Shaker Aamer | >Re-PHOTO

One Billion Rising, Chaplin & MI6

Three sets of photographs I made in London on a wet day nine years ago, Friday 14th February 2014.

One Billion Rising – End Violence Against Women – Trafalgar Square

This was the second worldwide annual ‘One Billion Rising’ with events taking place in 168 countries and women had come to Trafalgar Square to strike, dance and rise in defiance against the injustices suffered by women around the world.

In England and Wales, the Home Office reports that there are an average of 85,000 women raped each year, and 400,000 women sexually assaulted. They report that 1 in 5 women (aged 16 – 59) has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.

I arrived in time to photograph the start of the event, and stayed to watch a little dancing on the stage. The dancers there were under a canopy but I and much of the audience got rather wet watching. I wasn’t sorry that I had to leave shortly for an appointment at Downing Street.

More at One Billion Rising – End Violence Against Women.

Charlie Chaplin Climate Chaos – Downing St

My Downing Street appointment was not with the Prime Minister David Cameron, but with a rather better known figure, Charlie Chaplin, or rather his look-alike mime and activist Charlie X.

Given the weather he had abandoned the black trousers for waterproof yellow ones, but otherwise the was dressed as usual with his whited out face, small moustache, bowler hat, black bow tie and jacket. Sensibly as well as his walking stick he had brought an umbrella and had some hazard tape to keep his bowler in place in the high winds.

He was there to make a one-person silent protest over the failure of governments including our own to take real measures to combat carbon dioxide emissions which are causing global warming and climate chaos. At the time many of us across the country were suffering from flooding, with my own home having been under severe threat for almost a week – and left without mains drainage we were having to walk several minutes to a friends to wash and use a toilet that could still be flushed.

Charlie X was also there to draw attention to the dangers of fracking in the UK and show solidarity with communities who are fighting against it in their area. His mimed protest called on Cameron to act green not just talk green and stop listening to the highly funded lobbying by the dirty fuel companies.

Charlie Chaplin Climate Chaos

‘Justice Demands the Truth’ Vigil – MI6, Vauxhall

I was pleased to be able to dry out slightly and get just a little warmer on the bus to Vauxhall were I joined the Save Shaker Aamer campaign who where protesting opposite the well-known MI6 offices there on the 12th anniversary of the British resident’s illegal rendition to Guantanamo in February 2002.

On My London Diary I give more details of the case of this Muslim charity worker who was kidnapped by bandits and sold to the US army and tortured before being taken for rurther torture at the prison camp.

MI6 officers were present during some of the torture and his return to this country would be embarrassing for them. They were widely thought to have been secretly briefing against his return and telling lies to Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary from 2001-6 and later Secretary of State for Justice which he apparently or perhaps conveniently believed.

Shaker’s release to the UK would also embarrass the US security agencies responsible for his continuing torture at Guantanamo where he stood up for his rights and those of other prisoners. Although the US security agencies including the CIA, State and Defense Departments cleared him to be released six years ago, they wanted to release him to his native Saudi Arabia, knowing that as a former dissident he would quickly disappear there without trace.

Because of the continuing rain, after posing for photographs and a short vigil in front of the MI6 building the protesters moved a little further away for a rally on the pavement under one of the railway arches before going to try and hand in a Valentine card for the head of MI6, Sir John Sawer, which stated:

“MI6, we would love you to … help us bring Shaker Aamer home. Shaker Aamer, unlawfully imprisoned and tortured in Guantanamo for twelve years – he faces no charge or trial- he has been cleared since 2007 to leave Guantanamo. So why is Shaker Aamer still there? Shaker Aamer would love to be at home with his wife and family in the UK. M16, you could help. Tell the truth about torture! MI6 have a heart, don’t block Shaker Aamer’s release to the UK from Guantanamo.”

Security on the gate refused to accept the card, but eventually the protesters simply pushed it through a gap in the gate and left for a final protest opposite the building.

More at ‘Justice Demands the Truth’ Vigil.

Shaker, Screws, London Met & Ash Wednesday

On Wednesday 13th February 2013, ten years ago today, I photographed three protests in Westminster and one on Holloway Road in north London outside London Metropolitan University.

Shaker Aamer – 11 Years in Guantanamo – Parliament Square

Shaker, Screws, London Met & Ash Wednesday

Opposite Parliaments people gathered to mark 11 years since London resident Shaker Aamer was flown to Guantánamo from Afghanistan. He was still being held and tortured there daily despite having been cleared for release by the US over 5 years ago.

