On 30th August 2014 I went to Kilburn and Cricklewood, where the far-right South East Alliance had annnounced they would protest at some empty offices they claimed were used as a recruiting centre by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement largely based in Egypt whose candidate Mohamed Morsi was became the first to be elected as Egypt’s president in 2012, but was deposed by the military after massive popular protests a year later. The MB was then declared a terrorist group and Morsi was tried and sentenced to death. He was retried after that trial was overturned and died during his second trial, possibly due to being denied medical care.
A few other countries also declared the MB a terrorist group, but it had few members in the UK, though some of its supporters set up a ‘global information centre’ here in 1999 which I think operated from this small first floor ‘World Media Offices’ in Cricklewood. In 2014 Prime Minister David Cameron set up an investigation into its alleged terrorist activities, and the office closed down, moving its activities to Austria. The investigation reported that the MB had not been linked to terrorist related activity against the UK and had condemned the activities of Al-Qaeda in the UK.
My bus to Cricklewood took me along the route of the march planned by the South East Alliance (S.E.A.) from Kilburn Underground Station, and I saw a number of police vans and motorbikes waiting for the event to start. There were a group of around 50 people and quite a few banners for groups in North West London United ready to oppose the S.E.A. march and tell them that fascists and racists were not welcome. I made a few pictures before taking the bus back to Kilburn station.
The station had been closed in anticipation of trouble there, but there are two stations on other lines a short walk away. Eventually 4 people arrived with a megaphone and flags, including Paul Pitt, leader of the S. E. A. and former Essex organiser for the English Defence League, who apparently expelled him two years earlier which led to him forming the S. E. A.
It was a rather embarassing situation with so few people present, and Pitt recognised me from previous exteme-right events I had photographed – which had led to threats against me in person and on-line. Although my photographs tried to show these events objectively, that was perhaps the problem so far as they were concerned. But there were plenty of police around.
Eventually the march set off, with the three men leading it and a woman walking more slowly with the aid of a stick completing the group some yards behind.
At Cricklewood the anti-fascists were waiting, with a line of police across the road to keep the two groups apart. Police were also surrounding and protecting a handful of S. E. A. supporters who had come directly to the end of the protest, and there were a few scuffles and arrests as anti-fascists tried to reach them.
Police stopped Paul Pitts small group of marchers and held them on a corner a short distance away. For a while it seemed he was being arrested, but then more officers arrived and he was told his protest would be facilitated.
I returned to the other small S. E. A. group surrounded by police. While some of them were busy photographing police and myself and other photographers and trying to stop us taking pictures others were holding up banners and posters and demanding we photograph them.
In front of the former office the anti-fascist protesters were continuing with speeches and shouting against the S. E. A. and I saw police make at least one more arrest, though it was unclear why. I think they may have objected at some of the language used.
Then I saw some flags approaching along a side road, still several hundred yards away and rushed down to meet them. Another group of S. E. A. supporters was arriving, perhaps bringing the total number to around 50. Police arrived there just before me and stopped them.
As I took photographs these protesters at first began to hold flags in front of my lens then used the long canes holding the flags as weapons, trying to poke the photographers in their eyes. Eventually police escorted them to join the other S.E.A. protesters where they continued to try to attack photographers with their flag sticks.
Police eventually did react to the violent attacks with flags – by forcing photographers to move further away. By this time I was fed up with being insulted and attacked – and in any case people on both sides were drifting away and nothing much more seemed likely to happen. The road had now been reopened and I saw a bus coming and made for the nearest stop to make my way home.
More at South East Alliance ‘Racist Thugs Not Welcome’.