Posts Tagged ‘cat masks’

Rip Down the Ripper Facade! – 2016

Wednesday, June 19th, 2024

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.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

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.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

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.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

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.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

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!


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Palestine & Jack the Ripper – 2017

Saturday, November 4th, 2023

Palestine & Jack the Ripper – On Saturday 4th November 2017 thousands marched through London on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration to demand the equal rights for Palestinians which are included in that declaration, but have been disregarded for 100 years. Although the declaration was being celebrated officially in the UK, many see it as shameful and responsible for the years of suffering for Palestinians.

Palestine & Jack the Ripper - 2017

The Balfour Declaration was made following several months of talks with representatives of Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews, but without any consultation with Palestinians. The Prime Minister at the time, Lloyd George, clearly stated in later years that it had come about as a reward for the work on the production of acetone, vital for the war effort, by Chaim Weizmann, although some historians discount this.

Palestine & Jack the Ripper - 2017

But it was clearly seen as a gift to the Zionists, and Weizmann was one of the Zionist leaders deeply involved in the talks, and the declaration came in a letter written on November 2nd, 1917 and signed by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

Palestine & Jack the Ripper - 2017

The declaration was a single long sentence divided by commas into four clauses, the first two promising the support of the government in the setting up “in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” but it continues in the third “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine“.

Palestine & Jack the Ripper - 2017

Clearly the UK government failed entirely over the years to protect those civil rights in Palestine, and it is hard to believe that they ever seriously intended to do so.

The declaration was also clearly linked to British policy aims in the Middle East as a whole, led by Sir Mark Sykes, MP for Hull and a promoter of both Arab nationalism and Zionism who together with the French diplomat François Georges-Picot drew up a secret agreement along with the Russians for the carving up of the Middle East when the Ottoman Empire was defeated.

Sykes had visited Palestine to meed Weismann and had been converted to the Zionist cause and played a part in the drawing up of the Balfour Declaration, though he later changed his views.

The march began with a rally outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square before marching to a longer rally in Parliament Square. The speakers at the embassy were under a red canopy which bathed them in red light making colour photography more or less impossible and I converted the images to black and white for publication.

I left as the march was starting to take the tube to Tower Hill and walk to another protest.

More pictures at Equal Rights & Justice for Palestine.


Class War back at the Ripper – Whitechapel

Class War had protested at the opening of the so-called ‘ Ripper Museum’ in a shop on Cable Street and had continued to hold protests there at intervals outside the tacky tourist trap.

They and many others pointed out that the shop exploits violence against women, making money from images of sexually mutilated women, and encourages the attitudes that lead to violent sexual assaults.

One woman taking part in the protest had recently returned home late at night to her flat in Tower Hamlets to find a 17 year old young woman who had been raped several times on the street collapsed on her doorstep and had saved her from further assaults by calling the police.

They had come here again together with London 4th Wave Feminists wearing cat masks after the tourist attraction had failed to remove shutters and signage which were deemed illegal by Tower Hamlets council a year ago, including a poster which was partly ripped off the shop front in the protest. The council were criticsed for not enfrocing their decision and their opposition to the shop often seemed half-hearted.

Patrick from Class War came to the protest dressed as Father Brannigan, performed a series of exorcisms holding up a hastily improvised cross.

The shop had employed two security guards for the protest and one of them roughly pushed some of the protesters who challenged the few visitors who entered and left during the protest, mainly visiting tourists.

When police eventually arrived half an hour after the protest began they tried with little success to move the protesters further from the shop.

After an hour or so the protesters walked away, with many going to a local pub and I accompanied them. We were disturbed half an hour later by a police raid. Apparently two anti-trans feminists had come to view the protest, hoping to see a person they complained to the police had assaulted one of them at a meeting the
previous month, and had then phoned the police.

The woman behind the bar then declared herself as a special constable, brought out her warrant card and tried to stop me and others taking photographs. She failed, but I decided later not to publish them. It’s a pub I’ll never drink in again.

More pictures Class War back at the Ripper.


Ripper Selfies, Custody Deaths, Halloween Skate & Poor Yorick

Monday, October 31st, 2022

A varied set of events from seven years ago on Saturday 31st October 2015


Ripper ‘Selfies with Dead Women’ – Cable St, Sat 31 Oct 2015

The Fourth Wave: London Feminist Activists (LFA) protested at the Jack the Ripper ‘museum’ against Halloween event publicity inviting visitors to take ‘selfies’ with the body of one of his dead victims. They were joined by comedian Kate Smurthwaite, Class War and the Sisters of Perpetual Resistance.

