Santacon Comes to Town: On Saturday 15th December 2015 hundreds of santas, some elves, the odd reindeer and a few others converged on Trafalgar Square at the end of the annual Santacon event.
Santas celebrate on the plinth of Nelson’s Column
Santacon described itself as “a non-profit, non-political, non-religious and non-sensical Christmas parade“, though that makes it sound rather more organised than it is, with hundreds roaming the streets with their friends, largely sticking to routes from various starting points published shortly before the event and indulging in a considerable amount of festive drinking.
“Most of those taking part were young, in their teens or twenties, but there were a few older participants, although most of the beards on show were profuse, white and fake, as well as some younger children and at least one baby elf.”
Police don’t like it, I think mainly because it interferes with the great god of traffic as santas often spill across roads though they probably call it “inconvenience to the public”. But the great majority of the public seem to be amused and welcome the spectacle. And some even join in the festivities.
One particularly controversial aspect has been the friendly rivalry between elves and santas which erupts into battles between the two groups pelting each other with Brussels sprouts. It’s something firmly deprecated by both Santacon organisers and police, but elves will be elves.
A Santa uses his guitar as a bat to hit Brussels sprouts back
It would be unusual for a Brussels sprout to inflict any real damage – I was hit be several while taking these pictures, but it does seem rather a waste of my favourite Christmas vegetable.
Some had a rather minimal Santa outfit
Santacon in London seemed to reach a peak around 2010, though I think I last photographed it in 2018. The date for 2025, announced only at the last minute, was December 6th, but I didn’t go.
The conclusion to my 2012 post included a snippet of history: “The first mass event with people in Santa costumes began with a street theatre group in Copenhagen in 1974, but the event took off in the USA in the 1990s and has spread to cities across the world. Some of those taking part see it as a protest against the commercialisation of Christmas, but for most it’s simply a fun day out in the city drinking on the street with friends.”
Second Day of Student Fees Protests: London Tuesday 30th November 2010 – A student holds a lighter to set fire to a placard
Six days earlier a march against the Browne Review of Higher Education Funding, which had advocated an increase in tuition fees, allowing them to rise to £9000 a year, as well as the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMA) for 16-18 year old and other changes including closing many arts and humanities courses had led to an angry confrontation between students and police when police decided to halt and kettle the march in Whitehall.
I had been there and reported at some length on the events, including the smashing of a worn-out police van which seemed to have been deliberately left by the police “as a plaything for the protesters” and charges in which some “police made pretty liberal use of their batons and a couple clearly went a little berserk“, and protesters were in danger of being crushed, screaming that they couldn’t breathe.
It hadn’t been like those protests I had taken part in during the late 60’s and most of those taking part “were probably well-behaved students on their first demonstration” who when more militant students breached the police lines “just stood around wondering what to do rather than following them.”
I concluded:
“It had been a pretty confused situation, and it seemed to me that neither police nor students came out of it with much credit. The police tactics seemed designed to create public disorder by kettling and a small minority of the students rose to the bait. Although most of the students were out for a peaceful march and rally and to exercise their democratic right to protest, the police seemed to have little interest in upholding that right.”
Protesters run down Whitehall – but turn around when get close to a police line
The following Tuesday around 5000 students came back to Trafalgar Square for what was meant to be a peaceful march at 1pm along the same route down Whitehall to a rally in Parliament Square – which had been agreed in advance with police. I think both sides wanted to avoid a replay of the previous week.
They go back and through Admiralty Arch – with not a policeman in sight
But shortly after noon, more radical students, including a group of younger students who would lose the EMA took to the plinth under Nelson’s column and called for the crowd to go down Whitehall and demonstrate at Downing Street; several hundreds followed them.
When they see the police in Parliament Square they turn around again
There were only a few police at the top of Whitehall and clearly they stood no change of stopping them, but their attempts to do so heightened the tension and when police formed a tighter line further down Whitehall the protesters began shouting that they were being kettled.
They turned around and went under Admiralty Arch and on to the Mall before continuing down Horse Guards Road. Police followed them, walking beside them as they crossed into Storey’s Gate, then turned into Parliament Square.
Near Hyde Park Corner
By now this group of protesters – perhaps by then a thousand or two were obsessed with the idea that they were being kettled – and certainly there were a large number of police in Parliament Square, particularly behind barriers set up in front of Parliament and at some of the exits from the square.
A police medic attacks a protester in one of the only violent incidents I witnessed
The protesters turned around and walked and ran, beginning a “long rather rapid walk around London“, rather painful for me as I was still suffering from a foot injury, “taking in Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and Oxford Street and turning down Kingsway at Holborn and then walking into the City of London along Fleet St” with a couple of hundred police walking along the side of the march.
