CND Easter Monday Protest: On Easter Monday 2013 CND organised a large protest at the UK’s nuclear weapons establishment at Aldermaston, 12 miles to the west of Reading.
As this year, Easter Monday was also April Fool’s Day, and on Monday 1st April 2013 this was the Nuclear Fool’s Day – Scrap Trident rally. But Aldermaston is a huge site and the protesters were spread between the half dozen gates around its 5 mile fenced perimeter, with speakers travelling between the gates in a number of cars and lorries.
Pat Arrowsmith
I’d put my bike on the train to Reading, then cycled from there to the event. I found it quite a tiring ride with some long uphill sections against a prevailing westerly wind, and was rather tired by the time I arrived.
Natalie Bennett, then Leader of the Green Party
Every time I’ve been to Aldermaston I’ve always felt a slight tension in the air.I don’t really believe the air there is any more radioactive than around my home on the edge of London, and it’s certainly otherwise less pollution laden. And although it’s possible that many of the pictures I take are going to contravene our draconian Official Secrets Act 1911 (now replaced by the National Security Act 2023) I know that it is remotely unlikely I will have any problems reporting the event.
But having the bike with me enabled me to ride around to each of the gates in turn and take pictures of what was happening at them, as well as some people stretched out along the fences away from the gates. By the start of the protest at noon there were groups of between 50 and several hundred at each of half a dozen gates around the over 5 miles of the site perimeter, with others walking around the path around the site, attaching messages and banners to its tall security fence.
Gates had been allocated to different groups from around the country, and there was also a women’s gate and a faith gate, with Christians, Buddhists and others. Police were standing behind the gates, with a few mixing with the protesters, and others driving around the roads by the site.
Among the speakers I heard were CND Vice-Chairs Jeremy Corbyn MP and Bruce Kent, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett and South East Green MEP Keith Taylor, Stop the War’s Chris Nineham and CND founding member Pat Arrowsmith and another veteran Walter Wolfgang, as well as US activist Linda Pentz Gunter, the founder of ‘Beyond Nuclear’.
The ‘Allelulia’ is taken from the coffin where it was placed outside the Defence Ministry on Shrove Tuesday
At the ‘Faith Gate’ there was a short ‘Easter Resurrection Hope‘ service in which an ‘Alleluia’ which had been symbolically placed in a coffin at the Ministry of Defence in London on Shrove Tuesday at the beginning of Lent was lifted out and held aloft, with a call for ‘a new heaven and a new earth‘ and the hope that ‘light and love might overcome the shadow of destruction in this place.’ This was followed by some Buddhist prayers, and some statements from other faith groups about peace.
Walter Wolfgang
The event ended with everyone around the site making a loud noise and some had brought various musical instruments while others joined in banging pots and pans, whistling and shouting.
I still had 12 miles to cycle back to Reading Station, but at least this way much of it was downhill and I had the wind behind me.
Martydom of Ali & Cut the Carbon: Two unconnected events in London on Sunday 30th September 2007. I photographed a Muslim festival in Park Lane before making my way to Battersea where a long march organised by Christian Aid around Britain was resting before its final push to the City of London calling for urgent action to cut our carbon emissions. Sixteen years ago it was already clear we needed to do this to avoid climate catastrophe – but our government has clearly not yet got the message with its recent decisions, including giving the go ahead to exploit the Rosebank field.
Mourning the Martrydom of Ali – Marble Arch
Ali Ibn Abi Talib grew up in the household of the prophet Muhammad and was the first male to profess his belief in his guardian’s divine revelation.
Later he married Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah and became a great warrior and leader and also one of the foremost Islamic scholars. He was made Caliph after the previous Calip was assassinated, and was then himself assassinated while praying in the mosque at Kufa, Iraq dying a few days later on the 21st of Ramadan in 661CE.
Revered by all Muslims, he is particularly celebrated by Shia, who regard him as second only in importance to Muhammad, and celebrate his martydom annually, including in a colourful march on the streets of London.