Shaker arrived at Guantanamo on 14th February 2002, having been captured by bandits and sold to the US military while working for a charity in Afghanistan. He was still held and routinely tortured in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release five years earlier as there was no case against him. His youngest son had been born the same day in London where his wife and four children were living.

A line of protesters held banners across the whole long frontage of Parliament Square facing the Houses of Parliament, with others around the edges of the square handing out fliers. Many people passing were surprised to find that prisoners were still being held there after Obama’s promise to close the camp down, which he appears to have made little effort to keep.

Continued torture in the camp meant that his health was rapidly failing. Among those at the protest organised by the Save Shaker Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign as Green MP Caroline Lucas who held a banner before dashing back to the Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions. The protesters s were still standing there in the freezing cold when I left an hour and a half after the protest had started.

Shaker Aamer – 11 Years in Guantanamo

Prison Officers Protest Against Cuts – Old Palace Yard

A hundred or so prison officers protested against prison closures, overcrowding and privatisation outside the Houses of Parliament after briefing MPs on the dangers of the prison closure programme.

Prison doesn’t work because our prisons are overcrowded and underfunded. It punishes people but almost entirely fails to reform them, to provide them with skills, support and opportunities for when they leave prison – and too many soon return. Our prisons are a training ground for criminality. Government cuts and handing over prisons to be run for profit simply make things worse.

Prison Officers Protest Against Cuts

Victimisation at London Metropolitan University

London Met is a much maligned university largely because it has prided itself on giving chances to many of the more deprived members of the community. It has often ranked high for its teaching quality and giving students greater personal attention than better regarded universities.

The protest outside its Holloway Road buildings in North London was against the suspension of Max Watson, Unison branch chair and Jawad Botmeh, the elected staff governor on false charges. The university had also threatened to de-recognise Unison.

No reasons were given for the suspension which was said to be over a ‘serious matter of concern’ relating to ‘gross misconduct’, but it was thought to relate to the appointment of Botmeh to the staff of the Working Lives Research Institute five years earlier.

Botmeh, a London-based Palestinian science graduate, was arrested in 1995 in connection with a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy the previous year. There was no direct evidence connecting him to the bombing but he was sentenced to 20 years in what was widely seen as a miscarriage of justice. His convictions were declared when he was appointed as a researcher by London Met after his release. The two men, along with another man suspended later were re-instated the following month.

Victimisation at London Met

Ash Wednesday – Ministry of Defence

Christian peace activists and friends held their annual Ash Wednesday liturgy at the Ministry of Defence in London, calling for repentance and taking symbolic actions including some who risked arrest by marking the buildings with charcoal.

During the service in front of the Ministry people tied purple ribbons on a cross and prayers were said for the victims of ware and the warmongers called on to repent and change their ways.

There was then a march around the war minstry before the group returned to write the word ‘REPENT’ in water and ashes on the pavement outside and the liturgy continued,

ending with a large circle in the adjoining Embankment gardens.

As the service ended, police briefly held a woman who had jumped over a fence and begun to write a cross and the word Repent on the Defence Ministry wall in charcoal. She was stopped with the word half written, and after a few minutes was released.

More on My London Diary at Ash Wednesday – Ministry of Defence

Free British Residents from Guantanamo – 2006

Protest march to US Embassy, Saturday Jan 21st 2006

Seventeen years ago now seems like another age. And my post on this protest on My London Diary looks rather different to those on more recent events in various ways. Not least in that you will need to scroll down the page to find the both the story and the pictures.

2006 was perhaps when ‘My London Diary’ began to seriously post about protests in London, though there are some from previous years since 1999 on-line. Although I’d switched to digital at the end of 2002 I was working for a few years with both digital and film, partly because for a while didn’t have good wide-angle lenses for my Nikon digital camera. But although I’d had a D100 and then a D70, neither was really as good a camera to work with as my film cameras, with rather dim, small viewfinder images.

The D200 which I bought as soon as it came out at the end of 2005 improved that significantly, and by the start of 2006 I had lenses that could cover the range in DX format from 12mm to 125mm (equivalent to 18-187mm) as well as a fisheye. Although the D100 had been usable, this was the first digital camera I owned that felt a good camera to use.

So far I’ve only published two books of my protest pictures, one with the title ‘2006: My London Diary‘ which includes single pictures from many of the protests I covered in that year, and the second, a cheaper magazine with my pictures of the Class War ‘Poor Doors’ protests in 2014-5.

