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Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban – 6th Sept 2025

Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban: Last Saturday, 6th September, 2025 around a thousand people came to sit calmly and peacefully in Parliament Square holding signs with the message ‘I OPPOSE GENOCIDE – I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION’.

The protest was against the ban on Palestine Action imposed in July by then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper who designated the direct action group as a ‘terrorist organisation’ following extensive and dishonest lobbying from arms manufacturers and the Israeli government. Yvette Cooper is said to have received £215,000 from the Israel lobby last year.

The protest was the second mass protest in Parliament Square organised by Defend Our Jories, (DOJ) an organisation set up to defend the jury system against attempts by the government to “violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial.“

The jury system is designed to “put the moral intuitions of ordinary people at the heart of the criminal justice system“. As DOJ says, “when juries have heard evidence of why people have taken direct action to advance climate or racial justice, or to stop genocide in Gaza, they have repeatedly reached not guilty verdicts.”

“These verdicts are deeply embarrassing to the government and the arms and oil industries, contradicting the narrative that the public supports the ‘crackdown on protest’. Lobbyists for the arms and oil industries, such as Policy Exchange, embedded within government, have been working to put a stop to them.”

As they say “extraordinary measures have been taken that violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial“, with judges telling juries that they cannot acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, and in at least one case threating the jury with criminal proceedings if they did so.

Defendants have been banned from mentioning climate change in court and two Insulate Britain members were jailed for 7 weeks for doing so. Giovanna Lewis, a town councillor from Dorset told judge Silas Reid why she had defied his ruling, “I continue to be astonished that today in a British court of law, a judge can or would even want to ban and criminalise the mention of the words ‘fuel poverty’ and ‘climate crisis’. I wanted to bring public attention to the scandal of thousands of deaths in the UK due to fuel poverty and thousands of deaths around the world due to climate change. There is no choice but to give voice to the truth.”

The UN have declared that this violates international law, and carried out a mass protest after Trudy Warner was prosecuted for holding a sign “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience” outside the trial of Insulate Britain activists, re-stating the principle of ‘jury equity’. This had been enshrined in a English law since 1670 as a memorial at the Old Bailey states. Eventually the High Court rejected the government’s application to send her to prison.

The protests by DOJ against the ban on Palestine Action in August and last Saturday were both entirely peaceful. Those taking part had come to be arrested and sat waiting for the police to do so. But a crowd of supporters in the square were appalled at the way in which the police did so, with snatch squads going into the protest and picking on individuals seemingly at random.

The squads were soon surrounded by crowds, many intent on recording the arrests on cameras and mobile phones, many shouting ‘Shame on You‘ at the police for their actions. While other police simply stood around the perimeter of the square and watched in silence, some clearly uneasy about what was happening, those making the arrests sometimes reacted violently to the crowds around them. I saw one officer lashing out with his baton, though his colleagues soon stopped him.

London, UK. 6 Sep2025. A man is arrested.

It was difficult to understand the police tactics. Rather than go about making arrests in an organised and systematic manner by using the very large forces present to surround an area of the protest and carry out the arrests within that cordon, they appeared to have decided to do their job in the most provocative manner possible. Perhaps it was to put on a display for their political masters – and our now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was impressed as she watched the screens in the police control room.

I think they had decided to arrest first some particular individuals in the crowd – perhaps those who were in breach of bail conditions from the previous month’s protest. But nobody present was trying to evade arrest – the 1500 (according to DOJ) had all come to be arrested, although I think almost half got fed up with waiting and left. Others were still being arrested seven hours after the protest began.

*London, UK. 6 Sep 2025. Neil Goodwin as Charlie X was later arrested*

I left after watching for almost an hour to photograph the Palestine march, with around 200,000 people slowly marching towards the rally in Whitehall. Later that afternoon I uploaded around thirty images of this protest to Alamy and these together with a few more to a Facebook album.

One of the founders of Palestine Action has been granted an appeal against the ban – although the government is appealing against her right to appeal – almost certainly because they fear it will succeed. I hope for the future of our legal system and country it does.

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Stop Starving Palestine Pan Protest

Whitehall, London. 25th July 2025

Stop Starving Palestine Pan Protest: Last Friday evening thousands of us came to Whitehall shocked by the news and photographs coming out of Gaza, where much of the population is now suffering from malnutrition and over a thousand have already died of starvation.

The famine there is entirely due to the actions of the Israeli government and their army, the IDF. Over the past months they have denied access to the normal humanitarian supplies of foods and essential items to Gaza.

Israel has also disrupted the well-established channels through which food was distributed in Gaza through the UN and humanitarian agencies. Together with the USA they have set up an alternative way to supply food which has operated at only four centres; the amount of food supplied has been vastly inadequate and over a thousand of those queueing for it have been killed by the IDF.

