Posts Tagged ‘FRFI’

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike – 2019

Saturday, December 14th, 2024

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike: On Saturday 14th December 2019 the Santas were on BMX bikes raising money for charity, Italians were supporting a spontaneous Italian anti-fascist movement and Earth Strike, a small group of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialists against environmental destruction held their first protest in Brixton.

Santas BMX Life Charity Ride

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike - 2019

If you are in London today look out for the 10th BMX Life’s Santa Cruise riding around the capital in a charity ride raising money for the Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation, ECHO. There is a link for donations on the page linked.

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike - 2019
One rider had ignored the dress code, though he was wearing a Christmas jumper

The ride begins as it did five years ago in the graffiti tunnel under Waterloo Station and 10.30am and the dress code is Santa, Elf, Snowman,Christmas Tree or Reindeer.

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike - 2019

So far by these rides and a number of raffles BMX Life have raised over £180,000 for ECHO and they hope that this year’s ride will be bigger than ever. When I took these pictures in 2019 there were around 700 riders.

Santas, Sardines & Earth Strike - 2019

From Leake St they moved off to Forum Magnum Square where some santas demonstrated their riding skills before the group left to ride around London.

More pictures on My London Diary at Santas BMX Life Charity Ride

‘6000 Sardines’ London protest – Parliament Square

The Sardines movement was a grass roots political movement which began in Italy in November 2019 after a flash mob in Bologna opposing right-wing leader Matteo Salvini packed the main square in Bologna “like sardines”.

People were appalled at the rise of Salvini because of his anti-immigrant policies, hate speech and Euroscepticism and the movement prompted other ‘sardine’ protests across Italy and by Italians elsewhere, with demonstrations, flash mobs and online actions.

14th December was declared ‘Global Sardine Day’, with similar rallies across Europe and in the USA as well as in many towns and cities in Italy. All of the speeches while I was at the event were in Italian.

The movement ended with the elections in January 2020 in the Bologna region of northern Italy, which resulted in a resounding victory for the centre-left who almost doubled the vote they had received five years earlier.

More pictures ‘6000 Sardines’ London protest.

Earth Strike South London – Brixton

The protest by Earth Strike South London began ther protest against environmental destruction with speeches and handing out fliers at a street stall on the corner of Coldharbour Lane and Brixton Rd, where members of the Revolutionary Communist Group taking part were also selling their newspaper.

The fliers pointed out that many companies who trade on our high streets are still making a huge contribution to global warming and environmental destruction and they went on to march up Brixton Road stopping for speeches and to protest at some of the major culprits.

They began by going into Barclays Bank who still have huge investments in fossil fuels and are major backers of fracking in the UK. They ignored bank staff who told them they could not protest inside but handed out leaflets and made a speech about the bank’s activities before leaving after a few minutes.

Next stop was H&M where they pointed out he fashion industry is the second largest producer of greenhouse gases, emitting 1.2 billion tons a year and textile manufacture creates 20% of all water pollution. They stood outside and ignored a security man who told them to go away.

A couple of police officers arrived and talked to the protesters who assured them that their protest would be peaceful. The officers then went away.

The protesters moved on to EE where they pointed out mobile phones and other similar electronic produces all need minerals such as Coltan, and the fight for these is behind the horrific wars that have taken place in the Congo region. Mining companies are also huge exploiters of African labour, create large amounts of pollution. lay huge areas to waste and evade taxes on a huge scale.

Further along the road they stopped briefly to point out that Boots avoids paying taxes in the UK, cheats the NHS and sells palm oil products made by clearing forests, destroying ecosystems. They make huge profits from the NHS, and are said to have charged charged them £1500 for pots of cream they sell for £2, as well as selling palm oil products grown on land cleared from ancient forests, disrupting ecosystems and resulting in the loss of species including orangutans.

At Sainsbury’s they reminded customers that it sells many products that harm the environment and lead to global warming, including beef that comes from ranches made by burning the Amazon Forest, destroying ecosystems and displacing indigenous tribes.

They held another protest outside Vodaphone, also a tax avoider and as well reliant on those minerals fuelling wars in central Africa before walking on to Brixton Police station.

Here they held a brief vigil for those killed by police in Brixton, including Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg who was beaten to death inside the police station in 2008.

I left the group here as they were to continue their protest at shops on the opposite side of Brixton Road.

More pictures at Earth Strike South London.

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LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

Saturday, February 25th, 2023

Saturday 25th February saw me travelling around London to photograph unrelated protests in Dalston, Leicester Square, Brixton and Westminster.

