Posts Tagged ‘Assad regime’

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick – 2013

Saturday, March 16th, 2024

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick – Saturday 16th March 2013 saw me travelling around London to cover three events, starting at a march against hospital cuts, then a march supporting the Syrian revoltuion on its second anniversary and finally an Irish parade on the day before St Patrick’s Day.


Whittington Hospital March Against Cuts – Highbury & Islington

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick

Dick Whittington, more formally Sir Richard Whittington (c1354 – 1423) was four times Lord Mayor of London and did a lot for the medieval city, including financing drainage systems in its poorer areas and setting up a hospital ward for unmarried mothers and leaving his considerable fortune to set up a charity which still 600 years later helps those in need.

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick

He made his fortune as a mercer, importing luxury fabrics such as silk and velvet and exporting English woollen cloth and later as a money lender to wealthy noblemen and kings. It isn’t clear if he ever had a cat, but the legend about him fleeing London with one and turning back when he heard Bow Bells from Highgate Hill first made it to print in 1612.

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick

The Whittington Stone was placed at the foot of Highgate Hill in 1821, though earlier it had been the base of a cross there; it only gained a cat on top in 1964. But Whittington’s name is remembered in a number of pubs across the country, including The Whittington & Cat on Highgate Hill, which closed in 2014. Islington Council and local residents fought to keep it, and prevented its demolition in 2012 by declaring it to be an asset of community value, but it became a flooring shop.

Whittington, Syria and St Patrick

More importantly Whittington’s name became that of the major hospital formed when earlier hospitals on three nearby sites were amalgamated when the National Health Service was formed in 1948.

Three years before this march, huge local oppositin had forced the cancellation of plans to end Accident and Emergency, Paediatrics, Maternity and Intensive Care at the Whittington Hospital, but now it was threatened again by a new hospital trust with plans to reduce maternity services, close wards, provide fewer beds for the elderly, cut 570 jobs privatise some services and sell off around a third of the site, closing all onsite accommodation for nursing staff.

I met several thousand protesters close to Highbury & Islington Station where they were preparing to march to a rally outside the hospital. Among those marching were local MPs, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, Bruce Kent and various celebrity supporters of the campaign, as well as the truly remarkable Hetty Bower, born in 1905, who became a pacifist at the time of the ‘Great War’, and took part in the 1926 General Strike.

You can read more about the event and see my pictures of many of the marchers on My London Diary. I left the march shortly after it started to go to my next event.
Whittington Hospital March Against Cuts.


Syria – Two Years Fight for Freedom

I arrived outside the Syrian Embassy in Belgrave Square while the rally before the march was taking place with members of the Syrian Community in Britain speaking.

Most of the speeches and chanting were not in English, and the Free Syria campaign appears to have little support from the British left who might have been expected to support their freedom fight. There were a few protests at the start, but often confused and mainly opposing any involvement in Syria by British forces.

The Syrian revolution against the Assad regime had also received little actual support from the UK Government and US support seemed halfhearted. When Assad began using chemical weapons against the Syrian rebel held areas there was strong condemnation but no action and any threats soon melted away once Russia became involved in supporting Assad.

One of the placards carried by marchers included a question which now seems particularly relevant in view of what has been happening in Gaza: ‘Hey World, How Many Kids Should Be Killed Before You Do Something?’

I walked with the marchers on their way to Downing Street as far as the Hyde Park underpass where it looked impressive as it made its way under the Hyde Park underpass, fairly densely packed and with flags waving it spread wide across the road, stretching back into Wilton Place over 200 yards away. Then left for Willesden Green.

Syria – Two Years Fight for Freedom


St Patrick’s Parade Brent – Willesden Green

For several years I had enjoyed the Brent St Patrick’s Day parade, sometimes going together with friends including John Benton-Harris who had photographed St Patrick’s Day here and across the USA as well as in Ireland over many years. The parade in Brent, usually on the day itself, had always seemed rather more authentically Irish than the larger London parade held on the nearest Sunday since Ken Livingstone introduced it in 2002 and I made some pictures.

Brent Council had a fine record of supporting cultural events celebrating its various communities including the Irish, but with government cuts since 2010 no longer had the funds to do so.

This year too, the main London event was taking place the following day, St Patrick’s Day itself, so the Brent event was on the day before. So the crowds were rather thinner than in previous years, and the poor weather may have put some off too.

More pictures at St Patrick’s Parade Brent.