The world has been shocked by the pictures coming out from Gaza, and by well-documented stories from medical staff that snipers and not only target those queueing for food but ‘gaming’ by targeting different parts of the anatomy on different days. One day hospitals treated many who had been shot in their testicles.

For months we have been appalled by the accounts of the shelling and bombing of hospitals, medical facilities and the arrests and interrogation of medical staff, some of whom have clearly been tortured.

Large areas of Gaza are now covered with the rubble of people’s homes and people forced to flee and living in makeshift tents, often in so-called ‘safe areas’ have been killed by the military.

The attack began after an attack by Hamas across the border into Israel in which over a thousand died – including some by Israeli military fire and hundreds were kidnapped as hostages. But it has continued for over 600 days, with the killing of many, many thousands of innocent Palestinians, men, women and children in what has clearly become a series of war crimes.

Some Israeli ministers have clearly stated their intention to entirely rid Gaza of Palestinians, and Donald Trump has supported them, with plans to turn the area into a holiday resort. Israel clearly wants to settle the area with Israelis.

From the rest of the world we have seen words of condemnation, but little or no real action, with the USA using its veto in the UN. The UK has banned some of its arms exports and is nowmaking plans for air drops of food – but these will only be a small – and dangerous – drop in the ocean of desperate need.

On Friday evening I travelled up to London with my wife – carrying a large pan and a wooden spoon to bang it with in a protest calling on our government to take effective action.

I began by photographing a rally outside the Foreign & Commonwealth office by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network UK who began weekly protests in October 2023 against the Israeli Ambassador to the UK who had called for the illegal annexation of the West Bank and for “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to be destroyed. Their protests have been hounded by police, banned first from being outside her residence and then from Swiss Cottage.

Among the speakers I photographed there was a woman holocaust survivor who received tremendous support with people banging their pans and was unable to continue for several minutes. This was also one of the few parts of the evening of protest where many people had also come with placards.

A few yards up Whitehall there were crowds of protesters banging pans on both sides of Whitehall. Police tried to keep them on the pavement but when they appeared to be trying to arrest one of those who refused to move, crowds surged around them and occupied the whole of the highway.

There were a couple of speeches from in front of the gates to Downing Street, but many of those present were too far away to hear them and people kept up the banging of pans.

Eventually the organisers asked people to come and leave their pans in front of Downing Street and start moving towards Trafalgar Square. Some did, but many others still needed them to cook with. A thin police line held up the movement towards the square for around ten minutes – though the protesters could easily have broken through they waited patiently and then marched on to the square where I left them.

More pictures on Facebook at Stop Starving Gaza Protest at Downing St and as usual available for publication on Alamy.

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End the Genocide, Stop Arming Israel – 19 July 2025

End the Genocide, Stop Arming Israel: Last Saturday, 19th July 2025, the weather forecast for London was dire. Thunderstorms and heavy rain until clearing a little later in the afternoon, with up to several inches of rain leading to some localised flooding. In the event it was a bit under two inches, with small rivers running along the side of some streets.

In this account I intend to write about my personal experiences and working as a photographer on the day rather than my views on the terrible situation in Palestine and the reprehensible actions of the Israeli government and army – and Hamas. I’ve often written about the need for peace and justice, for an end to occupation and destruction and for the release of hostages and prisoners.

Linda and I were determined to go out and join the national demonstration, to show our support for the people of Gaza, to demand our government stop selling arms to Israel and to call on the Israeli government to end its terrible destruction and genocidal attacks and to allow humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, many now starving. A little rain was not going to stop us.

As usual I checked online for our trains, only to find that our services into London were subject to delay and cancellation due to signalling problems. We dropped everything and hurried to get an earlier train than we had intended – and which actually was more punctual than usual – only two or three minutes late into Waterloo.

It was raining fairly heavily as we walked out of the station and by the time we’d crossed the Jubilee bridge to the Embankment where the march was gathering we were already quite wet.

As the forecast was for afternoon temperatures in the low to mid twenties I’d grabbed a lightweight waterproof jacket on my way out, which was a mistake. It did keep the water off to start with but was soon getting soaked through in places. I realised too late that I should have worn my poncho – or a heavier jacket that although too warm would have kept me dry. At least I’d had the sense to put on my truly waterproof walking boots rather than my usual trainers.

We joined the large crowd that was sheltering under the bridge carrying the rail lines into Charing Cross and I started to take photographs. It was dry – so long as you avoided the areas where water was leaking down from above – but rather dark.

I was working with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III (what a crazy mouthful of a name) a camera that came out over 5 years ago. It’s a Micro 43 camera with a sensor only around half the size of full-frame, but that does mean it can be significantly smaller and lighter – something increasingly important to me as I get less able to carry heavy camera bags. And, vitally important today, it is a camera that has good weather protection.

