Police Prevent Peaceful Protest: On Thursday 30the July 2026 Defend Our Juries had arranged a static peaceful protest on the wide pavement in front of Westminster Magistrates Court on Marylebone Road. It was to begin at noon with an hour of speeches, music and poetry.
I arrived at the starting time to find several surrounding roads full of police vans and squads of police standing waiting while others were in the crowd making arrests.
There was a large crowd present, perhaps around a thousand demonstrating against the government ban on Palestine Action. They included many who had been arrested at previous events for holding signs in support of Palestine Action.
Over 1500 of these arrestees had earlier received letters from the court stating that their cases would be dealt with on this day – but most at least had been told they need not attend. Clearly magistrates cannot hear that many cases in a day and the intention had been to simply rubber-stamp the great majority without allowing those arrested to make any defence.
Defend Our Juries had in fact been told that because of administrative problems, the ‘non-hearing‘ of these cases would not be going ahead on this day. But they had decided to go ahead with the protest and after the hour of entertainment had invited all those charged – if they wanted – to come up the the small platform they were bringing and make a further statement of their support for Palestine Action and their intention to encourage others also support the banned group.
Most of those previously arrested had been charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, but by making the intended statement would also be in breach of Sections 11 and 12 which carry more serious penalties – and would lead to a jury trial. Defend Our Juries were clearly intending to ramp up their challenge to the authorities in what they called a ‘Graduation Day’ ceremony.
Before I arrived police had already seized the platform and the public address system as well as several protesters – including one who who had been testing the sound system. Perhaps they will now argue that ‘1.2.3.4 …testing‘ is now a terrorist chant.
The Court of Appeal had surprised many by overruling the High Court’s decision that the ban was unlawful. It was was pushed through Parliament by combining them with a genuinely terrorist organisation, and would probably have met with considerable opposition otherwise. As the protest was taking place on Thursday the Supreme Court announced it would hear a further appeal in September which could quash the ban. Andy Burnham could end this nonsense now.
Darfur – International Day of Action: There have been protests in London against the continuing bloodshed in Sudan in recent months and the situation there is increasingly desperate. But as Wikipedia points out, there have been civil wars in Sudan “intermittently ongoing for more than 70 years“.
The War in Darfur began in 2003 with two groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighting against the Sudanese government of Omar-al-Bashir. They accused him of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur, and his response was to ramp up a campaign of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
One of the major forces on the government’s side was a militia group, the Janjaweed and this has since developed into a coalition, the Rapid Support Forces, which is now fighting the Sudanese Army. The Holocaust Encylcopedia states “Between 2003 and 2008, armed conflict and targeted killings in Darfur caused about 300,000 civilian deaths and displaced about 2.7 million civilians.”
Daud Abdullah, Deputy Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britian
The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a ceasefire agreement in 2010, although this was soon violated by government forces and the fighting continued. After the Sudanese Revolution of 2018 which led to the removal of al-Bashir from power in April 2019 there was a peace process that lead to a peace agreement in 2020.
Unfortunately conflicts continued in Sudan and in 2023 resulted in a still continuing civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Army. By February 2026 more than 40,000 people had been killed, with aid agencies suggesting a much higher figure. Again according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia “The violence has led to the displacement of more than 12 million people, or one in three Sudanese. Nearly half of the population lacks access to adequate food, and famine has been declared in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.”
In 2007 I wrote:
“Sunday was the International Day Of Action For Darfur, and although the demonstration in London was a relatively small one – perhaps a thousand people – the organisers had really managed to capture media attention. While anti-war or other marches of this size or even 50 times larger don’t usually even rate a mention, this was a lead item on the morning’s radio news – and listeners were even perhaps uniquely told when and where it was happening.
I don’t begrudge the publicity in any way. The situation is a world scandal and disaster and one that the nations are avoiding effective action on. As the posters, and the hour-glasses large and many small insist, time is running out, the blood is running out and time is up for Darfur.
