Tag: Grosvenor Square

Egypt’s Arab Spring – 2011

Saturday 5th February 2011
US Embassy Rally For Egypt – Grosvenor Square
Egyptian Embassy Demonstration – South St
Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain at Egyptian Embassy – South St

Egypt's Arab Spring - 2011
Tariq Ali speaking at the rally at the US Embassy

Egypt’s history is long and complex, going back to the back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE when it was one of the cradles of Western civilisation. Wikipedia has a lengthy article which even so skims over the many details, and certainly I won’t go into much here.

Egypt's Arab Spring - 2011

For many years Egypt was a part of the Ottoman Empire, but after the building of the Suez Canal in 1869 France and Britain played a more important role in its history and in 1882 the UK invaded the country which became occupied and it became a de facto British protectorate, breaking away completely to become a UK protectorate during the First World War after the UK military deposed the ruling Khedive, replacing him with his pro-British brother Hussein Kamel, who declared himself Sultan of Egypt.

Egypt's Arab Spring - 2011

Elections at the end of the war led to a majority for the Egyptian nationalist movement, so the British exiled their leaders to Malta in 1919, starting the first modern Egyptian revolution. The UK caved in and granted Egypt independence, though largely nominally as the country remained under British military occupation until 1936 when the UK withdrew its troops except those around the Suez Canal.

During World War Two, Egypt tried to remain neutral despite considerable UK pressure and the presence of large numbers of British troops, who in 1942 surrounded the palace in Cairo and forced King Farouk to change his government.

Egypt's Arab Spring - 2011

In 1951, Egypt demanded all remaining British troops who were then around the Suez Canal to leave the country, but the UK refused. British soldiers killed 43 Egyptian police officers in an police station at Ismalia and extensive riots followed. On 22-23 July 1952 military officers launched a coup d’état against King Farouk and took power; in June 1953 they declared Egypt a republic, with Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming Prime Minister, becoming President in 1956.

After Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal that year the UK and France together with Israel launched a disastrous attack – the Suez Crisis. The UK and France were humiliated after they were forced to withdraw by pressure from the UN, USA and Russia. The event is widely seen as marking the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers. Perhaps why we cling on to a hopelessly ineffectual “nuclear deterrent”.

Egypt's Arab Spring - 2011
At the Egyptian Embassy

After Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar Sadat took over as president until 1981, when he was assassinated by an Islamic extremist. Sadat expelled the Soviet advisers and attempted to modernise Egypt, encouraging foreign investment but his policies mainly benefited wealthier Egyptians.

Hosni Mubarak became president in 1981 following a referendum in which he was the only candidate. Under him draconian laws against freedom of expression and association were enacted, and political activities largely outlawed. In 2005 he enacted reforms which allowed for multi-candidate elections of the presidency but with severe restrictions on who could stand – and the candidate who got most votes after Mubarak was imprisoned after the vote.

Human rights organisations in 2006-7 had detailed serious violations, including outine torture, arbitrary detentions and trials before military and state security courts, and naming Egypt as an international centre for torture in the US led ‘War on Terror’. In 2007 the constitution was altered, giving the president dictatorial powers, prohibiting religious political parties and authorising extreme powers of arrest and surveillance by the police, with a new anti-terrorism law.

When the Arab Spring began in Tunisa in December 2010, it was hardly a surprise that it spread to Egypt along with other countries including Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. It began on 25 January 2011 with massive demonstrations, marches, occupations of public squares, acts of non-violent civil disobedience and strikes, with millions of protesters demanding the resignation of Mubarak.

Wikipedia lists the following causes:

  • Police brutality
  • State-of-emergency laws
  • Electoral fraud
  • Political censorship
  • Corruption
  • Unemployment
  • Food price rises
  • Low wages
  • Demographic structural factors
  • Other regional protests
  • Authoritarianism
  • Political repression.

Tahrir Square became the centre of the revolution, with over 50,000 protesters occupying it on 25 January, and later growing to perhaps 300,000. The revolt continued there for 18 days until finally the military who had held the real power in Egypt at least since 1952 removed Mubarek from office on 11 February 2011.

In London on Saturday 5th February 2011 I photographed three protests related to the Egyptian Revolution. The first was a protest at the US Embassy where speakers from Stop the War, the British Muslim Initiative and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others castigated the USA for its support of the Mubarak government over the years and called for his immediate departure.

From there I went with the protesters to join others at the Egyptian Embassy in Mayfair, to join the Egyptians who had been protesting there all week.

While I was photographing at the Embassy I heard the noise of another protest a hundred yards or so down the street, where supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir had turned up in force. As usual most were dressed in black, but there was a group of men dressed in orange Guantanamo jump suits and wearing the masks of the corrupt rulers of Arab states.

