Posts Tagged ‘Danny’

Ricky Reel, Democracy Camp & Zane

Friday, October 21st, 2022

Candlelit vigil for Justice for Ricky Reel – New Scotland Yard, Tue 21 Oct 2014

On Tuesday 21st October 2014, eight years ago, I photographed the vigil 17 years after the body of 20-year-old Ricky Reel, an Asian student was found in the River Thames, seven days after he went missing following a racist attack in Kingston upon Thames.

Sukhdev Reel

In 2014 evidence became public that the police had failed to take his disappearance seriously and rather than investingating and pursuing his attackers had spent time and resources on undercover agents investigating Ricky Reel’s family. Even after his body was found they failed to treat him as the victim of a racist attack.

Even now, 25 yearsafter Ricky Reel’s death, the Metropolitan Police are in denial over the incident, and in the last few weeks have issued a statement that the family was not spied on, despite the family, their MP and a public inquiry having been shown the evidence. In 2014 there were 77,000 signatures calling on then Met Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to formally apologise and for a robust independent and transparent Public Inquiry into police spying on family campaigns. It didn’t happen.

Suresh Grover of the Southall Monitoring Group

I first met and photographed Ricky’s mother at the front of a protest at Downing St, fighting for justice back in 1997, and she continues her fight. Recently her book ‘Ricky Reel: Silence Is Not An Option‘ was published and she appeared on BBC News with Tish Reel to continue to seek justice.

The Police Complaints Authority investigated the case in 1998 and reported that weaknesses in the police organisation had led the investigating officers to neglect the case. But their report remains unpublished, although MP John McDonnell used parliamentary privilege to reveal its findings in the House of Commons soon after its completion – and you can read these in the Daily Mirror which also gives more details of the failures.

John McDonnell was one of the speakers at the 2014 vigil, along with others including Sukhdev Reel, Stafford Scott of Tottenham Rights, Suresh Grover of The Monitoring Group, Helen Steel, an activist who was deceived into a two-year relationship by an undercover police officer, a speaker from the Newham Monitoring Project, and Liz Fekete of the Institute of Race Relations.

You can hear more about the case in a YouTube video, Silence is not an option which includes contributions from Sukhdev Reel, John McDonnell, Suresh Grover and others. The recently appointed Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has stated he wants to deal with racism and eliminate it from the force, and how he deals with this case will be an important indicator of whether this is just an empty promise.

Candlelit vigil for Justice for Ricky Reel

Democracy Camp Fenced Out – Parliament Square, Tue 21 Oct 2014

Earlier in the day I’d called into Parliament Square where I found the Democracy campers had been removed from the central grass area which was now surrounded by fencing. A few people were still being arrested for being on the grass, but I could only photograph them through the fence.

Earlier, police had taken away the blue tarpaulins that protesters had been using to sit or lie on the wet grass, leading to the Democracy Camp gaining the name ‘Tarpaulin Revolution’ – #tarpaulinrevolution.

One enterprising protester had gone up to join Chuchill on his plinth shortly before I arrived, with a banner which read: ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Confiscated – #tarpaulinrevolution Parliament Square’. Rather to my surprise he was still up there when I returned briefly after attending the vigil for Ricky Reel.

Democracy Camp Fenced Out

Staines march for flood victim Zane – Staines, Spelthorne. Tue 21 Oct 2014

Before coming to London I had photographed a protest in Staines on what would have been Zane Gbangbola’s eighth birthday. The protesters demanded that Spelthorne Council test the landfill site next to his home which they believe generated the hydrogen cyanide gas that killed Zane when it was flooded earlier in the year.

The protesters marched the few hundred yards from Staines Leisure Centre to the Spelthorne Council officers to hand in a 38 Degrees petition. Council officers came to take the petition and express sympathy with Zane’s parents, both of who were also affected by the gas, his father being left a paraplegic.