I also had my Fuji X-T30 in my camera bag, with a 10-24 zoom fitted. Had I not rushed out I might have chosen a more suitable body and wide angle for use in wet weather. Neither that camera or lens are weather sealed (the more recent 10-24mm is) and for most of the day they stayed in my bag. I did take them out a couple of times when the rain had eased off, but hardly any of the pictures I took with them were usable.

Under the bridge light was low, but the Olympus has good image stablisation and the main problem was subject movement, as people shouted slogans, jumped up and down, banged drums and more. Being very crowded also meant people were often banging into me as I was working.

I also use small and light lenses – in the case the Olympus 14-150mm F4-5.6 – equivalent to 28-300mm on full frame, going from a decent but not extreme wide-angle to a long telephoto. Its a small, light and incredibly versatile lens, but not one at its best in low light with its rather small aperture.

I started off working with the lens on the P setting, the programme choosing suitable shutter speed and aperture – with the lens wide open and shutter speeds of around 1/15 to 1/25 second. But I soon realised to stop action I would need a faster speed and switched to manual, deliberating underexposing at 1/100th second, f5.0 and at ISO 3200. The RAW images were dark but I knew that I could get Lightroom to make them look fine – if sometimes lacking in shadow detail.

Eventually people began to move out into the rain and march and I went with them, holding my camera under my jacket and only taking it out quickly to take pictures. I looked in my bag for the chamois leather I usually hold to dry and hold in front of the lens filter and it wasn’t there – I’d left it back home in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing when it last rained while I was taking pictures. I had to make do with a handkerchief instead, giving the protective filter a quick wipe before each exposure.

Outside it was a little brighter and I was able to increase the shutter speed to something more sensible, and was using manual settings of 1/160 f5.6 with auto-ISO giving me correct exposure. I was mainly working at the wider focal lengths of the lens and f5.6 gave me enough depth of field.

I hadn’t got out my umbrella, but of course many others were carrying them to keep dry. I find it hard to work with one hand while holding an umbrella in the other. But other people’s umbrellas were a little of a nuisance, with water often pouring from them onto me as I took pictures, adding to the effect of the rain.

So I was getting increasing wet – and soon retreated to the sheltered area under the bridge where different groups were now coming through. Keeping close to the end of the sheltered area I was able to keep working at the same settings, with the ISO now 3200.

London, UK. 19 July 2025. Stephen Kapos and another holocaust survivor on the march.

After a while I went out into the wet again – the rain had eased off slightly, and took more pictures. Then I noticed the banner for the Jewish holocaust survivors and their descendants and went over to greet Stephen Kapos, photograph him and another survivor as they set off on the march.

Shortly after I decided I would move to Westminster Bridge to take pictures of the marchers with the Houses of Parliament in the background, and walked as quickly as I could to there. Crowds of marchers and tourists watching the march slowed my progress somewhat.

The bridge is open to light and I was now using 1/250 second, but still with the Olympus lens at its wide-angle lens there was no need to stop down and I was working at around ISO 640.

I think around half of the march had gone over the bridge before I got there and I stayed taking pictures around halfway across the bridge for around half an hour, only leaving when I could see the end of the march coming on to the bridge. Fortunately the rain had eased off, but I was still getting wet.

I then hurried taking a short cut to get to Waterloo Bridge, taking just a few pictures where hurried past the march again on York Road. I took more photographs as people came onto Waterloo Bridge and then saw that a large group had stopped in the shelter underneath the railyway bridge and were having a spirited protest there – so I went to photograph them. When they marched off I went with them to Waterloo Bridge.

I looked at my watch. I had thought about taking the tube to Westminster and then going to photograph the rally in Whitehall, but decided it was perhaps too late to bother. I’d taken a lot of photographs and was rather wet and also hungry and decided it was time to go home.

I went to Waterloo and got on a train. Eventually, 15 minutes late, it decided to leave, and with a few stoppages at signals got me home around 25 minutes later than it should. Fortunately I’d packed some sandwiches and was able to eat them sitting at Waterloo, though the view wasn’t interesting. I’d edited and filed my pictures by the time Linda arrived home.

More pictures on Alamy and Facebook.

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Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home 2025

Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home: Last Saturday, 24th May 2025, I photographed three events in London, and you can see albums of pictures from all of them on Facebook – and they are also should be available to see (and purchase for editorial use) rather less conveniently on my Alamy Portfolio page should you not have a Facebook account. I’ll post links for the Facebook albums for all three at the bottom of this post. All the pictures in this post are from the third event I attended, a rally and march by Ukrainians.

