Posts Tagged ‘abortion’

Croydon, Abortion & Windrush – 2018

Sunday, May 5th, 2024

Croydon, Abortion & Windrush – I began work on Saturday 5th of May with a late May Day march in Croydon, then came to Westminster where abortion rights protesters were meeting to oppose a ‘March for Life’ anti-abortion march and rally. At Downing Street there was a rally against the racist attacks by Theresa May against the Windrush generation, which later marched to continue at the Home Office, where I ended the day after photographing the anti-abortion march.


Croydon march for May Day – Saturday 5th May 2018

Although International Workers Day is celebrated internationally on May 1st, in Croydon there was a march and rally on the following Saturday.

Croydon is just 15 minutes by public transport from the centre of London, and those who were able to do so had probably joined the main London march on May Day, while others will have had to wait for the weekend to celebrate, so the march and rally on Saturday made sense.

It wasn’t a huge march, though doubtless more made their way to the rally later at Rusking House, where the speakers were to include Ted Knight, once the leader of Lambeth council and then one of the best-known Labour politicians, derided in the press of the day as ‘Red Ted’. One of the largest groups on the march was the supporters of the local Keep Our St Helier Hospital campaign fighting against proposed cuts there.

More pictures at Croydon march for May Day.


Women protest anti-abortion march – Parliament Square

Feminists in the abortion rights campaign held a rally in Parliament Square before the annual March for Life UK by pro-life anti-abortion campaigners was to arrive for their rally.

They opposed any increase of restrictions on abortion and called for an end to the harassment of women going into clinics and called for women in Northern Ireland to be given the same rights as those in the rest of the UK, as well as supporting the Irish referendum to repeal the 8th amendment to the constitution dating from 1983 which effectively banned abortion in Ireland.

More pictures at Women protest anti-abortion march.


Anti-Abortion March for Life – Whitehall

I walked up Whitehall to meet the several thousand anti-abortion campaigners, mainly Catholics, marching to their rally in Parliament Square.

They argue that even at conception the fertilised egg should be awarded an equal right to life as the woman whose body it is in, and call legalised abortion the greatest violation to human rights in history.

This was the first London march by ‘March for Life UK’ who had previously held marches in Birmingham and came a few weeks an Irish vote was expected to repeal the 8th amendment and allow abortion in Ireland, and some posters and placards called for a ‘No’ vote in this.

More pictures at Anti-Abortion March for Life.


Windrush rally against Theresa May – Downing St

I remained on Whitehall to join a rally at Downing St organised by Stand Up to Racism calling for Theresa May’s racist 2014 Immigration Act to be repealed and an immediate end to the deportation and detention of Commonwealth citizens, with those already deported to be bought back to the UK.

It demanded guaranteed protection or all Commonwealth citizens and for those affected to be compensated for deportation, threats of deportation, detention, loss of housing, jobs, benefits and denial of NHS treatment and an end to the ‘hostile environment’ introduced by Theresa May.

Speakers also condemned the unusual moves by the Tories in ways that threaten the normal working of Parliament to try and keep information about the Windrush scandal secret. Aong those speaking were Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, trade unionists, and people from organisations standing up for immigrants and opposing immigration detention including Movement for Justice who brought two women who had been held in Yarl’s Wood to speak.

After the rally at Downing Street protesters marched to the Home Office for a further rally there.

More pictures on My London Diary:
Home Office: Windrush Immigration Act protest
Downing Street: Windrush rally against Theresa May


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.


Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance

Saturday, June 17th, 2023

Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance. Two things at the top of the news on Saturday 17th June 2017, the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower three days earlier and the agreement still being negotiated for the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party to go into coalition with the Conservative Party after the 2017 General Election had resulted in a hung Parliament.


Grenfell

Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance

I’d woken on the 14th June 2017 to the terrible news of the fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, hearing with shock, anger and grief the terrible stories of those trapped and burnt to death in the upper floors of the building. Anger because from the outset it was clear that cuts in the London Fire Brigade made under Boris Johnson and the decisions made by governments , Greater London and the local council had made this and other buildings a fire trap.

Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance

I live a little over an hour’s journey from Grenfell, and knew that the area would already be swamped by the media so made the decision to keep away in the days that followed, though I spent some time in research on the web into the causes, particularly reading earlier blogs from some local residents which confirmed my immediate anger.

Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance

On 17th September I visited the area which I knew slightly before, waling with many others, some carrying flowers on our way to pay respect to the dead, to say a few prayers and to cry a few tears. I wasn’t going as a photographer but as a fellow human being, but I was carrying my camera bag as I was on my way to photograph other events, and I did take just a few pictures.

Grenfell and the Tory/DUP Alliance

And I wrote that evening (I’ve corrected a couple of typos):

We don’t need an inquiry to tell us what happened – the various defects that came together are only too obvious, as a number of fire safety experts are concerned. Someone authorised the use of cheap cladding that contained flammable foam, someone let that cladding be applied without fire breaks to save money, Someone approved those unsafe gas lines, someone employed a consultant so the building didn’t get proper fire inspections and so on. Over the years people at Kensington & Chelsea Council (and the TMO they set up) turned an inherently safe building into a firetrap waiting to happen, because to them it was a place where people they didn’t see as people, just numbers who were a burden on the housing department.

Of course it wasn’t just the RBK&C. There were the various government ministers and others responsible for setting standards that let inherently unsafe materials pass – which when tested after Grenfell have given a 100% failure rate. The ministers who dismantled and privatised safety inspections, relaxed and got rid of safety regulations, failed to implement the lessons learnt from earlier fires and so on, most but not all of them under the previous Tory government. And all those pressure groups and ‘think tanks’ pushing the ideas of deregulation, of removing what they called ‘red tape’, the protections that would have saved the lives of those who died.

The victims of Grenfell – certainly a case of mass corporate manslaughter if not murder – deserve justice. They died because they were poor and in council housing and those in authority and the greedy super-rich didn’t think they deserved proper care and decent standards. They deserve justice – and that means fines and imprisonment for those responsible as well as changes in the way that we run things.

Grenfell – My London Diary

Six years on, with a huge and ponderous inquiry having made a fortune for the many lawyers, we have still to see justice. Just another example of our legal and judicial systems swinging into action to push Grenfell into the long grass and to protect the rich and guilty.


Class War protest Grenfell Murders – Downing St

Later that day I was with Class War at Downing Street where they had come to call for revenge over the Grenfell fire and action by the people rather than waiting for a whitewashing public inquiry to report.

Class War say Grenfell is an open declaration of class war by the wealthy elite against the working class, and they have a personal interest in the matter. Grenfell was where Ian Bone first lived when he moved to London and it was there that the first issues of the Class War magazine were written. He and others in the group still knew people who lived there.

This was only a small protest, with people taking it in turns to stand in front of the gates to Downing St holding their banner with a quotation from the US activist, labour organiser, radical socialist and anarchist Lucy Parsons (ca 1853-1942), who fought against racism and for the rights of workers and for freedom of speech from her early years until her death, “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live.

The poster held up by Ian Bone stated “GRENFELL – WE AIN’T GONNA WAIT TWO YEARS FOR A PUBLIC INQUIRY TO COME UP WITH ANSWERS – WE’RE GONNA GET SOME NOW”. Most of the answers were published a month later in a lengthy report by Architects for Social Housing, but Class War seriously under-estimated the obfuscating power of the establishment. Its now SIX years with no justice.

We need fast-track inquiries with minimal legal involvement, perhaps only allowing those who are a part of the inquiry team rather than any representing parties under investigation.


No Tory DUP Coalition of Chaos – Downing St

The 2017 General election had been a close-run thing, and only a concerted effort by Labour officials and right wing MPs had prevented a Labour victory, though the huge extent of their machinations against Corbyn only emerged much later in an unpublished but widely available internal report. But as the results came in you could hear the relief of some leading Labour MPs when their candidates lost in some clearly winnable marginal constituencies.