Back in 2006 there were still an number of men with British resident status still held in Guantanamo, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohammed, Shaker Aamer, Jamal Kiyemba, Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamal El Banna, Ahmed Errachidi, Ahmed Ben Bacha and Abdulnour Sameur, most with British wives and families, men who had worked here and paid their taxes to this country.

*Yvonne Ridley, Ashfaq Ahmad and Amani Deghayes*

All were being treated inhumanely, with those on hunger strike – including Omar Deghayes – being force fed in a particularly painful manner using nasal tubes. A previous assault by prison guards using pepper spray had resulted in Omar losing the sight of one eye.

Members of the families of these men took part in the march and they were represented by people dressed in some chained together. The march began close to Methodist Central Hall, where the inaugural meeting of the UN had taken place, and there British ex-Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and others including Bruce Kent and Vanessa Redgrave spoke about the shame the British nation feel at our nation’s collusion in this US war-crime.

The march paused for a protest in front of Downing Street and then moved on down Whitheall, making its way to the USA embassy in Grosvenor Square.

There were more speeches to the large crowd taking part in the protest in front of the US embassy, including by the father of one of the detainees and Labour Pary stalwart Walter Wolfgang.

More pictures on My London Dairy begin here. You can read my text from 2006 some way down the January 2006 page.

Cuba, Guantanamo and Iran

On Saturday 7th January 2012 I photographed three events in London. Two were associated with Cuba, one celebrating the Cuban revolution and the second calling for the closure of US Guantanamo Bay torture camp there. The third was a protest in solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979. Now there will be many more of these human rights abuses as Iran clamps down on the current ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests there.

53 Years Of Cuban Revolution – Angel, Islington

Although Cuba celebrates 26 July 1953 as the ‘Día de la Revolución’ (Day of the Revolution), this was the start of the movement with an unsuccessful armed attack on the Cuban military’s Moncada Barracks which resulted in the leaders being captured and jailed. It was not until 31 December 1958 that the rebels finally ousted Batista and Fidel Castro came to power, leading the country as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008.

53 years and one week later a street rally at the Angel Islington organised for Rock around the Blockade by Fight Racism Fight Imperialism celebrated the Cuban revolution’s building of a socialist country despite the blockade by its powerful neighbour USA, and demanded justice for the Cuban Five.

The Cuban 5 were arrested in 1998 in Miami for spying on groups of Cuban refugees who were planning illegal acts against Cuba. Their treatment in US courts has been criticised as unfair by the UN Commission on Human Rights and by Amnesty International, who also condemned their treatment in jail as “unnecessarily punitive.”

Among many internationally calling for their release were Eight Nobel prize winners from around the world including Nadine Gordimer, Desmond Tutu, Wole Soyinka and Gunter Grass. A panel of US judges had overturned their convictions in 2005, but this was overruled by the full court and the US Supreme Court declined to review their case. One of the Cuban 5 was released in 2011 having served 13 years in prison, but at the time of this rally four remained in jail. The others were later released in December 2014 in a prisoner swap for a US spy captured in Cuba.

The rally stressed the remarkable changes the revolution had made in Cuba which in 1958 was a poor and corruptly governed country, its natural resources exploited by foreign companies, its people largely living in poverty with low educational standards and life expectancy. Now it has probably the best health service in the world, low infant mortality and a life expectancy better than many parts of the UK. Free education is provided for all, and soon most will follow it to graduate level.

Cuba has also been generous in providing free medical training for students from many African and South American countries, and also has sent many doctors and nurses to work in them, making a major contribution to controlling AIDS in Africa. Although there some criticise it for a lack of freedom, it has shown that there is a real alternative to capitalism, and that has provided a healthy and dignified life for its people, improving their condition over more than 50 years. And it has done all this despite US blockade and sanctions and continuing US support for counter-revolutionary groups – including the failed Bay of Pigs military invasion in 1961.

Speakers also condemned the continuing US occupation of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, there since 1903 when the US was given a permanent lease on 45 square miles of Cuba. The lease clearly limits US activities there to those to fit the needs of a coaling and naval station and prohibits the setting up of any commercial or other enterprise in the area. The setting up of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp would appear to be a breach of these terms. The Cuban government claim that the lease was “imposed on Cuba by force” and is “illegal under international law” and have refused to accept US payments for it since 1960.

