Posts Tagged ‘charity ride’

My 2024 in Photographs – Part4

Friday, January 3rd, 2025

My 2024 in Photographs: The fourth and final part of my selection of images from 2024.

My 2024 in Photographs
London, UK. 17 Aug 2024. A giant chicken on the protest. Several thousands march from Marble Arch to a rally in Parliament Square to demand that animals should not be treated as property or resources for humans. They call for cages to be emptied, animal testing to be ended and an end to all use of animals for any purpose whatsoever, demanding “Animal Liberation NOW!”
My 2024 in Photographs
One of my holiday images – a trip to the coast from where we were staying in Narberth, Pembrokeshire.
My 2024 in Photographs
Another from my holiday – Blackpool Mill in Pembrokeshire.
My 2024 in Photographs
London, UK. 28 Sep 2024. Singer Madeleina Kay, Young European Movement, with her guitar.. Several thousands came to Park Lane for the third grassroots National Rejoin March aiming to put rejoining Europe back on the political agenda and to keep it there until we are back in Europe. The marched behind a banner ‘WE WANT OUR STAR BACK’ from there to a rally in Parliament Square.
My 2024 in Photographs
London, UK. 24 Oct 24. Hundreds sit with pictures of political prisoners and other banners and posters in the road over lunchtime outside the Attorney General’s office at the Ministry of Justice to call on him to free the 40 UK political prisoners jailed for protesting peacefully against fossil fuel and Israeli arms companies. They demand an end to judges stopping defendants explaining the motive for their protests and uphold the right of jurors to make decisions based on their conscience.
London, UK. 26 Oct 2024. As the end of the peaceFul march against extreme right hate came into Trafalgar Square, a group behind a black banner ‘NO TO TOMMY ROBINSON – NO TO FASCISM’ turned off the route towards the Mall and made a halfhearted rush towards a police line, with a small group trying to push their way through – most just stood watching. Police pushed back and the two groups faced each other. A few minutes later one man was pushed out of the crowd and through the line by a small police squad.
London, UK. 26th October 2024. The letter to Starmer. The annual remembrance march by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) from Trafalgar Square could only go a short distance down Whitehall and held their rally at the Cabinet Office. Speakers from families whose relatives killed by police and in penal, mental health and immigration detention called for justice and proper investigations of the officers.
London, UK. 28 Oct 2024. Men in oilskins carry a pink inflatable dinghy. Extinction Rebellion marches to stages theatrical flooding scenes outside insurers in the city to show how insurers are green-lighting fossil fuel crooks to flood our homes and our lands. They hope to stop insurance for new fossil fuel projects; flooding due to global warming is already common and threatens us all.
London, UK. 30 Oct 2024. Reading The Crimes outside insurers MarshMcLennan. Extinction Rebellion ended their 3 days of protests at Insurance Companies in the City with a Zombie protest, predicting the social collapse with wars, famine and floods that will happen if CO2 levels and the climate chaos they cause continue to increase. They protested with zombie dancing, die-ins and speeches outside some of the worlds major insurance companies based in London urging them not to insure fossil fuel projects.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Health Care Workers. After a die-in by some at Downing St, many thousands marched in a massive PSC National Demo to a rally close to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for urgent action by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians. All arms supplies to Israel should end, with an immediate permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and negotiations for a two state solution.
London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Jeremy Corbyn. After a die-in by some at Downing St, many thousands marched in a massive PSC National Demo to a rally close to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for urgent action by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians. All arms supplies to Israel should end, with an immediate permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and negotiations for a two state solution.
London, UK. 3 Nov 2024. Marches wear blue for water flood the streets from Vauxhall on route to a rally in Parliament Square called by River Action. They demand a review of Ofwat and the Environment Agency, an immediate end to industry polluting our waters for profit and greed – particularly sewage discharges, for laws on water pollution to be enforced and for all industries to invest in better use of water.
London, UK. 30 Nov 2024. 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, with 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.
London, UK. 14 Dec 2024. Hundreds of BMX riders dressed as Santa, Elves, Snowmen, Christmas Trees and Reindeer set off from the graffiti tunnel at Leake Street Waterloo for the 10th annual Santa Cruise around central London, a fund raising event for the charity Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation. BMX Life raises money for ECHO through sponsorship on these rides and two major raffles each year and has so far raised over £180,000 for ECHO.
London, UK. 14 Dec 2024. Tenants organised by the London Renters Union march demanding urgent action on city’s spiralling rents, which are tearing London apart – the average rent of £2,172 is now more than the pay of many vital workers such as teaching assistants and care workers, forcing many into cramped temporary accommodation. The scrapping of rent controls in 1988 and the mass sell-of of council homes have prioritised landlord profits and Labour’s current housing plans are based on private developers profits rather than providing social homes.

You can double-click on any of the images to see them larger and you can see many more pictures from these and other events in 2024 and earlier years in my albums on Facebook.