The result was a hung Parliament with no party having an overall majority. Over the previous parliaments the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party had generally operated an informal agreement to vote with the Tories, but now they were able to demand concessions to enter into a formal coalition. Negotiations had begun which were finally agreed on 26 June 2017.

Protesters pointed out the DUP was a party intrinsically linked with Protestant terrorist groups and dominated by a homophobic church which represents a tiny minority of the Northern Irish population.

Speakers included Northern Irish women campaigning for abortion and other women’s rights enjoyed by women in the UK. DPAC spoke about the Tory assault on the disabled, and there were various others.

Among those who spoke were three Labour MPs, Marsha De Cordova who gained Battersea from the Conservatives, Rupa Huq who greatly increased her tiny majority and Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner.

There were also those present who had come to protest about the complicity of Theresa May and unseated Tory MP Gavin Barwell in the Grenfell outrage; Barwell had ignored a fire report made in 2013. Political artist Kaya Mar came with a painting of Theresa May playing the violin with one red-heeled shoe on a coffin labelled Grenfell.

The Tory-DUP agreement has had serious long-term consequences, in particular over Brexit, where it prevented a sensible agreement being reached. Johnson went ahead ignoring the problems and we are still suffering from this. Neither his or May’s agreement were supported by the DUP, but the coalition agreement had greatly increased the importance of their party’s views.

More at No Tory DUP Coalition of Chaos.


Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

Saturday, April 9th, 2022

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia – Saturday 9th of April 2016 was a busy day for me photographing protests across London.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

Lambeth Libraries Occupation and March, Herne Hill

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

My day began in Herne Hill in South London, where campaigners had been occupying the Carnegie Library since March 31st fighting Lambeth council’s plans to turn the building into a fee-charging gym run by Greenwich Leisure Ltd with an just unstaffed lounge with books. They emerged to a huge welcome from over a thousand campaigners after their occupation had given the campaign national news coverage and huge support from around the country.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

The came out to lead a march to save all of Lambeth’s Libraries after they had been forced to leave by an injunction obtained by Lambeth Council. The march was going via the Minet Library, also closed by the council on 31st March to a rally opposite the town hall in Brixton.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

I left the marchers to take a train from Loughborough Junction back to the centre of London.

Carnegie Library Occupation Ends
March to Save Lambeth’s Libraries


Cameron must go! Downing St

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

When I arrived, a large and lively protest outside the gates of Downing St was blocking traffic in Whitehall calling on Cameron to resign because of the lack of trust about his financial affairs following the revelations in the Panama papers.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

Many protesters had come in party mode, with flowered garlands, Panama hats and suitably Central American dress and some with placards and posters referring to Cameron’s pig-related activities.

Cameron must go!


Stop Grand National horse slaughter, Channel 4, Horseferry Rd

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

I left Whitehall where the party was still continuing outside Downing Street and walked to Channel 4’s London HQ, where a small group was protesting the cruelty to horses involved in the Grand National and other similar races. Already 4 horses had been killed that year in the current race meeting at Aintree, and at least 46 following accidents at the annual meeting there since 2000.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

Race horses seldom if ever actually die from the accidents, but a broken leg makes them worthless and rather than spending money on keeping them alive they are killed.

Stop Grand National horse slaughter


Don’t Criminalise Abortion in Poland, Polish Embassy

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

From Horseferry Road where the protesters told me more people were coming to join the protest I took the tube to Oxford St and rushed up Regent St and Portland Place to the Polish Embassy, where a crowd of several hundred Poles and supporters were supporting large protests in Poland against the bill proposed by the Law and Justice Party (PiS) which will outlaw abortion in all cases, protecting the life of the unborn child even where this may cause extreme distress or even death for the mother.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

At the end of the protest they hung wire coat-hangers, a traditional crude tool of back-street abortionists, on the embassy door and fence.

Don’t Criminalise Abortion in Poland


Party against Cameron, Downing St

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

I took the tube back to Charing Cross and walked down to Downing Street and the party which had begun before lunchtime was still going on there at 4pm, though most of the people had gone home.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

They were still blocking the side of Whitehall next to Downing Street and there was dancing on the street to a sound system and it was more of a street party. Police were still standing back and watching but seemed to be making no attempt to clear the street.