“It’s just a shame that the media in general choose to turn their backs on other events. But today you could hardly move for TV cameras and photographers from what used to be Fleet Street. those freelances who cover the other demonstrations, small and large, that the papers and TV don’t want to know about were also there of course.
Holocaust survivor Martin Stern leads the Cambridge to London ‘Walk 4 Darfur’ into the London rall
“For me the most interesting aspect of this actual event was the arrival of the group of students and others who had marched from Oakington detention centre near Cambridge to raise awareness about Darfur (and about refugees held there who are from Darfur.) By the time they arrived, most of the media had left. Perhaps they were too much like ordinary demonstrators (and too much like those cyclists who came from Faslane earlier in the month to publicise the treatment of Mordechai Vanunu.)”
St George, Armenian Genocide & Congo: On St George’s Day, 23 April 2011 I found little celebration taking place in Lcndon but mad3e a few pictures before photographing an Armenian march calling on our government to officially recognise the Armenian Genocide, then a protest over human rights violations in the Congo.
St George’s Day in London
Westminster
I found it hard to find much celebration of St George’s Day in London in 2011. He had become the patron saint of England in the Tudor era, but had been almost forgotten by the Royal Society of St. George was founded in 1894 to try and revive the tradition.
But it was not until the 1990s that we saw much revival, with the English football team and right wing political groups widely adopting the St George’s flag, preciously mainly the preserve of miniscule nationalist political groups. The Royal Society of St George was joined by English Heritage in promoting the idea.
I photographed the Royal Society of St George event at Covent Garden in 2005, but it was only in 2010 that London Mayor Boris Johnson hosted the first celebration in Trafalgar Square. Before these there had of course been celebrations in various pubs around London, soemtimes rather right-wing events. In 2016 I photographed two rival St Georges in the same pub in Southwark.
But it was the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who was the first major leader to make a promise in his party manifesto. Had his 2017 election campaign not been sabotaged by the right wing in his party, today would now be a Bank Holiday.
The 2011 celebrations in London seemed very limited. There was a parade marking the 150th anniversary of our military cadet units (though as I note in My London Diary this was rather premature for the air cadets.) And later I went to Trafalgar Square for the Mayor’s official celebrations and was very unimpressed.
Between 1915 and 1923 the Turkish authorities killed around 1.5 million Armenians, around 70% of Turkey’s Armenian population in a deliberate attempt to rid Turkey of people who did not fit in with their desire to create a homogeneous Turkish nation. Armenians have a strong national identity, centred around their Christian heritage which did not fit well into a largely Muslim Turkey.
The genocide began on 24 April 1915 when Turkish authorities arrested and murdered around a thousand leading members of the Armenian community in Constantinople. They then killed the roughly 300,000 Armenian conscripts in the Turkish Army.
This was followed by “mass killings, deportations and death marches of women, children and elderly men into the Syrian Desert. During those marches, many of the weak or exhausted were killed or died. Women were raped. The deportees were deprived of food and water. Starvation and dehydration became commonplace.”
Turkey still refuses to admit to the genocide, and insists that the deaths were the result of a civil war. But it was a ‘war’ against a people who had no weapons and no organisations to fight and were simply slaughtered because they were Armenian.
The term ‘genocide’ did not exist at the time and was coined by Raphael Lemkin who described it as “The sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians.” One of the first resolutions proposed by him and passed by the UN was ‘The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’.
The annual march in London calls on the UK Government to officially recognise the Armenian genocide – as the UN Commission on Human Rights and many countries around the world have done, including France, Germany, Italy and others of our European neighbours. It’s hard to understand why we have not done so, though successive UK governments have taken the line it is a matter for international courts to decide, not governments. But others think that trade issues are the real reason.
More about the march and the reasons behind it and about “Hrant Dink (1954-2007) ‘The 1,500,001st Victim of The Armenian Genocide'” on My London Diary.
The International Congolese Rights organisation (ICR) were marching from the Congolese Embassy in Great Portland Street to Downing St calling attention to human rights violation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and asking the UK Government to put pressure on President Kabila to hold elections or resign.