Shut race-hate LD50 gallery – Dalston

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

People protested outside the small LD50 gallery in Dalston just off the Kingsland Road which they say has promoted fascists, neo-Nazis, misogynists, racists and Islamophobes in one of London’s more diverse areas.

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

The gallery gets its name from the does of any substance which kills 50% of those taking it, and the protesters said it “has been responsible for one of the most extensive neo-Nazi cultural programmes to appear in London in the last decade.”

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

One man, “dc miller“, came to argue that it was a matter of free speech and the right to freely discuss ideas, even repulsive ones, should be defended. He got considerable verbal abuse from the protesters and eventually police came and advised him firmly to leave, and later wrote a number of articles about the gallery and the protest.

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

The protest didn’t immediately close down LD50 despite the claims of the protesters and a couple of months later it put on a show of defiance called ‘Corporeality’, though it is now permanently closed.

Perhaps an article in the Baffler by Megan Nolan, Useful Idiots of the Art World best expresses the position in this quote:

LD50 is a real place, in a real neighborhood, filled with people who are directly threatened by the vile speech of the very real racists who were invited into it. Repeatedly, the defense mounted by the gallery has been that it was attempting to have an open discussion about reactionary ideologies. The implication is that LD50 were engaging in some sort of completely neutral anthropological consideration of current events, rather than extending a fawning welcome to alt-right lynchpins.

More pictures at Shut race-hate LD50 gallery

Picturehouse recognition & living wage – Leicester Square

I rushed down to Leicester Square where workers from four Picturehouse cinemas at Brixton, Hackney, Wood Green and Picturehouse Central were holding a rally outside the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square to campaign for recognition of their union BECTU and to be paid the London Living Wage.

The Empire was recenetly acquired by Cineworld the owners of Picturehouse who have refused to recognise trade unions, but instead set up a company run staff forum.

They are not paying staff in London a living wage and offer poor conditions of service despite making large profits from cinema-goers paying £13 or more to see a film in central London. I’d arrived late and had to leave before the speeches to get the tube to Brixton.

More pictures Picturehouse recognition & living wage

Stop Unfair Eviction by Guinness – Brixton

The Guinness Trust was set up in 1890 by Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, then head of the family brewing business, to provide better housing for working class Londoners. One of the estates they built was the Loughborough Park Estate in Brixton.

Betiel Mahari had lived on that estate and moved into a new Guinness Trust flat, but the rent on this was more than doubled, increasing from £109 to £256 a week, although some of her neighbours are paying around a weekly rent of £100 less.

Beti has problems paying the new rent and because she works on a zero hours contract here housing benefit claim is constantly being reassessed leading to delays and errors in payment, leaving her in arrears. Guinness are not taking her to court to evict her and her two young sons. Supporters of the ‘Save Beti Campaign’ including Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Architects for Social Housing were campaigning outside Brixton Station collecting signatures for a petition to oppose the eviction of Beti and other tenants threatened by estate demolition.

I had time in Brixton to take a little walk around, particularly going to look at the railway arches where many long-standing local businesses are being evicted, though some are still trading.

More at Stop Unfair Eviction by Guinness.

25th anniversary of Khojaly Massacre – Westminster,

Back in Westminster the Justice for Khojaly Campaign were marching, calling for justice 25 years after the Khojaly Massacre in Azerbaijan where on the night of 25-26 February 1992, Armenian forces brutally killed 613 civilians, including 106 women and 83 children.

The call for an official apology from the Armenian govenment with full reparations and those responsible for this war crime to be brought to justice. The massacre was the larges in the war that folloed the secession of the majority Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which ended in 1994 with an uneasy truce.

More at 25th anniversary of Khojaly Massacre.

Dubs Now – let the children in – Downing St

My final event of the day was at Downing Street, where Help4Refugee Children was calling on the Government to honour its promise to let unaccompanied Syrian children into the UK after it reneged on its pledge earlier this month.

Theresa May’s high heels tread on a child

When Parliament had passed the Dubs amendment it had been very clear that this should happen and the government’s shameful and heartless decision overturned this, leaving many vulnerable young children forced to continue living in intolerable conditions. Many local councils say that they had made offers to take the children but these have been ignored by government.

Dubs Now – let the children in.

