Fukushima & Million Women Rise: Saturday 11th March 2017 was the sixth anniversary of Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan and a march called for an end to nuclear power programmes around the world including in the UK. It was also the nearest Saturday to International Women’s Day and I photographed the Million Women Rise march.
Fukushima Anniversary Challenges Nuclear Future
London
Six years on, radiation was still leaking from the plant which was damaged by a tsunami from the Tohoku earthquake. This destroyed most of the plant’s cooling system and created the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Estimates of the human cost in the long-term from the radiation leaks vary considerably, but the financial cost of cleanup up has been estimated at around $180 US.
Buddhist Reverend Gyoro Nagase from Battersea and Reverend Sister Yoshie Maruta from Milton Keynes
Nuclear power has never achieved the early promises of cheap energy and remains the most expensive way of generating electricity. It is now promoted as an essential backup for renewable energy when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow but its importance will fade as we exploit other continuous renewable sources and cheaper storage solutions become available. And as we move away from a grid-based power system to more local generation. Should nuclear fusion ever become feasible it promises to be a much safer, cheaper and cleaner way to generate electricity.
Probably the UK’s nuclear programme was never really about energy, but about our nuclear weapons programme.
The marchers met at the Japanese embassy on Piccadilly and marched on the pavement handing out leaflets to Downing Street. I left them on the march to photograph the start of Million Women Rise and then took to tube to Westminster for the Downing Street rally.
Around two or three thousand women gathered in Orchard Street to march to a rally in Trafalgar Square.
‘Women of the World Unite Against Violence’
Many carried feminist placards and there were groups from various women’s organisations around the country, including from various ethnic communities.
This was a march for women only, but most of them were very happy for me to photograph them, but I was not able to mingle freely with them as I would on most marches, and my pictures were from the sidelines or in front of the march.
Violence Against Women is a Global Pandemic’
I was able to take many pictures, but not always as I would have liked. But I think they are an interesting set – and here are just a few of them.
I left as the march reached Bond Street station to go back for the Fukushima rally.
Boycott Workfare, Million Women Rise & Greece: On Saturday 3rd March 2012 I photographed a protest outside companies using people forced into free labour under the government workfare scheme, then a women-only march against male violence against women which I left to go to the Occupy meeting on the steps of St Paul’s which supported the protests in Greece against austerity measures imposed by the EU.
Boycott Workfare – Oxford St
Oxford St
The group Boycott Workfare came to Oxford Street to lead a protest against companies who use unemployed and disabled people forced to work without pay but just a small allowance under the government workfare scheme.
As the protesters emphasised, workfare reduces the number of real jobs available in the workplaces, giving workers to the employers by forcing the unemployed to do work at no cost to the employer on an allowance roughly one quarter of the minimum pay – and around a fifth of the London Living Wage.
The event began with some good news when they met outside BHS near Oxford Circus by praising that company for having withdrawn from the scheme since the protest had been planned before moving off to protest elsewhere.
Around a hundred campaigners had arrived and were being carefully watched by police who went with them, guarding shop doorways and keeping a path along the crowded pavements clear when they stopped to protest.
The organisers had kept their route secret and had come with two ‘Boycott Warfare’ flags on long poles, white with the letters BW, and those taking part were told to follow the flags.
Police were also guarding some shops which had previously been targeted by UK Uncut over their failures to pay tax, though most of these were not involved in workfare and so of no interest to this protest.
The first stop was a Pizza Hut, where police managed to stop any of the protesters entering – but the protest put off a number of customers entering while there were a few speeches. There we were handed a map showing the locations of some of the other businesses on Oxford Street taking part in workfare, including McDonalds, Holland and Barratt, Superdrug, WH Smith, Argos, and a little way north of Oxford St, Holiday Inn and Barnado’s.
Police just managed to arrive at Holland and Barratt before the protesters, who only paused briefly there before rushing on to McDonalds, where a few managed to go inside. Police soon ejected them into the noisy crowd protesting outside, most of whom soon moved off towards Argos, with police following them.
I soon realised that not all the protesters had left for Argos, and hurried back to see another group being ejected from McDonalds. Another small group had returned to Pizza Hut – where again they were ejected by police.
The main body of protesters turned into a shopping arcade, but were not sure which of the shops were using workfare and hesitated, allowing police to rush in and form a barrier. After a few noisy minutes they left and held a rally on a street corner with a few short speeches – including at least one by someone passing by.