Formed in 2004 to defend the defend the rights of Congolese citizens living in the UK the ICR as held a number of demonstrations aimed at exposing the systematic violation of human rights in the DRC aimed at getting the UK and the international community to take action.
Ever since the end of colonial rule in the former Belgian Congo there has been fighting in the Congo. The DRC has vast mineral resources, probably “the richest of any country in the world, including 80% of the world’s cobalt reserves, and between 65-80% of coltan, the mineral from which tantalum capacitors, vital for mobile phones, games consoles, computers and other electronic devices.” It also has large amounts of copper and is the world’s second largest diamond producer. A large proportion of its trade is now with China.
Despite these resources, the DRC remains the second poorest country in the world, with almost three quarters of its 124 million people in extreme poverty as a result of its underdevelopment in the colonial era and the war and political turmoil since independence.
The main banner of the protest stated ‘David Cameron – Why Are So Quiet On 8 Million Deaths in D. R. Congo?‘ and people carried placards about the suffering in the country including the killings and the widespread use of rape as a military and political tactic.
They called for elections and for DRC President Joseph Kabila to step down and to face trial at the International Criminal Court.
Dolphin Massacre & Irish Famine: On Saturday 17th January 2015 I photographed two very different protests. More than a thousand had come to Cavendish Square in the late morning for a march to protest against the bloody annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji cove, Japan and the cruelty of keeping captured dolphins in visitor attractions. I left as they went through Oxford Circus marching to a rally in Trafalgar Square to cover a much smaller protest outside the Channel 4 building on Horseferry Road by people outraged at their plans to produce a comedy series based on the 1840s Irish famine.
Carnival March to End Taiji Dolphin Massacre
Cavendish Square
This had been planned as a carnival march and many of those taking part had obviously take considerable time and effort to dress up and make placards for the event. Some had brought model dolphins and many of the placards featured them.
Obviously those taking part felt very strongly about the cruelty both of the annual slaughter in Taiji Cove, where the dolphins are trapped in the shallow water and killed, their blood turning the sea red, and of the cruelty of keeping captured dolphins in visitor attractions where they have little space to swim and cannot enjoy any natural life.
Having seen the films of the killing I’m also very much opposed to it, and I’ve never liked the caging of animals for entertainment. But when photographing events like this I do often think how good it would be if these people would also put the same kind of effort into protesting over the wars and genocides that are killing millions of our own species.
But the protesters enthusiasm for the cause and the effort they put into visuals do make protests such as this easy and rewarding to photograph – and very different from more political protests which are often rather more soberly dressed and dominated by mass-produced placards.
Another difference is the much greater proportion of women taking part than in most protests, though of course women play a very important part in many of the events I photograph and in my pictures.
Vanessa Hudson, leader of the UK Animal Welfare Party which has stood candidates in local and European elections
I was surprised when the march set off from the square that they walked on the pavements rather than taking to the road.
A march this size doesn’t really fit on the pavements of the West End which are crowded with shoppers, and it made photographing the actual march more difficult, fragmented by tourists and often slowly wandering shoppers. I found myself continually bumping into people and spent more time apologising than taking pictures as well as finding it very difficult to get a clear view.
‘Dearg le Fearg’ means Red with Anger, and ‘Om Náire Orthu’ is Shame on You
Outside Channel 4 around 50 people had come to protest against a proposed comedy series on the Irish famine, potato blight exploited in 1845-9 as a deliberate genocide by the English establishment, wiping out a million Irish, and forcing more into poverty, starvation and immigration.
The Great Famine or Irish Potato Famine led to the deaths by starvation of around a million Irish people, and also during it and in the next few years to around two million leaving the country, many for America. Roughly one in eight of the country’s inhabitants starved to death, and about a quarter of them emigrated, said by Wikipedia to be “one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history.”
‘Famine Not Funny’, ‘1m Starved’, ‘to Death’, ‘C4’, ‘Genocide’ ‘is Not Funny’. ‘Chasing English Ratings – Chasing Irish Coffins’.