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Asylum Protest and Bow Walk – 2008

Sunday, January 8th, 2023

I went up to London on Tuesday 8 January, 2008 for two reasons. To photograph the monthly protest outside one of our asylum reporting centres and to collect three pictures that had been in a group exhibition. I took advantage of this to have a walk around Bow starting at Limehouse DLR station and after collecting the four pictures continuing to Canary Wharf to catch the Jubilee Line back to Waterloo.

Defend Asylum Seekers: Monthly London Protest – Communications House, Old Street

Asylum Protest and Bow Walk - 2008

Communications House on the south-west corner of the Old Street roundabout a few yards from Old Street station has now been demolished and replaced by newer offices, and asylum seekers now have to report at either Lunar House in Croydon or Eaton House out to the west on Hounslow Heath.

Asylum Protest and Bow Walk - 2008

So asylum seekers no longer have to enter the dingy entrance down a side street, Mallow St but many have longer and less convenient journeys to make their regular visits. They still know when they enter that these may be their last steps as free persons on British soil, and they may emerge in the back of a van on their way to a detention centre to wait for a flight back to possible imprisonment and torture in their country of origin.

Asylum Protest and Bow Walk - 2008

Few of those who walked past the protest knew what went on in the rather anonymous building on their lunch break knew what went on inside, and those who bothered to listen or take leaflets from the protesters, were surprised when they were told, with many stopping to add their names to the petition. The monthly protests here were organised by London Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) but others including some asylum seekers came to speak.

Asylum Protest and Bow Walk - 2008

I commented back then: “It is hard to take the claims that this is a Christian country seriously when you look at the way we treat those who are seeking asylum here, or indeed other migrants who are here. With the recent news frenzies about Tony Blair becoming a Catholic my thoughts were that he should be spending some awfully long and difficult sessions in the confessional, and his policies towards the asylum seekers would be one of many difficult items. And surely that father in the manse that Mr Brown likes to parade should be screaming “Gordon, Read your effing Bible!”

Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic authorities have taken the kind of firm and clear public stand they should to oppose the UK’s increasingly racist policies over immigration. There have been statements by the leaders of the churches and others but these are soon lost in the media. But there has been a lack of the concerted action and a failure to arouse popular opinion to bring about an end to the ‘more racist than thou‘ race between the parties to appeal to the right – and our right-wing billionaire press. Fewer people than in past years populate the pews, but if mobilised they could still be an important body, forcing governments to provide safe routes and fair treatment rather than trying to simply send back people to where they had fled persecution and fly asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Defend Asylum Seekers

Bow and Roof Unit

Rood Unit is a working space for photographers and was then based in a former furniture (or soap or perhaps both) factory in Bow, later moving to a floor above the Four Corners photography gallery in Roman Road. I had been invited to take part in a show they were presenting, Roof Unit Foundations, at [space] in Hackney and had shown four colour pictures from around River Lea in the 1980s.

This was one of them – and the others as well as a review of the show are in a post on this blog at the time, ROOF UNIT at [ space ]. And you can see these and many other of my pictures of the Lea Valley and the Lea Navigation in my River Lea web site, as well as in my book ‘Before the Olympics‘.

I took the DLR to Limehouse and made my way rather indirectly to their studio in Pixley Street on the corner with Copenhagen Place. The old factory is still there, though Roof Unit have moved out. I spent a short time talking with some of the photographers and was taken up onto their roof terrace where I took some more pictures, all using my Nikon D200.

I couldn’t resist adding the factory chimney to those at Canary Wharf as another tower, and the long arm of a crane made a little of a border across most of the top of the image. But I took quite a few more pictures – a few of which are in the post on My London Diary.

Fortunately my exhibition prints were quite small, 30x20cm, and unframed on dibond aluminium, so it wasn’t hard to carry them, though I didn’t stop to take many more pictures before the short bus ride to Canary Wharf. By now the light was beginning to fade, but I took a short walk around – and a few more pictures – before getting the underground back to Waterloo.

Bow and Roof Unit

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Cuba, Guantanamo and Iran

Saturday, January 7th, 2023

On Saturday 7th January 2012 I photographed three events in London. Two were associated with Cuba, one celebrating the Cuban revolution and the second calling for the closure of US Guantanamo Bay torture camp there. The third was a protest in solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979. Now there will be many more of these human rights abuses as Iran clamps down on the current ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests there.

53 Years Of Cuban Revolution – Angel, Islington

Cuba, Guantanamo and Iran

Although Cuba celebrates 26 July 1953 as the ‘Día de la Revolución’ (Day of the Revolution), this was the start of the movement with an unsuccessful armed attack on the Cuban military’s Moncada Barracks which resulted in the leaders being captured and jailed. It was not until 31 December 1958 that the rebels finally ousted Batista and Fidel Castro came to power, leading the country as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008.

