Tag: Danish Embassy

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here – 2006

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here: Saturday February 4th was a busy day for me with a couple of protests, a trip to Canary Wharf and then the opening of a show in the Foyer of the Museum of London which included some of my work from ten years of London’s Pride marches.

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here - 2006

The first of the protests was by Hizb Ut-Tahrir Britain, a radical Muslim organisagion which was proscribed in the UK in January 2024 following a protest outside the Egyptian Embassy which called on ‘Muslim Armies’ to take action against Israel. I’d first photographed a group which had been formed by its former leader for ten years, Omar BakrI Muhammad at a protest in Trafalgar Square in 1998 and later had photographed a number of the Hizb Ut-Tahrir protests, including the one for which they were banned.

The ban was part of a government attempt to stigmatise all protests against the Israeli attacks taking place on Gaza as ‘hate protests‘ and the BBC and other media outlets aided them by failing to properly distinguish the protest by a few hundred radical Muslims from the hundreds of thousands who marched peacefully at the same time through London calling for peace and justice in Palestine. Had they thought if they could get away with proscribing Stop the War, CND and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign they would surely have done so.

Here I’ll re-post a normally capitalised and slightly corrected version of what I wrote back in 2006 on My London Diary about that and other events of the day, along with links to more pictures including the full set of my pictures used in the museum show.

Defend the Honour of the Prophet

Danish Embassy

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here - 2006
Speaker addressing crowd penned in on the pavement at the official demonstration opposite the embassy.

Several thousand British Muslims turned up outside the Danish Embassy around midday on Saturday 4 February 2006 to protest peacefully about the publication of cartoons by a Danish newspaper some months ago, following their re-publication in a number of other newspapers around Europe and on the Internet. Although I understand their outrage, and support their right to protest, the world-wide reactions have seemed excessive, with violence and injuries as well as lurid threats of death and atrocities presenting a very negative image of Islam.

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here - 2006
Some demonstrators wanted to continue after the official end of the demonstration, but were urged to go home.

To the credit of British Muslims, this demonstration was peaceful and restrained, with official placards provided by organisers Hizb Ut-Tahrir, Britain saying things such as ‘we do not fear debate or criticism – but no one likes abuse‘, ‘Islam says – don’t insult other peoples religions‘ and ‘Europe lacks respect for others’, or simply praising the prophet, although some of the speeches sounded rather more inflammatory.

Stewards (and of course the police) generally kept everyone well under order, as well as making sensible photography virtually impossible during the rally. After the event was officially over it was possible to take more pictures

Muslims, Iran, Canary Wharf & Queer is Here - 2006

The problem is I think not that “Europe lacks respect” but that our tradition is a secular liberal one which respects and upholds freedom of speech and opinion (our blasphemy laws, which should have been repealed long ago, are seldom invoked.)

There are many things said and written that I find offensive (including several of the cartoons at issue) and you and I have the right to state our objections, to debate or criticise and even to stop eating Danish butter – but not to stir up hatred or issue death threats. Despite some press reports, this demonstration was generally well-ordered, and I saw none of the placards which have led to calls for people to be prosecuted.

more pictures

Support Workers in Iran!

Iranian Embassy

Protestors hold posters about public executions, torture and imprisonment of workers opposite Iran’s London Embassy in Kensington.

Meanwhile, a short distance away, a demonstration that perhaps should have attracted rather more support from the Muslim community was taking place opposite the Iranian embassy. Perhaps 50 people had gathered there to protest against human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and to support workers there who have no right to strike or organise under Iran’s draconian labour law.

The demonstration is a show of solidarity with Iranian trade unionists and the GMB London Region banner added colour.

In January 2004 workers staging a sit-in at the Khatoon Abad copper plant were attacked by riot police, with four killed and many more injured. Recently, bus workers in Tehran have been arrested for planning and carrying out strike action. According to Amnesty International, around 500 are still in jail, without charges being made or access to lawyers. Some of them have been beaten in prison, and their wives and children also beaten in raids on their homes.

A letter of protest was taken to the door of the embassy but nobody came to accept it

There are many more abuses of human rights being committed under the name of law in Iran including torture, murder and public executions (even of minors) for offences including ‘un-Islamic behaviour‘. Given the amount of news coverage on Iran at the moment over uranium enrichment, it is perhaps surprising that other stories from Iran – such as these – have not attracted more attention. And since most of those who are suffering are Muslim, I’m suprised at the apparent lack of solidarity from the community in Britain.

more pictures

Canary Wharf & the City

West India Quay from new access bridge

I left for a late lunch, then went on to Canary Wharf, where I had things to do. Although it was a very dull day I took a few pictures before catching the Docklands Light Railway to Bank and walking through the empty City to the Museum Of London on London Wall.