So far investigations have failed to provide a conclusive answer for the cause of Zane’s death, with the pathologist later blaming carbon monoxide from a petrol-driven pump used to clear floodwater from the house. But his parents say it was never used inside the house. Surrey Police are reported to have submitted information regarding the faulty pump and the hire company which supplied it to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Staines march for flood victim Zane

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Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

My day in London on Saturday 11th October 2008 – 14 years ago

100 Days to stop Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Grab! Shell Centre

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

The ‘Hands of Iraqi Oil’ coalition including Corporate Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and War on Want and supported by the Stop the War Coalition protested at the Shell Centre against plans to had over most of Iraq’s oil reserves to foreign companies, particularly Shell and BP.

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

From 1961 on the Iraqi government took increasing control of the oil industry in Iraq, finally nationalising it it 1970. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq it provided 95% of the government’s revenues.

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

Any lingering doubts about the true reason behind the US-led invasion were dispelled by the grab for the country’s key national resource, a move strongly supported by expert consultants supplied by the UK and US who previously worked at a high level for companies like Shell and BP who drafted the bill for the giveaway which is opposed by Iraqi trade unions and oil experts.

The protest took place at the start of the final 100 days of George W Bush’s administration and began at Shell’s UK headquarters on the South Bank before the samba band, ‘oil workers’ and other demonstrators with a huge and grotesque US Vice President Dick Chaney set off to make their way to BP’s HQ in St James’s Square and on to the US Embassy. But I needed to go to another protest.

Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Grab

Freedom not Fear 2008 – New Scotland Yard, Victoria St

Freedom not fear 2008 events were taking place in over 20 countries to demonstrate against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses, organised by a broad movement of campaigners and organisations.

In the UK the main event was at New Scotland Yard in London, opposed to the restriction of the right to demonstrate under SOCPA, the intimidatory use of photography by police FIT squads, the proposed introduction of ID cards, the increasing centralisation of personal data held by government, including the DNA database held by police, the incredible growth in surveillance cameras, ‘terrorist’ legislation and other measures which have affected our individual freedom and human rights.

Although police handed out notifications under the SOCPA legislation warning them that protesting in the zone around Westminster they were in was illegal, neither the police nor the demonstrators seemed to be taking this very seriously in the 45 minutes or so I was there or when I briefly returned an hour later.

Freedom not Fear 2008

Rosary Crusade of Reparation – Westminster Cathedral

Half a mile or so up the road people were gathering outside the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral for the Rosary Crusade of Reparation, one of the larger walks of public witness by Catholics in London.

The Rosary campaign was begun in Austria in 1947 by Franciscan Fr Petrus Pavlicek who prayed for his country to be freed from its communist occupiers and it attracted half a million supporters. The first annual parade with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima wasin 1948 in Vienna on the feast of the Name of Mary, Sept 12. This feast celebrated the defeat in 1683 of Turkish invaders surrounding Vienna by Christian armies who had prayed to the Blessed Virgin.

The London procession takes place on the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the final appearance of Our Lady at Fatima in October 1917, close to the end of the First World War. Those present saw the sun dancing around in the sky, and she promised peace and an end to war if men showed contrition for their sins and changed their lives.

This was the 25th annual procession in London, starting from Westminster Cathedral and making its way to a service at Brompton Oratory. The statue of Our Lady of Fatima was carried by the Catholic Police Guild and two thousand or more Catholics walked behind saying Rosary and singing hymns devoted to Mary.

This year’s procession had as its special theme atonement for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill then passing through Parliament.

Rosary Crusade of Reparation

Parliament Square

I left the procession as it started off and walked back past New Scotland Yard to Parliament Square, where several protests were taking place. Tamils were calling for an end to genocide in Sri Lanka and for an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

In the centre of the square was a small protest by London Against Detention demanding an end to the detention of asylum seekers and the closure of immigration detention centres.

And Ben and Ben of ‘Still Human Still Here” were approaching the end of their two week protest in Parliament Square over the scandalous treatment of asylum seekers who are being forced into abject poverty in an attempt to drive them out of the country. They spent two weeks in a tent in the square living on the emergency rations that the Red Cross will supply to these inhumanely treated asylum seekers.