53 years and one week later a street rally at the Angel Islington organised for Rock around the Blockade by Fight Racism Fight Imperialism celebrated the Cuban revolution’s building of a socialist country despite the blockade by its powerful neighbour USA, and demanded justice for the Cuban Five.

Cuba, Guantanamo and Iran

The Cuban 5 were arrested in 1998 in Miami for spying on groups of Cuban refugees who were planning illegal acts against Cuba. Their treatment in US courts has been criticised as unfair by the UN Commission on Human Rights and by Amnesty International, who also condemned their treatment in jail as “unnecessarily punitive.”

Among many internationally calling for their release were Eight Nobel prize winners from around the world including Nadine Gordimer, Desmond Tutu, Wole Soyinka and Gunter Grass. A panel of US judges had overturned their convictions in 2005, but this was overruled by the full court and the US Supreme Court declined to review their case. One of the Cuban 5 was released in 2011 having served 13 years in prison, but at the time of this rally four remained in jail. The others were later released in December 2014 in a prisoner swap for a US spy captured in Cuba.

Cuba, Guantanamo and Iran

The rally stressed the remarkable changes the revolution had made in Cuba which in 1958 was a poor and corruptly governed country, its natural resources exploited by foreign companies, its people largely living in poverty with low educational standards and life expectancy. Now it has probably the best health service in the world, low infant mortality and a life expectancy better than many parts of the UK. Free education is provided for all, and soon most will follow it to graduate level.

Cuba has also been generous in providing free medical training for students from many African and South American countries, and also has sent many doctors and nurses to work in them, making a major contribution to controlling AIDS in Africa. Although there some criticise it for a lack of freedom, it has shown that there is a real alternative to capitalism, and that has provided a healthy and dignified life for its people, improving their condition over more than 50 years. And it has done all this despite US blockade and sanctions and continuing US support for counter-revolutionary groups – including the failed Bay of Pigs military invasion in 1961.

Speakers also condemned the continuing US occupation of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, there since 1903 when the US was given a permanent lease on 45 square miles of Cuba. The lease clearly limits US activities there to those to fit the needs of a coaling and naval station and prohibits the setting up of any commercial or other enterprise in the area. The setting up of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp would appear to be a breach of these terms. The Cuban government claim that the lease was “imposed on Cuba by force” and is “illegal under international law” and have refused to accept US payments for it since 1960.

53 Years Of Cuban Revolution

Shut Guantánamo – End 10 Years of Shame – Trafalgar Square

A rally marking the 10th anniversary of the setting up of the illegal US prison camp at in the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on 11 January 2002 called for its closure and in particular the release of the two remaining prisoners with UK links held there.

Although President Obama came into office pledging to close the camp down and end the discredited military trials there, he has failed to do so, authorising the continued regime of arbitrary detention without charge or trial. 171 prisoners were still detained there at the start of January 2012.

Louise Christian

Several hundred came to the protest and listed to speeches by Lib Dem Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, solicitor Louise Christian, Lindsey German of Stop the War, Kate Hudson of CND, journalist Victoria Brittain and others, including student representatives, trade unionists and other activists.

A group of activists wore orange jumpsuits and black hoods as used at Guantanamo, and some were also in chains. They marched in line holding up the prison numbers of the 177 prisoners still in Guantanamo, and their numbers were called and their names read out. Among those taking part and wearing ‘V’ for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks were ‘Anonymous’ protesters who had come from the Occupy London protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian national who had a residence permit and lived in Bournemouth from 1999 to 2001 while claiming asyluk was cleared for release in 2007 and 2009. In 2009 he was sentenced in absentia in Algeria to 20 years for membership of a foreign terrorist group abroad – though no evidence was given at his trial. It appears that the US intervened on his behalf in Algeria and he was finally released and returned to his family in 2014.

Shaker Aamer was similarly cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, but was thought to still be detained as his revelations of torture over his ten years of imprisonment by the US authorities (and on one occasion in the presence of a British intelligence agent) would be embarrassing to the US and UK governments. I was pleased to be able to photograph him at a rally at the US Embassy in London in January 2016 after his release at the end of October 2015.

Shut Guantánamo: End 10 Years of Shame.

London Mourning Mothers of Iran – Trafalgar Square

Also in Trafalgar Square were The London Mourning Mothers of Iran who had been coming there every first Saturday of the month to show solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979.