The march passes the Stock Exchange
Most of the Met police stopped at the City of London boundary as the march continued “past St Pauls, the Stock Exchange, on up some of the narrow winding streets around St Bartholomews Hospital (it rather looked as if they were trying to kettle themselves there) to Smithfield Market before going back along Holborn Viaduct where I eventually left them to catch a bus and make my way back to see what was happening in Trafalgar Square.” The City of London Police had seemed to ignore the march and there was little or no trouble on their patch.
In Trafalgar Square there were still some of the original demonstrators but things were pretty quiet. There were police at the exits but people could walk past in both directions; “the protest was being isolated and watched rather than being kettled.”
Some of those I had been marching around London with made their way back into the square and there were a few short speeches before one of the official organisers announced that the demonstration was over and police would be happy for people to leave in small groups towards Charing Cross Station.
But most people decided to stay on and there were a few scuffles with police, with other students “linking arms in front of the police to protect them and stop any violence.”
It was snowing and beginning to get dark and it seemed to me that little further was happening so I walked out of the square and went home. It had been a confusing and tiring day for me. Later I heard that small group who had remained in Trafalgar Square had been kettled and some had been arrested.
Stop The War March: Although I’ve usually posted events from the past on the actual anniversary, this post comes a day late as by the time I remembered this I had already written a post for yesterday. So although I’m publishing this on 19th November, the march organised by Stop The War took place on November 18th 2001. It was a large one, although as I wrote the reports by police severely under-counted the numbers taking part.
The Stop the War Coalition had been founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11 after George W. Bush had announced the “war on terror”. At first its protests were mainly directed against the war in Afghanistan, but later it opposed the the US-led military invasion of Iraq and since then has campaigned against other wars against Libya, in Syria and elsewhere.
In recent years it has been one of the groups involved in the many protests, small and large against the genocide taking place in Gaza along with CND and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
I had covered their first major march by Stop the War in October 2001 and have continue to photograph many of their events to the present day, though for medical reasons had to miss the largest public demonstration in British history on 15th February 2003 shortly before the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.
Back in 2003 the coalition was a huge one. Wikipedia states “Greenpeace, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) were among the 450 organisations which had affiliated to the coalition, and the coalition’s website listed 321 peace groups.”
The Socialist Workers Party has always played a leading role in Stop the War and the Muslim community has been important from the start with the coalition recognising “a war against Afghanistan would be perceived as an attack on Islam and that Muslims, or those perceived as being Muslim, would face racist attacks in the United Kingdom if the government joined the war.” The Muslim Association of Britain was closely involve in organising this and other protests.
In 2001 I was still photographing using film, both black and white and colour, and all of the pictures I contributed to picture libraries were in black and white, as are those on My London Diary. Back then the demand from newspapers and magazines was still mainly for black and white and was still reproduced largely from prints.
Occasionally I would print images taken on colour negative as black and white prints to submit but mainly I had sufficient pictures taken as black and white. There are some people who now convert their colour digital images into black and white, feeling I think that it somehow makes them more ‘authentic’. It does occasionally make images stronger but mostly it simply makes them less descriptive and often confused.
Below is the post I wrote for My London Diary. It says nothing about why the protest was taking place, which would have been obvious to viewers at the time that it was against the war in Afghanistan.
“November 18 we were back again marching to stop the war. Two hours after the march started there were still marchers leaving Hyde Park, and we were getting messages that Trafalgar Square was full. The police estimate of 20,000 was pathetically low and even the organisers’ figure of 50,000 might have been on the low side. It’s always difficult to count such things (I usually give up counting around the one thousand mark when I’m covering demonstrations and make a guess above that, but this was certainly on a similar scale to the countryside march which is the largest event in recent years.
The march was more split up into factions than most, although the start was fairly mixed. There were large organised male and female sections of Muslims for Justice in the middle of the march and a big group of younger marchers, including anarchists, towards the end. Actually I didn’t manage to see the end of the march, and people were still arriving in Trafalgar Square when I left.”
Martyrdom of Ali, Save Fallujah: I had a fairly long and busy day on Sunday 7th November 2004, beginning with the annual London celebration of the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Ali, the first Imam of Shi’ite Islam. From Park Lane I walked to Parliament Square where a protest demanded that the troops were withdrawn from Iraq.
This was the day when US and UK troops began the bloody offensive of the Second Battle of Fallujah, codenamed ‘Operation Phantom Fury’, fighting against Iraqis in militia of all stripes including both Sunni and Shia, united in opposition to the US-imposed Shia-dominated government.