My work began on Kensington High Street, close to the Israeli Embassy which is tucked away out of site around 80 metres up a private road, Palace Green. Barricades and a line of police officers – with further police vans parked on that street prevent today’s – or any other protest – ever taking place there.

In the past, protests had always been allowed opposite the entrance to Palace Green on the opposite side of Kensington High Street, but today the police had set up the protest pen on the pavement outside Kensington Gardens around 200 metres away and forced the protesters into it under threat of arrest.

Among the usual banners and placards calling for and end to the genocide in Gaza was one reading reading “WHY ARE 40 (FICTIONAL) ISRAELI BABIES MORE IMPORTANT THAN 14000 PALESTINIAN ONES”, referring to the continual re-iteration by Israelis from the Prime Minister down of some of the more sensational and long discredited claims made about the October 7 events. And of course they never refer to the scorched earth “Hannibal” policy the IDF were directed to adopt which was responsible for at least some of the Israeli deaths on that tragic day.

What was perhaps missing from this FRFI protest compared to the other protests for Palestine that I’ve covered was a call for the hostages to be freed. But they were calling for ‘Peace, though clearly for ‘Peace With Justice’ and for freedom for Palestine, and making clear their demand that the UK ends its complicity in genocide and cuts all military, financial, diplomatic, and cultural ties with the Zionist state.

From close to the Israeli embassy I made my way to Marble Arch where I spent a few minutes photographing a very formal and managed event organised by the PMOI/MEK calling for an end to the executions of political prisoners in Iran.

Following the forced end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 an enraged Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the massacre of political prisoners and some 30,000 MEK supporters – then Iran’s main opposition to the clerical dictatorhip – were hanged. The executions and torture of any political opposition in Iran still continue.

At Hyde Park Corner, around the Wellington Arch I joined a crowd of Ukraininans, many men and women in embroiderd traditional dress. Obviously they had come to support their country in the war against the Russian invaders but the main theme of the afternoon was a call for the return of the stolen children.

According to Wikipedia, since 2014 Russia has “forcibly transferred … Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.” Figures from 2022 claim that over 300,000 Ukrainian children had been taken to Russia. Russia has passed laws to make it very difficult for any of them to be returned.

Many Ukrainian children of all ages at the protest were in traditional dress andmany took part in performances by their schools at the event, along with a few speeches, prayers by “our Bishop” and a theatrical protest involving a figure entirely in black leading children by red ribbons representing Russia and death leading children by red ribbons who eventually overpower and and escape.

Much of the event was in Ukrainian and I may have missed much of the nuances, but perhaps the most emotional part was the singing together, hands on hearts, of the national anthem. It was perhaps the most un-English part of the ceremony; back in my youth, not long after the war the main place I heard our terrible anthem was in the cinema where it was a signal for a stampede to the exits, with just a handful of angry looking middle-class men left standing to attention at their seats.

There were so many children taking part in the performances that the procession began around 45 minutes late and I had to leave it well before it reached the St Volodymyr Monument at Holland Park.

Links to my Facebook albums with more pictures from the three events:
End The Genocide, Full Sanctions on Israel
Stop Executions of Political Opposition in Iran
Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home

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Palestine & Syria – 2018

Palestine & Syria: On Saturday 13th January 2018 I photographed a protest at the London US Embassy in Grosvenor Square against the continuing imprisonment of children in Palestine and another opposite the Russian Consulate over their continuing support for the Assad regime in Syria including the bombing of civilians.

Free Ahed Tamimi & All Child Prisoners

Teenager Ahed Tamimi was in prison in Israel for slapping an Israeli soldier who came into her family’s garden shortly after she had learnt that a relative had been shot by Israeli forces.

Her detention made the news and prompted this protest, but she was only one of the thousands of Palestinian children have been detained by Israel since 2000 in a systematic policy which the UN has said includes abuse and ill-treatment. Many Palestinian children have been kept for many days in solitary confinement in small underground cells in Israeli jails.

Israel is an apartheid state, with very different laws and police treatment for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who are subject to Israeli military law and dealt with in military courts which offer little or no chance of justice. Many are held without any real trials in ‘administrative detention‘ which can be essentially indefinite, with prisoners being released at the end of one sentence and immediately re-arrested for another period of detention.

A number of those taking part were relatives or friends of Tamimi’s family, including her father’s cousin Nana Hourriyah, or of other prisoners in Israeli jails. One man who spoke had recently spent 3 months in Palestine and had stayed with the family of another child prisoner. He had then been deported for taking part in a peaceful protest.

During the hour I stayed at the protest a single Zionist protester in a pen at the end of the street waved an Israeli flag, shouting insults at the protesters and accusing them of supporting Hamas, which they firmly denied.

More at Free Ahed Tamimi.