The Mothers of Laleh Park (formerly known as the Mourning Mothers of Iran), women whose children or husbands were killed or imprisoned after the 2009 Iranian election, come regularly to Laleh Park in central Tehran and other locations on Saturdays and stand together to bring attention to these injustices.

Iranian security agents often come and attack the mothers. On January 9, 2010 over 30 of them were attacked and arrested and held in jail for several days, and leading members have received long prison sentences. The call for the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the death sentence and the trial of those who have ordered the killings of the last 30 years.

London Mourning Mothers of Iran.

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NHS and Housing Marches in East London, 2014

Tuesday, July 5th, 2022

NHS and Housing Marches in East London, 2014

Save our Surgeries on NHS 66th Birthday – Whitechapel

The National Health Service came into operation in the UK on 5th July 1948, established by a Labour government despite considerable opposition from the Conservative Party and some doctors’ organisations. In most recent years there have been protests marking the anniversary against the increasing privatisation of the system, large parts of which have now moved away from being provided by the NHS itself to being provided by private companies, motivated by profits rather than public service.

The opposition to Aneurin Bevan’s plans in the 1940s led to a number of compromises, but the NHS was launched with three basic principles – to meet the needs of everyone, to be free at the point of delivery, and to be based on clinical need rather than the ability to pay. Although those principles remain, there are some respects in which they are not entirely met.

Prescription charges – currently £9.35 per item – were introduced in England in 1952, removed from 1965-8 but then re-introduced, remaining free for under-16s and over 60s, with some other exceptions. And we pay too for NHS dentistry, and many people find it impossible to get dental treatment under the NHS as no practice in their area will take them on.

Access to GPs and other services at surgeries around the country is also much more difficult for many, and it can be difficult or impossible to get an appointment in a timely fashion. Many services dealing with relatively minor medical issues are no longer available, and people have either to pay for them or continue to suffer. Some of these problems have been exacerbated by the take-over of many surgeries by healthcare companies as a part of the creeping privatisation of the NHS.

Twenty years ago, when I had a hospital stay of several weeks, hospitals have been forced to put some essential services – such as cleaning – out to tender, resulting in two of the three hospitals I was in being in filthy conditions.

In 2014, cuts in funding were threatening the closure of surgeries in Tower Hamlets as they failed to pay for the extra needs faced in inner-city areas. Local hospitals were also threatened, particularly because of the huge debts from PFI contracts for the building an management of new hospitals. The deals with the private sector made under New Labour have left the NHS with impossible levels of debt – and the companies involved with high profits, continuing in some cases for another 20 or 30 years.

After a short rally with speakers including the local mayor and MP as well as health campaigners including local GPs, there was a march by several hundreds to a larger rally in Hackney. But I left the marchers shortly after it passed Whitechapel Station.

Save our Surgeries on NHS 66th Birthday

Focus E15 March for Decent Housing – East Ham

Earlier I had been to photograph a march through East Ham and Upton Park in a protest over the terrible state of housing in England, and in London in particular. The event had been organised by Focus E15 Mums with the support of Fight Racism Fight Imperialism, but included many other protest groups from Hackney, from Brent and from South London on the march as well as groups including BARAC, TUSC and others.

They included a number of groups who had stood up and fought for their own housing against councils lacking in principles and compassion who had suggested they might move to privately rented accommodation in Birmingham, Hastings, Wales or further afield, but who had stood their ground and made some progress like the Focus E15 Mothers.

Many London councils are still involved with developers in demolishing social housing and replacing it with houses and flats mainly for high market rents or sale, with some “affordable” properties at rates few can afford, and with much lower numbers than before at social rents. Many former residents are forced to move to outer areas of London in what campaigners call ‘social cleansing’.

Families that councils are under a statutory duty to find homes for are often housed in single rooms or flats, sometimes infected by insects or with terrible damp, often far from their jobs or schools. Councils are under huge pressure and funding cuts sometimes make it impossible for them to find suitable properties, though often there are empty properties which could be used, particularly on estates such as the Caarpenters Estate in Stratford which Newham had been emptying since around 2004 in the hope of redeveloping.

Government policies and subsidies for housing have largely been a way of subsiding private landlords, and we need national and local governments – as I worte ” determined to act for the benefit of ordinary people, making a real attempt to build much more social housing, removing the huge subsidies currently given to private landlords through housing benefit, legislating to provide fair contracts for private tenants and give them decent security – and criminalising unfair evictions.” Housing really is a national emergency and needs emergency measaures.