Finally I went to Trafalgar Square and took a few pictures of the Diwali celebrations taking place there, although I didn’t post any of these at the time on My London Diary.
In this post I’ll reproduce (with minor corrections) what I wrote in 2004, along with some of the pictures I took. These were made with the first digital DSLR camera I owned, the 6Mp Nikon D100, and most were made with a Nikon 24-85mm lens (36-127mm equivalent), though I had recently got a second lens, a Sigma 12-24mm (18-36 equivalent.) The Sigma wideangle was rather slow and working at f5.6 in low light was difficult as the D100 which did not have the high ISO capabilities of more modern cameras.
Muslims mourn in London
Hyde Park and Park Lane
Talks and prayers before the procession started in Hyde Park
Sunday saw Muslims on the street for a religious event, a Jaloos & Matam on the Martyrdom anniversary of Imam Ali, organised by Hub-e-Ali, making its way from Hyde Park down Park Lane carrying a taboot or ceremonial coffin.
A small boy carries burning incense sticks, while elders shoulder the heavy load of the taboot.
The event started with prayers, addresses and a mourning ceremony.
The weight took a strain as bare-footed bearers carried the heavy black taboot with its red roses slowly along Park Lane
The banners carried included texts from the ‘purified five‘ members of the prophet’s family, but particularly Hasan Bin Ali Bin Abu Talib, the cousin and first believer in the prophet.
There was some impressive chanting and much beating of breasts (matam or seena-zani) by the men, chanting and sticks of incense being burnt. The women followed quietly behind.
The women followed, their black-clad quiet dignity contrasting with the frenzied chest-beating of the men
Withdraw the Troops from Iraq – Save Fallujah From Destruction
Parliament Square and Whitehall
Code Pink activists carry a coffin “How many children will cease to play” in front of the Houses of Parliament.
I met Dave at the procession on Park Lane and walked with him to Parliament Square where a demonstration was to be held demanding the withdrawal of troops from the cities of Iraq. From the news that morning it seemed the Americans were about to storm Fallujah. [They did – see below *]
The large anti-war organisations seemed to be keeping strangely quiet, and there were only a hundred or two demonstrators here.
Among them of course was Brian Haw, now almost two and a half years into his permanent protest in the square, which seems likely to lead MPs to pass a bill specially to make such protests illegal.
I admire him for making such a stand, even if I don’t entirely share his views, and feel it will be a very sorry day for civil liberties in this country if such activities are banned.
There were a few placards and banners, and some people who had come with white flowers as requested.
There were few takers for the ‘open mike’ and nothing much was happening until a group of ‘Code Pink’ supporters intervened theatrically parading a black-dressed cortège around the square. The effect was literally dramatic.
There were a few more speeches, including a moving one by Iraqi exile Haifa Zangana.
It was getting dark (or rather darker, as it had been dull and overcast, with the odd spot of rain all day) as we moved off up Whitehall towards the Cenotaph, where the funeral wreath was laid on the monument.
Police tried (although it is impossible to see why) to restrict the number of those putting flowers on the monument to an arbitrary five, but those who had brought flowers were not to be so easily diverted.
People wait for police to allow them to lay their flowers at the Cenotaph
They ignored police orders and walked across the empty roadway to lay their flowers, and around 50 of the protesters staged a sit-down on the road.
Eventually the police warned them they would be removed forcibly if they did not get up, and then started to do so.
Police drag demonstrator away as peace protestor Brian Haw holds a placard “War Kills the Innocent” in front of Cenotaph and Code Pink wreath, “How Many Will Die in Iraq Today?”.
For the most part the police used minimum force, but there were one or two unnecessarily unpleasant incidents.
The protesters were then corralled for a few minutes on the pavement before being allowed to continue the demonstration in the pen opposite Downing Street.
Nothing much seemed to be happening, so I went home [via the Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square] when police refused to let me photograph from in front of the barriers.
It seemed an arbitrary and unnecessary decision, but this time I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I think they were just upset because I had taken pictures during the violence a few minutes earlier.
*More about Fallujah
The Second Battle of Fallujah lasted about six weeks and probably resulted in around 2,000 fighters dead and many wounded, mostly Iraqis, with just 107 of the coalition forces killed. Another roughly 1,500 Iraqis were captured.
US forces had stopped all men between 15 and 50 from leaving the city, and treated all those left inside as insurgents. Civilian deaths were later estimated at between 4,000 and 6,000. Civilians who were able to fled the city and around 200,000 became displaced across Iraq. Around a sixth of the city’s buildings were destroyed and roughly two thirds suffered significant damage.