Party against Cameron


End Killings in Colombia, Trafalgar Square

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

In Trafalgar Square an emergency protest was taking place on the North Terrace against the massacres in Colombia, organised by the UK Congreso de los Pueblos and Marcha Patriotica supported by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. The protest was held in solidarity with those taking place that day in Colombia against political persecution and calling for an end to paramilitary killings. They want peace, human rights and democracy in Colombia.

Libraries, Cameron, Grand National, Abortion & Colombia

It’s sometimes difficult to understand what is happening in Colombia – as in some other foreign countries. Our news media seldom report fully and often take a very biased view, relying on reports reflecting only the views of big business, the wealthy classes and US propaganda. Here’s what I wrote about the situation:

Conservative opposition politicians led by former president Alvaro Uribe have protested against ongoing peace talks with leftist rebel groups by President Juan Manuel Santos. Uribe is opposed to talks with FARC and the ELN. If there was a peace agreement there could be investigations of the various human rights abuses and corruption scandals that took place while he was in power. The conservative protest follows earlier protests last month by mainly left and rural Colombians in support of Santos and the peace talks.

End Killings in Colombia

I was tired and it was time to go home.


End Killings in Colombia
Party against Cameron
Don’t Criminalise Abortion in Poland
Stop Grand National horse slaughter
Cameron must go!
March to Save Lambeth’s Libraries
Carnegie Library Occupation Ends


My London Diary – 25th January 2008

Tuesday, January 25th, 2022

My London Diary – 25th January 2008

Here is my diary entry for the day, now 14 years ago, reproduced from the My London Diary web page. I’ve included the headings for the four events which in the original are separated from the text in a different column, and a few more of the pictures, but there are many more on the linked pages. The original format makes it more difficult to associate pictures with text, particularly on mobile phones.


Stop Kingsnorth – No New Coal

E.ON Office, Pall Mall, London.

Police kept demonstrators back against the wall and refused me permissio to work sensibly

Friday was a busy afternoon for demonstrations in London. I started in Pall Mall, outside the E.ON offices. This power company is a massive producer of pollutants, and its latest plans, recently approved by Medway Council, are for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.

Currently this is awaiting government approval, but since it entirely contradicts their stated environmental policies it seems almost inevitable it will be given the go-ahead. When I left soon after the start of the demo there were perhaps 50 people present, but more may have come later.

Police were being rather officious in keeping the pavement clear, impeding myself and another photographer trying to cover the event. My reminder that police were supposed to allow the press to do their job was disregarded and I was told I was not allowed to stand on the edge of the pavement in the gaps between the police, although I would clearly not have been obstructing the pavement or getting in the way of the police carrying out their duty. So much for cooperation.
more pictures

Kenyans protest against Ugandan President

Ugandan High Commission, Trafalgar Sq, London.

The demonstration was just starting as I ran by

From there I headed up to Whitehall, on my way passing the start of a demonstration by Kenyans against the Ugandan President Museveni, who has lent support to the fixing of the elections in Kenya.
more pictures

Pakistanis protest at Musharraf London Visit

Whitehall, London.

Waiting for Musharraf to arrive

In Whitehall, a number of Pakistani protesters were waiting the arrival of President Musharraf who was expected to arrive by car at the Banqueting House. I took a few pictures and then left, deciding that I was unlikely to be able to get a decent picture when he arrived given the level of security.

One of the other photographers present mentioned that he had no difficulty in photographing Musharraf in Leicester, where he was allowed to be close enough to be able to reach out and touch him. It wasn’t clear to us why photographers are thought to be so much more of a risk in London
more pictures

Feminist Fightback protest CMF Abortion lies

Christian Medical Fellowship, Southwark, London

Hanging washing on Marshalsea Street outside the CMF office

Finally I headed for the Borough, where Feminist Fightback were demonstrating outside the offices of the Christian Medical Foundation. The CMF gave misleading evidence to the Parliamentary Committee which was considering possible reforms of the abortion act last year, and a number of its members with little direct scientific knowledge also gave evidence as if they were expert witnesses. They also support (and host) the minority report, which is in part based on their unreliable evidence.