The UK government knew what was happening – and also knew that they could have avoided most of the deaths by simply stopping the export of large amounts of food from Ireland – as they had during previous times of famine in Ireland – but they decided not to do so. They even stopped ships carrying wheat from reaching the country. The interests of major landlords – mostly absentee landlords – were prioritised over the lives of poor Irish who were said to lack ‘moral fibre’ and some in England regarded the deaths as a ‘divine judgement’.
Austin Hearney of CRAIC and PCS reads some facts about the Irish Famine
My account on My London Dairy lists some of the speakers at the even, including its “organiser Austin Harney, Chair of CRAIC, (Campaign for the Rights and Actions of Irish Communities), Pat Reynolds of IBRG, (Irish in Britain Representation Group), Helen O’Connor of the Socialist Party, Peter Middleton of the Wolfe Tone Society (Sinn Fein), Zita Holbourne from BARAC, (Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts) and Irish traveller Phien O’Reachtign of PAAD.”
12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in November 2025.
London, UK. 1 Nov 2025. Several thousands march from Marble Arch around the West End to demand that animals should not be treated as property or resources for humans. They say that animals feel love, pain, fear and joy “just like use” and say everyone should become vegan. They call for cages to be emptied, animal testing to be ended and for an end to all use of animals for any purpose whatsoever, demanding “Animal Liberation NOW!” Peter Marshall.London, UK. 8 Nov 2025. A rally and march from Gloucester Road station calls for an end to the UK-backed atrocity in Sudan. At Al-Fashir and elsewhere in Sudan UAE-backed RSF militia have committed executions, torture, mass displacement and deliberate starvation, armed by weapons sold by the UK to the UAE. Protesters demand the UK designate the RSF a terrorist organisation, end arms sales to the UAE and impose sanctions on them. In May Sudan took the UAE to the International Court of Justice for complicity in genocide. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 8 Nov 2025. Trade unionists protested outside the Chinese Embassy in solidarity with the three Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders charged with inciting subversion under Beijing’s National Security Law for organising protests and vigils whose trial begins on 11 Nov. They called for Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and all political prisoners to be released. One man who continually tried to disrupt the event was arrested.Peter Marshall.London, UK. 26 Nov 2025. Police banned farmers from bringing tractors to Parliament Square for their protest against the removal of inheritance tax relief at the last minute and instead told them they could hold a peaceful rally without vehicles opposite Downing St. A few did manage to drive to Parliament and a couple were parked opposite the House of Lords. Apparently some drivers were arrested in Trafalgar Square after refusing to drive out of London. Police had previously granted permission for the tractor protest. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 26 Nov 2025. Police banned farmers from bringing tractors to Parliament Square for their protest against the removal of inheritance tax relief at the last minute and instead told them they could hold a peaceful rally without vehicles opposite Downing St. A few did manage to drive to Parliament and a couple were parked opposite the House of Lords. Apparently some drivers were arrested in Trafalgar Square after refusing to drive out of London. Police had previously granted permission for the tractor protest. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 26 Nov 2025. Paula Peters of DPAC speaking. Unite Community hold a Budget Day protest in Parliament Square as a part of a national day of action to protest against the ongoing cuts and sanctions to people’s benefits. They say sanctions which penalise people already struggling to feed, pay rent and heat homes, particularly the disabled, are now at record levels under this Labour government and are driving working people, disabled people, and children further into poverty. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 26 Nov 2025. Unite Community hold a Budget Day protest in Parliament Square as a part of a national day of action to protest against the ongoing cuts and sanctions to people’s benefits. They say sanctions which penalise people already struggling to feed, pay rent and heat homes, particularly the disabled, are now at record levels under this Labour government and are driving working people, disabled people, and children further into poverty. Peter MarshallLondon, UK, 26 Nov 2025. Anti-Brexit campaigners including Steve Bray protested at the crossroad leading into Parliament Square with loud music and EU flags, as well as a Brexit elephant. They reminded people of the huge financial impact of Brexit on us all and the failure of any of the promised benefits to materialise – except for some of the super-rich and called for Britain to rejoin Europe. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 29 Nov 2025. Blind wheelchair user Mike Higgins wants to be arrested again. Over two hundred people sat in silence holding placards “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the opening day of the Judicial Review of the ban on the organisation. They waited patiently for police to arrest them under the Terrorism Act. Many feel the ban is an abuse of law and are concerned at the attempt to scupper the review by appointing judgesfor the case with a clear conflict of interest. Police were slowly arresting people and carrying them away to waiting vans when I left. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 29 Nov 2025. Charlie X – Only Obeying Orders.Over two hundred people sat in silence holding placards “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the opening day of the Judicial Review of the ban on the organisation. They waited patiently for police to arrest them under the Terrorism Act. Many feel the ban is an abuse of law and are concerned at the attempt to scupper the review by appointing judgesfor the case with a clear conflict of interest. Police were slowly arresting people and carrying them away to waiting vans when I left. Peter Marshall
November turned out to have been a slighly confusing month for me and I managed to date some of my captions wrongly – thanks to careless “copy and paste”. I think the actual album dates for the Facebook albums are all correct.