The US forces were heavily criticised for their direct use of white phosphorus in the battle against both combatants and civilians. Highly radioactive epleted uranium shell were also used and a survey in 2009 reported “a high level of cancer, birth defects and infant mortality” in the city.”
Naked Bodies, Acid Attacks, Revolution & Kobane: 1st November 2014 was apparently World Vegan Day and PETA celebrated the event, highlighting the 255 animals killed for food in the UK every second by a similar number of people lying near naked or nearly naked and smeared with fake blood on a tarpaulin in Trafalgar Square. A few yards away the 8th March Women’s Organisation (Iran – Afghanistan) protested against acid attacks on women who do not wear a veil in Iran. I walked onto Westminster Bridge to photograph the distant banner with the message ‘REVOLUTION’ held by ‘Anonymous‘ protesters, some in Guy Fawkes masks, on Waterloo Bridge – and later they brought it to Trafalgar Square where I was covering a rally supporting the Kurds defending Kobane, the capital of Rojava in northern Syria.
PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest
Trafalgar Square
In 1994 Louise Wallis, then Chair of the UK Vegan Society which was celebrating its 50th anniversary, declared November 1st to be World Vegan Day and since then it has been adopted by vegans around the world. It comes at the start of World Vegan Month – which is November.
PETA believe “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way“. They state than in the UK 255 animals are killed for food and they held a protest to dramatise this in Trafalgar Square with a similar number of near naked or nearly naked people smeared with fake blood on a tarpaulin.
Most of those taking part in the protest were women and a few held large posters with the message:
‘1 BILLION ANIMALS KILLED FOR FLESH EACH YEAR PETA’
Others held posters ‘CHOOSE LIFE: CHOSE VEGAN’. It was certainly a protest which attracted the interest of tourists and photographers.
I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan and I commented back in 2014:
“Nature isn’t vegetarian, and certainly not vegan, though of course some species are herbivores. But others are carnivorous or omnivores, and I can see no problem in our own species eating meat or fish though I would like to see all of the current cruel practices involved in producing food for us outlawed. Eating foie gras should definitely be made a crime!”
‘Anonymous’ protesters had brought a banner to hold up on Waterloo Bridge, with the message REVOLUTION but it was too small to really make an impact even using the longest lens I own and was rather dwarfed by the City backdrop.
Intended to publicise the Nov 5th ‘March Against Government Corruption’ in London it was rather more effective when they brought it to Trafalgar Square where a protest supporting Kobane was taking place.
During the Syrian Revolution the government forces had abandoned Kobane to the Kurish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in July 2012 and it had became a centre of part of the autonomous Kurdish-led region of Rojava in north Syria.
From September 2014 to January 2015 Kobane was under siege by ISIS who managed to occupy much of the city. With the help of US air support and US forcing Turkey to allow Kurds from Iraqi Kurdistan to come to join the fight, Kobane was finally freed from ISIS in January 2015.
November 1st was also World Kobane Day, and thousands had come to Trafalgar Square on a Global day of solidarity calling for aid for the Kurdish fighters in the YPG (People’s Defence Units), the women of the YPJ and refugees from Kobane.
A woman talks with Mark Thomas and Peter Tatchell
They had also come to support Rojava, which many see as an important democratic development with its constitution which enshrines equality, pluralism, democratic participation and protection of fundamental human rights and liberties.
Many were critical of Turkey which was supporting ISIS and financing its fighting by allowing it to export its oil through Turkey as well as preventing Turkish Kurds from joining in the fight while allowing fighters across its border to join ISIS.
Turkey has long suppressed the Kurds and had tried to suppress the Kurdish language and culture, and the protesters called of the release of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, kidnapped in Kenya in 1999 and held in a Turkish jail since then. Protesters also called for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK to be removed from the list of proscribed organisations here and elsewhere.
On My London Diary you can read more about the rally and the speakers and there are many more pictures at Global Solidarity With Kobane.
Global Human Rights Torch Relay: Thursday 25th October 2007 I photographed this rally in Trafalgar Square and the torchlit march which followed to a protest at the Chinese Embassy.
The 2008 Summer Olympics was to be held in Beijing, China from 8th to 24th August 2008 and the official Summer Olympics Torch Relay – which had been a feature of the Olympics since the 1936 Berlin games – was announced in April 2007, though it was to take place from March 24 until August 8, 2008. This travelled the world in a very roundabout 129-day route from Athens to Beijing and was met with protests in many cities including San Francisco, London and Paris.
The Coalition to Investigate Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) organised a series of torch relays in cities around the world beginning in April 2007 to raise awareness about human rights violations, particularly in China and countries surrounding area and in particular the persecution of crimes including torture and the harvesting of human organs of Falun Gong practitioners.