They gathered in front of Marble Arch for a lengthy period of mourning before a ceremonial coffin was carried out and men and women rushed to touch it. People began to beat their breasts, the men with extreme force and the women very much more decorously.
Eventually they formed into a procession and moved off down Park Lane, with much continued mourning and beating of breasts, led by a tall banner about Ali, then the men, followed by the ceremonial bier and finally the by the women with more banners.
Although the men were happy to be photographed, some were concerned that I also photographed the women taking part in this and other similar events. But after putting the photographs from events like this on-line I received e-mails from some of the women in them thanking me for having recorded their participation.
I left the marchers as they moved down Park Lane. The procession continues for some hours, moving slowly and then returning to Marble Arch but I had to go to Battersea.
Cut The Carbon March: Christian Aid – St Mary’s Battersea
The ‘Cut The Carbon March’ organised by Christian Aid called for the UK and the world to take urgent action to reduce the carbon emissions which are leading to a catastrophic global warming which was already threatening the lives and livelihoods of many around the world, particularly in the Global South.
Clearly all countries needed to take urgent action to avoid the growing catastrophe, and countries such as the UK with higher per capita carbon footprints need to take a lead in this as well as helping other less industrialised countries to do so. We have benefited from a couple of hundred years of carbon-dirty industrial growth which has brought to world to the brink.
The marchers, including a number of international participants, had begun in Northern Ireland in July, moving on to Scotland, England and Wales on a thousand mile route through major cities which were listed on the back of the t-shirts worn by the marchers. The march was intended to convince people of the necessity to cut carbon emissions from the UK and globally. As well as marching there were events at their stops on the route, including a visit to the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth where they had met with then Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Many others had joined the core marchers, walking with them for short sections of the route and providing hospitality at churches along the way. They were stopping in Battersea and taking part in an evening service in St Mary’s there before the final day of the march which was to end at St Paul’s Cathedral on October 1st.
I was late and the marchers had arrived at St Mary’s just I few minutes before me and were enjoying a rest in its riverside churchyard. Later some talked about the march and why they had given up their summer to take part in it as it was so vital that the UK and the world take serious action.
We were reminded that some of the world’s lower-lying countries were being threatened by the sea level rise from global warming, with ice-caps melting as a high Spring tide began to flood parts of the churchyard, but fortunately stopped with only a few large puddles at one side. But the sea-level will continue to rise and make some whole island countries uninhabitable as well as large areas of others already subject to flooding.
More recently we are also now seeing the effects of global heating and climate instability clearly in the UK, Europe and North America with record high temperatures, huge forest wild fires and odd weather patterns affecting crop yields. But the fossil fuel companies are still huge lobbyists and contributors to party funds and still our UK government, while paying lip-service to zero carbon in the rather distant future of 2050, continues to pump up the carbon with new coal, gas and oil exploitation. Total madness.
But this was a fine September evening and St Mary’s is a fine listed building and I was pleased yet again to take a tour inside and admire its architecture, fine monuments and modern stained glass windows for both William Blake and Joseph Mallord Turner who knew it well, as well as the riverside views.
Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims: On Wednesday 29th August 2012, the day that the Paralympic Games opened in London, disabled activists held a vigil to remember those who have died as a result of the Work Capability Assessments carried out by Paralympic Sponsor Atos, delivering a coffin to their head office. The vigil was a part of a week of action organised by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).
I met with the activists in the two two coffee shops on Triton Square to prepare for the vigil shortly before they moved out towards Atos. It was raining steadily but fortunately there was an area under cover in front of the Atos offices where the could set up a PA system, an electronic organ, a lectern and an altar.
The event began with a speaker (and a signer) explaining the problems with the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) as delivered by Atos, “a relentless health and disability assessment regime which has been used to slash vital benefits from hundred of thousands of sick and disabled people” and where assessors are told they have to reach strict targets in failing the great majority of claimants, finding ways to fill in the relevant boxes on the forms and often deliberately misinterpreting the claimants responses and misrepresenting their medical condition.
