I don’t have any problems with protests by the disabled, but the police don’t quite seem to know how to deal with them, particularly when they have attracted enough attention for there to be crowds of photographers present. The latest protest by DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) again resulted in them being able to block a major road through central London, just as their protest in January (Disabled Welfare Reform Road Block) though this time it was at Trafalgar Square rather than Oxford Circus and on a weekday rather than a Saturday.
I can’t decide which of the two similar pictures I prefer:
or
When I sent off the story to Demotix, I chose the lower of the two, where I’m closer to the face of the man in the foreground and the chain is a little larger. That he is looking in my direction also makes for a stronger image. But on putting the work on My London Diary in the post Disabled Activists Block Trafalgar Square I chose the upper picture for the ‘front page’. I like the two hands of protester and police officer on the chain, clearly linking them together. I think when I first saw them I thought that the hand and camera of another photographer at top left was an unfortunate intrusion; now I’m inclined to think that it works together with the videographer and photographer at the right to show how this protest took place with pretty massive press interest.
Incidentally, the guy with the video camera has himself been in the news, fighting not to hand over his work from the Dale Farm eviction to the police in what is clearly a ‘fishing expedition’, a move by the police that could seriously endanger the often tricky relationship between photographers and protesters. As NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet says,
“This case is a defence of press freedom – journalists are not evidence gatherers for the police.”
Earlier in the DPAC protest there had been an incident that seemed to be to be of near farce, when the police stopped the protest on the Charing Cross Road, and tried to insist that it proceed on the pavement rather than on the roadway.
This is just one of a number of pictures that I took while police argued with protesters who they had stopped, creating a far greater traffic hold-up than if they had simply allowed the march to continue.
It wasn’t a request that the protesters were likely to accede to, not least because it was hardly a practical suggestion, given the fairly narrow and somewhat cluttered pavement and a protest with a number of people taking part in wheelchairs and mobility scooters. But it did provide a good opportunity for photographs.
Disabled people are rightly very angry, with recent changes in welfare provision and in particular the imposition of testing procedures that are ill-thought out and administered with an incredible lack of common sense, common decency and competence by a private company highly paid on a contract that rewards them for refusing benefits rather than doing the job properly.
More about the protest at Disabled Activists Block Trafalgar Square on My London Diary.
________________________________________________________
My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
To order prints or reproduce images
________________________________________________________