banner | >Re-PHOTO

Pedal Power Bike Rush – 2009

Pedal Power Bike Rush: On Monday 1st June 2009 I put my Brompton on the train and came to London to photograph Climate Rush’s mass bicycle ride demanding the the UK government take effective action to counter climate change and global warning. As we have been feeling in recent days, neither our government or most others around the would has done anything like enough despite the great majority of scientific advice and the many protests such as this. You can read a longer account of this protest together with many more pictures on My London Diary at Pedal Power Bike Rush.

Pedal Power Bike Rush

Westminster

Climate Rush was a direct action group led and inspired by women, modelled on the Suffragette Movement of a hundred years previously and had first emerged in a rush to Parliament on the 100th anniversary of the 1908 ‘Suffragette Rush’ when 40 women were arrested as they attempted to rush into The Houses of Parliament.

Then, as for this pedal power protest their key demands were an end to fossil fuel use and for the government to make policies in line with climate science and research.

*Hare Krisha came with food and a sound system*

Earlier in the day I had not been with them as they protested outside a conference at Chatham House in St James’s Square ‘Coal: An answer to our energy security’, attempting to block the entrance with a sculpture made of bikes and a banner ‘NO NEW COAL – CLIMATE RUSH’ demanding that no new coal-fired power stations be built – and existing ones shut down. (It was October 2024 before this finally happened, years too late.) Five of the protesters had been arrested.

I joined around 300 Climate Rush cyclists and a tandem-hauled sound system outside the conference venue and after around an hour of further protest there, with a short speech by Climate Rush founder Tamsin Osman we set off on a ride, pausing briefly outside BP’s headquarters where she spoke briefly about their huge contribution to global warming and related crimes.

Other climate criminals the ride halted at for protests and where people came to talk about their activities including the British Airports Authority at Victoria and the the government’s clumsily-named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), responsible for promoting much of its anti-environment climate warming activity.

Helpfully these were marked out by rows of police standing outside, and police pedal cyclists riding with the Climate Rush were also helpful in stopping traffic at various points to facilitate the ride.

*More information about Climate Criminals 0utside the RBS in Lower Regent St*

Many riders wore white dresses and hats evoking the Suffragette era with red sashes with messages including ‘CLIMATE CODE RED’, ‘DEEDS NOT WORDS’, ‘NO AIRPORT EXPANSION’, ‘ACTION ON COAL NOW!, ‘TRAINS NOT PLANES’ and ‘PEDAL POWER.’

*At the Dept for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform*

The riders also slowed down to hand out copies of a newspaper ‘HERE COMES THE SUN’, with information about climate change and what people can do as well as celebrity exclusives from Quentin Tarantino, Paris Hilton, Colin Firth, Vivienne Westwood, Daisy Lowe, Stephen Hawking, Giles Deacon, Gavin Turk, Katherine Hamnett and Queens of Noize, quotations from Gandhi, Einstein and more.

At the end of the ride, the cyclists went around Parliament Square and then onto Westminster Bridge where they brought out a very long banner with the text ‘Remember Remember the 5th of December’ – the date of the next National Climate Demonstration – and hung it over the side of the bridge before settling down to have a picnic. This was continuing when I left for home.

More at Pedal Power Bike Rush.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

State Opening of Parliament 2015

State Opening of Parliament: I wasn’t of course attending the Queen’s Opening of Parliament on Wednesday 27 May 2015, but it was a day for protests in Westminster. Class War had come to protest against the monarchy and the political system and were hounded by police, Compassion in Care protested in support of whistle-blowers, students in the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts had organised a rally and march and others including Disco Boy and Ahwazi protesters came to join in. The day ended with a People’s Assembly rally at Downing Street but I was too tired to cover this properly and went home. I wrote about all these in My London Dairy and uploaded quite a few pictures – you can read and view more by following the links in the brief introductions below.