Much of what is currently being built in London is sold to overseas buyers as investments and often left empty as its owners profit from the rapid rises in property values in London. We need to make this either illegal or to impose heavy duties on overseas owners including increased council taxes on empty properties.

The march attracted considerable attention on the streets of East London, and as I note several motorists stopped to put money in the collection buckets – something I’ve never seen happen before. I left the march as it reached East Ham Station to go to the NHS event.

Focus E15 March for Decent Housing

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Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists

Thursday, June 2nd, 2022

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists – My agenda for Wednesday 2nd June 2010 was a busy one, with protests about democracy in Parliament Square, London’s Black Taxis at Aldwych, a picket at BP’s St James’s Square HQ, trade unionists protesting at the Turkish Embassy and Zionists supporting the Israeli attack and killings on the Gaza aid flotilla.

Democracy Village Protest – Parliament Square

People had been camping in the Democracy Village in Parliament Square for just over a month and a few of them had come across the road with banners to protest. They held up banners, including a large one saying ‘We Respect The Soldiers We Do Not Support The War‘ and another ‘We Demand Peace In Afghanistan and No More War‘ and several made speeches with a megaphone. Another very artistically written notice on a large square of cloth on the pavement read ‘With Each Conscious Breath May You Know How Loved You Are in All Ways. You Are Divine. Let Your Light Shine’.

Democracy Village Protest

Brian Haw – Summons Marks 9 Years in Parliament Square

I went back to the other side of the road to talk with Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker who I had come to visit on the 9th anniversary of the start of Brian’s protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. A week ago they had been arrested and held for 30 hours on the day of the state opening of Parliament before the court released them on bail.

The arrest had come after Brian objected to police searching his tent in the early morning without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search they have made, all part of a continual campaign of harassment. As we were talking we became aware of three police a few yards away standing and watching us. They then came over and served Barbara Ticker with a summons for using a megaphone in Parliament Square.

Brian and Barbara asked why she was being singled out for attention as there were at that time others In the Democracy Village actually using a megaphone and she was not at the time doing so. The officers made no attempt to answer this question.

BrianHaw – Summons Marks 9 Years

Black Cabs Protest – Aldwych

I don’t use taxis in London – or at least very seldom. I can only remember two occasions in the last thirty or so years, both when others insisted I go with them. It’s a wasteful, outdated and overpriced system which is responsible for much of the congestion in London, both by cabs carrying only small numbers of people compared to other public transport and also by ‘cruising for hire’ with no passengers on board.

My account on My London Diary gives some of their grievances, some of which I have some sympathy with, and I agree the police should be enforcing the law (rather than harassing protesters) but the whole system needs to be updated, taking into account the general availability of smart-phones and improvements in satellite navigation systems which increasingly make the ‘knowledge’ redundant and can provide real-time congestion information.

I didn’t find it an easy protest to photograph, which I think shows in the results. Lots of taxis are frankly rather boring, and not that unusual in London, where I commented that “While standing at a bus stop a couple of weeks ago I counted over 30 empty taxis going past before my bus arrived, and I couldn’t help but think we could have a better public transport system without taxis.”

Black Cabs Protest

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square

BP have a long-running dispute with the workers on the Cusiana oilfield in the Casanare department of Colombia, and its one where they are playing dirty, with union members accusing BP of carrying out a campaign of misinformation about what is happening in the plant, and in particular of falsely claiming the support of government officials for their lies about the action.

More or less as this picket was taking place, armed commandos from the Colombian army leapt over a security grid at the plant and attacked the workers who were carrying out a peaceful occupation of the Cusiana CPF (Central Processing Facility) in Tauramena.

Previously BP had come to an out of court settlement on a UK High Court challenge over the pipeline from this oilfield to the coast, when farmers alleged that BP benefited from the actions of Colombian paramilitary forces who harassed and intimidated them in their protection of the pipeline. During the preparation of the case, of the lawyers for the farmers discovered she was on a death list and fled the country; she was granted political asylum in the UK.

The protest was organised by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and was supported by the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, based in Switzerland which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, uniting trade unions in its sector around the world.

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers

Protest for Murad Akincilar Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

Trade unionist Murad Akincilar was arrested on a spurious charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation while on an extended holiday in Turkey last September and was in prison in Istanbul. His treatment in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. He was known personally to some of the protesters as he studied for a Masters Degree at the LSE, but since 2001 he has lived in Switzerland and worked for Swiss trade union Unia which was leading the campaign for his release.