The policing of the event and the intervention of Westminster Council officials showed that there was huge political pressure in London against protests against China and against the Olympics as London was preparing for the 2012 Olympics here. We saw it again when the official torch relay came to London in April 2008.
Here I’ll post – with minor corrections – my account of the event from 2007 with a few of the pictures – many more on My London Diary.
Global Human Rights Torch Relay – 2007
Trafalgar Square to Chinese Embassy
Thursday was a miserable day, with persistent drizzle or light rain, and Trafalgar Square was clogged up with some computer games fair, so that there was little space left for the Global Human Rights Torch Relay on the North Terrace. Organised by the ‘Coalition To Investigate The Persecution Of The Falun Gong‘ this also highlighted other human rights abuses in China, as well as some in countries within the Chinese sphere of influence, notably Burma (Myanmar.)
This relay had started in Athens in August, with events in several European countries, and it is going on to Australia and North and South America before ending in Asia next year.
The relay points out that the these human rights abuses are at odds with the ideals of the Olympic Movement and calls for the Beijing Games to be moved to one of the previous Olympic venues unless there are dramatic improvements in human rights in China. Among the speakers were a couple of Lords and several ex-Olympic competitors.
Westminster Council officials arrived after an hour or so and tried to stop the event, which thanks to the gaming festival, was indeed blocking the pavement. They made the protestors form a narrow line against the back wall. Then they and the police ruled out the use of the sound system, declaring it was a hazard in the wet conditions. Speakers had to make use of a battery operated megaphone.
Despite this harassment, the protest continued, with a ‘Greek Goddess’ bringing the flame to light the torches of figures representing England, Scotland , Wales and Ireland, and perhaps a couple of hundred marched through the West End to the Chinese Embassy for a candle-lit protest.
Here photographers met with deliberate antagonism from the police. Officers are standing in a line around 2 metres into the road in front of the protest. The area between the police and the demonstration is completely clear, absolutely safe, and it is where we need to be to take pictures or film the protest. Much to our disgust, we are ordered out when we attempt to get on with our work.
People’s Vote March, Iranians & Veterans: On Saturday 20th October 2018 I photographed a huge march – newspapers said an estimated 670,000 people – marched in London demanding the Theresa May hold a new referendum now that there was new evidence and people were clearer what Brexit would mean – and how they had been criminally misled into voting leave. Of course the BBC report lost a zero in the numbers taking part. During the march I also took time to photograph a protest by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, now exiled in Albania, against the Iranian regime, and Veterans United Against Suicide calling for more help for service men after they return home from wars.
People’s Vote March
Hyde Park Corner to Parliament Square
The 2016 referendum over leaving Europe was won by a relatively small majority – 52% to 48% – following a highly misleading ‘Leave’ campaign – remember that bus – but there was much more, hugely funded by people who would make large personal financial gains.
Nine years on from the vote, the Office for Budget Responsibility judges that “Both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU.” Last year a report by Cambridge Econometrics estimated that by then Brexit had cost the UK £140 billion and that would rised to £311 billion by the mid 2030s.
By 2018 it was already clear that Brexit would be a disaster, and it was a disaster that had been caused by David Cameron’s promise as Prime Minister that the result would be binding. It was seen by many as a crazy promise at the time – and we have been proved right. Britain has often prided itself on not having a written constitution – but if we had one it would almost certainly have saved us – as it would surely have required a more significant majority for any major constitutional change such as this.
It isn’t of course sure that a second referendum would have produced a different result – the same dark forces that swung the first would have gone into overdrive, with an added level of opposition to the ‘people’s decision‘ being disregarded, and with the help of the billionaire media might even have led to a second vote to leave.
From the start at Hyde Park Corner the protest looked huge, with people spreading far up Park Lane and across into Hyde Park.
Sodem had a stall on Park Lane – with Steven Bray
When the march was due to start one group, Movement for Justice was on the road in front of the official banners, along with more than a thousand other protesters and protesting noisily while refusing pleas from the stewards to get behind the main banner.
Although MfJ were protesting about Brexit, they made the point that this was racist and called for an end to the scapegoating of immigrants and an end to the hostile environment which is ripping families apart.
They demanded an amnesty for all people already present in the country and to an extension of freedom of movement in Europe to include the Commonwealth.
Kaya Mar
The march was delayed for some minutes until they had all moved off to march in front of the main march and after a good gap had opened up the main march began.
After photographing thousands of marchers coming out from Park Lane I left them and took the tube to Westminster meet the marchers at Parliament Square.