Class War protest Queen’s speech

Parliament Square

Class War only managed to display their ‘political leaders’ banner on the corner of Parliament briefly before police forced them to put it away. Around 50 officers then followed most of them as they went to a nearby pub and continued to watch them from the opposite side of the street for several hours.

Police arrested two other men for simply standing in the square, one holding a video camera and the other a rolled up poster. They were released without chanrge some hours later.

More at Class War protest Queen’s speech.

I am Edna’ – protect whistle-blowers

Downing St

*A woman holds a photograph of her husband who died because of his mistreatment in a care home*

A line of people held up posters and shouted ‘I am Edna’ at Downing St calling for a law which would make it an offence not to act on the genuine concerns of a whistleblower and to protect those revealing scandals in social care and other sectors.

More at ‘I am Edna’ – protect whistle-blowers.

Police arrest man in Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

As people gathered for the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts a police squad rushed in and arrested a man. They were surrounded by a crowd who grew angry when police refused to give them any explanation for the arrest and pushed some away roughly

Police pushed a young man standing on the pavement near the police van roughly out of their way, and when he complained, he was assaulted by an officer then arrested for assault.

Later police announced that the arrest in the square was in no way related to the gathering protest but to an earlier offence. Had they made that clear to the crowd when they made the arrest the problems could have been avoided.

More pictures Police arrest man in Trafalgar Square.

Disco Boy plays Trafalgar Square

*Disco Boy at the mike with his mobile rig and crew in Trafalgar Square*

Disco Boy’ Lee Marshall from Kent who runs discos at local events and carries out stunts to be videod and posted on social media brought a mobile rig to Trafalgar Square before the NCAFC protest there and had people dancing around the square before going on to perform elsewhere, including outside Downing St.

Disco Boy plays Trafalgar Square

NCAFC rally in Trafalgar Square

*Class War’s controvesial banner got loud cheers from the crowd*

Students and other supporters of the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts met in Trafalgar Square, and there were a few short speeches before they set off on a march.

A banner points out that less than a quarter of the population had voted for the Tory government and called for proportional representation.

Protesting with them were Class War, with several banners including a replacement for their ‘Political Leaders’ banner’ which had been taken by Bethnal Green Police the previous month (and police ‘lost’ it) and also the Hashem Shabani group of Ahwazi Arabs, who later held their own protest

NCAFC rally in Trafalgar Square.

NCAFC March against ‘undemocratic’ government

The National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts set off down Whitehall with police making ineffectual attempts to stop them, arresting several forcefully.

The rest of the protesters remained peaceful and simply walked through the huge gaps in the police line, made larger as they made the few arrests. There seemed to be no reason for the police attempting to stop them.

The protesters complained to police about the violent attacks and arrests. They went to protest outside the DWP and then marched past the now heavily protected Tory Party HQ back to a People’s Assembly rally opposite Downing Street. Some stayed there, others marched on and I went home. It had been a long day.

More pictures at NCAFC March against ‘undemocracy’.

Ahwazi Arabs protest Iran’s war on them

*Our Pens Are Our Swords. Our Voices Are Our Bombs*

Ahwazi protesters joined the mainly student anti-austerity National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts protesters in London to call for an end to the Iranian attacks on their heritage and identity. Their homeland, which includes most of Iran’s oil, was occupied by Iran in 1925

I photographed them in Trafalgar Square with the NCAFC and later when they left the march as it went through Parliament Square to hold a separate protest there.

More pictures: Ahwazi Arabs protest Iran’s war

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

Police Farce at Poor Doors – 2015

Police Farce at Poor Doors: The protest outside the ‘rich’ door of One Commercial St on Thursday 26th February 2015 was just another in the regular series of weekly protests by Class War against the separate entrances to the building – one into a spacious foyer with a reception desk, comfortable seating, flowers and works of art on the walls for those in the privately owned flats and the other a long empty corridor from a door down a side alley for those in social housing.

But a larger contingent of police had turned up than usual and they had come determined to show they were in charge.