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Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions – 2014

Friday, March 15th, 2024

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions – Protests in London on Saturday 15th March covered a wide range of issues across the world. Another varied day for me in town.


London March for Freedom for Tibet – Downing St

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions

Around a thousand Tibetans and supporters of the Free Tibet campaign met at Downing Street to march to a rally at the Chinese Embassy on the 55th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising against oppressive Chinese rule.

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions

Before the start of the march they sang the Tibetan national anthem then marched up Whitehall. I left the marchers at Trafalgar Square to cover another event.

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions

It was a colourful march, with many carrying the Tibetan National Flag or wearing items in its colours. In my post on My London Diary I wrote more about Tibet and the brutal Chinese regime there along with many more pictures.
London March for Freedom for Tibet


Syrians March for International Action

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions

Before going to Downing Street I had gone to Hyde Park Corner where Syrians were gathering at the start of their march to Downing St on the third anniversary of the start of their fight for freedom to show their commitment to the cause and their solidarity with fellow Syrians inside and outside Syria.

They were calling for the international community to help them get rid of the Assad regime which had murdered over 150,000, seriously injured 500,000 and imprisoned 250,000 people in Syria. 1.5 million refugees had fled Syria and over 4.5 million were internally displaced and recently Assads forces had started using chemical weapons.

I left Piccadilly as the march was about to leave and met them again as they turned into Whitehall and began their protest opposite Downing Street. Unfortunately the west was not prepared to stand fully behind the Syrian revolution, with Turkey very much opposed to the autonomy it was providing for the Kurds and supporting ISIS and Russia stepping in to support Assad.

Many more pictures on My London Diary: Syrians March for International Action.


Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered

Also at Hyde Park Corner were protesters on the third anniversary of the nuclear melt-down at Fukushima, including many Japanese, marching to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

They were led by a group dress as flurescent barrels of roadioactive waste, while others were dressed up in various ways and some carried giant sunflowers. It was a fairly small group but made a colourful impression as it made its way first to the Japanese Embassy.I left them as they arrived there.

I met the group again as it arrived at Downing Street where they stopped for a short protest and photographs in front of the gates before moving on to a rally in Parliament Square. But I had other things to do.

Many more pictures at Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered.


English Volunteer Force march in London

I met the English Volunteer Force, combining a number of right wing ‘patriotic’ groups outside the Lord Moon of the Mall at the top of Whitehall just a minute or two before their march to Parliament Square began from there.

I had a little trouble getting there through a loose line of police who were there to ensure that the anti-fascist opposition to the march were kept well away. The around a hundred EVF supporters were accompanied by rather more police as they marched down Whitehall, but I was able to walk with the and to talk to a few of the protesters who knew me from earlier right-wing events.

They seemed pleased that I was covering the event, but as I reported in 2014, “one man came over and shouted at me, pushing my camera into my face. I complained to police at this assault but they simply pushed me away. Later the same individual came and threatened me, and a police officer did ask him to stop, though it seemed rather half-hearted given that he was clearly breaking the law.

The major police effort was directed against the larger number of anti-facists and was largely successful in keeping the two groups apart and enabling the EVF to hold their rally as planned in Old Palace Yard. I saw several arrests of EVF supporters who tried to attack the anti-fascists. Police had kettled some of these briefly but they were soon allowed to leave so long as they went away from Parliament.

You can read more about the event and see more pictures at English Volunteer Force march in London.


Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square

I walked up to Trafalgar Square where several marches from different starting points in London were combining for a protest calling for a ban on the ‘canned’ hunting of captive lions by wealthy trophy tourists.

‘Canned hunting’ is big business in South Africa, with more than 8,000 lions in captivity, bred on lion farms and over 160 lion killing camps. These lions are raised without fear of humans and are often drugged to make them easy kills.

The tourists kill male lions and buy the lions heads stuffed and mounted as trophies. The bones fetch high prices in the Far East for use in ‘medicines’ or ‘aphrodisiacs’ though they have no testable beneficial effects.

Most female cubs are killed at birth with just a few being kept for breeding. The cubs are kept and tourists pay to ‘pet’ and play with them and when they are a little larger pay for the experience of ‘walking with lions’. Once they outgrow this, they are crammed into overcrowded cages in poor conditions until they are mature and can be shot.

Canned hunting also threatens the wild lion population as some are captured to combat the inbreeding in captive lion populations.

More at Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting.