Thousands had come directly to the rally rather than march and Whitehall and Parliament Square were already fairly full before the main body of the march arrived. I made my way up Whitehall past Downing Street, but the whole area was jammed with people as I got close to Trafalgar Square.
The top of Whitehall was jammed with people and the last 100 yards took me 15 minutes to get to where people were partying in the roads on the edge of Trafalgar Square.
The press of people had brought the march to a halt, with people still packed along much of its route. Later I heard from people who had only got part way along Piccadilly that many marchers had ended there and crowded into Green Park.
On the paved area opposite Downing Street I found the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) protesting against the repressive regime in Iran, with gibbets and three women held in a prison cell illustrating their reign of terror and calling for an end to executions – something in which the Iranian regime leads the world.
The PMOI, exiled from Iran and then to Albania, leads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), based in France which calls for a modern legal system, gender equality and political and social rights in Iran.
The PMOI appears to have little or no support in Iran but receives some support from US agencies and politicians as the preferred future government for the country. Both the USA and Saudi Arabia are said to provide financial support.
As a lengthy article on Wikipedia relates, there are many allegations about human rights abuses against its own members and its fraudulent money laundering and other financial arrangements.
A few yards off from the march route outside the Ministry of Defence, Veterans United Against Suicide were holding a rally calling for more to be done to help service men and veterans in the fight against their developing PTSD and eventually committing suicide.
At least 47 current forces personnel and veterans have committed suicide this year, though the actual figure is thought to be considerably higher.
This was clearly a right wing protest and I did not feel welcome. As I wrote “The lorry being used as a platform also displayed a large banner supporting the soldier discharged for standing with Tommy Robinson in a photo used to publicise his extreme right-wing views. While I was listening a speaker was condemning a major forces charity, accusing it of fraud and failure to act over the mental health problems of serving and former members of the armed forces.“
Freedom to Film & World March for Peace: On Sunday 18th October 2009 I went to Dalston to support a Hackney education charity whose students have been harassed when making films in public places and then joined a small march in the UK which was part of a worldwide humanist movement for peace.
Ridley Road Market: Worldbytes Defends Right to Film
Halal butcher in Ridley Road market, Dalston
Worldwrite is a Hackney-based education charity founded in 1994 which gives young people free film and media training supporting them to produce alternative programmes for broadcast on WORLDbytes, the charity’s online alternative Citizen TV channel Worldbytes.org. You can read more about them on the web site where you can also see a very wide range of their videos, though I couldn’t find anything now on this 2009 event.
In 2009 their teams were “finding it increasingly difficult to film in public places in Hackney: security guards, community wardens and self-appointed ‘jobsworths’ are refusing us ‘permission’ to film on many of our streets.”
As they stated, “There is in fact NO LAW against filming or taking photographs in public places and permission or a licence is NOT required for gathering news for news programmes in public spaces.“
They had called for photographers and film-makers to go along and take pictures in support of their protest and I went to do so at Ridley Road Market in Dalston, where Worldbytes crews had been told they can’t film there, not by the stall holders or other market users, but by employees of Hackney Council.
I went there to support them and the right to photograph in public places, but also because I wanted to photograph the market. I had previously taken a few pictures there but only as I was passing and had not seriously photographed the market.
After talking to the Worldwite protesters I set about walking up and down the market taking photographs of the buildings and people, particularly some of the stallholders. As well as my post on My London Diary, I wrote about the event at greater length here on >Re:PHOTO a few days later. Here’s a short section of text from that article:
“I took some general views without asking anyone for permission, but as usual, where I wanted to take pictures including stallholders or other people I asked if I might. Not because I need to, but out of politeness, and I shrugged my shoulders and moved on if they refused. Of course at times I photograph people who don’t want to be photographed, but this wasn’t appropriate here.”
“As I was using flash most of the time, it was clear that I was taking pictures and some people asked me to photograph them who I might otherwise have walked by. At one place I did stop to argue after having been refused – and eventually managed to get permission to take a picture; at another I got profuse apologies from an employee who was obviously sorry that the stall owner had decided not to cooperate with Worldbytes.“
“The council employees didn’t turn up to stop filming while I was there; probably Sunday is their day off. But it’s very hard to understand why Hackney Council should allow or instruct their employees in this way. They should know the law after all.”
My use of flash – generally as a fairly weak fill-in – was deliberate to make sure that people knew I was taking photographs, though in some cases it helped with the pictures. After I’d spent around twenty minutes obviously taking pictures I was interviewed by the Worldbytes crew, though I rather hoped they would cut that from their video of the day.