Finally the 12 day of Christmas tomorrow – pictures from December 2025.
12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in August 2025.
London, UK. 2 Aug 2025. We Are Alll Migrants. Rival groups of protesters kept apart by police at the Thistle City Barbican Hotel, Finsbury. Some locals say asylum seekers there had caused a plague of crime and antisocial behaviour and right wing groups held a protest there, opposed by Stand Up To Racism and groups who say racism and Islamophobia are being used to scapegoat refugees and migrants and fascists are not welcome here. A large block of anarchists arrived, ignored police and stood between the two other groups. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 2 Aug 2025. Louise Raw holds a long list of far right convicted sex offenders. Rival groups of protesters kept apart by police at the Thistle City Barbican Hotel, Finsbury. Some locals say asylum seekers there had caused a plague of crime and antisocial behaviour and right wing groups held a protest there, opposed by Stand Up To Racism and groups who say racism and Islamophobia are being used to scapegoat refugees and migrants and fascists are not welcome here.. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 6 Aug 2025. Councillor Eddie Hanson, Mayor of Camden lays a wreath at the new Cherry Tree which had just been planted. Ceremonies around the world mark the 80th anniversary of the devastating US exploding the world’s first nuclear bomb at Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands of innocent civilians with many more dying in the days, months and years from radiation. A new cherry tree was planted in Tavistock Square where speakers, artists and singers led reflections calling for no more nuclear war. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 9 Aug 2025. Police arrest an old woman at the protest supporting Palestine after the march through London protesting against Israel starving the people of Gaza to death. They seemed to object to a leaflet she was handing out. They called on the UK government to stop arming Israel and to end their complicity with genocide and join the international community in opposing Israel’s actions. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 9 Aug 2025. Police arrest and carry a protester away. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand or morecampaigners defied the law and sat to Parliament Square with the message “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” despite warnings they might be arrested under the Terrorism Act. The protest came after Amnesty and international scholars and others had joined many others in calling for the ban to be lifted and permission had been give for a legal action against the ban to go ahead. Police carried away many of them to waiting police vans. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 9 Aug 2025. Members of the United Voices of the World at the Canary Wharf Radisson Blu hotel and the Draughts board game bar both on strike held joint protests at Canary Wharf and here outside the bar in the Leake St graffiti tunnel. The housekeepers are fighting brutal cuts to hours and demanding 40-hour contracts, fair workloads, and the London Living Wage and bar staff are protesting against zero-hour contracts, unpaid training and unsafe working conditions. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 23 Aug 2025. At Starbucks. The Revolutionary Communist Group protest at UK businesses on and around Oxford St which support and profit from the ethnic cleansing, starvation, and genocide of the Palestinian people. Israel’s colonial regime provides high profits, and speeches at each stop detailed evidence against the company. The protest demanded severing all ties with Israel and comprehensive sanctions and claimed the UK government is committed to crushing the Palestine solidarity through state repression and media lies. Peter Marshall.London, UK. Journalists and media workers at Downing Street honour the courageous reporting of the journalists of Gaza who are being deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza for telling the world the truth of the genocide. The names of over 240 who are confirmed killed since 7 October 2023 were read out after speeches from Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dadouh, Ahmed Anaouq of We Are Not Numbers and Sangita Myska. Peter Marshall.