Stories were read out about people who had committed suicide after incorrect Atos WCA assessments and where there was evidence that this had been at least part of the direct cause of their deaths.
Claire Glasman of Winvisible holds a poster about June Mitchell, found fit to work when dying from lung cancer
Four disabled people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters then brought a coffin to the vigil and people came forward to lay flowers on it.
The coffin was then carried to be put down directly in front of the Atos office entrance, and more flower petals were then thrown over it.
In 2012 I commented:
The event was a solemn and moving reminder of the scandal of the work capability assessments and the terrible effect they are having on the disabled. Many are losing the allowances that enable them to travel to work, others housing benefits, and are being told they are fit to work when patently they are unable to do so. One of the protesters had a placard with a list of some of the cases, “a suicidal woman – a man with FATAL heart condition – rape survivor of Rwandan genocide – man with kidney cancer – woman with sever MS”. It is a list that could be extended almost indefinitely – and now includes a man in a coma.
Despite Atos having been discredited, repeatedly been accused of dishonesty and associated with the deaths of disabled people, according to Disability News Service it earned over £465 million before withdrawing from the WCA contract in 2015.
Atos were left out of the awards for disablity assessment contracts worth over £2billion announced this year for 2024-9, with the contracts going to Capita, US company Maximus and Australian multinational Ingeus. But Atos may eventually get one of the five contracts, as they took the DWP to court after losing out to Serco for the southwest England contract, claiming the evaluation of the bids had been unfair. The court action ended with the DWP agreeing to reassess the decision, and the £338m contract may yet go to Atos.
As Disability News Service points out, both Capita and Maximus also been linked to the deaths of disabled claimants. Capita also has had serious data protection problems and has failed to meet acceptable quality standards of its PIP assessements and has been linked to “widespread reports of dishonesty by its healthcare professionals“. Despite this, these companies continue to be rewarded by hugely lucrative contracts. Privatisation apparently saves money but only by providing a service which employs staff often without adequate qualifications, forces them into dishonest practices and shoddy work and claimants pay dearly for this, sometimes with their lives.
Jobs, Services & Education, Police Violence & More: My work on Saturday May 23rd 2009 began with a march in North London before coming down to a couple of protests at Downing Street and then a march from Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard against police violence.
March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education – Highbury Fields to Archway
Around 1500 jobs had been lost recently in North London, including around 550 mainly support workers from London Metropolitan University, 500 civil servants from Archway tower and more at City University, where adult education is under threat.
Trade unionists from the Islington National Union of Teachers, the Public & Commercial Services Union, London Metropolitan University Unison and the University and College Union and other local groups including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association were marching from Highbury Fields to a rally at Archway in protest against these job cuts.
The cuts in education threaten courses and also the provisions including nurseries that enable many mature students who missed out on education to study and get qualifications later in life.
Speakers at the rally after the march included those from the UCU, CWU, London Metropolitan University, PCS, Islington Trades Council and local Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.
Southern Yemenis Demonstrate For a Separate State – Downing St
The state of Yemen has a long and complex history dating back to ancient times which is dealt with at some length on Wikipedia.
In the 19th century Britain attacked and occupied Aden and the surrounding region with the rest of the country being under the Ottoman Empire. In the 1960s a civil war in the north and a revolt against British rule in the south led to the foundation of two independent states, the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democractic Republic of Yemen in the south, who went to war with each other in 1972. After a ceasefire brokered by the Arab League and a further civil war the two countries were merged in 1990.
This London protest followed protests in Aden a week earlier on the 15th anniversary of an unsuccessful attempt by the southern Yemen leader Ali Salem al-Beidh to end the union with the north, which led to the 1994 civil war, lost by the South.
The protest was organised by Southern Yemenis from the Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ), based in London who want an end to the union and accuse the Yemeni government of grabbing land and property and human rights abuses. They called for an end to the union with the north.