53 Years Of Cuban Revolution

Shut Guantánamo – End 10 Years of Shame – Trafalgar Square

A rally marking the 10th anniversary of the setting up of the illegal US prison camp at in the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on 11 January 2002 called for its closure and in particular the release of the two remaining prisoners with UK links held there.

Although President Obama came into office pledging to close the camp down and end the discredited military trials there, he has failed to do so, authorising the continued regime of arbitrary detention without charge or trial. 171 prisoners were still detained there at the start of January 2012.

Several hundred came to the protest and listed to speeches by Lib Dem Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, solicitor Louise Christian, Lindsey German of Stop the War, Kate Hudson of CND, journalist Victoria Brittain and others, including student representatives, trade unionists and other activists.

A group of activists wore orange jumpsuits and black hoods as used at Guantanamo, and some were also in chains. They marched in line holding up the prison numbers of the 177 prisoners still in Guantanamo, and their numbers were called and their names read out. Among those taking part and wearing ‘V’ for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks were ‘Anonymous’ protesters who had come from the Occupy London protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian national who had a residence permit and lived in Bournemouth from 1999 to 2001 while claiming asyluk was cleared for release in 2007 and 2009. In 2009 he was sentenced in absentia in Algeria to 20 years for membership of a foreign terrorist group abroad – though no evidence was given at his trial. It appears that the US intervened on his behalf in Algeria and he was finally released and returned to his family in 2014.

Shaker Aamer was similarly cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, but was thought to still be detained as his revelations of torture over his ten years of imprisonment by the US authorities (and on one occasion in the presence of a British intelligence agent) would be embarrassing to the US and UK governments. I was pleased to be able to photograph him at a rally at the US Embassy in London in January 2016 after his release at the end of October 2015.

Shut Guantánamo: End 10 Years of Shame.

London Mourning Mothers of Iran – Trafalgar Square

Also in Trafalgar Square were The London Mourning Mothers of Iran who had been coming there every first Saturday of the month to show solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979.

The Mothers of Laleh Park (formerly known as the Mourning Mothers of Iran), women whose children or husbands were killed or imprisoned after the 2009 Iranian election, come regularly to Laleh Park in central Tehran and other locations on Saturdays and stand together to bring attention to these injustices.

Iranian security agents often come and attack the mothers. On January 9, 2010 over 30 of them were attacked and arrested and held in jail for several days, and leading members have received long prison sentences. The call for the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the death sentence and the trial of those who have ordered the killings of the last 30 years.

London Mourning Mothers of Iran.

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.

Sex Workers, Gurkhas, Cannabis & Shaker

Wednesday 9th October 2013 was another day of varied protests in London.

Police & Developers Evict Soho Working Girls – Greek St, Soho

Although the immediate cause of this protest was the eviction of sex workers from flats in Romilly Street where they were operating within our laws restricting prostitution, the evictions were not at base about the activities of the women concerned but a result of property developers seeing enormous profits to be made by emptying properties in the area and redeveloping them.

Soho is particularly at risk from hugely profitable development as hotels and luxury flats because of its reputation and unique ambiance, which has largely derived in the past from its association with such risqué activities as strip clubs and models offering personal services as well as its restaurants and shops offering foreign delicacies unknown in the UK outside its boundaries.

Of course times have changed, and much of Soho is now Chinatown, but still its old reputation and some of those old activities remain, though many are fast disappearing. And while the tourists flock in, much of what attracts them is no longer there.

Sex remains a powerful attraction, and it was noticeable that there was far more media attention to this protest than most. Most of the masked women taking part in the protest were supporters of the ‘working girls’ from groups including the organisers of the event, Women Against Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) who I knew from other protests.

The police who issued notices to the property owners alleging that the properties were brothels are widely seen as working on behalf of the prospective developers, and owners Soho Estates whose managing director came out to speak at the event also have a financial interest. They could have stood up to the police intimidation and investigated the situation so they could assure the police that the activities in the flats were within the law, but failed to do so.

A speaker from the Soho Society told the protest that the activities of the women were one of the oldest traditions of the area, and were causing no problems with their neighbours and the many other trades of the area. Previous similar evictions have attracted local petitions signed by thousands and the ECP press release stated “Many express fears that gentrification is behind attempts to close these flats and that if sex workers are forced out it will lead the way for other small and unique businesses and bars to be drowned out by major construction, chain stores and corporations.”

More at Police & Developers Evict Soho Working Girls.

Gurkha Veterans Demand Justice – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Elderly Gurkha veterans living in the UK did not benefit from earlier campaigns for fair treatment and most living here are in extreme poverty.