12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in April 2025.
London, UK. 5 April 2025. The first UK-wide Don’t Buy Apartheid day of action began with a protest outside Sainsbury’s Camden with protesters demanding that Israeli produce and Coca-Cola be removed from the shelves, and asking individual shoppers to join the boycott. Israeli fresh produce is grown in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land and Coca-Cola has a distribution centre for its brands in an illegal settlement in Jerusalem. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 5 April 2025. A rally in Trafalgar Square joins in the mass mobilisation day of over 1300 protests across the USA by the non-violent Hands Off! campaign. Furious Americans protest against the chaos and lurch towards fascism of the Trump administration with its import tariffs, lunatic proposals on Ukraine and Gaza, threats to invade Canada, Panama and Greenland, gutting public services. Their illegal power grab is destroying democracy for the benefit of their billionaire allies. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 12 April 2025. Londoners march through the East End from Altab Ali Park in a national day of actions to demand our government immediately stop arming Israel and demand Israel end its genocide which has already killed at least 50,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 90% of Gaza’s population multiple times. They were joined at Bethnal Green by others who had marched from Hackney. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 12 April 2025. A washing line of childrens clothes for the many children killed., A two hour Circle for Palestine vigil around the US Embassy opposite The Surge London Community Camp in Nine Elms showed solidarity with Palestinians and called out the complicity of the USA in the ongoing genocide in Gaza which has already killed at least 50,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 90% of Gaza’s population multiple times. They hold banners in a two hour vigil around the Embassy building. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 19 April 2025. Many thousands fill Parliament Square for a rally and march through Westminster after the Supreme Court ruling that ‘sex’ in the 2010 Equality Act means biological sex and that the legal definition of a woman excludes trans women. Although the judgement also stressed the importance of t2010 Equality Act London, UK. 26 April 2025. Luke Watson photo, Hundreds of Just Stop Oil supporters came to St James Park for a final march to celebrate the success of their civil resistance and to protest the draconian sentences being served by many of those involved in their peaceful protests, with others still awaiting trial. They marched around Parliament Square, many holding photographs of the ‘political prisoners’ before marching to a rally at the law courts. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 26 April 2025. Hundreds of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers in The Landworkers’ Alliance march behind a tractor from a rally in Vauxhall to the Home Office to call for systemic change in our food system. They want a legal right to nutritous ecologically produced food for all and a national strategy to prioritise healthy food production and give fair incomes for land workers, including seasonal migrant workers who currently are illegally exploited. Peter Marshall
Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in February 2025:
London, UK. 1 Feb 2025. Anti-fascists in London oppose the protest by supporters of racist Tommy Robinson against his imprisonment for contempt of court. It comes shortly after Donald Trump took over as US President with Elon Musk making a Nazi salute, extreme right parties on the rise in Europe, and Farage claiming Reform UK has over 180,000 members. The London march says fascists are not welcome on our streets and is against all forms of racism including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Peter Marshall
Al-Quds Day 2007: On October 7th, the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel I find myself thinking about the long fight by Palestinians since so many were displaced and dispossessed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the many thousands who since then have been killed by Israeli attacks.
Neturei Karta orthodox Jews oppose Zionism and marched in the Al Quds march
And of course for those Israelis who have been killed – though in much smaller numbers – by suicide bombers, by rockets and during the October 2023 incursion or among the hostages, and including those Israelis killed by Israeli forces.
What we have seen since however is not a war, not self-defence but genocide, the bombing and deliberate starvation of the entire population of Gaza. It comes on top of years of siege with restrictions on essential supplies and of the bulldozing of people’s homes as well as the establishment of more and more illegal settlements across occupied Palestine.