As soon as Class War arrived and unrolled their banners a police officer, Sergeant C, came to tell them that the ‘Party Leaders’ banner was offensive and they must remove it.

They were told that nobody had objected to it and so according to the law it was not an offence to display it, and it remained on display. Sergeant C and a woman police officer then began stopping people passing by and entering and leaving through the rich door and trying to get them to say it was offensive.

It seemed to me unacceptable behaviour for police to try and manufacture an offence in this way, and I was pleased when person after person responded with either ‘No’ or ‘Not particularly’ or words to that effect or said they found it amusing rather than offensive. But eventually after around ten minutes of asking people they found three young men going into the rich door who were willing to be prompted to agree that they found it offensive, and came back to the protesters.

Triumphant, Sergeant C then returned to those holding the banner and told them that unless they put the banner away they would be arrested. The protesters rolled it up and continued the protest.

The police should have known better. In 2010 police had raided the home of a photographer a mile of so away for displaying the posters the banner was based on in the windows of his house, forcing him to take them down. He did, then replaced them with the word ‘wanker’ replaced by ‘onanist’. Later the police apologised for their action, upholding the right to to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act and paid compensation for the raid on his home.

*For some reason police don’t find the Lucy Parsons banner offensive*

Sergeant C also warned Ian Bone he would be arrested if he continued to use offensive language, in particular the ‘f’ word. As Bone told him, this this was now commonly heard in almost all situations, but perhaps his contributions became just a little more muted.

But Martin Wright took up the challenge, giving a spirited discourse on the words he found offensive such as ‘poverty’ and ‘war’ and using various terms related to sex and bodily functions which were not. The police took no action.

Class War had brought out their posters with the message ‘YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF ALDGATE’ and they invited the police to leave, offering them safe conduct out of the PRA. The police failed to take up the offer.

As the protest was coming to an end there was “a moment of pure farce after an orange flare had been set off, when Sergeant C and another officer tried to put it out in a puddle.

Unsurprisingly this had little effect. It was burning out fairly harmlessly in the puddle on the pavement, the red smoke mainly blowing along the pavement parallel to the road when the sergeant decided to pick it up and carry it to a bin at the side of the traffic lights.

Red smoke continued to pour out of the bin, now being blown into the traffic, and some of the rubbish in the bin appeared to catch fire, though fortunately it went out.”

One of the protesters then mime the police action in dealing with the flare in the puddle and the others were soon in stitches, along with the security man; some of the police were unable to hide their amusement, trying desperately hard not to laugh.

It was time to go home, and I left with the impression that Class War had rather decisively beaten the police on this occasion.

But clearly the local police had an obsession with the ‘Political Leaders’ banner – and a few months later – as I wrote here in Police nick Class War banner – seized it at another Poor Doors protest, arresting one of those holding it. They took the banner back to the police station and then ‘lost‘ it.

More pictures on My London Diary at People’s Republic Of Aldgate Free Speech Fight.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

Boycott Workfare Surprise Party – Brixton 2012

*People walk out from the Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in the BHF shop*

Campaigners held a brief ‘Boycott Workfare Surprise Party’ in the British Heart Foundation shop in the centre of Brixton in a protest against the charity using free forced labour by unemployed people in their shops.

Previous governments had introduced various schemes to provide work for the unemployed, particularly for young people which involved training, usually while performing socially useful tasks, such as the Youth Training Scheme. But Workfare, introduced by the coalition government in 2012 meant that those who had been out of work for some years had to work for six months without pay, often at profit-making companies, in order to keep getting their benefits.

There were a number of different workfare schemes brought in under the coalition and Tory governments including ‘Community Work Placements‘, introduced in April 2014 which forced “claimants to work for up to 30 hours a week for 26 weeks in return for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)” but was scrapped in 2015.

*Staff challenge the protesters who are putting up some Xmas decorations*

The protesters came from the anti-workfare group Boycott Workfare and met in Windrush Square in Brixton, where two PCSO’s tried with little success to find out what they intended to do.