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Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria – 2016

Sunday, December 17th, 2023

Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria – Three protests in London on Saturday 17th December 2016.


Vigil on Chelsea Manning’s 29th birthday – Trafalgar Square

Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria

A silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square marked the 29th birthday of trans-gender whistleblower Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, jailed for 35 years in 2013, whose courageous leaks revealed war crimes by US, UK and other governments.

Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria
A Queer Strike protester and veteran peace activist Bruce Kent

Working for the US Army as a specialist intelligence analyst as Bradley Manning she released almost 750,000 documents to Wikileaks in 2010 showing the US, UK and other governments’ war crimes and corruption in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Israel & the Palestinian Authority, Peru, Venezuela and elsewhere. Some were classified and many others were highly sensitive and incriminating. In 2013 she was sentenced to 35 years and held in the maximum security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.

Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria

The London vigil was a part of an international day of action for her release. Since she came out as a trans woman in 2013 she had been repeatedly harassed by the military in prison and twice in 2016 had attempted suicide. Protesters around the world called on President Obama to release her on the basis of the prison time she had already served before he left office. The following month he commuted her sentence to around seven years and she was released from jail. She spent a further year in 2019-2020 after she refused to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Vigil on Chelsea Manning’s 29th birthday


Kurds protest for a Free Kurdistan – Downing St

Chelsea Manning, Kurdistan & Syria

Kurds, many wearing or waving the flag of Free Kurdistan called on the civilised world to recognise the sacrifices made by the Peshmerga in fighting for freedom and against Islamic extremism in Iraq and Syria.

The Peshmerga is the army of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, first formed in the18th century as border guards but more recently fighting for Kurdish autonomy, although it also includes Assyrian and Yazidi units. Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region of Iraq, and under the Iraqi constitution the Pershmerga is responsible for the security of the region.

They played a key role in US missions against al-Qaeda after 9/11and were with other Kurdish forces now fighting against ISIS with some support from the USA. But the USA was refusing to directly supply any weapons except through the Iraqi government who were failing to pass any on the the Pershmerga as they feared they would be used to promote an independent Kurdistan. And in London people seemd to be clearly calling for a free Kurdistan.

The result of this failure to pass on weapons is that the force is poorly armed, mainly using Soviet-era weapons they captured in earlier Iraq uprisings and now weapons captured from ISIS in 2014. This protest called for greater support to provide them with modern weapons and other support they lack including ammunition, ambulances and military communications equipment.

Kurds protest for a Free Kurdistan


Doctors & Nurses Die-in for Syria – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

A short walk away in front of the Houses of Parliament Healthcare workers held a die-in at Parliament in solidarity with the Syrian people.

They called for an end to the bombing of civilians, hospitals and schools by the Assad regime and for the UK government to put pressure on the Syrian government to allow the delivery of aid. They urged the UK to make airdrops of aid, provide safe passage to all those trapped and grant asylum to refugees.

The protest was organised by Medact’s Arms and Militarisation (MAM) group along with Syria solidarity activist groups and individuals including the Syrian British Medical Society.

Peter Tatchell holds a poster

Between 2014 and 2021 when the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme closed, the UK accepted around 20,000 Syrian refugees. When adjusted to reflect the population size of European countries this puts the UK well down among European countries. For the total number of resettled refugees from 2008-20021 the UK comes fifth behind Germany, Sweden, Norway and France but adjusted for population size we are in 10th position.

But along with the USA, Britain failed to take any effective action in support of the Syrian revolution and the crimes against the people committed by the Assad regime, and were severely outplayed by Russia who backed Assad.

Doctors & Nurses Die-in for Syria


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Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria – 2013

Sunday, September 3rd, 2023

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria – 2013 On Tuesday 3rd September 2013, ten years ago I photographed two different protests in Central London, beginning at Downing St against Russian homophobia and going on the the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a rather mixed protest over Syria.


Love Russia, Hate Homophobia – Downing St

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria

Several hundred had come to Downing St two days before David Cameron was to attend a G20 Summit in St Petersburg hosted by Putin, urging our Prime Minister to press him to repeal the Russian anti-gay law and prosecute violent homophobes.

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria

The organisers had asked people to wear red, and many did though others came in more colourful attire and several were in drag. The protesters including a large African LGBT contingent and Peter Tatchell.