The Reverend Billy and his ‘Life After Shopping’ Gospel choir from New York were in London on their 2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour and gave a brief performance in front of the gates of Downing St.
Police were not impressed and obviously had no idea of who the Reverend was as in response to his questions the officer concerned was diagnosed by Billy as having a “shopping problem.”
The Church of Life After Shopping believes that we need to “back away from the product” and resist the way that advertising and the media persuade us to live only thorough consuming corporate products, and get down to experiencing life directly.
Excessive consumption is clearly at the root of climate change and the demand for incessant economic growth is clearly a long term impossibility in a finite planet. We need to be planning for a fairer sharing of resources between rich and majority worlds and an economy based on sustainability rather than growth – which will clearly mean lower levels of wasteful consumption and a concentration on necessities rather than luxuries.
As Billy made clear, following the G20 summit and the pathetic waste and greed shown in the continuing parliamentary allowances scandal, our government and MPs are clearly in need of the Life After Shopping Gospel.
National Demonstration against Police Violence – Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard.
The United Campaign Against Police Violence was set up following the G20 demonstration in London when Ian Tomlinson, a man not taking part in the demonstration, was assaulted by police and died. Many protesters and some press were also attacked by police during the protest.
It brought together trade unionists and activists involved in organising the G20 Meltdown demonstration as well as campaigners against deaths in police custody particularly those in the United Families & Friends Campaign, UFFC, including the families of two men who died in Brixton Police Station, Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg.
The protest was led by a coffin with a brass plate “FOR ALL OUR LOVED ONES WHO DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY”, and included a giant red figure representing one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – who led the four marches that converged on the Bank of England in the G20 demonstration. Prominent in the march and rally were Professor Chris Knight and Sean Rigg’s two sisters, Marcia and Samantha and the Rev Billy added his voice through a giant megaphone.
At the rally outside New Scotland Yard on Victoria Street there were speeches and a minute of silence for those who had died before the release of black balloons to represent the dead.
The police had until almost the end of the event acted on their best behaviour, arranging for the safe movement of the protest and joking with press and talking calmly with the protesters. The protesters were clearly angry about police violence but the protest was restrained and orderly
But as the rally was about to draw to a close in front of the police headquarters a police van drove up and a woman officer interrupted proceedings to read a statement telling everyone their presence was illegal. It seemed inexplicable other than as a deliberate attempt to try to provoke a violent reaction from the peaceful crowd, but the organisers managed to quieten things down and the rally continued.
From My London Diary for 30th January 2011, with minor amendments. You can see many more pictures with the original post.
Several thousand Shia Muslims came to Marble Arch on 30th January 2011 for the 30th annual Arbaeen (Chelum) procession in London, commemorating the sacrifice made by the grandson of Mohammed, Imam Husain, killed with his family and companions at Kerbala in 680AD. Arbaeen takes place 40 days after Ashura, the day commemorating the martyrdom and marks the end of the traditional 40 days of mourning. After prayers and recitations they paraded along Park Lane in a ceremony of mourning.
Imam Husain is seen by Shia Muslims as making a great stand against the oppression of a tyrant and representing the forces of good against evil. Husain and his small group of supporters were hugely outnumbered but chose to fight to the death for their beliefs rather than to compromise. Their stand is a symbol of freedom and dignity, and an aspiration to people and nations to strive for freedom, justice and equality.
Arbaeen is also said to commemorate the return of the wives and families of those killed – who were marched away as captives to Damascus after the massacre – to Kerbala to mourn the dead after their release around a year later.
Millions now attend the annual Arbaeen event in Kerbala (though it was banned while Saddam Hussein was in power) and the London event attracts Muslims from all over the UK, although numbers this year seemed rather fewer than in some previous years.
The Hussaini Islamic Trust UK first organised this annual procession since 1982, making it the oldest Arbaeen/Chelum Procession of Imam Husain in the west. It was the first annual Muslim procession in Central London and is still one of the larger annual Muslim processions in the UK. It is held on the Sunday closest to Arbaeen.