The small group then walked off down Brixton Road and went into the “British Heart Foundation shop armed with Christmas decorations, Santa hats and crackers as well as a banner and placard. Shop staff argued with them as soon as they started to party and protest.” I went in with them but was soon was told I could not photograph inside the store; I didn’t argue but left and continued to take pictures through the many glass windows to the shop.

After around 15 minutes the group left the BHF shop and posed for photographs outside before packing up and moving to protest outside Poundland, which also uses free workfare labour, abusing the unemployed. They handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the shop and to passersby by.

The next stop was Superdrug, where a security guard came out and told the protesters they were not allowed to protest on the street outside. They laughed at him and told him he was mistaken – they had every right to protest on the highway.

He saw I was taking pictures and threatened to smash my camera. I moved back behind some of the protesters and told him he would be breaking the law if he touched me and continued taking photographs.

The protest continued, and the protesters explained why they were protesting. The security man wasn’t aware that Superdrug were using free labour of unemployed people who had no choice but to work for nothing or lose their benefits.

He calmed down and after a few minutes went back inside Superdrug. The protest continued, handing out leaflets to those walking past on the busy high street. When they began discussing which shop to go to for their next protest I decided I’d done enough and left for home.

As I commented, “Workfare is supposed to offer a way for the unemployed to get into work, but many employers are using it as a free labour supply, cutting down the number of actual jobs available by getting the work done for nothing by the unemployed… Some employers also seem to be using workfare to attack workers’ terms and conditions and attacking trade union organisation by replacing unionised workers by the unemployed.”

More pictures at Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in Brixton.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

Rip Down the Ripper Facade! – 2016

Rip Down the Ripper Facade! On Sunday 19th June 2016 after the ‘Jack the Ripper Museum’ tourist attraction on Cable St had not yet complied with the planning decision against its facade and shutter, Class War and supporters, including London Fourth Wave Feminists in cat masks, protested outside with toy plastic hammers offering to take it down for them.

The so-called museum is a tacky tourist attraction that glorifies the killing of working class women but got planning permission and attracted support for promising to provide a museum promoting the history of East End women.

Before going to the protest I’d been to a temporary exhibition being held in nearby St George in the East church, which shows some of the real history of women in the area, and was rather more interesting than the gory speculation for prurient tourists in the shop.

I photographed the Class War protesters, led by women carrying the Class War Womens Death Brigade banner as they marched to the shop. Several were carrying inflatable plastic hammers but the threat to remove the shutters was purely symbolic.

They crowded around the facade with their banner and several stuck Class War Womens Death Brigade stickers on the facade where police were protecting the doorway and stopping them from entering.

Several black-clad protesters then arrived and the scene was enveloped in bright red smoke.

I moved back both because taking pictures inside the smoke seldom works very well and also the smoke was getting in my lungs and it didn’t feel good.

Unlike at previous protests there was no sign of the shop owner, but the two women staff he had employed to run the shop watched out of the windows. But one of the protesters was wearing a mask of his face.

London Fourth Wave Feminists were wearing cat masks but also held posters expressing their opposition to the shop and calling for an end to male violence against women.

There had been a billboard opposite the shop which advertising the real exhibition about the lives of East End women but this had been vandalised, perhaps by friends of the ‘museum’.

It wasn’t then clear when or how (or even if) Tower Hamlets council intended to enforce their planning decision, and their stated opposition to the grisly shop seems to have been rather half-hearted.

Although police had come to protect the shop against this protest, and had stopped any of the protesters from entering, they had largely stood and watched, and at times some officers appeared rather amused by what was happening. By the time the protest finished the windows were fairly well covered by stickers and egg had been thrown onto one of the signs the shop had been asked to remove.