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria

The protest which was a part of a world-wide day of action against Russian homophobia :

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria

The organisers had listed eight themes for the action including some related to the forthcoming 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics:

  • David Cameron: What are you doing about the anti-gay law in Russia? We want answers. Tell Putin to drop the law.
  • Russia: End the anti-gay law & homophobic violence
  • Solidarity with Russian LGBT & human rights defenders
  • Defend freedom of expression & human rights for all Russians
  • Oppose the Putin regime’s escalating authoritarianism
  • IOC must protect LGBT athletes and spectators, and ensure freedom of expression
  • Sochi corporate sponsors must condemn homophobic legislation & violence
  • The IOC must insist that Russia lifts its ban on a LGBT Pride House at Sochi

More pictures at Love Russia, Hate Homophobia.


Hands off Syria – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square,

Several hundred people, including many Syrians living in the UK, came to the US Embassy for a protest rally called by Stop The War to keep up the pressure on President Obama not to bomb Syria.

Among the Syrians present were groups supporting both the revolution in Syria, particularly Kurds who have long suffered discrimination and repression in the country and supporters of the Assad regime who made the ridiculous claim that there had been no discrimination in Syria.

The Assad regimes have made more than 300,000 Kurds stateless, not included in the census, unable to vote, stand for office, gain school certificates or university degrees, or travel outside their own provinces. International organisations have clearly shown that Kurds in Syria are subject to discriminatory policies against their language and dress.

The Stop The War protest was followed by a lengthy protest by the pro-Assad Syrians against US intervention. They vociferously denied that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in Syria blaming others for their use. Reports by various bodies now show there is no room for any doubt that they were used by government forces.

The failure by Obama and other western countries to take effective action in Syria – such as enforcing a no-fly zone in disputed areas left the door open for Putin to intervene providing direct military support for Assad in 2015. Putin was also able to come to arrangements with Turkey despite them being key members of NATO in the region and enabled them to take military action against the Kurds who were the most efficient force in the fight against ISIS in Syria.

The failures of the USA in Syria was probably also key in giving Putin the confidence to invade the Crimea and parts of Ukraine in 2014 – and then on to the current invasion there. We were also given a powerful reminder of earlier US blunders by the presence outside the US Embassy just along from the protests I was covering of a protest camp already in front of the embassy over the attacks on Camp Ashraf in Iraq on 1 September.

Camp Ashraf in Iraq had been home to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main opposition to Islamic rule in Iran, in 1986. Before the US coalition invasion of Iraq, the US had come to an agreement with Iran that they would neutralise the PMOI, and coalition forces attacked the camp. Eventually there was a ceasefire after which the PMOI agreed to give up its tanks, armoured vehicles and heavy artillery and the residents of the camp were given protected status as civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

But after the US left Iraq, the camp came under control of the Iraq government, who attacked it on several occasions. The Iraqi army killed 34 and wounded 318 in a raid in April 2011, and a raid on September 1, 2013 had killed killed 52. The PMOI blamed Iraq for this but others blame Iranian militias directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The PMOI camp was calling for the US for support. The PMOI were focibly moved to another site in Iraq in 2012 and in 2016 the US brokered a deal to relocate them to a site in Albania, giving the UN refugee agency $20million for their resettlement.

More pictures of the Embassy protests at Hands off Syria.


Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022

Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka – On Saturday 23rd August 2014 I photographed four protests in Westminster, one against an aspect of our racist immigration policies, the second against the UK selling arms to Israel which have been used in attacks on Gaza (along with a counter demonstration), the anniversary of chemical attacks by the Syrian regime and a protest calling for UK support against the continuing genocide of the Tamil nation.


Divided Families protest over cruelty – Downing St

Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka

The cruel and unfair immigration rules set up by the Home Office under Theresa May mean that anyone earning less than £18,600 was unable to bring a non-EU spouse into the country (Brexit means that similar rules now apply to most EU countries.)

Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka

This income requirement discriminates against women, the retired and disabled young and many minority ethnic people who have on average lower incomes than the general population. For couples with children, the income limit is even higher, and to secure visas for a spouse and two children you would need an income of £24,800.

Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka

Fees for applications are also expensive – from £1048 to £1538 per person and applicants may also need to pay a healthcare premium of from £1560 to £3120 for adults and around three-quarters of this for each child. For applications made in the UK there is an extra £800 if you want a faster decision. And applicants also need to supply a great deal of documentation.

The policy, which also includes tougher English Language tests, a proof of greater attachment to the UK than of any other country and extending the probationary period from two to five years, is in direct contradiction of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which states:

‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.’