The procession includes several large replicas of the shrines of Karbala; known as Shabbih, these gold and silver models are over 10 feet high and the largest in Europe. There was also a decorated and blood-stained white horse or Zuljana representing the horse of Imam Husain, a cradle remembering his 6 month old child Hazrat Ali Asghar who was also murdered and a coffin.
The day started at Marble Arch with prayers and recitation which were followed by speeches in English, Arabic and Urdu before the procession set off. I missed some of this as I was busy covering another event, but returned shortly after the procession set off down Park Lane.
Groups among the men chanted and all those marching beat their chests as a token of mourning, most in a symbolic rather than very physical manner, but as the procession made its way down the road some were soon stripped to the waist and beating themselves vigorously, producing red marks and some drawing blood.
The women marched in a tightly packed separate group at the rear of the march, held back by a number of women stewards and pushing the cradle and one of the Shabbih. Like the men they chanted and made gestures of mourning. Although they were almost all dressed in black, many of them were carrying standards and flags, and some had some brightly coloured embroidery and headscarves.
After the march there are light refreshments provided, but I left before that, catching a bus along Park Lane. The procession only occupies one of the three lanes of each of the dual carriageways and traffic keeps flowing throughout, although with some slight delays.
More pictures from this event in 2011at Shia Muslims 30th Arbaeen Procession. I photographed this procession in other years from 2007 to 2012 and you can find pictures from these by entering Arbaeen in the search box on My London Diary.
As I mention in the account above, I left the march to photograph another protest, in Oxford St, a short walk away from Marble Arch. Around 50 UK Uncut activists dressed as doctors and nurses a staged a peaceful protest in Boots in Oxford St against their avoidance of UK tax, closing the store. You can read about it in UK Uncut Protest Boots Tax Scam.
Saturday 24th November 2018 was the second day of action in London by Extinction Rebellion calling for urgent action over the climate crisis which threatens the future of life on Earth. After photographing their protest I walked through Trafalgar Square where Iranian activists were calling for the release of political prisoners in Iran.
Extinction Rebellion Parliament Square
Extinction Rebellion campaigners gathered in Parliament Square and set up road blocks to prevent traffic moving on the roads leading into the square.
Police tried to move the protesters who were blocking the road, but they refused to move and some had ‘locked on’ to make their removal more difficult and time-consuming.
On the grass in the middle of the square a rally began with the mass reading of XR’s Declaration of Rebellion, which was followed by a number of speeches and musical and poetry performances related to the forthcoming environmental collapse.
Many had come with flowers for a funeral and eventually grave-diggers began to dig a hole in the centre of the crowd for the coffin. They carefully cut the turf and set it aside in squares to avoid damage before beginning to dig down into the hardened earth.
Then the police pushed their way in from one corner of the square through the crowd who had linked arms to stop them approaching. They trampled the area, destroying the carefully piled up turf and pushing the protesters back. The crowd remained non-violent but tried to hold their ground, standing and facing the police who pushed them roughly and shouted in their faces.
Soon the police were in the centre of the large crowd, standing on the area where XR had begun to dig the grave.
Pall bearers arrived in the corner of the square carrying a black coffin with the text ‘OUR FUTURE’ on its side and lilies on top. Police stopped this and were again soon surrounded by a large crowd of XR supporters as well as photographers and legal observers.
Eventually the XR organisers decided it was time to abandon plans for the burial in Parliament Square and began a funeral procession.
Extinction Rebellion Funeral Procession – Whitehall & The Mall
Campaigners formed up behind the behind the coffin, with its message ‘OUR FUTURE’ for a funeral procession, led by drummers and a trumpeter.
The procession made its way slowly up Parliament Street to Whitehall coming to a halt at Downing Street where there was a silent sit in for several minutes.
After the main body of campaigner moved off, some stayed behind and lay on the roadway to form the XR symbol for a few minutes before getting up to rejoin the procession.