More pictures on My London Diary at Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

TUC Pensions March & Corporate Greed – 2011

TUC Pensions March & Corporate Greed – On Wednesday 30th November 2011 public sector workers across the country held a one-day strike against government plans to cut public service pensions with pickets at thousands of workplaces and rallies and marches in towns and cities across the country as well as a South East TUC organised march in Central London which I photographed. Later in the afternoon I went with Occupy London protesters who occupied the offices of the highest paid CEO in the UK to protest against corporate greed.

TUC Nov 30 March – Lincolns Inn Fields to Westminster

It’s always hard to estimate the numbers on very large marches such as this one but it was very large and when I arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields the large space already seemed pretty crowded an hour before the march was due to start. Many people gave up trying to get in waited to join the march on Kingsway.

At the front of the march were Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, NASUWT president John Rimmer (below) and other trade unionists. Many other groups had come with banners.

There were many placards suggesting ways to avoid the cuts, including by taxing the mega-rich and cutting the pointless and wasteful expenditure on Trident rather than job’s health and education.

Some of the students on the march felt it was going to slow and began to march in front of the main banner.

Police stopped them and held up the whole of the march at Aldwych but then didn’t seem to know what to do. Eventually they just let things go ahead.

I took a lot of pictures of the Education Activist Network who were the liveliest part of the protest but there were plenty of others to photograph too with many interesting hand-made posters.

I stopped for quite a while to photograph marchers as they went past.

and they were still coming in large numbers an hour after the front of the march had passed me.

I was still on the Embankment with marchers when the rally had begun closer to Parliament and people were still rolling in. I think there were probably between 20 and 30,000 taking part, but it was hard to know and I think many who had been on picket lines early in the morning had left before the rally began. I left too to meet with people from Occupy London.

More pictures on My London Diary at TUC Nov 30 March.

Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed – Piccadilly Circus & Panton House

Occupy London had called people to meet at Piccadilly Circus at 3pm but had not indicated what would be happening next. I arrived to find around a hundred protesters there along with quite a few Greek football supporters and a large number of police standing around watching them.

We stood in the intermittent rain for around half an hour waiting for something to happen. At 3.30pm around 30 people rushed across the road to stand outside a branch of Boots with the ‘Precarious Workers Brigade’ banner, but made no attempt to enter the store which quickly lowered its metal shutters.

Police rushed across the street to surround them, but soon became clear that this had merely been a diversion, as others close to Eros unfolded their long main ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner and rushed down Haymarket with it catching the police by surprise and leaving them behind.

I was running ahead of them, taking pictures over my shoulder and managing to keep ahead, but the police were well behind as we reached Panton St.

Here the protesters set off a bright orange flare, turned down Panton Street and rushed into Panton House. I followed the group with the main banner inside, but stupidly stopped in the foyer to take pictures through the glass frontage of the flares outside.

I was a little behind as the protesters ran up the stairs and rather out of breath after running along the street. By the time I reached the third or fourth landing I had decided to give up and pressed the button for a lift. Police arrived just as the lift came and one officer grabbed me stopping me from getting in.

Police told us all to go downstairs, but around 20 of the protesters and a few press had reached the roof. I made my way down, though it was difficult as more police rushing up pushed those of us going down out of the way.

The police had now surrounded the entrance, preventing any more people entering, but were allowing us to go out. I was pleased to get out because the air inside had been thick with the orange smoke and I had been choking slightly, Smoke flares aren’t intended for indoor use.

A little back on Haymarket by the side of the building protesters outside were taking part in a mike chat group chant to inform passers-by what was going on. From this I learnt that Panton House contains the London offices of the mining company Xstrata, whose CEO Mick Davies they say is the highest paid CEO in the UK, and “is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets while denying workers pensions.”

Police began to surround them and I quickly moved away as they kettled the protesters, and also to get a better view of what was happening on the roof. TI had missed seeing the ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner being let down over Haymarket earlier but saw them trying to do so again but being dragged away from the edge. More police vans were now arriving and I decided there would be little else I could see and left.