Their rally was not in support of the current protests in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, but for a different Arab revolution, calling on the Egyptian army to remove Mubarek but in its place not to establish democracy and freedom, but to set up a Caliphate, theocratic rule rather like that in Iran.

You can read more about the London protests in the three links below to My London Diary where there are many more pictures. Sadly although Mubarek was removed, events in Egypt have not led to the increased freedoms the 2011 revolution was demanding. You can read more about the Arab Winter and the Egyptian Crisis that followed in various articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere online.

Hizb ut-Tahrir at Egyptian Embassy
Egyptian Embassy Demonstration
US Embassy Rally For Egypt

Shaker Aamer, Ricky Bishop and Pakistan Drones

On Saturday 23rd November 2013 I photographed three protests in London.

Free Shaker Aamer March – Northcote Rd, Battersea

The march and rally in Battersea began close to the family home of Shaker Aamer, a British resident charity worker kidnapped in Afghanistan and sold to US troops. There was no evidence against him and he was first cleared for release from Guantanamo in 2007, but was still there and still being routinely tortured in 2013.

It was convenient for me, being just a short walk from Clapham Junction station, but too far from central London for most of the photographers who cover protests who largely stick to Zone 1 of the London Underground, so I felt my coverage of the event was particularly important in recording the event.

Aamer had gone from London with his family in June 2001 to work for a charity in Kabul. Four months later when Kabul was bombed he took his family out from the city for safety. Local bandits then seized a money making opportunity, kidnapping him and selling him to US forces on November 24, 2001.

He was then tortured by the US in Bagram and Kandahar, at times in the presence of British intelligence agents, before being illegally rendered to Guantanamo Bay in February 2002. Abuse and torture continued daily there and much of the time he was being kept in solitary confinement, subjected to particularly extreme treatment for continuing to protest his innocence and acting as a spokesperson for other prisoners, demanding his and their rights.

In 2013 despite never having been charged with any offence and twice being cleared for release Aamer remained a prisoner, the last British resident there. Many think he was still being held as the testimony he would give about his torture would be highly embarrassing to both US and UK intelligence agencies, and that the British government had been halfhearted in their public demands for his release, and in private urging the US to keep him locked away.

The campaign by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign with years of protests outside Parliament and elsewhere had attracted considerable public support, including from his local Conservative MP and other MPs from all parties. There was a short rally outside the Baptist Church on Northcote Road before the marchers, many in orange Guantanamo-style jump suits and some with shackles and black hoods, began the short march through the busy shopping streets close to Clapham Junction to hold a longer rally at Battersea Arts Centre. I said goodbye and left them going up Lavender Hill to catch a train to my next event.

More at Free Shaker Aamer March in Battersea.

Remember Ricky Bishop – Jail his Killers -Brixton Police Station

Twelve years earlier on November 22, 2001, young black man Ricky Bishop was in a car being driven by a white friend in Brixton. Police stopped the car under suspicion as part of their area-wide anti-drug ‘Operation Clean Sweep’, searched Bishop on the spot and found nothing, but still handcuffed the two men and took them to Brixton Police Station. The white driver was not searched and was released without charge.

In the police station Bishop was taken into a small room and attacked by officers, though there was no CCTV evidence available of what went on. He went in a healthy 25-year-old fitness trainer. The beating caused him to have a heart attack, but the officers simply held him to the ground and only later called for a paramedic. Drugs were pushed into his mouth and stories invented to justify the arrest and assault. He was probably dead before an ambulance arrived and took him, still in handcuffs, to A&E at King College Hospital, standing around his dead body and making jokes. By the time his mother was informed of his detention he was dead.

Police issued a misleading press report and covered up what had happened, hiding evidence both immediately and at the inquest, where the jury were not allowed to come to a verdict that would assign any blame to the police. The Bishop family have accused 12 officers of murder, and their names were chanted at the protest around the ‘Remembrance Tree’ in front of the police station, each followed by a loud shout of ‘Murderer!’.

The arrest and subsequent treatment of the two men clearly reflected the racist nature of policing in Brixton, and the events following the death showed the failure of any real accountability of the police, with a criminal justice system that is complicit in letting police in this and many, many other cases literally get away with murder. Ricky Bishop’s death is one of several high-profile cases to have involved Brixton police over the years, in particular the death here of Sean Rigg in similar circumstances in August 2008.