Stop the Massacres in Syria

Protesters lined the street opposite the Russian Consulate calling for an end to the massacres taking place in Syria. Protests are not allowed in the private road a few yards away outside the Embassy.

Russia and Assad’s forces were bombing civilians in Idlib, Hama and Eastern Ghouta, specifically targeting medical workers and facilities, with 8 hospitals in Idlib bombed since the start of December.

Many of those still living in Idlib had fled there from other towns and cities previously bombed by Assad and his Russian allies who were attempting to complete the destruction of all groups opposed to the Assad regime and bomb or starve to death the civilian population in areas held by opposition forces.

Only now after the fall of the Assad regime has the full scale of their human rights abuses become widely known with over 150,000 people thought to have been tortured and killed in his infamous prisons. As many as 620,000 were killed in the 14 years of civil war – around 1 in 35 of its prewar population, with around half these being civilians.

More than 14 million – almost two thirds of the Syrian population – were forced to leave their homes in the civil war. Half remained elsewhere in Syria, around 5.5 million in surrounding countries. Around a fifth of the countries pre-war population made their way to Europe, with the majority of these going to Germany. The UK set up a scheme to take Syrians but the numbers here remain relatively small at around 40,000.

Stop the Massacres in Syria

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National March for Palestine 30 Nov 2024

National March for Palestine: On 30th November 2024 I photographed yet another large march through London calling for an end to the continuing attacks by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank.

As usual there was a strong Jewish presence on the march – and it was opposed by a much smaller counter-demonstration by largely Jewish protesters, many calling for the release of the hostages still held in Gaza.

Many of those on the main march also want the hostages to be released, but see the only way to acheive this is not to continue the devastation and genocide in Gaza, but a ceasefire with serious negotiations towards a long-term peace in Palestine and Israel.

Last week over 200 Israelis living in the UK signed a letter to Keir Starmer and David Lammy urging them to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvit and Bezalel Smotrich, asking others living in the UK with Israeli citizenship to add their signatures.

In part this stated their opposition to the hateful and dangerous rhetoric of these two miniters which they say “endangers lives, obstructs the possibility of a hostage deal , and endorses calls for ethnic cleansing.”

Reported here in the Jewish press but I think ignored by the BBC and the rest of the UK press, the letter accuses the two ministers of “doing all they can to prevent a hostage and ceasefire deal and instead focusing their entire energies on their messianic aims: annexing the West Bank and settling the Gaza strip.”

The letter makes clear that the two “do not speak for us” and that opinion “polls in Israel reveal that the majority of the public supports a hostage deal and seeks an end to the war.”

Earlier the Jewish News had reported on a campaign by British Jewish organisation “Yachad, who advocate for peace and equality for Israelis and Palestinans“, also calling for sanctions against the two men, and the media more widely covered both David Cameron stating his government had been planning sanctions against these ministers and on Starmer and Lammy “mulling over” sanctions. By now these seem well overmulled.

As with all the previous marches and events calling for an end to the attacks on Gaza, the protest was entirely peaceful, with a complete absence of any antisemitism – unless you define calling for freedom for Palestine and Palestinians as antisemitic.

I wrote in my captions “As the death toll from Israel’s attacks in Gaza is now over 43,000 and many now face starvation with every hospital having been bombed and with virtually no medical supplies, and the UK is still complicit in the genocide, thousands including many Jews, marched in yet another entirely peaceful mass protest in solidarity. They call for an immediate ceasefire with the release of hostages and prisoners and for negotiations to secure a long-term just peace in the area.“

That figure of 43,000 is sadly out of date and the true figure is now considerably higher, with many bodies still buried under rubble and an increasing number of deaths from the disease and starvation caused by the continuing attacks and the deliberate denial of food, fuel and medicine. Israeli forces have destroyed much of the infrastructure as well as the organisation of society which was of course largely provided by Hamas.

We are witnessing – despite the banning of the international press from any effective access to Gaza – the large scale collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza. And the detailed reported and conclusion “that following 7 October 2023, Israel committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” by Amnesty International confirms what has been clear to almost everyone for many months

All the pictures here are from the march through London on 30th November 2024. You can see many more here in my album on the event.

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Extremists and Mob Rule

Extremists and Mob Rule: Last Saturday I walked along with around 450,000 others from Hyde Park to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli genocide. The IDF has now killed over 30,000 people, mainly women and children and many more are threatened with starvation and disease as Israel continues only allow a trickle of the food and medicines needed into Gaza.

Humanitarian agencies including UNRWA are ready to distribute aid, but far too little is coming across the borders and the Israeli army are disrupting their activities, while Israeli spokesmen continue to produce lies which even the BBC now feels it has to challenge. The pictures here all come from this march.

