslims living in Chelmsford, Essex had to travel to London or Southend to attend Friday prayers. That year a house was rented for prayers and the following year the first floor of a restaurant became a mosque. As congregations grew other premises were found for worship. Permission to build a mosque was granted in 1992 but it was only fully completed in 1997.

Soon that mosque was becoming overcrowded and by 2012 plans were being made for a new larger building but there were a number of set-backs, including some strange and possibly racially motivated behaviour by the council, as well as financial problems and it was not built. In 2020 the Chelmsford Muslim Society were able to buy the Hamptons Sports & Leisure Centre which is now in use for both worship and leisure. The older Central Mosque in Moulsham Street is also still in use.

Over two hundred people had come to the centre of Chelmsford for a rally called by Unite Against Fascism to oppose the EDL march. I went to photograph them first and then went along to the pub where the EDL were meeting. There were far fewer EDL, perhaps 80 in all, and most were in the garden of the pub.

I went close to the fence around the beer garden in Cottage Place and took a few pictures of the EDL inside. I was met with abuse and one man complained to the police – who told him I was acting within the law. Others made V’ signs and other gestures for the camera, and I was pleased there was a fence between us.

After I had taken a few more pictures the officer politely requested I move away to avoid further upsetting the marchers and I complied as I felt I had already done all I could. Across the road in New Street EDL Essex Division spokesman Paul Pitt was being interviewed for TV, claiming the EDL were not racist and not generally opposed to mosques being built. He said that the size and location of the proposed building was unsuitable and that local people had invited them to come to Chelmsford and protest against it.

A few minutes later the EDL came out of the pub and formed up behind several banners for the march. I kept close to the banners at the front and to the police who were watching the marchers. They began singing racist EDL songs and as I stood on the corner photographing the march going past one man came menacingly right up to me and said “I hope all your family die of cancer.”

I was shocked, but followed the march as they were escorted by police for a short march around largely empty streets city and into a pen for their rally. Once they were inside police, sealed the street and allowed the UAF to sstart their much larger and more public march, far louder and with many more people, placards and banners than the EDL.

There was a single small incident where two EDL supporters came to the roadside and began to loudly shout ‘EDL!, EDL!‘ Police dragged them to a bench some distance away and held them until the march had passed and made clear they would be arrested if they interfered with it again.

*There were several people in clerical dress, including this local hospital chaplain*

The EDL were behind a couple of police lines perhaps 200 yards away as the march came to an end, but they will have been clearly able to hear the strength of the opposition.

I concluded my account on My London Diary: “Although the EDL managed to hold their march, it was a small event and went around the outskirts of the centre, seen by very few. The UAF and others held a long meeting right in the centre of the shopping area with much greater support, and clearly were far more successful and widely supported.”

Many more pictures at EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford.

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A Scottish Protest – SDL and UAF in Edinburgh 2013

A Scottish Protest: On Saturday 17th August I photographed anti-fascists in Edinburgh protesting a march by the Scottish EDL in Edinburgh, the only time I have ever photographed a protest in Scotland.

I was in the city for the Edinburgh Festival, which I was also attending for the first and only time, having been invited to share a flat for the week with others. We did have a good time and went to quite a few performances and events but should I ever visit the city again I’d prefer to do so when things there were more normal – as I did back in 2003.

I found photographing the protest at times more stressful than usual. Partly because of the slightly different policing and the fact that I knew none of the protesters or the other photographers covering the event, (though I did recognise a few in the Scottish Defence Leagure protest from EDL protests in London) but also because I was using different equipment, working just with the Fuji X-E1 which was then my ‘travel’ camera rather than the brace of Nikons of my professional kit.

Not that the X-E1 wasn’t a good camera – and I’ve now been working for some years with other Fuji cameras to cut down the weight of my camera bag on my ageing shoulder. The Fuji lenses are fine but I still miss the directness of an optical viewfinder and the relative simplicity of the Nikon interface.

And the Nikon reliability. Often with various Fuji cameras I find it hard to get the cameras to behave as I want them too. Last Saturday checking my kit before I left home I could find no way to persuade my Fuji X-E3 to let me work in RAW rather than jpeg mode, eventually abandoning it for an older Fuji body. I did all the things that should have allowed it, but I suspect I will have to go to a full factory reset and then restore my favourite settings.

With the X-E1 I found the autofocus noticeably slower than with my Nikons and I did miss some pictures, but the results on those I did take were fine. Fuji glass really is good and the XF 18-55 is possibly the best ‘kit’ lens ever, though I did at times miss not having something wider than its 27mm equivalent and something longer then its 82mm equivalent.

I left the protest while it was still taking place and made my way to meet my wife and go to the postgrad show at the Edinburgh College of Art and then on to the ‘Attack of the 50 Foot German Comedian’, both something of a disappontment, before a restaurant meal with the others from the flat to celebrate the end of a week together. The next morning we were up early to catch the 10.30 train back to London.

You can read more about our week at the festival on My London Diary, with more from the protest at SDL and UAF in Edinburgh.

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