There have been many marches and rallies in Brixton over these deaths in police custody, often at the tree in front of the police station, called the Remembrance Tree or the Lynching Tree by campaigners. There has been no sign that the police have taken real action to root out the systemic racism in the Metropolitan Police (and other forces.) The only action the police have taken is to remove all posters, candles, flowers and other signs of remembrance from the tree outside Brixton Police Station.

Remember Ricky Bishop – Jail his Killers

End Drone Attacks in Pakistan – Downing St to US Embassy

I arrived by Tube from Brixton too late for the start of the march by the PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice party) from Downing Street to the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, but caught up with it as it went along Pall Mall, a few hundred yards from the start.

Around 500 supporters of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and a few from Stop The War and anti-drone groups were marching in protest against US drone strikes in Pakistan which have killed many innocent men, women and children.

It was I think the first march which the PTI had organised in London, and this showed, with the march sticking to the pavement and stopping at crossing lights.

London’s pavements are too busy for marches of this size and the march was soon broken up into a number of small groups by the lights, as those at the front carried on regardless of what was happening behind them. Some were carrying coffins, others posters and flags.

From Hyde Park Corner they went up Park Lane, which although always busy with traffic has wide pavements with few people on foot, and the march gathered together again, to make the final part of its journey to the embassy, walking past a camp with hunger strikers from the People’s Mojahedin of Iran to hold a rally in front of the embassy.

It was a noisy rally and the amplification for the speakers was not really enough for an outdoors event of this size. I listened to a couple of speeches then left for home.

End Drone Attacks in Pakistan.

Nakba, NHS, Gitmo etc & Tamils

NakNakba, NHS, Gitmo etc & Tamils – Saturday 18th May 2013 was another busy day for protests in London and I covered a number of demonstrations.

End Israeli Ethnic Cleansing – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

65 years after 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes as refugees in the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) when the state of Israel was created, Palestinians and their supporters protested outside parliament calling for an end to the continuing ethnic cleansing and a boycott and sanctions until Israel complies with international law.

There had been protests in Jerusalem earlier in the week on Nabka Day against the continuing sanctions against Palestinians that have crowded them into an ever-decreasing area of land, diminishing almost daily as new Israeli settlements are created and new restrictions placed on the movement of Palestinians. Many of those protesting in London from Jewish or Palestinian backgrounds and as usual these included a group of extreme orthodox Neturei Karta Jews who had walked down from North London; they see themselves as guardians of the true Jewish faith, and reject Zionism.

The speeches were continuing when I left to cover another event. More at End Israeli Ethnic Cleansing

London Marches to Defend NHS – South Bank to Whitehall

On the opposite side of the River Thames thousands were gathering by the Royal Festival Hall to march against cuts, closures and privatisation of the NHS, alarmed at the attack by the government on the principles that underlie our National Health Service and the threats of closure of Accident and Emergency facilities, maternity units and hospital wards which seem certain to lead to our health system being unable to cope with demand – and many lives put at risk.

Nine years later we are seeing the effect of these policies with ambulance services unable to cope with demand, lengthy delays in treating people in A&E, delays in diagnosing cancers leading to increased deaths and more. And although it was only a matter of time before we had a pandemic like Covid, and exercises had shown what needed to be done to prepare for this, the NHS had not been given the resources to prepare for this, leading to much higher death rates than some comparable countries.

Part of the problems of the NHS come from disastrous PFI agreements pushed through under the Labour government, landing NHS trusts with huge debts that will continue for many years. This forced NHS trusts into disastrous hospital closure plans, some of which were defeated by huge public campaigns. Many of those marching were those involved in these campaigns at Lewisham, Ealing, Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex, Whittington and other hospitals around London.

I left the march as it entered Whitehall for a rally there. More at London Marches to Defend NHS.

Guantánamo Murder Scene – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

London Guantánamo Campaign staged a ‘murder scene’ at the US Embassy on the 101st day of the Guantánamo Hunger Strike in which over 100 of the 166 still held there are taking part, with many including Shaker Aamer now being forcibly fed.

More at Guantánamo Murder Scene.

More US Embassy Protests – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

Other protesters outside the US Embassy included Narmeen Saleh Al Rubaye, born in the US and currently living in Birmingham, whose husband Shawki Ahmed Omar, an American citizen, was arrested in Iraq by American forces in 2004 and turned over to Iraqi custody in 2011. He was tortured by the Americans when they held him and was now being tortured by the Iraqis and also was on hunger strike. She has protested with her daughter Zeinab outside the US Embassy for a number of weekends and on this occasion was joined by a small group of Muslims who had come to protest against Guantanamo, appalled by the actions of the US waging a war against Islam and Muslims.