The protest opposite the Turkish Embassy was organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gik-der, an organisation founded in north London in 1991 by migrants fleeing political and racial persecution in their home countries of Turkey and Kurdistan.

Protest for Murad Akincilar

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

The Zionist Federation together with members of the English Defence League demonstrated opposite the Israeli embassy in support of the Israeli Defence Force killings in the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.

A smaller group of pro-Palestinian protesters had come to oppose them, although both the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.

Although official Zionist sources had expressed some regret at the violence and loss of life, the mood of the supporters here appeared to be one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation. I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum’ ” and appalled to find this was “a demonstration jointly with the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League, some of whose members many of us have seen and heard chanting racist slogans on our streets. It seems unbelievable that a Jewish organisation should align itself – even if unofficially – with people like this.”

Attempts to justify the summary execution of one of the victims by shots to the head at close range by the existence of so-called weapons on the ships seemed insulting – almost all those shown in the photographs are “exactly the kind of tools that would be expected to be found on any ship in its galley and for general maintenance, as well as items being taken for building work in Gaza. The possible exceptions are a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.”

I’m very much in favour of peace in Palestine and Israel, but like many I feel “the actions of the state of Israel in their attacks on Gaza, their disruption of everyday life for the Palestinians and the blockade is making the possibility of peace much more distant… Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”

Police had to step in at the end of the protest when four press photographers were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators but all I suffered were a few threats and hostile gestures.

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity

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March Against Housing & Planning Bill

Sunday, January 30th, 2022

The March Against Housing & Planning Bill on January 30th 2016 was organised by activists from South London, particulary from the London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.

These include many who are fighting against the demolition of social housing that is taking place across London, including in Lambeth and Southwark. Council tenants and leaseholders on council estates are fighting to save their homes – and fighting against Lambeth and Southwark councils who together with private developers and estate agent advisers are bent on demolishing the estates and replacing them with new estates which are largely for private rent or sale at London’s inflated market prices.

Southwark Council in particular carried out an expenisive PR exercise to demonise the Heygate Estate at the Elephant & Castle, having failed to carry out necessary maintenance and flooded the estate with people with various social problems over a number of years. The whole disastrous history has been documented in depth on the Southwark 35% site. A prize-winning estate with 1,214 homes built in 1974 to provide social housing for around 3,000 people was deliberately run-down and demolished. It’s replacement, Elephant Park has less than 100 social housing units. Many of its new flats are simply investments for overseas owners.

Southwark sold the Heygate to developers for one third of its previous valuation, and spent more on the scheme than it received. A study by Global architect firm Gensler concluded that the £35m spent by Southwark in rehousing the estate residents was exactly the same as it would have cost to refurbish the estate up to modern standards – and would have avoided the huge carbon footprint of demolishing and rebuilding.

A well as Heygate, Southwark Council’s main target has been the Aylesbury Estate, where Tony Blair chose to launch the Labour regeneration policy which has enabled corrupt councils to destroy much of what remained of social housing. For many council officers and some councillors it has enabled them to move into highly paid jobs with developers as a reward for their services. Lambeth has also been pursuing similar policies (along with other boroughs in London) and in particular with the Central Hill estate close to Crystal Palace.

An angry heckler – their argument continued after the speech by Livingstone

The protest against the Housing & Planning Bill in 2016 was also attended by people from both Lambeth and Southwark Council, and when Southwark Council Cabinet Member for Housing Richard Livingstone stepped up to the microphone to speak at the rally before the march some trouble was inevitable. Among those loudly heckling him was another of the speakers, Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing.

Class War have also been active in support of social housing in South London in particular and livened up the march by dancing along the street with banners singing the ‘Lambeth Walk’. One banner carried the words of a leading US Anarchist Lucy Parsons (1853-1942), “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” and another had a field of crosses with the message “We have found new homes for the rich“.

Class War supporters rushed across the street for a short impromtu protest in front of a large branch of one of the leading estate agents driving the gentrification of London and advising councils and government on housing policies, but soon rejoined the main march of around 2,000 people heading for Westminster Bridge and Downing St.

At Downing St there was another protest outside the gates. Police had formed a line across Whitehall and directed the march to the opposite side of the street opposite Downing St. The march followed them across but then many simply walked back across the street to mass in front of the gates for a rally led by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! who have been active in supporting the Focus E15 Mothers in their campaign against the housing failures of Newham Council.