Palestine Land Day, Bunny Hop, and Afrin

Thursday, March 31st, 2022

Palestine Land Day, Bunny Hop, and Afrin. Saturday 31st March 2018 was Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Day which most people now call Easter Saturday, though more correctly this comes a week later. But only one of the four events I photographed that day was connected to Easter.

Palestine Land Day, Bunny Hop, and Afrin

Land Day protest against supporters of Israeli state – Oxford St

Palestine Land Day, Bunny Hop, and Afrin

Palestine Land Day, observed annually by Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians across the world, remembers the day in 1976, March 30th when a general strike and protests were called in Arab towns in Israel against plans by Israel to expropriate around 8 square miles of land in Galilee for Jewish settlements, about 2.5 square miles of which was Arab owned. The Israeli government tried to suppress the protests using police and the army as well as threatening strikers with dismissal. Six unarmed Palestinians were shot and killed and there were many injuries.

The annual Land Day celebrations since then in Israel have often been marked by violent attacks on protesters, with injuries and deaths. On 30th March 2018 Israel Defence Force snipers were placed in position on the separation wall in Gaza and opened fire on unarmed protesters several hundred yards away using live ammunition. 17 Civilians were killed and over 750 seriously injured by live fire, others injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.

This protest was led by a group which have been protesting regularly outside the Oxford Street main store of Marks & Spencers for many years against their support for Israel. They had planned a large rolling protest for the day following Land Day, going along Oxford Street stopping for short speeches outside stores with business links with Apartheid Israel, calling for shoppers to boycott them for selling Israeli goods. While I was with them as well as Marks & Spencers they also protested outside Selfridges, which sells Israeli wines, Adidas which supports the Israel football team, Boots which sells cosmetics made in Israel and Carphone Warehouse.

Land Day protest against Israeli state


BMXLife Charity Bunny Hop – Oxford St

BMX Life is a group of BMX bike riders started after young Tommy Wright suffered a near fatal heart attack, and his family wanted to give something back after the support they had received at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. They have since raised over £60,000 for the register charity Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation ECHO.

The riders dressed as Easter Bunnies for what was their 4th Bunny Hop ride-out in London. Previously I’d met them riding at Christmas dressed as Santas and reindeer.

BMXLife Charity Bunny Hop


Defend Afrin – Bring Anna Home – Oxford St

Kurds and supporters marched from close to Marble Arch to a rally in Parliament Square demanding an end to the invasion of Afrin in north-west Syria by Turkish forces and al Qaeda-affiliated militias in clear violation of international law, and its air strikes have deliberately targeted civilian areas.

The Turkish aim is to destroy a peaceful state and eliminate its majority Kurdish population, with President Erdogan announcing Turkey’s intention to invade all the Kurdish areas of Syria and “cleanse” the area of its Kurdish people.

Turkey is a member of NATO, with the organisation’s second largest army, supplied with weapons mainly from European countries including the UK who had recently signed a major arms deal. The British government has disgracefully expressed support for Turkey’s attacks, claiming it has a right to defend its borders, despite the fighting being outside them and the announced intention to push on to even more distant areas in Syria. The Kurdish peoples protection units YPG and YPJ fighting the attacks are only lightly armed but were putting up a determined resistance, but without further support were unable to defeat Turkey.

The protest called for an end to the invasion of Syria with an immediate ceasefire to enable the body of YPJ volunteer Anna Campbell to be returned to her family in Sussex, an end to all arms sales, to Turkey and other anti-human regimes in the Middle East, for humanitarian relief for Afrin and other areas of Syria and for an investigation into human rights abuses and war crimes in Afrin.

Eventually, after Afrin was captured, pressure from the US and the Council of the European Union condemning Turkey’s military action brought Turkish advances to an end, until President Trump withdrew US forces from the area, betraying the Kurds who had defeated ISIS with US air support. Further Turkish attacks then took place but were internationally condemned.

Defend Afrin – Bring Anna Home


Against Israeli Land Day massacre – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

News of the cold-blooded massacre of Palestinian Land Day protesters with videos that shocked the world on March 30th led to an emergency protest being called close to the Israeli embassy on Kensington High Street (the embassy is a few yards away on the private Kensington Palace Gardens where no protests are allowed.)

I wrote “It is hard to see how anyone with the slightest streak of humanity or decency can fail to condemn the cold-blooded shooting of unarmed civilians carrying out a peaceful protest, but the coverage of the event in the UK media has been surprisingly muted, with the BBC giving considerable air-time to Israeli state speakers who have shamefully claimed the massacre was reasonable and fully justified.”

The UN called for an independent investigation, which Israel refused. But it was perhaps not coincidental that this is the only protest I can recall at the embassy where there has not been a usually small group of counter-protesters waving Israeli flags in support of the regime and its actions. But more likely it was because it was Passover.

Against Israeli Land Day massacre


Merry Christmas

Wednesday, December 25th, 2019

BMX riders gathered in Leake At under Waterloo Station in the graffiti-covered tunnel to wait for the start of Santa Cruise 6, a charity ride by santas on BMX bikes raising money for a Children’s Heart Hospital by BMX Life, now in its sixth year.

With best wishes for Christmas and the coming year.