Universal Declaration on Human Rights

People at the protests included many whose families were divided as they were unable to meet the income levels, as well as a number of parents and friends of divided families.

Many carried placards with images of the divided families, along with captions such as ‘I WANT MY DADDY TO CUDDLE ME NOT SKYPE ME’. I felt deeply for those caught by what seem to be vindictive, unnecessary and totally insupportable polices. It was impossible not to agree with the placards with messages such as ‘WHY IS LOVE DIVIDED BY LAW? THERESA MAY HAS NO HEART!!! THE LAW NEEDS TO CHANGE….’

Divided Families protest over cruelty


Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel – Downing St

A large rally at Downing St called on the UK to stop selling arms to Israel, and for an end to Israeli war crimes. Among the protesters were many Jews from various Jewish groups, including the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta who had walked down from north London to support the protest.

Israel had carried out air strikes on Gaza in July 2014 following a number of incidents including the shooting by the IDF of two Palestinian teenagers and the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. There were other incidents including house demolitions and the kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian youth. Hamas replied to air strikes with rocket fire on Israel.

The Israeli invasion of Gaza began in earnest on 20th July and the ground war was still continuing though on a lesser scale when this protest took place, with a ceasefire being agreed and coming into effect on 26th August.

There are more details about the invasion in the Wikipedia Timeline, which states “2,256 Palestinians and 85 Israelis died, while 17,125 Palestinians, and 2,639 Israelis suffered injuries.”

At the protest there was a row of black boxes representing coffins and the names of children killed, and some people carried ‘bloodstained’ bundles representing dead children

Three people came to wave Israeli flags across the road and were led away for safety by police.

Earlier one of the Palestinian protesters had tried to seize one of the flags and was dragged away by police. At the end of the rally opposite Downing St some of the protesters marched around London and I went with them as far as Trafalgar Square where I had another event to cover.

More pictures: Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel


Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary – Trafalgar Square

A rally marked a year after the Ghouta massacre of 21/08/2013 when Assad regime forces outraged the world by using Sarin gas, killing 1,477 residents including over 400 children in this Damascus suburb. The world failed to act against Assad.

One man was wearing wolf head with bloody hands and placard ‘I AM CHEMICAL BASHAR AL ASSAD AND ONE YEAR ON I AM STILL GASSING SYRIAN CHILDREN. THANK YOU FOR UN VETO’

After an hour-long rally in Trafalgar Square the protesters, who were mainly Syrians, marched along the pavements to Richmond Terrace, opposite Downing St, where they laid flowers in memory of the dead.

More pictures: Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary


Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing – Downing St

Also present when I returned to Downing St were Tamils protesting over the continuing genocide of the Tamil nation, calling for a UN investigation and referendum on Tamil Eelam.

Placards called for an end to the use of rape to destroy their nation and sexual violence against children.

More pictures: Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing


Eight events

Thursday, December 17th, 2020

I find that I was wrong to suggest in an earlier post that covering seven events on Human Rights Day was a personal record, as on Saturday 17th December 2011 I managed to photograph eight protests.

It was a big day for UK Uncut, protesting about the failure of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to get major companies operating in the UK to make proper contributions to our tax revenue. If HMRC had got them to pay up, there would be no need for the massive cuts in public services that were being imposed by the government after the financial crisis. UK Uncut claim that corporate tax doging costs the UK £25 billion a year, four times the amount of the cuts.

Their protest began with UK Uncut’s Santa and two helpers calling at the Westminster offices of the head of UK tax collection with a present, a card and a sack of barbecue charcoal. Dave Hartnett, the man in charge of HMRC had recently let Vodaphone who owed £6 billion pay only around a fifth of what they owed, losing taxpayers £4.75 billion as well as giving an £8 million handout to Goldman Sachs. Mr Hartnett was about to retire with a massive pension despite a series of blunders which cost us a fortune.

As I wrote:

The UK seems to be loophole central for the rich, not just for taxes but also for the kind of fraudulent unregulated creation of imaginary money that has sustained and grown the City since the ‘big bang’ and lies at the epicentre of our current world financial crisis. Doubtless it is too much to hope that Mr Hartnett will be called to account for his relatively small part in this process, but as a taxpayer it pains me to think of him retiring and enjoying an excessive civil service pension for his misdeeds.