More on My London Diary at Housing and Planning Bill March

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November 2014

Wednesday, November 25th, 2020

I had a busy week at the end of November 2014, with protests on Monday, Tuesday, two on Wednesday and three on Friday. Fortunately there was only one event I felt I needed to cover on the Saturday and I took the Sunday off; I think there were some things happening but I needed another day of rest.

2020 is rather different. The only real event in my diary is a visit to the health centre for my regular six-monthly diabetic review, though there are a couple of virtual events. Back in 2014 I got plenty of exercise covering events, but this week I’ll be going out for my now usual 10 mile bike rides most mornings. Otherwise I’ll be stuck in front of a computer writing things like this or digitising, editing and contextualising pictures I made in the 1980s, sometimes a tricky process. Back then we didn’t have metadata or geolocation and I wasn’t always good at record keeping. And when I start falling asleep at the keyboard I’ll probably watch a film.

Roger Waters, Clive Stafford Smith and Caroline Lucas hold a banner

Monday’s protest, on 24th November 2014, We Stand With Shaker, was in Old Palace Yard, Westminster in front of the Houses of Parliament. Present were two of my favourite MPs, Caroline Lucas and John McDonnell, as well as civil rights activist including Peter Tatchell and Clive Stafford Smith, my favourite comedian Jeremy Hardy and of course people from both the We Stand With Shaker campaign and the ‘Free Shaker Aamer Campaign’ whose regular protests I’ve often photographed.

Jeremy Hardy, Peter Tatchell and John McDonnell

Attracting a little more media attention (though not much) was music legend Roger Waters, Pink Floyd’s chief songwriter, who had become involved in the campaign after hearing that Shaker Aamer recited some of his lyrics in his Guatanamo prison cell to help him keep sane in long spells of solitary confinement.


And there was Shaker Aamer. Not the man himself, still held in Guantanamo seven years after being cleared for release, but a giant inflatable figure of him for people to be photographed with holding the message ‘I stand with Shaker.‘ Someone took my picture too, but I don’t think it was ever seen again. You can see more at We Stand With Shaker. Thanks to the long campaign, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident to be held in Guantanamo was finally released on 30 October 2015.

Protesters meet in front of Newham Council’s Housing Office

I caught the train rather earlier than I liked on a cold Tuesday morning to travel across London to Stratford where I met with a small group of protesters from the housing protest group Focus E15 and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) to support a young mother and her child. Newham council had a statutory obligation to rehouse Candice and her child, but were trying to do so by sending her over 200 miles from the borough and her community to private rented accommodation in Liverpool.

Candice is allowed into the offices for her interview

The group accompanied her to the Housing Office to support her claim to be rehoused locally. Candice wanted two of them to go in with her as support in her meeting with the officials to discuss her case, but they were refused entry by council staff. Something of a ruckus with security staff on the door eventually led to the two, Jasmine and Sam, being pushed past them along with one other protester, but the rest of the group were kept outside, along with myself and two videographers.

Security stop Jasmine and Sam from going in to advise Candice

It was difficult to take photographs, though I made a few through the windows and doors despite the security staff attempting to block the view of what was happening inside.

Sam and Jasmine argue with a council official to be allowed to support Candice

I was also restricted by wanting to respect the privacy of other clients inside the office. The police arrived and went inside – and I think told the council officials to It wasn’t easy to know what was happening inside, though Sam did occasionally come to a window to try and tell us what was going on.

Sam tries to speak through a window to let those outside know what is happening

The protest continued outside the door, and unfortunately the security staff decided not to admit others who had come for interviews, despite promises by the protesters outside not to impede them or rush in.

Sam and Stan at the door to the meeting – with Jasmine sitting inside

The meeting with a housing officer was taking place inside, and through a window when Sam held the door open I could see Jasmine’s back as she sat giving her support and advice.

The protest continued outside the door, and unfortunately the security staff decided not to admit others who had come for interviews, despite promises by the protesters outside not to impede them or rush in.

Eventually one of the protesters negotiated with security to allow clients to enter by a rear door which they would not protest outside but would direct the clients too. The protesters were rather more concerned than council staff at allowing them access.

There was a bitter wind and it was wet outside, and after the meeting had been going on inside for over an hour I was shivering, despite being warmly dressed. I would have liked to have photographed the group coming out and sharing the news that Candice would be rehoused in the borough at Canning Town but decided I had to leave. By the time I was home and writing up the story I’d got the news on the group’s Facebook page.

More pictures at Focus E15 Support Homeless Mother

My week in November 2014 continues in another post…

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