The World March For Peace and Nonviolence had begun in New Zealand on the 140th anniversary of Ghandi’s birth, October 2, 2009. It involved events around the world which ended at Punta de Vacas in the Andes Mountains in Argentina on January 2, 2010, where Silo (Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos) the founder of the Humanist Movement launched a new campaign for global nuclear disarmament in September 2006.
Volunteers from a base team of around a hundred went from New Zealand to Japan, Korea, Moscow, Rome, New York, and Costa Rica, attending events organised along the way to Argentina.
In London the march began with a vigil close to the Northwood Permanent Joint Forces / NATO Headquarters in Middlesex on Saturday morning, with speeches by World March UK co-ordinator Jon Swinden, Sonia Azad of Children Against War and organiser Daniel Viesnik, who also read out a message of support from John McDonnell MP.
Only around 50 people walked the whole way, but there were others around the world also marching. On the second day in London they began at Brent Town Hall in Wembley Park and I met them as they arrived at Marble Arch. They stopped for lunch at Speaker’s Corner where they then took part in the interactive play ‘Let The Artists Die’ on themes of peace, non-violence and the power of the imagination. It was written and directed by Charlie Wiseman who was also one of the three main actors.
They walked past the front of the US Embassy to the memorial to the British victims of 9/11 in Grosvenor Square, where it stopped to pay its respects. In Mayfair it was almost halted when a taxi driver deliberately drove into one of the marchers, but they continued to Trafalgar Square.
‘Heritage wardens’ stopped the march as it came down the steps in Trafalgar Square, telling them they could not walk through the square as they had not applied for permission.
After resting for a few minutes on the steps the march went around the side of the square and down Whitehall past “the Old War Office, and then the statues of famous generals outside the “Defence Ministry” (governments were more straightforward with language in the past)” and “the fortified gates of Downing Street and on to Parliament Square, where the march stopped at the permanent peace protest by Brian Haw there since 2 June 200l with the help of his supporters.”
I left the marchers there but they continued on to end at the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park.
Copyright, McExploitation & The Martydom of Ali: On Sunday 15th October 2006 I went to look at paintings in the National Gallery. I didn’t take any pictures and I seldom do of the work in art galleries; photography seldom produces decent images of paintings, and other people have done it better than casual exhibition visitors can for reproduction in books, postcards etc that we can buy. And other people holding up phones or cameras repeatedly in front of pictures can be very annoying.
Photographing art work is a skilled job, but I was pleased by a recent UK court decision that made clear it is not one that meets the requirement of originality needed to establish a new copyright, as the aim is simply a mechanical reproduction.
Artworks themselves do have copyright, but this expires 70 years after the death of the artist. So as Picasso died in 1973, his pictures are still copyright until 2043. Of course copyright law is complicated and is different in different countries and nothing that I write should be taken as legal advice!
After that I photographed a protest at Leicester Square outside McDonald’s against their food and in the afternoon went to an annual Muslim religious procession at Marble Arch and on Park Lane. Finally I called briefly at Trafalgar Square where ‘Diwali in the Square’ was just starting. Here with minor corrections is what I wrote about my day in 2006, with a few of the pictures – there are many more on My London Diary.
21st Global Day of Action against McDonald’s
Protestors outside the Leicester Square branch
Sunday I started off in the National Gallery, looking at the new presentation of their more modern work in ‘Monet to Picasso’. Then it was up to Leicester Square, where I arrived just as the clock was about to do one of its major performances at 12.00. This was also the start time for the demo outside McDonald’s.
While I was there around 15 people held up banners and handed out leaflets, most of them wearing bright red wigs. The leaflets stated that McDonald’s were only interested in making money, and that the food that they claimed was nutritious was “processed junk food – high in fat, sugar and salt, and low in fibre and vitamins.”
The leaflet claimed that animals are cruelly treated to produce meat for us to eat and that the workers in fast food industry are exploited, with low wages and poor conditions – McDonald’s have always opposed workers rights and unions.
As the world’s largest user of beef, McDonald’s are also helping to destroy the planet; each “beef burger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 35km and enough water for 17 showers.” Beef cattle produce large amounts of methane, making a major contribution to global warming, and the company’s largely unnecessary packing involves use of damaging chemicals as well as using up forests and, after use either littering the streets if polluting the land through landfill sites.
For once the police – at least while I was there – behaved impeccably. There were 2 women police there, and they stood and watched; when someone from Macdonald’s came to complain he was informed that people had a right to demonstrate, so long as they did so within the law. A few of the public refused leaflets but most took them. Again a few stopped to argue, rather more stopped to take pictures of the event, and several posed in front of the demo for pictures.