More at Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed.

Budget Day, Shaker and Sotheby’s – 2015

Budget Day, Shaker and Sotheby’s: Wednesday 8th July 2015 was budget day, and campaigners were out in Whitehall to protest. For the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign it was just another Wednesday and they lined up to remind MPs of the need for action. Later United Voices of the World were back at Sotheby’s who had sacked four workers for taking part in the previous week’s protest.

DPAC Protests – Downing St, Westminster Bridge & Parliament Square

Disabled People Against Cuts supporters, some in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, were protesting against the changes to benefits which will hit the disabled hardest. Their supporters included Global Women’s Strike, Winvisible, Women Against Rape, Unite Community and Class War.

They began at Downing St with a ‘Balls to the Budget’ protest, arriving with footballs and balloons and and after some speeches on the pavement opposite Paula Peters led protesters across the road towards the gates, which were protected by two lines of police.

From there they tried to throw balls carrying messages such as ‘If the Tories had a soul they’d sell it’, ‘Cuts Kill‘ and ‘Blood on your hands‘ over the gates, but most fell short.

They then moved off down Whitehall and Parliament Street on their way to Westminster Bridge. Police who had largely stood back and watched earlier tried to persuade them to go on to the pavement but were ignored.

They moved to the middle of Westminster Bridge as a small group on the Embankment in front of St Thomas’s Hospital facing the Houses of Parliament displayed a huge banner with the message ‘#Balls2TheBudget #DPAC’ with ahand making an appropriate two-finger sign.

This was then brought up onto the bridge and stretched across its full width, and along with the protesters it completely blocked traffic in both directions.

After some minutes Paula Peters called for the protesters to move to Parliament, leading the protesters and the huge banner on her own chariot past Boadicea.

Here they made use of the banner to completely block all traffic moving through the busy road junction.

They held a short rally on the street and were joined by strikers marching down from the National Gallery led by the sacked PCS rep Candy Udwin, victimised for her trade union activities.

By now police patience had grown thin, and reinforcements arrived to try to clear the protesters from the streets. They tried to grab the large banner and began to push protesters and press onto the pavements.

The press as usual obeyed the police instructions more or less, though that didn’t stop some being pushed rather too violently. Most of the protesters let themselves be pushed to the pavement, but many of those in wheelchairs refused to move. Eventually police made some arrests, including Andy Greene of DPAC who was on his mobility scooter.

Eventually police brought a specially adapted van they had hired into which they could put Andy, still on his mobility scooter and the others arrested and take them safely to the police station. Unlike normal police vans it had large windows through which I was able to take pictures.

More on My London Diary
DPAC Parliament Square Budget Day protest
DPAC blocks Westminster Bridge
DPAC ‘Balls to the Budget’

Joint Strikers Budget Day Rally

Public sector workers striking against the privatisation of the council services in Barnet and Bromley came to join the PCS strikers and held a rally in Parliament Square, along with various trade union speakers, including one of the four cleaners sacked by Sotheby’s.

Joint Strikers Budget Day Rally

Save Shaker Aamer weekly vigil

The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign was also in Parliament Square, holding its regular Wednesday weekly vigil calling for the immediate release and return to the UK of Londoner Shaker Aamer and for the closure of the illegal torture prison at Guantanamo.

Save Shaker Aamer weekly vigil

Sotheby’s 4 sacked for protesting

Later I met the United Voices of the World and their supporters at Oxford Circus, marching with them to Sotheby’s.- in Old Bond Street. As well as their original demands for proper sick pay, holidays and pensions they were now demanding the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 4’, cleaners sacked for taking place in the protest a week earlier.

At Sotheby’s police tried to move them away to the other side of the road, but the protesters, including a group from Class War and supporters from Lewisham People Against Profit, SOAS Unison, the National Gallery strikers and others ignored their requests. They left the entrance clear but wanted to make their presence clearly felt, protesting on the road outside.