At the Holiday Inn on Wellbeck Street a few protesters again beat the police and were rather forcibly ejected.
Some at least of the police who I and the campaigners talked with clearly shared their disgust at a scheme which forces people to work without payment, and were also worried about leaked plans to part-privatise the police and other cuts, but insisted that it was their job to keep order and protect property.
Women were gathering in the street on the west side of Selfridges to march through the centre of London calling for an end to domestic abuse, rape and commercial sexual exploitation. They called for prevention of abuse and support and protection for women.
They came from various womens groups and organisations around the country for this all-women march calling for and end to male violence against women.
Some of London’s more active women campaigning groups, including those that have been the leaders in previous celebrations around International Women’s Day were absent from the protest, and I was shocked to learn that they had been told they were not welcome at this march, despite the coalition’s aim to be non-partisan and to bring “together women who want to highlight the continuation of all forms of violence against women and demand that steps are taken to put an end to this.”
Among those marching were women from a number of political groups from London’s ethnic communities present, including Kurds, some in traditional dress and some holding posters calling for the release of their leader Abdullah Öcalan from prison in Turkey, as well as groups opposed to the Iranian regime.
The Million Women Rise Coalition has a statement of demands for government and societies here and around the world. They demand the recognise and reflect in policies the discrimination faced by all women and those from black and other minority groups in particular. They demand that domestic abuse, rape and commercial sexual exploitation are linked together in a definition of violence against women and that support is given to support organisations for women in the not-for-profit sector.
Their long statement called for support for various groups opposing violence against women, and end to child prostitution and pornography and proper support for trafficked women and children.
They called for International Women’s Day to be made a Bank Holiday in the UK and Ireland, and oppose “the continued misrepresentation, misappropriation and abuse of the female body throughout all forms of media.”
Their statement also made clear that wars and conflicts around the world perpetuate violence against women, and on the march a group carried a banner ‘Raped, Abused, Widowed and Forgotten – Tamil Women in Sri Lanka Still In Tears’ and others highlighted the ongoing abuses against women in DR Congo.
I left the march at Bond Street Station to report on a protest at St Paul’s Cathedral against the terms of the Eurozone rescue package for Greece at Occupy meeting on the steps there and to show solidarity with the protests in Greece.
No Borders and the West End: On Saturday 10th February 2007 I went to photograph a protest against our racist, cruel and arbitrary detention of immigrants and asylum seekers at the neighbouring Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres on the Colnbrook By-Pass immediately north of Heathrow Airport – now known as Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre. Like the first protest I covered there in April 2006 it was organised by No Borders, though several later events there were and at Yarls Wood were by Movement for Justice who were taking part in this protest with a Fight Racism! Fight Imprerialism! banner and others.
Harmondsworth (or rather Longford where both centres are located) was only a few miles bike ride from home, and after around an hour I jumped back on my bike, cycled home and took the train into London where I had arranged to meet a friend, I think probably to hand over some material.
We took a wander around Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and other parts of central London before saying goodbye and my making my way to Waterloo Station, photographing a few things on the way.
Here with the usual corrections is what I wrote about the day in 2007 on My London Diary and a few of the pictures with links more.
No Borders Demo at London Detention Centres
Colnbrook & Harmondsworth
Rhythms of Resistance players outside the detention centres – Harmondsworth centre in background.
I arrived at the detention centres at Harmondsworth (Colnbrook and Harmondsworth are separated only by a narrow private road) just as the people who had come by coach from London marched onto the roadway leading to the two sites, with banners and the street band of Rhythms Of Resistance.
Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism’
We had come to give support to migrants and refugees, and to demand the closure of detention centres, a stop to deportations and and end to immigration controls.
Since I was last here the windows of the two detention centres seem to have been blocked off, giving them a more sinister appearance, but although those imprisoned within the blocks were not allowed to see us, I imagine they could hear the noise that was being made.
Hands off Kurdish Asylum Seekers Now
I left after around an hour, when a few people were still arriving. As well as the crowd in the road, there were also a number of people lined up along the main road in front of the two ‘prisons’.
The Campaign For The Defence Of Africans Returned To Zimbabwe make the point Zimbabwe is not a safe place
There didn’t seem to be a huge police presence, although probably there were rather more on hand not far away. I left to meet a friend I’d arranged to see in the centre of London.