Of course it wasn’t a mob, but a peaceful protest. It wasn’t Islamists taking over the streets of London, though there may well have been a few taking part among the more than 99% of us who were protesting because of the terrible scenes we have seen on even the limited reporting which has been allowed to come from Gaza – where Israel still prevents the international press from reporting. And because many of us believe that we should have a peaceful solution which gives freedom to both Palestine and Israel.

It wasn’t one of of my better days. I was feeling a little weak and walked twice as far as I should have done. The march may only have been around two and a half miles, but photographing it I walked at least twice that, going back and forth. And after collapsing for a short rest beside the Thames opposite the US Embassy I walked back to the middle of Vauxhall Bridge. From there I could see almost the length of Vauxhall Bridge Road, around three quarters of a mile still packed with marchers and no end in sight. But I was tired and turned back and took the train home from Vauxhall station.

Later today the UK Government is expected to announce its new definition of extremism, which is expected to be something along the lines of:

“promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself“

The point behind this re-definition is to enable the government to list organisations which it considers extremist and to ban these from meetings with ministers and elected officials or receiving public money and ban individuals who belong to them from serving on government boards.

It is clear that it will be used by the current government to list a wide range of organisations that are seen as left-wing in an attempt to embarrass the Labour Party, including those that support the Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation, and with Sunak’s crazed accusations of “mob rule” could be applied to any organisation that supports large protests on any issue, but particularly calling for freedom for Palestine. And I expect to see Stop The War and CND on that list along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain and the Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Reports suggest that the largest Muslim group in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), as well as Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Palestine Action will be on the list and any other groups opposed to the UK’s Prevent programme. Government departments have boycotted the MCB since 2009.

Listing will not ban these groups, though it might deny funding to some organisations which many might feel important in maintaining effective democracy. And if this wretched government remains in power much longer we will certainly see further powers given to the police particularly over the policing of protests, probably giving them much greater control over the activities of listed groups.

It will almost certainly be used to stigmatise groups which campaign against the monarchy, and perhaps also those calling for changes to our parliamentary system such as the abolition or reform of the House of Lords or proportional voting systems. And groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil will surely be there.

Michael Gove has apparently rejected suggestions that trans rights activists will be among those listed, but suspicions remain that these and some gay rights groups might also be targeted.

Perhaps too, human rights organisations that launch legal cases against government legislation might feature, and when we have had government ministers in recent years labelling the Supreme Court as anti-democratic it is hard to see where this definition might end.

Like many recent statements from the government, this one from Gove seems dangerous and divisive. It might even itself be seen as “undermining democracy itself.“

You can read more about the protest march last Saturday, 9th March 2024 and see another seventy or so of my pictures at End Gaza Genocide Massive March To US Embassy

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Gaza March in London 3rd Feb 2024

Gaza March in London – Another huge march through central London called for an immediate ceasefire and for an end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians.

I didn’t hear any news reports of the march, and over the past few days other events have largely pushed reporting over the continuing genocide to the edges of coverage.

If anything the deliberate targeting of civilians in Gaza appears to have increased since the ICJ ruling calling on Israel to do all it can to prevent genocide in the area.

Israel is still keeping international journalists out of Gaza and feeding the world’s press with misleading information. The BBC have some good reporters but they cannot work in Gaza. They have had interviews with some families and doctors in Gaza – some now killed. Papers such as The Guardian also carry reports from people in Gaza – such as Mondays Gaza diary part 44: ‘The angel of death is roaming the skies, nonstop’. But to get real information about what is actually happening on the ground you need to also go to alternative news sources.

One of those is Double Down News, who say “Far too many Journalists sit comfortably trapped in their own bubble of privilege and power, talking to each other and the so-called political class, rather than serving the people they’re meant to inform.” They aim to “prioritise people, ideas, evidence and community above all.” DDN carries no advertising but is supported by over fourteen thousand of subscribers who give what they can afford rather than being owned by governments or billionaires. And you can be one and become a part of the community equally with the others.

One of their latest videos is ‘Israel’s AI Killing Machine‘ by Palestinian-American lawyer and activist Lara Elborno which exposes by how Israel is using modern technology to target civilians across Gaza. Like other videos on the platform it provides a chilling insight missing in the mass media.

Before writing this a few days ago I read Al Jazeera’s Israel War on Gaza coverage, with its list of key events on day 123 published on Tuesday 6th February. Under the Humanitarian crisis in Gaza it begins its report with “At least 27,478 people have been killed and 66,835 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

It goes on to give other significant news on the humanitarian crisis, before news on Regional tensions and diplomacy and on what is happening in the Occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera was the first independent news channel in the Arab world and is funded by the Qatari state.