Brian Haw was then still in the square, then in his seventh year of long-term protest. As usual I went to talk to him, and was there when a man came up to laugh at him and insult him. He smelt strongly of alcohol, was talking nonsense and acting unpredictably. One of Brian’s supporters stood between him and Brian who was filming him. I put down my bag as I took photographs in case I needed to step in and help, but fortunately he eventually moved away.

Danny was lying on the grass and called out to me as I walked past after talking to Brian. He told me he had been on hunger strike for two weeks demanding a proper investigation into his case. He claims to have been abused by police and social services following an incident in which as a seven year old child in Llanelli he was implicated in the death of a baby brother but I found it hard to make much sense of his allegations.

While I had been talking to Danny I’d seen a group of people on the street opposite carrying placards go up Parliament Street and I’d later caught up with them at the top of Whitehall. I found they were Obama supporters hoping to find and persuade Americans here to register and vote in the election.

Parliament Square

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London 22nd October 2014

Friday, October 22nd, 2021

ILF

The Independent Living Fund enabled many disabled people to continue to live with dignity and to work making a positive contribution to society and the government decision to close it led to many protests and to legal actions to try and stop it under the Equality Act.

Although a court ruled that the minister concerned had acted illegally, all it required was that the new minister reconsidered the plans. He did so, and decided to go ahead, though with a three month delay. And a judge ruled in December 2014 that although in axing the ILF he knew that the closure would mean many disabled people would lose their ability to live independently in the community his decision was legal.

The decision to end ILF was clearly wrong, clearly immoral, but so long as the legal niceties were observed the government was able to go ahead with it, and our law gave no protection.

The vigil outside the court while the case was being heard attracted wide support, including from Inclusion London, Norfolk and Suffolk DPAC local DPACs, the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Transport for All, Winvisable, PCS Union, the TUC, and other organisations,and there was even a simultaneous vigil in Toronto, Canada. Three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, came to give their support, and there were speeches by campaigners including Paula Peters and Andy Greene, with John Kelly singing.

As expected the vigil ended with a short direct action by DPAC and others, briefly blocking the Strand outside the law courts.

Free Shaker Aamer

This was one of a long series of regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, an innocent charity worker arrested by bandits and handed over to US forces who have imprisoned and tortured him for over 12 years. He was cleared for release in 2007 but remained in Guantanamo with our government failing to press for his release because his testimony could embarrass MI6 as well as the US.

London Panoramas

I had time before another protest to visit an exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands and on the journey to pause and make some panoramic images.

Probably the most interesting were inside Westminster station, where “the beams and buttresses, designed by Hopkins Architects and completed in 1999 for the opening of the Jubilee Line are also the foundations of the block of parliamentary offices above the station, Portcullis House, and were deliberately Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.”

Democracy Camp – Poet Arrested

I returned to Parliament Square where the Democracy Camp was still holding workshops, though police and the GLA ‘heritage wardens’ had fenced off the main grass area.

Danny, one of the protesters had been sitting on the plinth next to the statue of Churchill since the previous afternoon and poet Martin Powell arrived with a pot of food for him, which he tossed up to him, going straight into his hands, despite police warning him he could be arrested.

“How can feeding the hungry be a crime?” he asked and he was arrested and led away in handcuffs around two sides of Parliament Squareperforming his poem ‘The Missing Peace’. I left while Danny was still on the plinth, though later that evening police finally found a ladder and brought him down after over 26 hours.

Musical Poor Doors

It was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair, with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.

There were a lot of police present and some stood in front of the door and ushered a few people in and out but made no attempt to stop the hour long protest, which though noisy remained entirely peaceful. Some of the police clearly enjoyed the music and watching the dancing.

More at:
Musical Poor Doors
Democracy Camp – Poet Arrested
Canary Wharf & Westminster Tube
End UK shame over Shaker Aamer
DPAC High Court Vigil for ILF

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11 October 2008

Monday, October 11th, 2021

It was the start of the final 100 days of the Bush adminstration and the ‘Hands off Iraqi Oil’ coalition whose members included Corporate Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and War on Want and was supported by the Stop the War Coalition and others had come to Shell’s UK headquarters at Waterloo to protest against plans by Britain and the USA for Iraq to hand over most of the country’s oil reserves to foreign companies, particularly Shell and BP.