There were several arrests on Whitehall as a few protesters sprayed slogans or wrote on walls of government buildings and a memorial. A few police tried to stop the procession as it turned into The Mall, but soon gave up as people simply walked past them, continuing on its way to Buckingham Palace.
The coffin halted in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace, where the bearers lifted it high in the air – but the gates were much higher.
They put it down on the ground and began shouting for climate action.
XR posed for a group photo in front of the palace and then
Gail Bradbrook read out a letter calling on the Queen to get her government to take the urgent action needed to save her country – and the world
before the crowd was led again in reading their Declaration of Rebellion. After this there were a few more speeches and a silence to remember those already killed by global warming, and the species that have become extinct.
During the silence those who had brought flowers, wreaths and other objects then laid them on the coffin in front of the palace gates. After this ceremony there was music and dancing but I was tired and walked back to catch a bus in Trafalgar Square.
Free Political Prisoners in Iran – Trafalgar Square
As I walked across Trafalgar Square to catch a bus in Duncannon Street I met activists from the Worker-Communist Party of Iran – Hekmatist who were protesting in solidarity with the Iranian People’s Struggle and calling for the release of all political prisoners.
Many opposition politicians were arrested earlier in 2018 following widespread protests in cities across Iran, and there have been many executions. The protesters called for all of the political prisoners to be released and the executions to stop, and for there to be properly independent trade unions in Iran.
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.
A few weeks ago I came to the end of a walk with friends and we stood at a bus stop on the edge of the A3 in south-west London with a relentless flow of traffic moving past in all four lanes in both directions. We were a few yards away on a slip road, but the noise was making my head throb and I could smell and taste the pollution, though I hope the Covid mask I was wearing might filter out some of the particulates. It was a horrible reminder of the mad dedication to traffic which is killing so many of us, poisoning adults and particularly children and playing a significant role in killing the planet through the huge carbon emissions in manufacturing vehicles, building yet more roads and of course burning fossil fuels. Fortunately our bus came earlier than expected.
The switch to electric cars will help a little, and reduce some of the pollution, though not its possibly most dangerous aspect, the particulates that come mainly from rubber tyres and from brakes. And there is still a huge carbon footprint from their manufacture – roughly equivalent to running around 150,000 miles of burning petrol or diesel, and much of the electricity used to power them will come from power stations burning gas or forest-destroying wood.
We can only have a sustainable future if we wean ourselves as a species away from travel, and take what journeys are still necessary by ways that reduce the carbon footprint as much as possible. Going on foot or by bicycle, using public transport and severely limiting the more polluting and high-carbon forms of transport. It means measures such as banning private cars in cities, giving priorities to buses, building more light rail and tram systems, ending subsidies to air travel, stopping new road-building and more. But also it means great changes in our way of life.
It’s something I realised over 50 years ago when I sold the only car I’d ever owned. Something I considered very carefully in choosing where to live and what jobs to take. And something which has constrained the holidays I’ve chosen to take and other aspects of my life, but not anything I really regret. I’ve only ever made three trips by air related to my work – where no real alternative was possible, and only taken two holidays which involved flights.
Of course there are some things and situations where cars are essential. It’s very hard to manage without one for those who live in more remote areas, and some need to. I’ve chosen always to live in towns or cities and have been healthy enough to be able to ride a bicycle or walk. In 2019, George Monbiot wrote for the Guardian a piece with the sub-head ‘Cars are ruining our lives. We should cut their use by 90% over the next 10 years’. Like other posts on his web site its worth reading and goes into much greater and well-argued detail than this piece.
Donnachadh McCarthy
On 15th November 2014 I photographed the ‘Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence’ organised by environmental campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy and ‘Stop Killing Cyclists’. It made its way through the centre of London from Bedford Square going along Oxford St, with a bagpiper playing and a horse-drawn hearse carrying a coffin for a mock funeral ceremony at Marble Arch.