All pictures here are from the march in London on Saturday 3rd February 2024 which was I think uneventful. It was certainly large and several streets around the BBC were densely crowded before the start. I photographed the start and then slowly went down Regent Street with the marchers, stopping a number of times to photograph them as they walked past me.

*London, UK. 3 Feb 2024. ‘Sunak’ and dead babies.*

At Piccadilly Circus I decide to wait until the end of the march arrived there, and it was a long wait. It was almost two hours after the start of the march before the end arrived, and most of that time the streets were crowded across both carriageways with slowly moving people.

*London, UK. 3 Feb 2024. London Mothers and Children Say Stop Killing Babies*.

It was too late to be worth trying to get to the rally on Whitehall and so I began my journey home. I uploaded 35 images to Alamy but later put these and around 35 more into an online album Ceasefire Now – Stop The Genocide In Gaza.

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Massive London Protest Over Gaza Genocide – 13 Jan 2023

Massive London Protest Over Gaza Genocide: Last Saturday I photographed the march in London when over 200,000 marched from Bank calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Among those on the march, Little Amal, a 12ft giant puppet of a Syrian child refugee stood out. As usual there was a strong Jewish representation both on the main march and on a separate feeder march for families and children I photographed as they set off from outside Kings College on Strand.

This was the seventh large protest in London and reflects the feelings of a large majority of the British public but unfortunately this and other huge protests around the world, including in the USA, seem unlikely to have any effect on our or the US governments polices. They will continue to give support to Israel while making weak statements about the need to reduce the killing which Israel will continue to ignore while denying the effects of its actions and blaming Hamas for the death and destruction they are causing.

The march took place on the 99th day of the Israeli attack on Gaza which has so far killed over 23,000 people, mainly civilians including more than 10,000 children, with many bodies still under the rubble. The bombing and shelling has made humanitarian aid and medical treatment impossible and widespread deaths from disease and starvation now seem inevitable.

Israeli forces have attacked hospitals, schools, refugee camps and have killed many doctors and arrested others. Only one hospital remains operating in the whole of Gaza and there are desperate shortages of medicines with many amputations having to be carried out without anaesthetics. Few of the 60,000 severely injured so far by the Israeli attacks have been able to get proper treatment.

Gaza’s journalists appear to have been especially targeted and more have now been killed by the IDF than journalists were killed in the whole six years of the Second World War.

*A man holds a bloodstained bundle representing a dead child*

As well as calling for a ceasefire, protesters also demand a just solution with freedom for Palestine, an end to the military occupation of the country and an end to Israeli apartheid.

Two events in the previous week added to the demands of protesters. Some had placards praising the Houthi forces in Yemen for their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and their were chants such as “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around” following the US and UK air attacks. The Houthi are now in control of much of Yemen following the October 2022 ceasefire and peace talks led by the UN began it December 2023, but they continue to be referred to in UK media as rebels or terrorists.

Last week South Africa stated the case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. It got rather less attention in the UK media than the response the following day by Israel, which appeared largely a continued recital of the widely condemned attacks of October 7th and the long-discredited assertion that their actions in Gaza are self-defence. Israel also denied having bombed any hospitals and claimed they were facilitating humanitarian aid, lying in the face of mountains of evidence the world has read.

*A woman holds a placard ‘Well Done South Africa’.*

Many on the protest praised South Africa for taking Israel to court. The moral case seems clearly proven, but I suspect the case may be lost on some legal technicality. ICJ verdicts are in any case not binding and I think the majority of the world has already reached their conclusion.

*People hold up posters showing Nazi Germany and Palestine with a poster saying ‘Signs Like These Have Been Criinalised by the Met Police*

There were apparently 1,700 police on duty for the protests and a handful of people were arrested for carrying placards or handing out leaflets which the police decided were possibly “showing support for a proscribed organisation which is an offence under the Terrorism Act.” The flyer, published by the Met, stated their “unconditional and wholehearted support and solidarity for the Palestinian struggle, which is once more breaking out into armed resistance” but made no explicit mention of Hamas. Other groups in the Palestinian struggle are not proscribed in the UK.

With so many taking part, the march ended with rallies in both of London’s major central squares, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, though I only got to the first of these. I was quite tired having walked from London Bridge station to Bank and then along with the march going back and forth taking pictures and decided to get a train from Charing Cross rather than go on to Parliament Square.

There are around 50 more of my pictures from the march at Massive London Protest Over Gaza Genocide.

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Free Palestine Coalition Demand A Ceasefire Now

Free Palestine Coalition Demand A Ceasefire Now: Last Saturday, 6th January 2024, like many others I was watching on Twitter/X for the announcement by the Free Palestine Coalition of the starting point for their Gaza protest at 10am.

