>Re-PHOTO

The university moves in to try and stop free speech

You might expect universities to be enlightened employers and to respect freedom of speech, but while that might once have been so, nowadays you – like me – would be disappointed. When workers at London University staged a number of in noisy protests last academic year for a living wage and proper conditions of service, the response of the university management was not to support them but to ban further protests and threaten to call in the police.

The ‘3 Cosas‘ campaign for proper pay and conditions for low paid staff at the university has widespread support from students and academic and other staff employed by the university. Earlier campaigns by the low paid workers have resulted in some of them now getting a living wage, but even for these the conditions of employment – things like sick pay, holidays and pensions – are far less favourable than they would be if the university employed them directly, rather than buying them in as cheap labour from contractors.

IWGB supports the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign

Its a curious position to work at the university but to be employed by another organisation, as their work is vital to the running of the institution. Even if the university engages another company to manage the cleaners, security and catering staff etc, they are still a part of the institution and it surely has a duty towards them to ensure they get proper pay and conditions. Many other organisations have realised this and made paying the living wage and proper conditions a requirement on companies contracting to run services for them.

But rather than standing up for those who work there, London University has said it is none of their business and objected to protests warning members of the university they may face arrest if they protest on campus.

Security on the gate to the Senate House car park

The protest by the ‘3 Cosas’ movement on 24 Oct was in direct defiance of this ban, and resulted in far more disruption than any previous protest – and greater cost to the University. Extra security staff were on duty, with gates around the Senate House locked and checks made on all those entering.  At first this kept the protesters out, but a few students and academic staff made their way inside the closed area and started to protest, resisting arguments by security and managers to leave.

Eventually the bulk of the protesters decided to walk around some of the barriers and make their way to the Senate House, and I followed them. Some had actually climbed the tall fence or gates in front of Senate House, but I was considerably less athletic, simply walking through a gap in a very threadbare hedge and across a lawn.

Protesters outside the Senate House, guarded by security

Having defied the ban on one side of Senate House I was a little surprised when it turned out to be equally easy for the protesters to walk round to the other side and do so again. But if the authorities really intend to stop protests they will need to invest heavily in barbed wire! By this time the university management had called in the police, though I don’t think the police were all that pleased or sure what their role should be. It was after all a peaceful protest and causing little or no disruption – and what disruption there was mainly from the action of the university security.

Protest continues on the other side of Senate House

Finally as the protest was almost at its natural end, the police decided to act, moving in and trying to stop the protest ending!  The result was something of a farce, with a handful of police grabbing the odd student while the others simply walked past – as I did.  After a little argy-bargy and some actual barging the police came to their senses and walked away, leaving the protesters to rightly claim a victory. They had stood up to the university authorities and to the police in a protest not just about the ‘3 Cosas’ but about freedom to protest and freedom of speech.

Police try to stop protester leaving while other police are shouting ‘Let them through!’

It may not end there. While the protesters were inside around the Senate House, there was a man on a balcony filming them – to which the protesters took exception. It seemed an unnecessary provocation, and suggests that the authorities might be considering disciplinary or legal action against those taking part.  This would be an extremely inflammatory act, and one that would reflect badly on the university.

More at 3 Cosas Defy London Uni Protest Ban.

Continue reading Cops Off Campus!

I don’t often go to Hounslow, although its only a few miles away. I can get on a bus a short walk away and it will take me there, though it’s faster to either take the train to Hounslow or get off a stop before and catch a bus, depending on which part of Hounslow I want to go to. But not a lot happens there. Not a lot happened there in the eighteen or so years I lived there until I left for university. A few years later my family had all moved away, and there didn’t seem a great deal to go back there for.

But on a Thursday morning I found myself standing alone at a bus stop outside Eaton House, the Hounslow Reporting Centre. Most asylum seekers have to report either daily, weekly or monthly at one of these centres – there are around 15 covering the whole country – or sometimes at a police station. They get fingerprinted and their biometric ID cards are reactivated. Or they may be taken from the interview room and put into a holding cell, to be transferred to one of our immigration prisons (officially called detention centres) to await deportation. Eaton House serves those living in much of West London and further afield, and certainly wasn’t chosen as the easiest place to find or travel to, on the western edge of Hounslow. Reporting often seems to be a way to harass asylum seekers rather than anything more.