Shawki Ahmed Omar is still held in Iraq; before he died in 2021 former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark recorded a video calling for his release which was posted to YouTube in with the comment by another US lawyer “This case is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent United States history. It is a case where the US government essentially lied to the US Supreme Court to cover up torture and to be able to turn an American citizen over to people who they knew would torture him.”

A few yards away, kept separate by police, a group of supporters of the Syrian regime, including some from the minor Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was also holding a protest in favour of the Assad regime and against western intervention in Syria.

More at More US Embassy Protests.

Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide – Hyde Park to Waterloo Place

I met thousands of British Tamils and dignitaries and politicians from India, Sri Lanka and the UK as they marched through London on the 4th anniversary of the Mullivaikkal Massacre, many dressed in black in memory of the continuing genocide in Sri Lanka. Many wore the tiger emblem and called for a Tamil homeland – Tamil Eelam.

Although it was a large protest, with perhaps around 5,000 marchers I think it received absolutely no coverage in UK media, and I seemed to be the only non-Tamil photographer present. Tamils were rightly disgusted at the lack of response by the UK, the Commonwealth and the world to the organised genocide that took place in Sri Lanka, of which the massacre at Mullivaikkal four years ago was a climax.

The march had started from Hyde Park, and I caught up with it on Piccadilly and went with it taking photographs to Waterloo Place where there was to be a rally. But it had been a long day for me and I left just before this started.

More at Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide.

10 Years Ago – London, Atos & Guantanamo

10 Years Ago – London, Atos & Guantanamo – 3rd Feb 2012

London Walking

I was early for the protest I had come to photograph so I took a little walk around the area just north of the Euston Rd. I’d used Transport for London’s Journey Planner, but forgotten that this sometimes hugely exaggerates the time taken to make changes between trains and between train and bus for those familiar with routes. Walking helped stop me from completely freezing with the temperature around zero and a cutting wind. Some days even thermal underclothing isn’t enough.

Later I walked around Kings Cross looking for a protest outside a place that didn’t seem to exist – I think the organisers had got the address wrong – but in any case I could find nothing happening in the area and then went to get a bus and photographed the St Pancras hotel from near the bus stop. Eventually my bus came.

London Walking

Disabled Protest Supports the Atos Two

Disabled people and their supporters braved freezing weather to stage an hour-long protest outside the UK offices of Atos, protesting against the unfair testing of fitness to work and benefit cuts and supporting the ‘Atos 2’.

The Atos 2 were a wheelchair user and a pensioner, Notts Uncut activists who were charged with ‘aggravated trespass’ after peacefully entering an Atos assessment centre in Nottingham on a National Day of Action Against Atos and the Benefit Cuts last December. The charges were eventually dropped but the arrest and illegal confiscation of video material marked a new and disturbing attitude by police towards peaceful protest. There was another protest in Nottingham at the same time as that in London.

Disabled Protest Supports the Atos Two

London Guantánamo Campaign Candlelit Vigil

The London Guantánamo Campaign marked 5 years of regular protest at the US Embassy and over 10 years of illegal detention with a candlelit vigil, calling for the shutting down of the camp and the return of UK residents Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha.

Ahmed Belbacha was eventually released without charge in 2014, having been twice cleared for release in 2007 and 2009. He had come to the UK from Algeria as an asylum seeker and lived and worked here for a couple of years before his claim was rejected, after which he went to Pakistan to study the Koran. He made a visit to Afghanistan and was arrested on his way back to Pakistan.

Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and legal UK resident married to a British woman who was applying for British citizenship went with his family to work for an Islamic charity in Afghanistan in 2001. He was arrested by Afghans and handed to the US in return for a ransom. Again he was cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, but continued to be held until October 2015.

London Guantánamo Campaign Candlelit Vigil

Guantanamo – America’s Shameful Prison

Amnesty International protesters close to the US Embassy

January 11th was for quite a few years a busy day for protests; it marked the anniversary of the setting up by the United States of a military prison as a torture camp at the disputed US Guantanamo Bay naval camp on the island of Cuba.

Prisoners’ had taken turns in the cage overnight

Set up in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack as a part of George W Bush’s ‘War on Terror’, the camp and the activities which took place there destroyed any final vestige of higher moral ground America could lay claim to in its role of world policeman, something that its various largely clandestine involvements in various South American American coups and activities in the Middle East and elsewhere had already largely laid waste.

Guantanamo is still there, still open, though the great majority of the 779 men brought there have been released. Most were totally innocent, victims of a US policy of offering $5,000 rewards for the capture of ‘terrorists’ to Pakistani and Afghan groups, who took the money for turning in anyone they felt would get them the money.