Eventually two vans of police reinforcements arrived and started to push the protesters away, leading to a number of arguments. Eventually protesters were pushed to the pavement opposite, making it easier for taxis to drop clients directly in front of the entrance to Sotheby’s rather than having to walk past the noisy protest.

The protest was continuing when I had to leave after around an hour later.

Much more on My London Diary at Sotheby’s 4 sacked for p rotesting.

Women In Red Protest Against Police

Class War Women in Red One Commercial St, Aldgate, Wed 12 Nov 2014

A week earlier on 5th November 2014, police had arrested Jane Nicholl for setting fire to an effigy of Boris Johnson as a part of Class War’s ‘Poor Doors’ weekly protest against separate entrances for wealthy and social housing residents in the block at 1 Commercial St in Aldgate.

The bail conditions imposed by police prevented her from taking place in further protests outside the block in Aldgate, a clear attack on her right to protest. Jane had been wearing a red coat when she was arrested, and a number of women wore red for the protest a week later in solidarity.

Police had earlier complained about Class War’s posters earlier in the year for the general election, which had featured large portraits of the party leaders with Class War’s verdict – the same on each of them – overprinted large, the word ‘WANKER’. At least one person displaying them during the election had been threatend with arrest and forced to take them out of his house windows and in May police had objected to and seized a banner featuring all four leaders with a similar message.

Eventually the police were told they had to hand the banner back as its display was not an offence. But they were unwilling to do so, claiming it had been lost – though more probably they had destroyed it rather than having to lose face handing it back.

So the banner was not present at this protest, though later Class War made an updated version to use. But Ian Bone had brought along a pile of the posters, mainly of Tory Prime Minister David Cameron but with a few of other party leaders and handed them out.

Ian told us that this was an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of ‘Cameron wanker posters’ ever displayed at a protest. I’m not sure how many there were on display, but I think it was certainly a record number, but the chances of it being recorded in that rather conservative publication were as I wrote, “rather sub-zero.”

Police presence this week was low-key with just half a dozen officers standing beside the ‘rich door’ and along the front of the building and watching. The protest was noisy, with speeches, a samba band and dancing, but was entirely peaceful with no attempt to enter the building.

More at Class War Women in Red.

Naked Vegans, Acid Attacks, Anonymous & Kobane

PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

Wikipedia tells me that World Vegan Day is an annual event celebrated by vegans around the world every 1 November and was established in 1994 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UK Vegan Society and the coining of the terms “vegan” and “veganism”. The exact date of the founding wasn’t known and Nov 1st was chosen for its association with “Samhain/Halloween and the Day of the Dead”. November 1st has also been All Saints Day since AD 835.

I’m not a vegan. But I have no problems with eating vegan food or vegetarian food, but often prefer meat or fish in my meals. But clearly reducing the amount of meat that is eaten by people around the world would be a useful contribution to reducing carbon emissions, although some vegetable production does involve a considerable carbon footprint, as well as environmental problems.

I welcome that many people now choose not to eat animals and avoid animal products, whatever their reasons, but also think there are good reasons to keep farming animals though there are plenty of farming practices I think should be banned. But keeping livestock is very much a traditional part of life in this country, one that has produced the landscape we enjoy and the animals we like to see in it. It can be done in an ethical and humane manner, though this means paying a price that allows farmers to do so.

So although I was happy to photograph PETA’s World Vegan Day protest in Trafalgar Square when activists wearing little clothing and smeared with fake blood lay on a large tarpaulin, I was not in sympathy with some of the views expressed by PETA. But the posters held by those taking part in the protest (I think less than half the advertised 255, the number of animals killed for food in the UK every second) simply noted the “1 billion animals killed for flesh each year” and encouraged people to “Choose Life: Chose Vegan“.

PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest

Against acid attacks on Iranian women – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

I think I had actually come to Trafalgar Square for this protest, organised by the 8th March Women’s Organisation (Iran – Afghanistan).