This was one of a number of protests every Wednesday and Thursday opposite the Houses of Parliament inviting the government to hold talks with them and if there was no progress by later in October they said they would begin a programme of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) with hunger strikes, beginning with a “13 days relay hunger strike in the name of the 13 Ghurka VCs which would then be followed by a fast-unto-death” if there was no progress.

Gurkha Veterans Demand Justice

Vigil for Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square

I paid a short visit to the campaigners from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign who earlier in the year been holding a lunchtime protest on the pavement in Parliament Square facing the Houses of Parliament, standing out in their orange jumpsuits and black hoods on every day parliament was in session.

Shaker Aamer, a British resident still then held at Guantánamo was one of the first to be sent there after having been handed over the the US authorities for a cash reward. Although there was no evidence against him he had suffered years of torture in which the UK intelligence services had been implicated. Despite being cleared for release in 2007 and again in 2010 he was still being held, probably because his testimony when released would cause severe embarrassment to both US and UK intelligence agencies.

This protest was the start of a new series of regular weekly vigils seeking to draw attention to the failures of both President Obama and David Cameron, as well as demanding a full Parliamentary debate about Shaker’s case.

Vigil for Shaker Aamer

Cannabis Hypocrisy Protest – Westminster

Campaigners had come to College Green, close to the Houses of Parliament to call for reform of the laws about cannabis, in particular to allow its medical use for MS sufferers. Legal medical cannabis is mainly available here to MS sufferers who can afford to pay its very high price.

Unsurprisingly it was a rather laid back protest, beginning rather late and not really getting started the whole 90 minutes I was there before giving up and going home as they were still waiting for the megaphone or PA system to arrive.

By the time I left there were quite a few people sitting around on the grass smoking. As I commented in a caption, the photographs don’t show what they were smoking, but the smell was unmistakable, and after I while I began to feel just a little unusual. Perhaps the two police officers who strolled over to take a look had no sense of smell or perhaps they simply felt that there was little point in taking any action.

Years ago I had to give lessons against drug use to 16-18 year olds as a part of a ‘personal and social education’ programme, and was aware that many of them had rather more experience in the area than me. But the materials from the Home Office that I relied on made clear that cannabis was considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Addiction to anything is a bad thing, but so too is the criminalisation that results from our current drug laws, which also fuel an illegal and highly profitable drug business. Appropriate reform, which would certainly include easier access for medicinal use, is long overdue.

Cannabis Hypocrisy Protest

Gitmo, London Uni, Ethiopia, Israel & Ukraine Miners

Gitmo, London Uni, Ethiopia, Israel & Ukraine Miners – Protests in London on Friday 23rd May 2014 included those against the continuing illegal detentions in Guantánamo, redundancies for support workers at London University, killing and human rights abuses in Ethiopia and those supporting hunger strikes in Israeli jails and strikes by miners in Ukraine.

Obama keep your promises – Trafalgar Square

A year after President Obama again pledged to close Guantánamo, activists in black hoods and orange jumpsuits in London and 40 other cities reminded him of yet another broken promise and called for the urgent release of Londoner Shaker Aamer – prisoner 239. The protest in London was part of an international day of action coordinated by the US organisation Witness Against Torture.

In the year since Obama made the promise only 12 prisoners have been released and 154 remain, subjected to appalling conditions, beatings and daily abuse of their human rights. Former London resident Shaker Aamer’s family in Battersea include a son born a few months after his capture by bandits in Afghanistan. He was one of the first transferred to Guantanamo and has been there over 12 years, despite having been cleared more than once for release.

More at Obama keep your promises.

Defend UoL Garden Halls workers – Senate House, University of London

The IWGB trade union protested at Senate House, the headquarters building of the University of London demanding proper consultation and negotiation over the redundancies of 80 workers at the University of London’s Garden Halls in Bloomsbury.

Those under threat of losing their jobs include porters, cleaners and security guards and include many of those who are active in the continuing struggle for proper sick pay, holidays and pensions in the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign at London University.

Although most of the workers are members of the independent union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain, both the University and its contracted employer Cofely refuse to talk with the IWGB and recognise instead more compliant traditional unions with few if any members among the workers. The IWGB states “many of these workers have been at the University of London for decades” and “the University bears responsibility for the treatment of these workers, regardless of the fact that their roles are contracted to private companies.”

The lunchtime protest was a noisy one with with workers using a megaphone, drums, whistles and shouting to make their demands heard. They intend to come back every Friday until the end of term or until management engages in meaningful talks over the issues.