There wasn’t a great deal special happening as I walked through the streets of the West End of London. At Piccadilly Circus we bumped into some people with placards, but they were just celebrating someones birthday.
It was as boring as it looks
In Trafalgar Square we found the Biblical Gospel Mission preaching and handing out free bibles, though I told them I had several already at home.
One of several sculptures and statues I photographed
End the War on Rojava: Last Saturday, 25th January 2026, I photographed thousands of Kurds and supporters marching from the BBC towards Downing Street in an attempt to break the world’s silence as the Trump/USA supported Al Qaeda Islamist Syrian government forces destroy much of the autonomous mainly Kurdish region of Rojava.
London, UK. 25 Jan 2026. Thousands of Kurds and supporters marched from the BBC to Downing Street
After the Syrian revolution began with mass protests against the brutal Assad regime in 2011, on July 19th 2012, three predominantly Kurdish-inhabited areas of north-east Syria declared their autonomy, becoming the democratic ‘Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’ (AANES), better known as Rojava, although this later grew to include a third of Syrian territory and nearly a fifth of its population.
The area remained committed to the ideas of the Arab Spring and set up a democratic constitution with equality for all ethnic groups. It embodied the the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” – “Women, Life, Freedom” and many of the banners and placards on the protest reflected this.
Turkey has for many decaades discriminated against its Kurdish communities, with a denial of Kurdish identity attempting to violently assimilate Kurds. In 1978 Kurds founde the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, which in 1984 began a militant insurgency against the Turkish state. Following pressure from NATO member Turkey, the New Labour government in 2001 proscribed this as a terrorist organisation, making support of it illegal in the UK.
London, UK. 25 Jan 2026. “Martyrs Are Immortal!
In a political show trial now taking place at the Old Bailey, six members of London’s Kurdish community are charged with being members of the banned PKK. The trail, largely unreported in the mass media, is a sign of Turkey’s increasing attempt to crush the Kurds and the UK’s further collaboration with its fellow NATO member and in line with an increasing use of terrorism charges to oppose political demonstrations – such as those by supporters of Palestine Action and others who oppose the actions of the Zionist state.
“Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” / “Women, Life, Freedom”
The PKK in 2025 announced an end to its military insurgency, ceremonially burnt some of its weapons and officially disbanded in an attempt by Kurds to make peace with Turkey. But the Turkish response has been to carry out military attacks in predominantly Kurdish areas of Syria and to persuade its NATO allies to take a harder line against the Kurds.
For some years the Kurds had been backed by USA air support in leading the fight on the ground against the Islamic state (ISIS) in Syria, largely ending their control of the area – and the UK had played a part in this too. But the situation changed after an Islamist group succeeded in overturning Assad and becoming the new government of Syria. And Trump and his advisers see Rojava as dangerously socialist if not communist – and would prefer any more conservative regime. The USA has a long record of support for dictators.
Since then the autonomous region has engaged with the government to come to agreement so that the advances in the area particularly in the relations between different ethnic groups and the hugely increased freedom for women can be retained. But it seems now that the government is attempting to put the clock back and impose its Islamist ideas across the country, and to fight – with the aid of Turkey -to do so.
Following a video showing a Syrian soldier proudly holding the braid of a slain Kurdish woman fighter, Kurdish women began braiding their hair in solidarity as an unusual form of protest. In London some carried hair braids and posters with the message “keziya me rimetame” – Our hair is a crown.
“Our hair is a crown”.
Other posters carried the message “2 + 2 = 1” – After the end of the First World War in treaties largely determined by England and France, the Kurdish areas were split between four countries – Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq and they were denied their own country, Kurdistan which the slogan states is a single people and country.
London, UK. 25 Jan 2026. 2+2=1 – Kurdistan is in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran
Slavery, Cruelty to Animals & Afrin: On Saturday 27th January 2018 I photographed a protest against the imprisonment, torture and slavery of African migrants in Libya and their slavery in Dubai, the continuing protests against animal cruelty outside the Canada Goose store and a march by Kurds calling for an end to attacks by Turkish forces on Afrin. That protest took the same route as last Saturday’s protest against the attacks on Kurds in Syria, now by the Syrian army.