Iraq had nationalised its oil by 1972, and it provided 95% of its government income. Many had seen the invasion of Iraq by the US and UK (along with Australia and Poland) as largely driven by the desire to gain control of Iraq’s huge oil reserves and the US had engaged consultants to help it write a new oil law which it got the Iraqi cabinet to approive in 2007 which would give foreign oil companies – including Shell and BP, long-term contracts within a safe legal framework. But large-scale popular opposition meant the Iraqi parliament failed to approve the new law. But in June 2008, the Iraqi Oil Ministry went ahead with short-term no-bid contracts to the major foreign oil companies – including Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Total and Chevron and later these and other contracts were made more favourable to the oil companies.

After the protest at Shell’s offices the protesters marched to protest outside the BP HQ in St James’s Square and then to the US Embassy, and I left to cover the London Freedom not fear 2008 event outside New Scotland Yard. Similar protests were taking place in over 20 countries to demonstrate against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses, organised by a broad movement of campaigners and organizations.

The London event highlighted the restrictions of the right to demonstrate under the Labour government’s The Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005, (SOCPA),, the intimidatory use of photography by police Forward Intelligence squads (FIT), the proposed introduction of ID cards, the increasing centralisation of personal data held by government, including the DNA database held by police, the incredible growth in surveillance cameras, ‘terrorist’ legislation and other measures which have affected our individual freedom and human rights.

For something completely different I walked a quarter of a mile down Victoria Street to Westminster Cathedral where people were assembling for the Rosary Crusade of Reparation, one of the larger walks of public witness by Catholics in London.

This tradition began in Austria in 1947 with the roasary campaign begun by a priest praying for his country to be freed from the communist occupiers. The first annual parade with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima took place in 1948 in Vienna on the feast of the Name of Mary, Sept 12, which had been established by Pope Innocent XI in 1683 when Turkish invaders surrounding Vienna were defeated by Christian armies who had prayed to the Blessed Virgin.

As the procession to a service at Brompton Oratory began I walked back up Victoria St to Parliament Square, where a number of other small protests were in evidence. All over the centre of London there were people giving out leaflets about the growing problems faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka, where they allege a program of ethnic cleansing is being carried out by the government. International media are banned from the Tamil areas of the country and NGOs have been ordered out of some areas, so there are few reports of the war. Worse was to come and in 2009 in the final stages of the war conservative estimates are that 70,000 civilians were killed in the the Mullivaikkal massacre.

Others in the square were protesting against the UK’s scandalous treatment of asylum seekers and calling for the asylum detention centres to be closed down.

Brian Haw was still there, and I wrote:

Facing Parliament, Brian Haw‘s peace protest continues – he has been there for almost 2700 days – over 7 years – and it will soon be his 60th birthday. Brian says that now the police seem to have largely abandoned attempts to get rid of him legally there have been a number of odd attacks against him and others in the square – which the police have ignored. I took some time talking to a man who smelt of alcohol, was talking nonsense and acting unpredictably – and who then went and started to insult Brian. One of the other demonstrators stood between him and Brian who was filming him. I put down my bag as I took photographs in case I needed to step in and help, but fortunately he eventually moved away.

There were others protesting in Parliament Square, including one man who asked me to take his picture. He told me his name was Danny and that he had been there on hunger strike for two weeks, protesting over his failure to get his case investigated. He claimed to have been abused by police and social services following an incident in which as a seven year old child in Llanelli he was implicated in the death of a baby brother. I was unable to find any more information about his case.

Finally I saw a group of people walking past holding leafelts with the the word CHANGE on them and rushed after them to find they were Obama supporters hoping to persuade Americans they met to register and vote in the election. It was time for me to go home.

Parliament Square
Rosary Crusade of Reparation
Freedom not Fear 2008
Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Grab


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