More at Defend UoL Garden Halls workers.

Oromo and Ogaden against Ethiopian killings – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Oromo and Ogaden National Liberation Front supporters had come to protest opposite Parliament over the Ethiopian government’s killing of Oromo university students peacefully protesting the grabbing of Oromo land and calling for the release of political prisoners.

There are around 30 million Oromo living in Ethopia and adjoining areas of Somalia and they are the Largest ethnic group in the country; their language is Africa’s third most widely spoken. There were a number of democratic kingdoms in the area before they were conquered in the late nineteenth century by Abyssinian emperor Menlik II, aided by the European colonial powers and their modern weapons. Around half the Oromo are said to have been killed in these wars and since then successive regimes have made determined attempts to destroy Oromo identity – its language, culture, customs and traditions.

This oppression continues, now with the help of the US government who since 9/ll have worked with the Ethopian government as part of their worlwide fight against “terrorism”, according tto BBC Newsnight and and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism “using billions of dollars of development aid as a tool for political oppression” with programmes of deliberate starvation of communities, and “of mass detentions, (and) the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial killings.“

More at Oromo and Ogaden against Ethiopian killings.

Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails – G4S HQ, Victoria St

Protesters outside the London HQ of security firm G4S supported the mass hunger strike by Palestinians demanding an end to Israels’s illegal policy of rolling Administrative Detention which can jail them for years without charge or trial in prisons which G4S secures.

The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners had begun a month earlier with 134 detainees taking part. Israel uses administrative detention to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial, using rolling detention orders of 1-6 months which are renewable indefinitely in defiance of international law.

The detention orders are based on “secret evidence” which neither those detained or their lawyers have any right to see, and in the years up to 2014 there had been around 2000 made each year. Those given them include 9 Palestinian MPs. Often when released from one order detainees are immediately re-arrested on another.

Those taking part in hunger strikes included 34 years old Ayman Al-Tabeesh who has spent over 10 years in Israeli prisons. He began his second hunger strike in February 2014 and 70 days later had lost over 25kg; at the time of this protest he had been advised after 85 days that he was at grave risk of a heart attack. His brother had sent a message of support to the protesters for their earlier protest in support of the hunger strikers stating “We need you to tell the international community of Israel’s criminal brutality against our prisoners, the violation of their rights. The occupations illegal never ending administrative detention orders is nothing less than a slow death for Palestinian prisoners.”

More at Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails.

Solidarity with Ukrainian Miners – Holborn

A protest outside the registered offices of London mining company Evraz, owned by Russian Oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, supported miners in the Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine who had ensured peace and unity at Kryviy Rih and were striking to maintain real wages.

Kryviy Rih is a city in south-east Ukraine, at the centre of the largest steel industry in Eastern Europe with a population of around three-quarters of a million people. Protests there in 2014 demanded “Putin, Get Out!” and supported the Ukrainian government against the Russian separatists in Ukraine, with the Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine organising to defend the protests there.

The miners were striking for a doubling of wages to meet the rapid rise in the cost of living which has meant a 30-505 drop in real wages. They were angered after a 20% increase promised the previous month was not paid. The Miner’s union state “We are deeply convinced that the main cause of the destabilised situation in the country is the greed of Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, who pay a beggar’s wage to workers, send all their profits off-shore and don’t pay taxes in Ukraine. In fact the oligarchs are almost completely exempt from taxes on their profits.”

On 11th May 2014 the miners had marched through the streets of Kryvyy Rih to protest at the offices of the mining company EVRAZ and had called for support in London where the company, owned by Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich, along with his business partner Alexander Abramov, is based. The protest in Holborn was one of a number including at the registered office of the company in the City of London, at Chelsea Football Ground and elsewhere. This year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine the British government accused the company of “providing financial services or making available funds, economic resources, goods or technology that could contribute to destabilising Ukraine” and after sanctions were applied to Abramovich the trading of Evraz shares on the London Stock Exchange was suspended.

In April 2022, Russian forces were around 60km from the city, but the ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih steel plant which had closed down all of its four blast furnaces at the start of the Russian invasion restarted production with one furnace in early April, though hampered by the loss of around 94% of their staff to military duties or by evacuation.

More at Solidarity with Ukrainian Miners.

Valentine’s Day 2015 – Reclaim Love and Release Shaker

Valentine’s Day 2015 – Reclaim Love and Release Shaker – two events I photographed on St Valentine’s Day, February 14th 2015.