In October 2021, there were still 39 men held at Guantanamo, including ten who had long been cleared for release. Very few of those held over the years have faced trails trials and very few were involved in any acts of terrorism. Bush and Obama acted slowly but together released well over 700 of the prisoners, but Trump only released one, effectively stopping the process.

Protests continue in the UK, but on a much smaller scale, particularly since the last British resident, Shaker Aamer was released without charge or trial after 13 years of imprisonment and torture in 2015.

In 2008 Amnesty International organised a large protest in Grosvenor Square, a few yards from the US Embassy, though the street in front of the embassy had been closed to prevent protests there. They brought with them two cages, similar to those in which the prisoners were imprisoned outdoors at Guantanamo, with a large group of people wearing the orange jumpsuits which they are made to wear there. Protesters dressed as guards in military style uniforms harassed the ‘prisoners’ interrogating them and threatening them with violence and with aggressive-looking dogs.

From Grosvenor Square I went up to the Regents Park Mosque, where activists from Cageprisoners and the London Guantánamo Campaign, some also in those orange jumpsuits and one manacled hand and foot. There they were handing out leaflets to those attending Friday Prayers.

Later I went with them to Paddington Green Police station, where terrorist suspects are detained and questioned in this country. They were going on to continue to protest in Parliament Square, but I returned first to the US Embassy, where the London Catholic Worker Community was holding a two hour vigil closed to the corner of the Embassy, holding placards and lighting candles for those still held and several who had died there. Several were alleged to have committed suicide, but later evidence emerged strongly suggesting they had died during torture.

The final event of the day was a rally in Parliament Square organised by Cageprisoners and the London Guantánamo Campaign with a number of speakers including Victoria Brittain, former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, laywers including Gareth Peirce, Bruce Kent, Yvonne Ridley and Jean Lambert MEP.

It was dark, cold and wet, but those present were cheered by the announcement at the end of the rally that Scotland Yard were investigating allegations of 14 criminal offences committed by Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith and others which resulted in the deaths of Iraqi citizens during the armed invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Unfortunately and predictably these investigations came to nothing, and though the Chilcot report was damning in parts, Blair not only got off scot-free but this New Year was awarded a knighthood. A few days ago one of several petitions to have his “Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter” rescinded reached over a million signatures. Mine was one of them.

Six years of Guantanamo: Amnesty
London Guantanamo Campaign / Cageprisoners
Guantanamo – London Catholic Worker
Guantanamo – Parliament Square Rally

London, Dec 1st 2012

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’

December 1st 2012 was a Saturday and another busy day for protests over various issues in London. The poor are always with us because employers pay rock-bottom wages, even those who sell high-priced goods on London’s premier shopping streets.

But the protest outside Adidas in Oxford Street was not about the poorly paid staff in their store, but about the workers who make their sportswear in Indonesia who make the sportswear they sell and who have not been paid what Adidas owe them for over a year.

The PT Kizone factory in Indonesia had been making sportswear for Adidas, Nike and Dallas Cowboys for many years with many workers being on pitifully low wages, many being paid as little as US $0.60 an hour (37p), hardly enough to keep them alive. But in January 2011 the factory owner fled and the factory closed in April 2011 and the 2,800 workers were left with no jobs.

Under Indonesian law they were entitled to severance pay, a total of around US$2.8 million (about £1.74 million) and the three companies for whom they had made goods for many years were obliged to share the payments. Both Nike and Dallas Cowboys agreed to pay up, but Adidas are refusing to pay the $1.8 million (£1.12 million) they owe, despite a worldwide campaign with a 50,000 signature petition and 5000 posts on their Facebook page demanding they pay.

On December 1st there were protests outside Adidas stores in London and other cities in the UK, with some protesters wearing masks with the face of Justin Bieber, who is the ‘global style icon’ for their NEO label. The protesters point out that Adidas were “happy to pay their $157m to sponsor the Olympics, but won’t pay 1% of that to avoid the destitution of those that made them their profits.”

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’

Free West Papua Independence Day

A short distance away at the Indonesian Embassy in Grosvenor Square another protest was taking place against the Indonesian occupation of West Papua in 1962.

On December 1st 1961, West Papua had been set on the road to independence by the Dutch. The Netherlands had controlled the area since 1898 except during the wartime Japanese occupation. Indonesia had become independent in 1945 and claimed all of the Dutch territories in the area, leading to a long-running dispute between the two countries, and just over two weeks later began moving troops into West Papua, and were in the whole area by the end of the following year. But it was due to the United States fear of Soviet influence in Indonesia that the Dutch finally temporarily transferred the control of the region to Indonesian government as a part of the New York Agreement, which called for a later UN referendum on the future of the country.