LFA came in cat masks and the Sisters of Perpetual Resistance came in their curious triangular black hoods with a banner ‘What a Bloody Ripp-Off’ and a bucket ‘Dead Women Can’t Protest‘. Comedian Kate Smurthwaite was there holding a poster ‘Corpses ain’t Tourism‘ and a little late Class War arrived with their ‘Women’s Death Brigade‘ banner.

The LFA also brought a decidely unsexy blowup doll with a mask of Ripper shop owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe with a Fawcett Society t-shirt ‘This is what a feminist looks like’, the word feminist crossed out and replaced in red by the word ‘CAPITALIST’.

Among those who spoke as well as the event organiser were Kate Smurthwaite and Becky Warnock whose petition against the s-called museum had got over 12,000 signatures.

Ripper ‘Selfies with Dead Women’


UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession – Whitehall, Sat 31 Oct 2015

Families and friends of people killed by police or in prisons made their annual march at a funereal pace from Trafalgar Square to Downing St, to a rally with speakers including those from the families of Mark Duggan, Sean Rigg, Sheku Bayoh and others.

This procession has taken place each year since1999 and you can see my pictures from this year when it took place on 29th October 2022.

In 2015 the march, led by family members holding banners, made its way in silence down Whitehall before erupting into a noisy protest at Downing St.

Here there were speeches from family members including including Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson the uncle of Oscar Grant who was killed by a police officer in Los Angeles, Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet whose twin brother Leon Patterson was killed by Manchester police in 1992, Kadisha Brown-Burrell, whose brother Kingsley Burrell died in police custody in 2011. Shaun Hall, the brother of Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011 in Tottenham and Marcia Rigg whose brother Sean was killed in Brixton police station in 2008.

A small group of family members took a letter into Downing St while the rally continued. Although as t-shirts worn by many stated there have been ‘1518 deaths in police custody since 1990′ including many with clear evidence of beating and murder, not a single case has yet resulted in any justice. Police and authorities have prevented proper investigation of cases, committed perjury and obstructed the course of justice to protect the officers concerned.

More at UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession 2015.


Halloween Skate 2015 London – Hyde Park Corner, Sat 31 Oct 2015

On a very much lighter level I met with London Friday Night Skate at Hyde Park where they were to begin their annual Halloween skate in varied Halloween costumes.

I didn’t try to follow them after they left to skate their lengthy route through Mayfair, Soho, Covent Garden to an after-party at a pub near Kings Cross.

Halloween Skate 2015 London


UVW Hamlet-themed Barbican Flash-mob – Barbican Centre, Sat 31 Oct 2015

Alas Poor Yorick Got No Sick Pay‘ was the message on the skull held up by the Cleaners union United Voices of the World as they staged a protest on the last night of a season there of Hamlet.

The were protesting for full payment of the living wage and sick pay for the cleaners there and and an end to the use of workfare in the centre. The cleaners are not directly employed by the Barbican and get far worse conditions of service and treatment than directly employed workers from the outsourcing company which the Barbican has a contract with.

The Shakespearian theme was continued in posters such as ‘To Be or Not to Be… Paid a Living Wage‘ and ‘To Be or Not to Be… Paid Sick Pay‘ while those theatre-goers seeing the protest were urged to tweet photos and videos with hashtag #Hamlet.

Among the protesters were Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and Sandy Nicoll, currently suspended SOAS Branch Secretary, and there were banners ‘Boycott Workfare’ and from ‘Unite the Resistance’ as well the UVW banner. Several from Class War had also come to support the cleaners.

There had been a couple of police officers present when I arrived on time for the protest, but they had disappeared well before the UVW turned up around 20 minutes late. Barbican security staff made some attempts to move the protesters on, but I imagine they are also outsources on lousy terms and conditions and that their hearts were not really in it.

Eventually after a number of speeches and some noisy chanting the police returned and talked with the UVW General Secretary Petros Elia who was leading the protest. He told them that the protesters were about to leave before tonight’s Hamlet was due to start and continue the protest outside the main entrance, and they then did so.

Outside the Barbican we joined some of the cleaners who work in the Barbican who had stayed outside and the protest continued with a rally in the street.