Venus CuMara Reclaim Love 13 at Eros

I’ve photographed the Valentine street party at Piccadilly Circus most years, though I missed the first one, but it seldom takes place actually on the 14th February, as since the event began in (I think 2003) there have been only two years where that has been a Saturday – 2009 and 2015.

A 2010 article in ‘Resurgence’ described the intentions of the event well:

Valentine’s Day, which has its origins as far back as the Middle Ages, is traditionally a day where people show their affection by sending each other handwritten ‘love notes’. But again, this simple affirmation has been hijacked by corporations to the point where cards, chocolates, jewellery – even weekend breaks – are now expected.
But not everybody wants to participate in this orgy of consumerism. Now in its seventh year, Reclaim Love is a global movement away from celebrating Valentine’s Day with flowers and chocolates towards a day of celebrating Love itself. All around the world people are taking to the streets, parks or organised venues to link hearts and minds to send a warm message of love, unity and joy out into the world
Resurgence magazine

The event was conceived and coordinated by Irish poet Venus CuMara, and spread to a number of cities around the world, where at 3pm UTC also join hands in a large circle and recite together the mantra ‘May all the beings in all the world be happy and at peace’, an English translation of an ancient Sanskrit prayer.

Before and after this there is a great deal of celebration, with drumming, dancing and various free gifts of food and often t-shirts bearing the mantra. I have a couple of these, though have to admit I have seldom worn them, though I did give one away to one of my sons.

It wasn’t possible to hold a public gathering in 2021, but Venus asked for people to meditate at 3.30pm and hosted a livestream. I missed the event in 2020 as I was busy elsewhere, but it was very small, probably because of the abysmal weather.

The last time I photographed Reclaim Love was in 2019, when we were all delighted to see Venus who despite suffering from cancer which is spreading through her body, was in great spirits and able to speak about her message of love. She had missed the previous year’s event as she was in Indonesia being treated for her cancer.

Venus asked people to go to Piccadilly Circus for Reclaim Love on 12 Feb 2022 in a video on the Facebook page, though this was only posted the previous day, and she apologised for not being able to be there in person. I went along to see if anything was happening a little after 3pm and found nothing, waited a few minutes and then left as I had another event to attend. Later I saw a photograph of around five people who were there at 3.33pm, the ‘circle’ time. Perhaps next year there will be more.

Venus CuMara Reclaim L ove 13 at Eros

Valentine Day – 13 years for Shaker Aamer

Earlier in the day I’d walked with protesters from Parliament Square to a rally opposite Downing St calling for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he arrived has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.

He arrived at Guantanamo on the 14th February 2002, and there has been subjected to several hundred incidents of beating and torture, including one notorious occasion in June 2006 where he was taken to a special secret interrogation site; three men who were taken with him for similar treatment that day died from asphyxiation, but he survived similar treatment.

Long cleared for release he continued to be held, probably because his evidence would be embarrassing both for the US and UK authorities. He has a British wife and resident status, and a campaign led to the UK government eventually making requests for him to be freed after he was cleared for release in 2007 and again in 2009. Despite this they UK had also spent over a quarter of a million pounds in legal fees to prevent his legal team gaining access to evidence to prove his innocence.

He was eventually released at the end of October 2015.

Valentine Day – 13 years for Shaker Aamer

Free Education – No Barriers, Borders or Business

Free Education – No Barriers, Borders or Business was the call by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) on their march through London on Wednesday 4th November 2015 against the abolition of maintenance grants and demanding free education without fees and huge student debts and an end to turning higher education into a market system impoverishing staff and students.

The march began in Malet St outside what had been the University of London Union, founded in 1921 as the University of London Union Society and was run by students for students. In 2013 the University of London decided to close ULU, taking over the building and running it as ‘Student Central’, now managed by the university, though continuing to offer similar services and resources for the 120,000 students, including bars, restaurants, shops, banks, a swimming pool and a live music venue – though some of these were on a reduced scale. But in 2021 it was announced that Student Central was to close and the building would become a teaching space for neighbouring Birkbeck College.

There were some speeches in Malet St before the march began, with speeches from several student representatives from various universities around the country, teaching staff and some fighting words from Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP. Green Party leader Natalie Bennett also marched with the students.

Antonia Bright of Movement for Justice spoke about the UK’s racist immigration policies and invited students to protest at Yarls Wood on the following Saturday.