A rather larger group of protesters met on Oxford St to protest outside Topshop against the failure of the Arcadia group to pay UK tax on its UK earnings. Sir Philip Green, who took huge amounts of money out of the group eventually leading this year to its collapse with a vast hole in its pension fund, runs a vast empire that includes Topshop, BHS and Dorothy Perkins, but exploits a loophole in that the business is owned by his Monaco-based wife who does not have to pay income tax.

Police had come out in large numbers to protect Topshop, although the protest was expected to be (and was) entirely peaceful. They obstructed the press who were attempting to report on the event, lying to us that we would be allowed to re-enter the store to cover the protest inside, and then aggressively moved on the protesters claiming with little justification that they were causing an obstruction; as I commented, it was clearly a large block of police that were obstructing the pavement and not the protesters.

Police behaved rather better when the protest moved on to Vodaphone, making no attempt to stop the protest on the pavement outside the shop, while forming a line to prevent more than a few early arrivals to get inside the shop.

The protesters made effective use of a ‘Human Microphone’ to shout out in unison a series of short statements about the reason for the protest; they stated that when they first protested about Vodaphone they were told the £6 billion of tax dodged was “an urban myth”, but they had now been told it may have been £8 billion. The protest continued with them singing a number of Christmas carols specially adapted for the event, including:

Away in a mansion
On my four poster bed
You lie outside freezing
While I'm resting my head

The stars in the bright sky
They sparkle like jewels
The ones that I paid for
By robbing you fools

and as I left had begun dancing on the pavement.

I left for Downing St, where Syrian Kurds were calling for an end to the massacres being carried out in Syria by the Assad regime forces – and on that day alone at least 32 civilians including two children were killed.

Kurds form almost a fifth of the Syrian population, and during the continuing civil war in the country have formed an autonomous region in the north of the country which became called Rojava. At the protest they were arguing for Syria after the war to become a federation, with considerable autonomy continuing for regions such as this, though many Kurds also support the formation of a separate nation of Kurdistan, including the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Turkey. Since the end of 2011 the situation has moved on with Turkey invading and occupying some of the Kurdish areas of Syria and the support of Russia for Assad which makes his eventual victory seem inevitable and the future looks even bleaker for the Kurds.

Also protesting opposite Downing St were a group of Congolese, continuing the protests in London against the election fraud, rapes and massacres and calling on the British government to withdraw its support from the immoral regime of President Kabila responsible for the atrocities and voted out by the people.

The continuing problems in the Congo region are the terrible consequence of the western exploitation of the area’s mineral resources such as Coltan – needed for mobile phones, the computers and other electronic devices on which our lives and the media now depend. But those media “have so far taken relatively little interest in the desperate situation of the people in the Congo. They seem to be being sacrificed while the vast natural resources of their country are being largely stolen by underhand deals which enrich a few in their and neighbouring countries while the industrialised world turns an almost totally blind eye to the violence and injustice.”

The protest outside the US Embassy celebrated the withdrawal of US troops, but also demanded that mercenaries still in Iraq should also be expelled, and the war criminals prosecuted. Iraqis also want an end to the looting and pillaging of Iraq’s natural resources and an end to government sponsored executions there. They were joined by Syrian supported of the Assad regime want the US to stop their attempts to interfere with events in Syria through UN resolutions and other means.

The BBC came in for criticism from the Iraqis as “a Patronizing Media Channel, With Racist Undertones, towards Arabs & Islam” and being “Deceptive and Inaccurate” and they asked “Why does it not report on the wide spread asset looting and corruption taking place in Iraq?”

Also outside the US Embassy was a vigil on the 24th birthday of Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning whose pre-trail hearing was taking place. The protesters who included members of Veterans for Peace and Payday Men’s Network called him an American Peace Hero for leaking evidence of US war crimes.

It was beginning to get dark by the time I reached the Egyptian embassy where Egyptians had come to protest after the military attacks on protesters in Cairo, killing at least 10 and injuring more than 500.

It was a protest that was slow to start – and when I arrived on time I found only one person there. I waited, feeling increasingly frustrated as the light was disappearing rather faster than protesters were arriving. Half an hour later around 25 people had come and more were arriving and I took my pictures and left.

Egyptians Protest At Embassy
Bradley Manning Birthday Demo
Iraqis and Syrians Protest At US
Congolese Protests Continue
Kurds Call For A Stop To Syrian Massacres
UK Uncut Xmas Protest At Vodaphone
UK Uncut Xmas Protest At Topshop
UK Uncut Santa Calls on Dave Hartnett


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