I left the McDonald’s protest after around 45 minutes to have my lunch – sandwiches rather than a Big Mac – and left for Marble Arch where Hub-e -Ali were preparing to celebrate the Matyrdom of Imam Ali which took place in Kufa, Iraq almost 1400 years ago. The Jaloos or procession began with a lengthy session of addresses and mourning. Although I could understand little of what was said, the voices clearly conveyed the extreme emotion of the event, which had many of those present sobbing. There were tears in my eyes, too, partly from the emotion of the event and partly from the incense fumes that were filling the air.
When the Tarboot (ceremonial coffin) appeared, there was soon a scramble to touch it, at first by the men, then later the women were also allowed to come and touch it.
Many of the men then removed their shirts and started Matam, beating their breasts vigorously, many were distinctly red and bruised, and their backs also showed scars.
The procession led off down Park Lane, with the banners and men being followed by the Tarboot, and the women forming the end of the procession.
Having taken a few more photographs, I left for home, stopping off briefly at Trafalgar Square to see the start of the Diwali celebrations there. Diwali In The Square was just starting, but I was tired and continued on my way home.
Forgotten Journalists, Immigration Deaths & Traffic Fumes: On Thursday 21st September I photographed a protest in Islilngton against the deaths and detention of journalists in Eritrea, a protest at the Home Office following the the deaths of men in immigration detention centres and ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ bringing traffic to a halt at rush hour to dance in Trafalgar Square in a short protest about the illegal levels of air pollution.
Sixteen years earlier in September and October 2001 Eritrean dictator Isayas Afewerki closed all independent media and began the arrests of journalists and opposition politicians.
Around a dozen prominent journalists were arrested along with politicians. Since then they have been in isolation without charge, without trial and without contact with the outside world. Nobody knows their whereabouts and only four are now thought to be still alive.
One man with dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, Dawit Isaak, was in 2024 awarded the Swedish Edelstam human rights prize for his exceptional courage. In 2001 he had founded Eritrea’s first independent newspaper Setit which had called for democratic reforms and had criticised the government. His daughter accepted the prize on his behalf. If still alive he is now 60, having been in jail for 23 years.
The imprisoned journalists were represented at the protest by empty chairs, with people sitting on them holding posters showing the names and photograph of those thought to be still living. Others stood with similar posters of those thought dead as well as some with pictures of the missing politicians.
No More Deaths in immigration detention – Home Office
The protest had been called at short notice after the death was announced of a Chinese man held at Dungavel immigration detention centre. Earlier in the month a Polish man took his own life in the Harmondsworth centre after the Home Office refused to release him despite the courts having granted him bail.
Since 1989 there have been 31 people who have died in immigration removal centres. “Britain is the only country in the EU which subjects refugees and asylum seekers to indefinite detention, and the conditions in the detention centres have been criticised in many official reports and media investigations.” It leads some to lose hope.
“Campaigners from ‘Stop Killing Londoners‘ cleared Trafalgar Square of traffic in a short protest against the illegal levels of air pollution in the capital which result in 9,500 premature deaths and much suffering from respiratory disease.“
Trafalgar Square, an iconic meeting place at the heart of London is also a major traffic junction, with five major roads bringing traffic in and taking it away with often long queues. Stopping the traffic at all five points needed careful planning and coordination, with five groups with large banners stepping out and blocking traffic.
The square itself was greatly improved when the road along its northern side was pedestrianised and the current terrace built with its wide steps leading down into the rest of the square. Though I think a more drastic pedestrianisation of both Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square along with Westminster Bridge – with some provision for buses, cycles and horse-drawn vehicles – would now be a very welcome improvement.
The protesters had planned to hold up the traffic for ten minutes. They told drivers, a few of whom were irate, that the protest would only be brief and to stop their engines to cut pollution – though most failed to do so. The protesters then danced in the roads to loud music from the sound system they had brought with them.
Among those leading the protest was Roger Hallam, recently released from a four year prison sentence for organising a series of protest to block the M25 which took place in November 2022. Earlier this month, three of the activists who were on trial for actually climbing the gantries in the protest against the government’s plan to licence over 100 new oil and gas projects against all expert advice were unanimously found not guilty by a jury which decided they had a reasonable excuse for their actions.
The activists stopped their protest which was to demand action by the Mayor and TfL after about the ten minutes they had previously decided it would last and when police came and asked them to do so they immediately left the roads.
Since 2017 under London Mayor Sadiq Khan, elected in 2016, London pollution levels have dropped dramatically with the first 24-hour Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, extended in 2023 to cover the whole city, the switch to less polluting vehicles including buses and taxis and the encouragement of cycling and other measures. Protests such as these and others will certainly have helped spur the city into action.