Among the marchers was a ‘black bloc’ carrying red and black anarchist flags and including Class War carrying their ‘WE HAVE FOUND NEW HOMES FOR THE RICH’ banner, along with a ‘book bloc’ carrying large polystyrene padded posters with the names of left wing and anarchist classic books on them or slogans such as ‘Rise, Riot, Revolt.’

The march went through Russell Square Square and down to High Holborn where it turned west and then took Shaftesbury Ave and the Charing Cross Rd to Trafalgar Square.

From there it went down Whitehall to Parliament Square where I left it briefly to photograph campaigners from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign who had mounted a weekly vigil for his release from Guantanamo and were holding a ‘Welcome Home Shaker’ celebration.

I caught up with the marchers again at the Home Office, where there was a great deal of noise, confusion and coloured smoke before the marchers turned around and walked back towards Victoria St.

They gathered outside the Dept of Business, Innovation & Skills, where a black clad block charged the mass of police protecting the building, but were forcefully repelled. More police arrived and started pushing everyone away, including peaceful protesters and photographers. I was sent flying but fortunately into some of the protesters rather than to the pavement.

Eventually the pushing stopped and the police set up lines across the street which prevented the more peaceful protesters leaving the area. I tried to leave, showing my press card. After some minutes of being refused I found an officer who let me through and I walked along the street to rest and wait to see how the situation would develop. Eventually the students managed to break through the police line and run along to join the others already there, and they moved off. I decided I’d had enough and made my way to Victoria station to catch a train.

More pictures:

Students at Home Office and BIS
‘Welcome Home Shaker’ celebration
Free Education – No Barriers, Borders or Business

London 22nd October 2014

ILF

The Independent Living Fund enabled many disabled people to continue to live with dignity and to work making a positive contribution to society and the government decision to close it led to many protests and to legal actions to try and stop it under the Equality Act.

Although a court ruled that the minister concerned had acted illegally, all it required was that the new minister reconsidered the plans. He did so, and decided to go ahead, though with a three month delay. And a judge ruled in December 2014 that although in axing the ILF he knew that the closure would mean many disabled people would lose their ability to live independently in the community his decision was legal.

The decision to end ILF was clearly wrong, clearly immoral, but so long as the legal niceties were observed the government was able to go ahead with it, and our law gave no protection.

The vigil outside the court while the case was being heard attracted wide support, including from Inclusion London, Norfolk and Suffolk DPAC local DPACs, the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Transport for All, Winvisable, PCS Union, the TUC, and other organisations,and there was even a simultaneous vigil in Toronto, Canada. Three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, came to give their support, and there were speeches by campaigners including Paula Peters and Andy Greene, with John Kelly singing.

As expected the vigil ended with a short direct action by DPAC and others, briefly blocking the Strand outside the law courts.

Free Shaker Aamer

This was one of a long series of regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, an innocent charity worker arrested by bandits and handed over to US forces who have imprisoned and tortured him for over 12 years. He was cleared for release in 2007 but remained in Guantanamo with our government failing to press for his release because his testimony could embarrass MI6 as well as the US.

London Panoramas

I had time before another protest to visit an exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands and on the journey to pause and make some panoramic images.

Probably the most interesting were inside Westminster station, where “the beams and buttresses, designed by Hopkins Architects and completed in 1999 for the opening of the Jubilee Line are also the foundations of the block of parliamentary offices above the station, Portcullis House, and were deliberately Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.”

Democracy Camp – Poet Arrested

I returned to Parliament Square where the Democracy Camp was still holding workshops, though police and the GLA ‘heritage wardens’ had fenced off the main grass area.

Danny, one of the protesters had been sitting on the plinth next to the statue of Churchill since the previous afternoon and poet Martin Powell arrived with a pot of food for him, which he tossed up to him, going straight into his hands, despite police warning him he could be arrested.

“How can feeding the hungry be a crime?” he asked and he was arrested and led away in handcuffs around two sides of Parliament Squareperforming his poem ‘The Missing Peace’. I left while Danny was still on the plinth, though later that evening police finally found a ladder and brought him down after over 26 hours.

Musical Poor Doors

It was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair, with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.

There were a lot of police present and some stood in front of the door and ushered a few people in and out but made no attempt to stop the hour long protest, which though noisy remained entirely peaceful. Some of the police clearly enjoyed the music and watching the dancing.

More at:
Musical Poor Doors
Democracy Camp – Poet Arrested
Canary Wharf & Westminster Tube
End UK shame over Shaker Aamer
DPAC High Court Vigil for ILF