Grenfell – 2017 & Hong Kong: On Wednesday 6th December 2017 I photographed two protests outside Kensington Town Hall in both of which people demanded answers from Kensington & Chelsea council about the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower almost six months earlier.
The protest had been approved earlier at a public meeting and was supported by the Justice4Grenfell campaign and the Revolutionary Communist Group who both came with PA systems.
J4G refused to let the RCG speak at their protest and tried to persuade them to move away, but they refused.
But they did pause their protest and turn off their sound system for the J4G’s main speakers, MPs Kate Osamor and Emma Dent-Coad.
After that the RCG resumed their protes as J4G appeared to have stopped – but soon they also began again and there were two protests taking place a few yards apart. A small group from J4G came to shout angrily at the RCG, and there were threats of physical violence with one man having to be held back by his friends after he tried to start a fist fight.
Also protesting with the RCG were some from Class War, who stood with posters of disgraced Councillor Rock Feilding-Mellen, who as deputy council leader and cabinet member responsible for housing and for the flammable cladding and other cuts which had created a disaster waiting to happen. Since the fire he had fled the area and hidden away – and under the large image of his face was the single word ‘WHERE?’
I tried hard to photograph both protests, moving between the two groups.
Both shared the same aims, both condemning the failures by the council which had led to a small fire turning rapidly into a major disaster and, after the fire its failure to respond adequately and in a timely way to the needs of the survivors, both calling for criminal charges against those responsible in Kensington and Chelsea council, the TMO and the cladding company and others.
Both calling for a real role for the local community in the official inquiry into the fire which they feel has already disrespected local residents and fear will be a cover up.
Now eight years later the inquiry has told us very little that was not already covered in the report by Architects for Social Housing published 5 weeks after the fire and there have still not been any criminal charges made against those responsible.
There have been some related cases, with people being prosecuted who have fraudulently tried to profit from the disaster – which were discussed in a blog post by Steve Tombs of the OU, The Poor Get Prison… Grenfell as a Site of Crime?, but none for those directly responsible for the tragedy.
Many will have noticed the enormous contrast between this and the recent fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong where Reuters report at least 156 people died in a fire rapidly spread by substandard plastic mesh and insulation foam.
The first reports in the UK media over the fire also included that police had already arrested a number of people in connection with the fire. Reuters reported 15 on suspicion of manslaughter as well as another 12 arrests in a corruption investigation.
Grenfell protests outside council meeting.
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