Quite a few more pictures here.

Queer is Here

Museum of London

London Gay Mens Chorus at the opening of ‘Queer is Here’ at the Museum of London.

At the Museum Of London was an event I had a personal interest in, the opening of a foyer display ‘Queer Is Here‘. I’d provided the dozen images used on the front of the large display panel beside the general text on the show, and there was also a screen beside it showing more of my images taken at London Gay Pride Parades from 1993-2002. In those ten years of Pride I took perhaps 5,000 images, and the display shows around 40 of the best of them.

Gay Pride parade in Piccadilly, June 1994. Picture by Peter Marshall from ‘Ten Years of Pride’ , part of the ‘Queer is Here’ exhibition at the Museum of London.

There were a few of these on My London Diary already (along with many from later Prides) but I posted the full set of pictures used in the show.

Peter Tatchell

The exhibition was opened by Peter Tatchell, who I’ve photographed many times over the years, and was enlivened by a spirited performance from the London Gay Mens Chorus. After the month at the Museum Of London the display was to tour to libraries and other venues in London and possibly elsewhere around the country

More pictures from the opening

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More Belgravia 1988

Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3f-34-positive_2400
Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-34

Chesham House was the Russian Embassy in London from 1853 until 1927, when we ceased to have a Russian Embassy after the foundation of the USSR. Now it hides away in Kensington Palace Gardens. The area was developed in the 1830s on land where leases had been obtained a century earlier by the Whig politician William Lowndes (1652–1724) who acquired the manor of Chesham Bury in Hertfordshire in 1687 and rebuilt the original Bury and manor house of Great Chesham in 1712.

Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-33-positive_2400
Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-33

In 2007 a large family flat occupying the third floor of this building was featured by Forbes in a listing of London’s Most Expensive Flats – at the time it was valued at a mere £17.5 million. Lowndes is said to be the origin of the phrase “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves” and that is an awful number of pence.

Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-36-positive_2400
3 Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-36

You can see the rear of Harrods at the right hand edge of this picture. This area was rebuilt completely between around 1890 and 1910, partly becuase of the huge expansion of Harrods and is in a vaguely Queen Anne style. This building has become very familiar to me in more recent years as the home of the embassies of both Colombia and Ecuador, each with a small suite of rooms in a rather impressive building and sharing the entrance with the other occupants.

It was of course from June 2012 to 11 April 2019 the temporary home of Julian Assange, at first granted asylum by Ecuador and then, after a change of government, handed over to the British police and since kept in solitary confinement by the British establishment who clearly hoped he would die in Belmarsh prison. Keeping a police guard outside this building to prevent Assange’s escape cost us a totally unnecessary £12.6 million.

Chelsea House, Lowndes St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-42-positive_2400
Chelsea House, Lowndes St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-42

Chelsea House, a tall, curved block on the corner of Lowndes St and Cadogan Place, has around ten residental floors above this street entrance and the luxury shops of its ground floor. There is a second entrance like this around the corner in Lowndes St, and both look to me rather as posh noses stuck on to a rather more utilitarian facade. Above the 7th floor the upper reaches are set back in a largely unsuccessful attempt to disguise the height of the builsing.

Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-43-positive_2400
Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-43

Sloane St is full of shops seliing expensive clothes to those who think labels are more important than utility, and some seem rather ridiculously styled.

Danish, Peruvian, Embassy, Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-44-positive_2400
Danish & Peruvian Embassies, Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-44

The Danish embassy at left was one of very few modern buildings of distinction in the area and designed by the famous Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, and completed by his practice after his death. It was commisioned in 1969 and existing buildings were demolishes, but the Danes ran out of cash and for four years the site was a car park. Work began again and the foundation stone was laid in 1975 with the building – with added security measure included after the beginning of the IRA attacks was completed in 1977. To its right is a dental practice and then the Peruvian Embassy and another building with adjacent doors.

The Jeeves Ladies, Kate McGill, Pont St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-46-positive_2400
The Jeeves Ladies, Kate McGill, Pont St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-46

There is still a Jeeves Dry Cleaners in Pont St, on the corner of Cadogan Lane, but its facade no longer displays the once well-known logo designed for them by Derrick Holmes. The statue by Irish Sculptor Kate McGill was commissioned by Sydney Jacob, who in 1969 founded Jeeves of Belgravia with David Sandeluss. Seven foot tall and weighing around a ton, it appeared on the street overnight in 1974 and is still there, outside a smaller shop on the opposite side of the road and rather obscured by fenced brick boxes around each of a short row of trees.

Clicking on any of the above images will take you to a larger version in my Flickr Album 1988 London Photos, where you can browse forward or back through the pictures in the album.

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.