This referendum took place in 1969, and although called the Act of Free Choice, involved voting by 1025 men and women selected by the Indonesian military who unsurprisingly voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control. Since then the Free Papua movement has worked to gain independence both by peaceful protest and international pressure but also by guerilla warfare.
Free West Papua Independence Day

Morsi’s Dicatatorial Decree

The Egyptian Embassy is short distance to the south in Mayfair, and in front of it there were over 50 protesters shouting noisily condemning the decree by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and calling him a dictator. A few yards down the street, separated by police was a protest by 5 of supporters of his action.

This was one of widespread protests in Egypt and around the world which led to the president announcing the decree would be scrapped a week later. But he proceeded with bringing in a new constitution which was described by many as an ‘Islamist Coup’ and was approved by a referendum later in the month.


Morsi’s Dicatatorial Decree

Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking

The day’s largest event also started in Mayfair, outside the US Embassy, still in Grosvenor Square. It was the Global Day of Action on Climate Change, and the protest focused attention on the dangers of using shale oil and tar sands for energy, both of which would lead to excessive global warming and make reaching the targets set for carbon emissions impossible.

The US embassy was chosen for the starting rally as the dirty energy lobby in the USA, led by companies including the Koch Brothers, has succeeded in making the US the main barrier to effective climate action over the years.

After the rally they began to lay a mock pipeline from the US Embassy to the Canadian Canadian High Commission at the opposite end of Grosvenor Square to show their outrage at the continued exploitation of high-carbon tar sands. They had brought an impressive number of long pipes for the purpose, but they were not allowed to lay them in the direct route across the square, so didn’t quite make it going around the outside.

The thousand or so marchers then set off towards Parliament Square while I went to cover some of the events elsewhere before meeting them again in Parliament Square just before they erected a mock fracking rig with the message ‘No Fracking in the UK’. After this the rally there continued with speeches from Eve Macnamara from REAF (Ribble Estuary against Fracking), John McDonnell MP (Labour, Hayes and Harlington) and Natalie Bennett (leader, Green party).

Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking

Eight Years Ago… 27 July 2013

Eight years ago on Saturday 27th July 2013 my working day began with the Rev Billy on a small green space on Victoria Street preparing the Stop Shopping Choir and volunteers for a “radicalized midsummer cloud forest dream” performance against the support given to fossil fuels and climate chaos by the banks and the City of London.

I’m not sure what staff and customers at the HSBC close to Victoria station made of the event, which pointed out that in the two previous years the top five UK banks raised £170 billion for fossil fuel companies, with HSBC in the lead. The Golden Toad costumes were for the Central American species forced into extinction by climate change in the 1980’s and recent weather events have now forced even the more sceptic to take the crisis seriously, even if so far to take little actual action.

After the performance in the bank, and as police began to arrive the group made their way to a wide area of pavement outside and staged another performance watched by pedestrians in the busy street close to the station, before leaving to celebrate in a nearby café.

I left to go to Trafalgar Square where as a part of an international day of action the Bradley Manning Support Network held a vigil at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The ‘gay whistleblower’, now Chelsea Manning, was being celebrated in countries across the world for passing documents to WikiLeaks which exposed a great deal of illegal and immoral actions by the US and other governments and had recently been awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize and was then on trail in Fort Meade. She was later sentenced to 35 years in a maximum security jail, but this was commuted to around seven years by President Obama and she was released in 2017.

From there I made my way to the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, for a rally before the start of march organised by BARAC against Global Racism and Injustice in solidarity with families of Trayvon Martin, Stephen Lawrence, Azelle Rodney, Jimmy Mubenga and many others, aimed a highlighting the reality of racism and demanding justice, both in the UK and US.

Although the march had been prompted by the acquittal in Florida of the murderer of Trayvon Martin which had led to a global outcry, the emphasis of the speeches at the Embassy was very much on events here in the UK. In his speech Lee Jasper of BARAC after mentioning the Martin case went on to say:

“We march to support the call from the Lawrence family for a full and independent judicial led public inquiry into the allegations that the Metropolitan Police sought to smear both the family and supporters through a covert police surveillance unit.”

“We march for Jimmy Mubenga, Mark Duggan, Kingsley Burrell, Smiley Culture and Azelle Rodney. We march for justice and equality in the 50th anniversary year of Dr Martin Luther King’s 1968 March on Washington. The truth is that his dream is a threadbare vision here in the UK where racism is on the rise amplified by austerity.”

My London Diary

After an hour or so of speeches the marchers left to march to a further rally at Downing St, but I left them as they went down Oxford St.