It was with some surprise that I read it was to be at the drinking fountain in St James’ Park, one of London’s Royal Parks, a feudal remnant with bylaws against almost everything, but at least it was easy to get to, and I had plenty of time to make it by the starting time of noon, and arrived around a quarter of an hour early.

The protest was organised and backed by Black Lives Matter UK, NMEE, Sisters Uncut, East and South East Asian Sisters, Copwatch Network, Health Workers For a Free Palestine, Queers For Palestine, London Campaign Against Police & State Violence, Palestinian Youth Movement and London Palestine Action.

It made three clear demands; a full unconditional ceasefire NOW, the UK to stop arming Israel and an end to the Israeli Occupation of Gaza and Palestine. It had clearly been planned as a peaceful protest, although one that would cause some disruption to traffic in central London as many other events including other protests do.

There was only a small group there when I arrived, but numbers grew rapidly by the time the rally began and continued to grow for some time, perhaps increasing to a couple of thousand by the end of the event. Shortly after the rally began police approached the speaker and told her that she could not use a megaphone as it was against the Park bylaws. After a short delay she continued without it, though now the crowd was so large many could not hear. A few minutes later a public address system arrived and the speakers began to use this. After another warning by police they wheeled this out onto the pavement of Birdcage Walk.

*A doctor speaks about the terrible conditions in Gaza’s hospitals, most bombed out of existence.*

Here the speakers continued, with a particularly moving account by a doctor from Health Workers For a Free Palestine about the horrific conditions faced by her colleagues working in Gaza, where almost all hospitals have been bombed by Israeli forces and only three remain able to continue, facing terrible shortages which have meant amputations with no anaesthetics available and a total lack of medicines, clean dressings and antiseptics taking medical conditions back into the dark ages.

After the rally had continued for some minutes, a squad of police rushed in and seized the PA system from the pavement, forcefully pushing all those close out of their way. I was thrown aside and kicked in the shin hard enough to cause some bleeding and although not seriously injured certainly suffering from shock. I’m unsure about what happened for the next few minutes and it was almost ten minutes before I’d recovered enough to photograph seriously again.

The police appeared to have been deliberately trying to provoke the protesters and had a very large presence for what was expected to be a relatively small protest. Eventually the organisers called on the protesters who had been shouting angrily at the police for some minutes to move off and the march slowly made its way towards Westminster Bridge.

As the front of the march came to Bridge Street at the side of the Houses of Parliament there was a halt for photographs and when the march moved off a line of police across the road tried to stop them. But there were far too few officers to form a proper cordon, and I and around a couple of hundred protesters moved past and onto the start of Westminster Bridge before reinforcements arrived.

There were more police on the bridge and a line of police vans behind them, as well as more on the Embankment. Had the protesters been allowed to march onto the bridge and protest there the bridge would have been closed until the protest ended, but traffic could have continued to flow on both the Embankment and Bridge Street, which were still blocked when I left later. Protests continued on Westminster Bridge, though most of the protesters were still held on Bridge Street behind a police line. Around half an hour later police did decide to allow them to join the others, probably to make it easier for them to kettle the protest in one block rather than two.

On the bridge there were some noisy protests which forced police liaison officers to withdraw from the crowd. Some of them complained to the event stewards about the leaflets which were being distributed to the many tourist also being blocked by the police from leaving towards Parliament Square, suggesting that those distributing them might be committing an offence. I read one carefully and could find nothing anti-Semitic, nothing which I had not heard or read in the mainstream press despite their failures in reporting.

At one point people let off smoke flares in the red, green and white of the Palestinian flag. Later there was a period of silence for the victims in Palestine and those in Israel, and many sat or lay down on the roadway. A group in front of the police cordon wore masks showing Rishi Sunak, wearing tops with the messages ‘STOP ARMING ISRAEL’ ‘CEASEFIRE NOW!’holding up their hands red with fake blood which dripped down their arms.

I left as the police allowed the protesters to all join together, kettling both groups. I was tired and still a little shaken from the earlier assault by police and needed to sit down and rest on a seat on the Embankment. Eating my sandwiches for a late lunch and drinking some water helped too.

As I walked back to Waterloo the blue lights were still flashing on Westminster Bridge, and an hour later at 3.32 the Met posted “All protesters have now left the area around Westminster Bridge. Officers remain on-duty in central London and are ready to respond to any further demonstrations.” I felt their response to this one had been negative in the extreme and had made the situation worse than if they had stayed away completely. Their presence was a huge waste of public money and London really does not need police who behave as they did at this event.

The police had arrested a number of people on Westminster Bridge but later Black Lives Matter UK, one of the organisers, made the following post: “All arrestees have been released with no further action. Thanks to all who have supported the protests and taken time out to care for all those made vulnerable by the police.“

More pictures in my Facebook album Free Palestine Coalition Demand A Ceasefire Now!

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