And our country remains complicit, still supplying arms to enable the genocide despite government statements to the contrary, still labelling protests calling for peace as ‘hate marches‘ and still making false allegations about antisemitism while failing to deal with the real anti-Semites who plan and carry out attacks such at that we all condemn in Manchester.
Thinking about what to post here for today, I came across the Al Quds Day march which took place in London on Sunday October 7, 2007. It was I think only the second time I’d photographed the annual event and I didn’t write a great deal about it then.
I did mention that this event was begun in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeni declared the last Friday in Ramadan as Al Quds Day, (al-Quds being the Arabic name of Jerusalem), an annual anti-Zionist day of protest. In the UK the march has generally taken place on the following Sunday and is a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people, largely by Muslims though also by anti-Zionist Jews and some of the UK left (many of whom are also Jewish.)
One man wanted to stop me taking pictures but of course I didn’t
In 2007 a mixture of groups came to demonstrate against the march, largely because of its links with Iran both from its founding and also as it was organised by the Iranian Human Rights Commision (Inminds) which is alleged to receive funding from the Iranian government. Unlike later years I saw no counter-protests by Zionist groups or individuals.
Back then many of the march carried flags of the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah which emerged there after the Israeli invasion in 1982 and has strong ties with Iran. As well as running schools and hospitals and other social services it has also taken part militarily in opposing the various attacks by Israel on Lebanon.
Many Hezbollah leaders have been assassinated by Israel, some in what many describe as terrorist attacks. Until 2019 when its political wing was also proscribed the showing of the Hezbollah flag remained legal though contested in the UK.
As in earlier years the march ended with a rally in Trafalgar Square, though after 2008 the GLA refused to allow them to use the square, citing insurance problems.
Many more photographs of both the marchers and the rally and those who came to protest against the march on My London Diary at Al Qud’s Day March And Protest
Darfur and the Mayor’s Thames Festival: On Sunday 16th September 2007 I went to London to photograph a march on an International Day of Action over the genocide which had been taking place on a large scale in Darfur since 2003, with around 300,000 civilians killed. My comments at the time are in italics below. After the end of the march I went to walk along the riverside wher the Mayor’s Thames Festival was taking place, though I found little actually happening.
Protect Darfur – International Day of Action
“Several hundred marched from the Sudanese Embassy in St James to Westminster where a protest rally was held opposite Downing Street over the continuing failure of the international community to take effective action over Darfur.”
“Among the mainly African demonstrators were groups of Jews, concerned that, as in the 1930s, too many are happy to turn a blind eye to what is going on.”
The Sudanese government had earlier co-opted and armed the Arab Janjaweed militias against those opposed to it in Darfur and they created what the UN described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
In July 2007 the UN and the African Union approved a the largest joint peacekeeping mission in the world UNAMID to the area, and over the years there were various peace agreements, but despite this conflicts continued and in 2023 a civil war broke out in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) (which developed from the Janjaweed) and the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – and genocide returned to Sudan.
The BBC has an article, ‘Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening’ about the renewed genocide and famine in Darfur and across the country which again the United Nations has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
At the rally opposite Downing Street, demonstrators were asked to put on their blindfolds as a reminder that leaders around the world are refusing to see the problem in Darfur.
“I didn’t stay to hear all the speakers. The position of the rostrum made it hard to photograph, working directly into the sun behind the speakers’ heads from any available close positions, and photographs were not going to be of great interest.
The message on Darfur is clear, and the international community needs to take action.”
Many more pictures (too many) on My London Diary at protect darfur.
River Thames and the Mayor’s Thames Festival
“We were promised that Sunday was the end of our short, late summer, and I took a walk along the south bank of the River Thames from Westminster to Tower Bridge, among the crowds who had turned up for the Mayor’s Thames Festival.“
Nothing much exciting seemed to be happening while I was there (it seemed mainly a commercial opportunity for the very large number of stalls along the riverbank), but I then didn’t hang around for the procession and fireworks promised later.
I did take quite a few pictures which you can see at river thames and the mayor’s festival – and it looks as if I found it a little more interesting than my account suggested.