It made the point that while too many pedestrians and cyclists are still killed and maimed by cars and lorries on a road system largely engineered for the convenience of motorised transport, their numbers are dwarfed by the many thousands of premature deaths each year caused by the pollution from road traffic, with pollution levels in many places being well above legal limits. After the funeral, there was a die-in by cyclists more or less filling the hard standing at Marble Arch, and a trumpeter sounded the Last Post.
Here is a list of the demands made by the protesters:
Stop the Killing of Children with a national, multi-billion pound programme to convert residential communities across Britain into living-street Home Zones and abolish dangerous rat-runs.
Stop the Killing of Pedestrians by a national programme to fund pedestrianisation of our city and town centres, including the nation’s high-street, Oxford Street.
Stop the Killing of Pensioners from excessive speed with an enforced speed limit of 20 mph on all urban roads, 40 mph on rural roads/lanes and 60 mph on all other trunk roads.
Stop the Killing of Cyclists, investing£15 billion in a National Segregated Cycle Network over the next 5 years.
Stop the Killing by HGVs by banning trucks with blind spots, making safety equipment mandatory and strictly enforcing current truck-safety regulations; currently around 30% are illegally dangerous.
Stop the Killing without liability with a presumed civil liability law for vehicular traffic when they kill or seriously injure vulnerable road-users, unless there is evidence blaming the victim.
Stop the Killing from Lung, Heart and other Diseases caused by vehicular pollutants with mandatory for particulate filters that meet latest EU emission standards on all existing buses, lorries and taxis.
Stop the Killing at Junctions with pedestrian crossing times long enough for elderly disabled to cross, filtered junction crossings by cyclists and strict legal priority for pedestrians and urgently provide physically protected left-hand turns for cyclists.
Stop the Killing from Climate Crisis caused by CO2 emissions by insisting that all transport fuels are from truly environmentally-sustainable, renewable sources within 10 years.
Focus on Life! with transport governance making safety and quality of life the top priority. Reform all council transport departments, the Department of Transport and Transport for London into Cycling, Walking and Transport Departments with formal pedestrian and cyclist representation.
Again you can read more detail and more evidence in Guardian posts by George Monbiot, available on his own web site such as Don’t Breathe.
On Sunday 30th September 2007 I photographed two events in London connected with religion, the first Muslim and the second organised by Christian Aid.
Shia Muslims hold a large parade every year mourn the martydom of Ali, a cousin who grew up the the house of the prophet Muhammad and was one of the first to profess his belief when the prophet disclosed his divine revelation when Ali was around ten years old. Later he married Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah and was a great warrior and leader and one of the foremost Islamic scholars.
Ali was elected as the fourth Caliph at a time when civil wars were taking place between Muslims following the death of his predecessor, and he fought in a number of battles, eventually being assassinated in 661 CE by a member of a group who regarded him as a heretic while praying in the mosque at Kufa, now in Iraq. Many of the details of events around this time are disputed.
Ali is one of the central figures of Shia Islam and they regard him as having been the rightful successor to Muhammad while Sunni Muslims supported the father-in-law of Muhammad, Abu Bakr who became the first Caliph. The split led to various battles but only became a schism almost 20 years after Ali’s death, when Ali’s son Husayn and family were killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.
The ceremonies which involve a procession with an elaborate flower-decorated coffin, and tall banners about Ali, began at Marble Arch with a long period of mourning. There was much beating of breasts and then a procession moving very slowly down Park Lane with much continued mourning and beating of breasts. The men march in one group and then the women behind them, the two groups separated by the bier. Many of the men are stripped to the waist and their bodies become reddened by their powerful beating.
It’s an impressive event which I photographed on several occasions. The stewards at the event have sometimes told me “We do not photograph the ladies” but I’ve also had emails from some of the women thanking me for recording their participation in the ceremony.
Cut the Carbon
An event of a very different nature was taking place at St Mary’s Battersea, a church with fine views across the River Thames that Turner sat at window above the entrance to record – and a window inside remembers him, with another for William Blake, along with some splendid monuments, one with a relief illustrating Edward Wynter’s feats of crushing a tiger to death and overcoming 60 mounted moors.