In particular the CMF is still pressing the government to reduce the current 24 week time limit on abortions. FF fixed up a washing line outside the CMF offices on which to hang cloth pieces with a number of their slogans and demands.

The CMF issued a press release stating that they welcomed the demonstrators and supported their right to protest – and also offered soft drinks and biscuits, as well as coming out to talk to the demonstrators (and film and photograph them.)

I think most of us would welcome a lowering in the number of abortions, but the way to do this is not by stricter laws on abortion. Similarly, the best approach to reducing the already small number of late abortions is to reduce some of the procedural bottlenecks that lead to delay in the system.

The practical arguments seem almost entirely on the side of the measures proposed by the feminists in simply being more effective and less hypocritical. But I also felt very much more at ease talking to the feminists than the christians, who somehow seemed to exude a self-righteousness that rather made my flesh creep. I’m with Charlotte Bronte when she wrote “self-righteousness is not religion.”

more pictures


There are more pictures on My London Diary, including a few hidden away and not covered by the text taken as I walked from Westminster to Southwark.


March for Choice

Sunday, September 22nd, 2019

I missed the rally at the end of the demonstration in solidarity with Palestine in order to photograph the feminist rally in Parliament square for reproductive rights and the decriminalisation of abortion.

I felt by the time I left the Palestinian march I had enough pictures, particularly because I had managed to get what I thought was a decent picture of Ahed Tamimi who was to speak at the rally. Most of the other speakers were probably people I had photographed previously at other events.

I sometimes criticise news photographers who come to an event, take a few pictures (often setting up rather static group pictures) and then leave. I aim to tell the story of the event, and usually hang on for long enough to do so, while they want to get a single picture and send it (or more often a selection of single pictures) to the agency or newsroom before anyone else. In terms of making a living I’m sure they are right; what gets published is generally not the best picture but the one that arrives first.

And protests are rather like buses; you can wait for ages when nothing happens and then several come along at once. I think the most I’ve covered in a single day is seven, though there have been times when I’ve had double figures for the same date in the diary I make of protests I know about.

Of course they can even be in quite different places, though I very seldom leave London it can still involve a lot of travelling, and often I have to select not just on time but also on location, though my priority is always on the issues which the event is about. Though my definition of newsworthiness is often at odds with that of the mainstream media editors.

Abortion isn’t something to be encouraged or taken lightly, and I don’t believe that many women do, but the right of women to make choices about their bodies is a basic and important one. While at some point the rights of the unborn child also need to be considered, that time is most certainly not at conception but perhaps when that child becomes capable of an independent existence.

The 1967 Abortion Act was a great advance in clarifying law in this country, though unfortunately not in Northern Ireland and remains in force with the normal limit on abortion having been reduced from 28 weeks to 24 in 1990. It was a great advance as before 1967 the major cause of maternal deaths – around 60 -70 per year was unsafe abortions. And many children who might otherwise have been aborted because their mothers took thalidomide were born with severe or even fatal disabilities.

Apparently now 1 in 3 women in this country will at some time have a legal termination. Abortion outside the provisions of the Act (or in Northern Ireland under almost all circumstances) is still a crime – and can carry a sentence for both women and those who carry it out of life imprisonment.

The ‘March for Choice’ was not really a march, but a rally followed by a short walk to a static protest in opposition to the anti-abortion March for Life UK, a largely Catholic event based on extreme right protests in the USA. March for Choice say it is made up of extreme anti-women, anti-choice, evangelical groups which regularly harass women outside abortion clinics, and has links to homophobic, fascist and far-right organisations. As well as abortion, it opposes contraception, sex education and IVF treatment.

More pictures from both groups:

March for Choice defends women’s rights
Anti-Abortion ‘March for Life UK’


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

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.