They were in the square protesting at the horrific attacks on women who go onto the streets of Iran not wearing a veil. Gangs encouraged by the Iranian regime have thrown acid in the faces of many women, causing intense pain and burning, leaving them scarred and blinded. As the protest also pointed out as well as the forced wearing of the veil, women in Iran have no right to divorce, can still be stoned to death for adultery and can be victims of so-called ‘honour killings’.

Against acid attacks on Iranian women

Revolution Banner Drop – Waterloo Bridge and Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

‘Anonymous’ protesters in Guy Fawkes masks held up a large banner with the message ‘REVOLUTION’ on Waterloo Bridge to publicise their November 5th ‘March Against Government Corruption’ in London. I photographed it from Westminster Bridge, but the banner really wasn’t quite large enough to really stand out against the background of the City.

Later they took the banner to Trafalgar Square where a rally in support of Kobane was taking place (see pictures below) and it was rather more impressive there.

Revolution Banner Drop

Global Solidarity With Kobane – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

November 1st was also World Kobane Day, and thousands were in Trafalgar Square supporting the defenders of Kobane against ISIS and fighting for the remarkable democratic revolution of Rojava, calling for aid for the Kurdish fighters and refugees, legitimisation of the PKK and the release of Ocalan. The protest was part of a Global day of solidarity with the YPG (People’s Defense Units) and the women of the YPJ fighting against ISIS.

The protest was organised by the Kurdish People’s Assembly and Peace in Kurdistan Campaign in cooperation with Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), Roj Women Assembly and Free Youth Movement and community organisations, and was also supported by some left and human rights groups, but failed to attract some of the larger groups on the left.

Among the speakers were human rights lawyer Margaret Owen OBE, an adviser to Kurdish human rights groups in London, Jean Lambert, Green Party MEP for London, Mark Thomas, Peter Tatchell and Father Joe Ryan, a Catholic priest from Haringey as well as those from various Kurdish groups.

Many speakers criticised Turkey for supporting ISIS and allowing the smuggling of oil and other goods through Turkey which finance ISIS. They also supported the the model constitution adopted in Rojava, the de facto autonomous Kurdish majority region in northern and north-eastern Syria as an important democratic development, for its pluralism, democratic participation and protection of fundamental human rights and liberties.

Global Solidarity With Kobane

No More Benefit Deaths – 2016

No More Benefit Deaths – 2016 The action on Wednesday 7th September 2016 began with a huge banner being displayed over the river wall on the Albert Embankment so it could be seen clearly be any MPs and others on the river terrace outside the houses of Parliament with the message ‘NO MORE BENEFIT DEATHS #DPAC’

The date was the opening day for the Paralympics in Rio, and protesters held a rally outside Downing Street to call on Theresa May to pay attention to human rights and to make public the findings of the UN investigation into the UK for violations of Deaf and Disabled people’s rights, to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and commit to preventing future benefit-related deaths.

From Downing Street they marched behind a coffin towards Parliament Square.

But on reaching Bridge Street they surprised police by turning on to Westminster Bridge

where they blocked the road on both carriageways with banners, a floral sign and the coffin.

The giant banner that had previously been displayed on the embankment was now stretched across the road.

Protesters sat in wheelchairs or stood holding posters and banners and there were some speeches about why the protest was taking place.

Police at first asked them politely to leave, then began to threaten protesters and journalists covering the event with arrest if they remained on the highway.

Most of those in wheelchairs refused to move. One carer who was looking after a disabled person was arrested and taken to a police van.

I think those arrested were later released without charge – arrest was being used in an abuse of process to harass protesters

Many of DPAC’s disabled protesters refused to move and a few remained blocking the roadway almost two hours after the protest began.

Eventually Paula Peters decided that the protest had gone on for long enough and triumphantly called a halt to the protest.

DPAC block bridge over benefit deaths
‘No More Benefit Deaths’ rally
Giant Banner ‘No More Benefit Deaths