I was there with others to photograph the arrival of Christian Aid’s ‘cut the carbon’ march, arriving in London at the end of a thousand mile journey from Bangor in Northern Ireland via Belfast, Edinburgh, Newcastle On Tyne, Leeds, Birmingham and Cardiff to London – including a detour to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth. The following day they were going on to City Hall and then to finish at St Paul’s Cathedral.
This was a march 14 years ago with an international perspective on climate change, with walkers from Brazil, El Salvador, Kenya, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Congo and elsewhere. When I photographed it the following day in front of Tower Bridge it was led by marchers from Brazil representing an organisation of landless farm workers – and I was very pleased a few months later to include picture of them in my show on environment protests as a part of Foto Arte 2007 in Brasilia.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
Protesters outside the DWP where DPAC activists have occupied the lobby.
2012 was of course the year that London suffered the Olympics, which had been creating problems in East London since London was awarded the games in 2005. I’d photographed a number of event related to the games, both protests against it and others using it as a theme, as well as taking pictures around its perimeter and views into the site on Stratford Marsh, an area I’d photographed since the 1980s and which features strongly in my 2011 book ‘Before the Olympics‘.
With the games came the Paralympics, held a few days after the end of the main event on 29 August to 9 September 2012. Although these games were generally held to be a great success, and to have considerably raised the profile of disabled sport, there was criticism from many disabled groups about IT company Atos being the technology provider and sponsor of the games.
Atos Olympic medals and Atos Olympic flame
Atos was responsible for the work capability assessments for the Dept of Work & Pensions, and had clearly been both incompetent and discriminatory in this, finding many disabled people incorrectly fit for work to meet targets designed to cut the cost of benefits. Many who appealed the decisions were found to have been incorrectly assessed, but often shortly after this were called for another assessment and again wrongly found fit. It drove some disabled people to suicide.
Some disabled athletes obscured the Atos logo on their passes in protest, while activist groups led by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) organised a week of action against Atos to coincide with the Paralympics, beginning with a spoof Opening Ceremony for the Atos Games in front of Tower Bridge.
DPAC made it clear that this is not a protest against sports or those taking part in the Paralympics, but against the government and Atos:
"We’re not against the Paralympics or the people taking part in it. We’re highlighting the hypocrisy of Atos, a company that soon may be taking disability benefits from the people winning medals for Team GB.
Ever since George Osborne announced he was slashing £18 billion from the welfare budget, the government has paid Atos £100 million a year to test 11,000 sick and disabled people every week, then decide whether they’re ‘fit for work’."
Tara Flood celebrates her second gold medal
One of those taking part in the opening ceremony was Tara Flood a Paralympic swimmer who won a gold medal in the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic games as well as 2 silver and 4 bronzes there and in the two other games she took part in. Along with two activists in wheelchairs she got on the podium and was awarded another gold medal and the others silver and bronze.
Paralympian gold medal winner Tara Flood is stripped of her gold medal and blue badge
Then along came an ATOS doctor who administered a fitness for work test, first on Tara. She was found fit to work and the gold medal was cut off and her disabled parking card taken away; the others were also found fit to work, losing their medals and benefits too.
The ATOS Games continued, and on Wednesday 29th I photographed DPAC deliver a coffin to the ATOS offices in Triton Square. Friday 31 saw them again outside the ATOS offices for the Closing Atos Ceremony which included the Atos Miracle Cure, making disabled people fit for work.
As the closing ceremony was coming to an end there was a special announcement that there would be another action elsewhere and eventually we learnt that some disabled activists had entered and occupied the lobby of the DWP.
I jumped on a bus, but should have taken the underground as the traffic was heavy in places, but I still got there before the main crowd who had travelled from the protest at the Atos offices. Police would not let them join the 20 or so who were inside so they protested on the pavement in front of the building. There were speeches and then a lot of minor scuffles when police tried to push the protesters back and I had to leave before the protest ended.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