Against Global Racism and Injustice
Free Bradley Manning Vigil
Rev Billy at HSBC

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

November 2014 (2)

The Wednesday of the final week of November in 2014 was an easier day for me as I was able to spend most of it at home and catching up on various things including a little shopping and visiting the library to borrow new books to occupy me on my train rides to London. I only had to leave home around 5pm to arrive in Aldgate for the Class War Xmas Ceasefire Special outside the tower with separate entrances for its wealthy and its social housing tenants.

After 19 weekly protests outside the ‘rich door’ the tower owners had finally agreed to talk with Class War and try to reach a solution to the problem, and in response Class War had agreed to call off further protests unless the talks failed. So this was more of a celebration than a protest, although the talks, when they took place didn’t really reach a satisfactory conclusion.

But there were some concessions and the protests did lead to some real improvements including new paving and lighting and better cleaning for the side alley which lead to the ‘poor door’, and perhaps more importantly they raised the whole issue of segregated entrances very much into the national agenda.

I was sorry to have to rush away from the celebrations, which I suspect continued afterwards in one of the local pubs.

A tube ride took me across town to the US Embassy, still then in Grosvenor Square, and the Candlelit Vigil for Michael Brown.

In August, police officer Darren Wilson had shot and killed Michael Brown Jr, an 18-year-old black man in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s companion said that Wilson had grabbed Brown through his car window after calling on them to stop as they walked down the street; Brown, who was unarmed, tried to grab the officer’s gun as he threatened him and two shots were fired, one hitting Brown’s hand. Brown and his friend fled and when Wilson fired again, Brown turned around, raised his hands in surrender and shouted ‘Don’t Shoot!’ and Wilson fired six more bullets into his body. Wilson’s account differed greatly and a grand jury having heard decided not to indict him.

Riots followed the shooting, continuing for over a week in Ferguson, and there were protests across America and worldwide against the shooting, using the slogan ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!’ There were further protests in 170 cities after the grand jury verdict was announced, and elsewhere across the world including this candlelit vigil in London called by London Black Revolutionaries and the NUS Black Students Campaign. Among those who spoke at the event were the Chair of London Campaign Against State & Police Violence, Malia Bouattia of NUS Black Students Campaign, Zita Holbourne of BARAC (above), Marcia Rigg, Carole Duggan, the RMT Paddington Branch Secretary, Wail Qaisim of Defend the Right to Protest and some people from London Black Revs.

Whatever actually happened in Ferguson, it is clear that US policing is racist, killing black people disproportionately, and acting – as Wilson did – out of fear due often due to racist stereotyping. Black Lives Matter – but not very much to some US Police forces and officers.

There was little or no street lighting in the area in front of the US Embassy where this protest took place, and for most of these pictures the main light present came from the candles and nightlights that were held by the protesters. A very tightly packed crowd made working in it difficult. When I got to the front of the protest there were some videographers at times using lighting which I took advantage of, but it seldom produces an attractive effect.

It was unfortunate the the Socialist Workers Party had decided to hold their own separate protest before this, probably because the organising groups had declined to let them take it over, but at least they did allow this vigil to use the public address equipment they had brought for their event. And many of those taking part are holding the placards that they provided in very large numbers.

When covering events at night I usually carry a small LED light which can illuminate people or objects a up to a few metres from the camera, usually holding it high and away from my body in my left hand while holding the camera to my eye with my right hand to give better lighting than using it in the hot shoe. If I have to, I’ll use my Nikon SB800 flash in the hot shoe, still using high ISOs to try and avoid a black background, usually with the camera on manual or shutter priority with speeds around 1/30s.

More on both events:
Candlelit Vigil for Michael Brown
Class War Xmas Ceasefire Special

Back to Mayfair 1987

Culross St/Park Lane area, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7a-12-positive_2400

Logically you might expect Wood’s House to be in Wood’s Mews, and it may well have been, but if so is no longer there. The frame before I took two pictures of this rather pleasant 1930s building was a view of the side in Wood’s Mews of a house in Park Lane, and the frame after is of another house further south on Park Lane on the corner of Culross St.

I suspect a building with only two stories became yielded a huge profit to developers in being built as an ugly but considerably taller block, but it would be nice to be proven wrong and to find this still tucked away in a corner.

129 Park Lane, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7a-36-positive_2400

I think this rather splendid marble (I think) steps are still there on Park Lane behind the high wall that now keeps them out of view of the hoi polloi who often crowd the area around the bus stops close to this corner with Green St.