UVW Hamlet-themed Barbican Flash-mob


Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

Sunday, June 19th, 2022

Rip Down the Ripper Facade! When Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, a former former head of diversity for Google got his architects to apply for planning permission to turn a building on Cable Street in East London into a ‘Museum of Women’s History’ the application stated it would “recognise and celebrate the women of the East End who have shaped history, telling the story of how they have been instrumental in changing society. It will analyse the social, political and domestic experience from the Victorian period to the present day.” The application his architects submitted was illustrated with pictures of suffragettes and other notable women from the past.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

But when the boards around the site came down in 2015, everyone was shocked to see it was instead it had been turned into a ‘Jack the Ripper Museum’, exploiting the unfortunate women who had been the victims of a series of unsolved murders in the East End in 1888. The architect who made the application and others who had been consulted made clear they had been duped into supporting the project and there were protests outside by members of the local community including the Bishop of Stepney, the Rt Rev Adrian Newman, and Tower Hamlets mayor John Biggs.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!
Class War Womens Death Brigade arrive for the protest

But most of the protests outside the tacky tourist attraction have been by Class War and its supporters along with feminists including London Fourth Wave Feminists who, together with Class War’s Womens Death Brigade organised the protest I photographed on June 19th 2016. These groups continued to protest after others – including Tower Hamlets Council – appear to have given up.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!
London Fourth Wave Feminists were there waiting

The council in 2016 refused retrospective planning permission for the shop front and ordered changes to the signage and the removal of a metal roller shutter, which the shop had installed after a window was broken by persons unknown in the middle of the night – not during one of the protests outside as Wikipedia (and possibly the shop owner) suggest. I think I was present at all of the various protests except for the first rather tame event which the local council had arranged to calm things down after Class War and others had widely advertised one for the following evening.

Class War women had brought inflatable plastic hammers

The planning decision was appealed by the shop, and even after their appeal failed the council failed to take enforcement action and it was not until 2018 that the shop front was redesigned. Bad publicity from the protests possibly contributed to the commercial failure of the shop, though there were also poor reviews from visitors who felt it not to be value for money.

Black-clad protesters arrived set off some red smoke

Class War did not of course ‘Rip Down the Ripper Facade’ but the action was typical of their street theatre with inflatable plastic hammers and a little coloured smoke, while the Fourth Wave Feminists came with cat masks and posters to make clear why they were opposed to the shop’s glorification and profiting from violence against women. Eggs were thrown at one of the signs the shop had been ordered to remove and the windows were liberally covered with stickers, but there was no permanent damage.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!
Ian Bone reaches past police to post a sticker on the window

During the roughly hour long protest there were no customers who came to try and enter the shop, and none inside left. Although London was spilling over with tourists on a Sunday afternoon in June, apparently none wanted to visit this particular tourist attraction. It had been hoped it would close after it was put up for sale in April 2021, but appears still to be open.

More on My London Diary: Rip Down the Ripper Facade!


Jack the Ripoff

Saturday, June 19th, 2021

Tower Hamlets council were pleased to apporpve a planning application in 2014 to convert an empty Victorian building in Cable St into a ‘Museum of Women’s History’, particularly since Whitechapel’s Women’s Library had closed the previous year. Owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s application featured pictures of suffragettes and trade union campaigners and promised the museum would be “the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history” and “recognise and celebrate the women of the East End who have shaped history, telling the story of how they have been instrumental in changing society. It will analyse the social, political and domestic experience from the Victorian period to the present day.” (Quoted in Wikipedia.)

On the basis of these promises the architects were persuaded to carry out the work for a lower than normal fee, and various others provided consultancy services at no cost. All, including the council, where shocked and felt duped when the covers were removed from the site in 2015 to reveal instead a ‘Jack the Ripper’ museum glorifying the unknown murderer of a number of working class women in the East End in 1888.

There were various protests organised outside the museum including some backed by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, who found his council unable to take any real action over the deception, various women’s groups and Class War. Finally the local council did refuse retrospective planning permission for the shop front and ordered changes to the shop’s signage and the removal of a metal roller shutter installed after a window was broken during protests in 2015. The shop owner appealed against the decision and lost. The projecting sign was removed at some time in 2017-8 but I think the shop has failed to comply with some other aspects.

On Sunday 19 June 2016 Class War and supporters including London Fourth Wave Feminists in cat masks, protested outside with toy plastic hammers offering to take down the shutter which had been declared illegal.

Police guarded the shop and prevented the protesters going inside but seemed generally fairly relaxed about the protest, with at least one making clear his distaste for the tacky tourist attraction they were having to protect. At one point they and the protesters were engulfed in red smoke after a couple of black-clad men arrived to join the protest, quickly fading away as the smoke cleared, with the protest then continuing in good spirits.

The good news is that the shop was put up for sale in April 2021 and is expected to close and take on some new use once sold. I’m not aware of any plans for its use and it will quite likely end up as some kind of offices, but it would be rather more satisfactory if it were bought and actually opened as a ‘Museum of Women’s History’. As I write it appears to still be unsold.

Rip Down the Ripper Facade!


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