Southall Black Sisters was founded in 1979 to fight for the human rights of Black (Asian and African-Caribbean) women and like many others are appalled at the growing racism of government legislation and activities against asylum seekers and other migrants. I’ve photographed them taking part in many events over the years, but I think this was the first organised by them I’d been to.

I have a suspicion that Eaton House was chosen as a reporting centre (and I think as a base for some of the UKBA officers who go out on immigration raids) because it is rather out of the way. The journey is intended as a disincentive to wanting asylum or a punishment, and to make organising protests more difficult. Although bus services in London have improved since my youth (then the route between Southall and Hounslow was particularly unreliable, and on several evenings I stood for an hour or so waiting for a 120 before giving up and walking home.)

But this time, coming from Feltham, my bus was dead on time and I arrived a few minutes early and I walked up and down, then sat down at the seat inside the bus shelter and waited hopefully. I like to get to protests a few minutes early, but it’s always nice to have a others gathering there so you know something will happen, and as the start time approached I was beginning to wonder if I was wasting my time.

But Southall Black Sisters arrived on the dot, a minute before the advertised time and the protest got underway. Many of those taking part were wearing the group’s white t-shirt with the message ‘Do I look illegal!’ printed very large on its front, and with the protest involving quite a lot of activity it proved surprising difficult to get images in which this was fully legible, as you can see in Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA.

There were a few interesting moments, particularly when police officers tried to liaise with the women, and when one officer complained about the language one of them had used shouting at a man walking by who had made a racist comment, and was surrounded by the women telling him he should be taking action against racists, not those who stood up to them. The officer claimed to have been unaware of the comment that had been made, and eventually backed away as women shouted at him and blew whistles and vuvuzelas. But although I took pictures, it was perhaps something that would have been rather better recorded on video.  I’d not heard either the racist comment or the response the officer objected to.

My time at the protest was limited as I wanted to be in central London for another event, involving a journey by bus, then a short walk to the underground at Hounslow East from where the Piccadilly line would take me, very slowly, to my destination.

I was beginning to get worried that I hadn’t really managed to take an image that really worked about the protest as a whole, when I made the one at the top of this post, showing the Director of Southall Black Sisters, Pragna Patel speaking. I’d moved around very close behind her using the 16-35mm on the D700.  This was the sixth of seven frames; at first I’d been a little further back, and working at 16mm, and she had been partly obscuring the banner.  I’d been working with the banner and to its right a group of the women with drums and horns in front of the UKBA fence and building, and Pragna Patel was reading from a list of slogans in her hand. As she turned her head around more towards me I zoomed in slightly for a frame and then stepped closer to tighten the framing a little. Even so, the image, taken at 20mm, needed a little cropping mainly at the right of the frame, and this also enabled me to bring the top of the image to the top of the banner.  I’ve retained the 3:2 aspect ratio, though I think it might improve the picture with just a little more off the right hand edge. You can see my shadow in the bottom right by the way, and the t-shirt of the woman holding the banner is nicely legible, with a curve in  her stance that seems to send my eye back into the picture.

I took one more frame immediately after this, almost identical except that the speaker’s mouth had closed and her head moved very slightly forward. As soon as I had taken these two images I thought I had managed what I needed, and, moving back a little, made a quick check on the screen on the back of the camera to confirm this. I don’t often stop to ‘chimp’ when taking pictures (and often get annoyed with photographers who keep standing in the way of others to do so) but wanted to be sure.

As I looked up from the camera, I saw my bus coming down the road, and quickly waved goodbye and jumped on it, on my way to take more pictures elsewhere.

Continue reading Thursday

It was raining fairly heavily as I made my way into Hyde Park for the protest by CasteWatch UK, but I didn’t want to put my umbrella up. It’s days like this that I wish I had an assistant to hold an umbrella over me, as it isn’t really practicable to photograph holding one yourself, though I have sometimes done so. I like to get close to many of my subjects and it just gets in the way, apart from being rather tricky to manage. But at least I have a decent hood on my jacket that keeps me dry without getting too much in the way, though it does make it just a little harder to work, and in particular restricts peripheral vision, making it easier to miss things going on around me.

I’ve also experimented a little with waterproof housings for the two cameras (D700, D800E) I like to use, but have yet to find anything I like though Op-Tech make a cheap one that looks interesting. Perhaps readers have some other suggestions?