Perhaps walls like that which now hides these steps and the view from the pavement of the houses behind are a result of the increase in inequality in our society and reflect an increasing unease among the elites. Though there have been few signs of the London mob in recent years. More likely the owners got fed up with finding people sitting on them waiting for buses.

Eagle Squadron, memorial, Grosvenor Square, Wesminster, 1987 87-7a-41-positive_2400

Before the US joined in the Second World War at the end of 1941, 244 US citizens volunteered to join the RAF and served in the RAF, flying Spitfires and Hurricanes in three three Royal Air Force Eagle Squadrons, despite US laws which meant losing their citizenship for fighting for a foreign power The squadrons were transferred to the USAF in 1942 and the pilots were pardoned in 1944.

The bronze eagle on the top of the column is by Elizabeth Frink, and the memorial was financed by US newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst. It was unveiled here by Margaret Thatcher in 1986.

US Embassy, Upper Grosvenor St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7a-43-positive_2400

Grosvenor Square was chosen as the site for the Eagle Squadron memorial because of the US Embassy which occupied the entire west end of the square. It was then a fine example of modern architecture and lacked the high fences, ugly lodges and patrolling armed police that made it a rather grim feature in more recent years. I think the long queue is of people queuing to enter the embassy to get US visas.

Car, Gilbert St, St Anselm's Place, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7a-64-positive_2400

I have to admit to knowing nothing about cars. But this one parked in Gilbert Street was obviously a little out of the ordinary and I imagine very expensive. It looked to me like something out of a black and white film noir, and perhaps the setting would have served too. I’m sure there will be people who see this picture and can immediately recognise the make, model and date – and if so I hope they let me know in a comment.

To me it looks American, and the style seems to belong to the late 1930s, though it could be a modern replica, possibly one made for use in a film. It has an engine that doesn’t quite fit in the bonnet, perhaps 8 cylinders. The number plate NGF786Y no longer appears to exist. This is also a picture I seem to have missed retouching and there are more than usual number of scratches and dust spots.

Davies St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7a-65-positive_2400

It isn’t hard to identify this building as the Grosvenor Works of John Bolding and Sons in Davies Street, as their name is proudly displayed on a plaque at bottom left and on the building at top right, with the initials JBS featuring twice in the centre of the picture. The company was founded by Thomas Bolding in 1822 in South Molton St and they were at first brass founders.

By the 1870s they had moved into the business they became famous for as providers of high-class sanitary equipment. They moved to this site in the late 1880s and these premises were built as a showroom for their goods, with a foundry elsewhere in London. The architects were Wimperis and Arber; John Thomas Wimperis had been appointed as one of the Grosvenor Estates approved architects in 1887 and his assistant William Henry Arber became a partner in 1889.

In 1963 Boldings bought up the business of their rather better-known rival Thomas Crapper. But a few years later in 1969 Boldings was wound up, while Thomas Crapper & Company Limited, founded in 1836, continues in business based in Huddersfield, offering ” a small yet extraordinarily authentic set of Victorian/Edwardian sanitaryware.”

The River Tyburn runs through the basement of the building which is now occupied by Grays Antiques, established in 1977. The river is a tourist attraction with large goldfish swimming in it.

Park Lane, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-7b-66-positive_2400

93 Park Lane, a small part of which is visible at extreme right was a speculative rebuild of 1823-25 by builder Samuel Baxter and is Grade I listed primarily because it “was Benjamin Disraeli’s London residence from 1839 to 1872; Coningsby, much of Sybil and other novels by Disraeli were written here”, whereas the others are all Grade II. 94 to its left was also rebuilt by Baxter at the same date. Next left, 95 was rebuilt in 1842-4 by John Harrison in plain brick with stucco only on the ground floor; the rounded 96 was rebuilt in 1826 as was its more angular neighbour 97. Almost entirely out of sight at left, 98 from 1823-5 was from 1888-94 the residence of Frank Harris, “author and adventurer”, and the final house in the terrace, not in my picture, was also built then by Jon Goldicutt and was the home from 1826-85 of philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore.

Many other photographers have photographed these houses, including Bill Brandt, who made his picture on a Spring afternoon in 1932 from behind railings across the south-bound carriageway, with a London bus in traffic behind a rather grander horse-drawn carriage driven by two top-hatted men. On page 27 of ‘Camera In London’ it appears with the simple title ‘Mayfair’. The Tate website lists it as “Regency Houses, Park Lane, Mayfair – c.1930–9, later print” and apologises “SORRY, COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS PREVENT US FROM SHOWING THIS OBJECT HERE”, but you can view it on Artnet where it is captioned “Park Lane (Mayfair, London) , ca. 1960”. I increasingly think that our current copyright law needs review.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.