I first photographed Hizb ut-Tahrir in October 2004, when they held a rally in Hyde Park and marched to the Pakistan High Commission in a protest against Presdent Busharraf. Then, as at most later occasions involving them I was quickly approached by their press officer keen to know where I was from. Although they were polite, it always seemed to be more a reflection of a desire to control than to help, although usually they did give me a helpful press release .
Writing about that event, I noted that they separated the women from the men, and that the rally was held by the men – with all the speakers being men and the platform in the centre of the men, with the women all in a separate group around 50 metres away, where it was hard to hear what was being said and even harder to see. There were a few women on the edge of the group, closest to the men, holding up camcorders, with zoom lenses doubtless giving them a better view.
During the march too, the women marched separately, with a large group of men leading the march, and a smaller group behind the women. It pleased me slightly that although the instructions were repeated again and again that the marchers must all line up and march in lines of six people, there were a few who defied the orders.
Of course, all the placards were the official ones with no individuality tolerated, and the marchers were issued with sheets of the slogans to chant (and I reprinted most of them in my piece on the event.) Hizb ut-Tahrir seemed to me a slightly sinister organisation, and certainly not one I would want to see in power in any country, but it was hard to see any good reason why they should – as some people wanted – be banned.
Over the years and quite a few demonstrations, little seems to have changed, although I have photographed at least one of their demonstrations – against the French ban on Islamic face veils – which was almost a women-only event (there were just a few men around who seemed to be there to make sure they behaved.)
One of the points made by Hizb ut-Tahrir it was difficult to disagree with in many of their speeches in English I’ve listened to when taking pictures was about the corruption and despotism of many Arab rulers. But the Arab spring we’ve seen this year has nothing to do with the kind of revolution they preach, based on establishing a peculiarly fundamentalist version of Islamic rule under a caliphate (khilifah.)
But last month they were protesting against the persecution of some Muslims in Russia, where Hizb ut-Tahrir is an illegal organisation. In researching the article I wrote I got the impression their complaints of violation of civil rights there were real and justified, although perhaps more directed against members of their organisation than Muslims in general. You can read more about what has been happening in Russians Told ‘Release Our Sister Sidikova’ on My London Diary.
The only real problems in covering this event opposite the Consular Section of the Russian Embassy in Kensington were the weather and the traffic. The embassy proper is hidden away in Kensington Palace Gardens, a private street where neither photography nor protests are permitted, but the consular section overlooks the busy Bayswater Road, and the protest was taking place on the opposite pavement, which is not particularly wide.
There were perhaps around 50 men and 20 women present when I arrived, behind a line of police barriers on the edge of the road. So to photograph them I could either go behind the barriers with them or stand on the edge of the road. Usually police put these barriers with their triangular base pointing out into the road, but here they had put the bases towards the curb, making them stick out eighteen inches of so further into the road. It seems a small difference (and it is easy to trip over those bases) but it does expose photographers significantly less to traffic. On busy roads like this there is usually too a line of cones to warn traffic which also gives us another foot or so to work in safely. But there were none here, just a police van parked in the road immediately before the protest, obscuring oncoming motorist’s view of it and any photographers.
Of course in tight working areas like this the 16-35 mm on the D700 is very useful, and mainly at the wider end. But one or two cars and lorries did go past uncomfortably close to me as I photographed the men and a smaller group of women at one end of the protest.
It had started to rain slightly as I arrived, but fortunately after a few minutes during which I was working microfibre cloth in hand and wiping the UV filter before every shot it stopped for a few minutes and let me get on with taking pictures. But not for long. Possibly the umbrellas help in some of the pictures, but as well as stopping the rain they also fairly effectively stop light, especially if large and black.
I stuck it out for some time, perhaps rather longer than I would have done if any other photographers had been present (of course there were people from Hizb ut-Tahrir taking pictures with cameras, phones and camcorders too.) Much as I like many of my colleagues, it’s good to occasionally photograph different things to them. But then we got a really torrential storm; I put up my umbrella and thought briefly that there might be some interesting pictures as people sheltered from the rain, but decided instead to make for the nearby underground station and go to my next location.
Although I’ve only used pictures of the women at the protest here – it was mainly a protest about women after all – I actually spent rather more time photographing the men, and perhaps got some slightly better pictures, as you can see on My London Diary.