So I work with the front of my waterproof jacket partly open, slipping the cameras partly inside when I’m not taking pictures. Two Nikons with large lenses don’t really fit easily inside, especially if one has a flash attached. Though flash is seldom a good idea in the rain unless you want to take pictures of raindrops. I put a large microfibre cloth over them, or spend my time wiping them down to try and keep them dry. The cameras are fairly well sealed against water, but the lenses – even the pro 16-35mm f4 – not so good.

Caste Discrimination is illegal in India, though that hasn’t stopped it remaining to be a real problem there, and one that has now been exported to the UK. It’s a problem that has a religious dimension too, with many of the lower caste Dalits being followers of the 14th century Indian guru Guru Ravidass. He is considered holy (but not a Guru) by Sikhs and  many Ravidassia places of worship are called Gurdwara and until recently many considered themselves as Sikhs (and some others as Hindu.) But in 2009 the murder of a Ravidass leader, Ramanand Dass, by Sikh extremists in the temnple at Vienna led to a decisive split between Ravidass and Sikhs. Ravidass Gurdwaras that had previously flown the Sikh
Nishan Sahib flag with its Khanda symbol now adopted the distinct Ravidass Harr Nishaan, and in place of the Guru Granth Sahib they brought out their own Amritbani Guru Ravidass Ji containing the hymns of Guru Ravidass.

Ravidassia complain they are discriminated against because of their low caste by both Hindus and Sikhs. The government didn’t want to act, but were forced to do so by the House of Lords and MPs, and in April legislation was passed to ban caste discrimination in the country under the Equality Act. Rather than accept this, the government, under pressure from Hindu ad Sikh higher caste groups and individuals, decided to delay implementation by setting up a two year period of consultation with these groups, angering both the Dalits and others opposed to discrimination.

Almost all those on the march were Ravidassia, with just a few Sikhs and others also supporting the demand for speedy implementation of the law. A little under a thousand were standing in the rain when I arrived, many under umbrellas, some listening to speeches and others just standing around waiting for the march to begin, out of earshot of the speakers.

Umbrellas can be a problem, particularly for colour photography. While black umbrellas simply cause shadows, sometimes rather deep, coloured umbrellas can give some very strong colour casts from the light coming through them onto the faces beneath. One solution is to use flash, but unless you are also under the umbrella this can give reflections from rain drops in the air. Instead I relied on being able to use Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush to adjust ‘temperature’ and ‘tint’ on faces where necessary. You can see a blue patch I left on the forehead of the woman in the image below.

I noticed two young women carrying red boxes, which I guessed contained the petition the march was to present at Downing St, and went over to photograph them and ask about the protest. They took me to photograph the march organiser, and later at the end of the protest I photographed them on their way into Downing St with the petition.

Although it was still raining when the march started, it soon eased off, and I was able to photograph the march as it went down Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner in the dry. Park Lane has many trees along the Hyde Park side, and the lighting varies considerably. Usually I hand around in the lighter areas taking pictures, then after a while hurry on to the next area with decent lighting.

At Hyde Park Corner I decided I’d been on my feet for long enough (walking is fine, but photography usually involves too much standing around, which is bad for more legs) and I took the tube for a couple of stops, meeting up with the protesters as they came along Pall Mall towards Whitehall. I’d not made a note of the exact route and had spent a little time waiting at Piccadilly Circus before I realised they were not taking a rout passed there.

Opposite Downing St there was a rally on the pavement, with a number of speakers, few of whom I recognised. It’s sometimes a problem in captioning, but if I don’t recognise a speaker or remember having heard the name before it probably is not going to be of great interest to likely clients.

Although it was fairly noisy in the crowd and with the speakers using megaphones I was still listening for other things happening, and something made me move out of the crowd to the side of the road. There I found the event organiser and a few others having an argument with a police officer, who was trying to stop them going across the road to present the petition. Finally he realised that they were telling him that they had arranged to do so with the authorities and agreed to let them do so.

I was pleased with the pictures I’d taken. It was a cause I could wholeheartedly support, and the people were all very warm and friendly and keen to have their pictures taken. You can see more of them at Make Caste Discrimination Illegal Now.
Continue reading End UK Caste Discrimination