End UAE Support For Slavery In Libya
UAE Embassy
The protest outside the UAE Embassy had not been well advertised and was rather smaller than the organisers had hoped or the police had planned for. The United Arab Emireates was targeted as they fund armed groups in Libya which imprison, torture and kill African migrants and sell them as slaves.
One placard reminded us of the anti-slavery campaign over 200 years ago with the 1787 slogan ‘AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER’
African migrants are also trafficked to be slaves in Dubai, the largest city and capital of the UAE and the protest called for an end to this and for help to be given for slavery victims in Dubai to return to their families in Africa.
Protesters outside the Canada Goose store with a toy dog and a banner with bloody fur
Protesters continue their regular protests outside the Canada Goose flagship store in Regent St calling on shoppers to boycott the store because of the horrific cruelty involved in trapping dogs for fur and raising birds for the down used in the company’s clothing.
Their activities have been restricted by injunctions obtained by the store but they were still protesting every Saturday and on at least one other day each week.
They say ‘Canada Goose Murders Dogs’ . The clothing they sell uses fur from wild dogs caught in traps; caught in the traps and wounded by them, they slowly bleed to death and may be attacked and eaten by predators while still alive before the trappers return. Some of those caught gnaw through their own legs to escape and die slowly elsewhere.
Several thousand, mainly Kurds took part in the march calling for an end to the attacks by Turkish forces on the Afrin Canton of Northern Syria, now a part of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or Rojava, a de-facto autonomous region in northern Syria since the 2011 revolution.
Many see Rojava and its democratic constitution which treats all ethnic groups – which include Arabs, Assyrians, Syrian Turkmen and Yazidis as well as Kurds – equally and liberates women as a model for the future of this and other multi-ethnic areas.
Turkey has long been engaged in a fight against the Kurds inside Turkey and was now attempting to eliminate those in areas close to its border with Syria. The PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist organisation regarded by Turkey and its allies as a terrorist organisation, has been in armed conflict with Turkey since 1984, demanding equal rights and Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
It was Kurdish forces, with the help of US air support that defeated ISIS in Syria, while Turkey was aiding ISIS in smuggling out the oil which financed their activities. But Turkey has the largest military forces in the area including weapons sold to them by the UK, France and USA as a member of NATO.
The PKK is a proscribed group in the UK and the police apparently seized a few PKK flags at the start of the march. It’s leader Abdullah Ocalan has been held largely in isolation in a Turkish jail since 1999, though in 2025 he called for the PKK to dissolve itself and announced an end to their insurgency against Turkey.
End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy: On Friday 4th November 2016 I photographed two unrelated protests. Opposite Parliament a rally supported the second reading of Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill to end the creeping privatisation of our National Health Service, and from there I joined hundreds of Kurds as they marched through Parliament Square on their way to protest at the Turkish Embassy follow the arrest of leaders and MPs of the pro-Kurdish oppposition in Turkey earlier that morning.
Bill to reverse NHS Privatisation
Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Larry Sanders, Green Party Health spokesperson and Bernie’s brother speaking
Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill which proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service and to prevent further marketisation at the hands of the Tories stood little chance of actually being debated that day as it was low on the list. Of course had no chance of ever becoming law against a government and opposition majority including many MPs receiving donations or having interests in private healthcare.
The privatisation of NHS services was taking place under New Labour before the Tories came to power in the 2010 coalition but was accelerated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 which allowed NHS services to be contracted out to ‘any qualified provider‘, including private companies – and increasingly Clinical Commissioning Groups have been under pressure to outsource.
In 2016 Sustainability and Transformation Plans were being developed in private for 44 areas covering the whole of England to be in place by Christmas. The NHS England director of strategy Michael McConnell had said that these STPs offer private sector companies an “enormous opportunity” but critics said that they could mean the end of the NHS as we have known it.
Private healthcare is parasitic on the NHS. Their contracts cherry-pick the more straightforward areas of provision – such as my annual diabetic eye photographs – while leaving the more difficult areas to the public sector. And where complications do happen, the private NHS badged providers are quick to pass on patients to the real NHS as they do not have the trained staff or resources to deal with them.
Only the NHS is there to cope with accidents and emergencies – the private sector offers no A&E services. And it is only the NHS that trains the doctors and other medical staff that keeps the private hospitals and the services that private healthcare contracts from the NHS running.
Of course there is no chance of Parliament reversing this trend while private healthcare makes huge donations to politicians to pursue their interests. ‘Every Doctor ‘ reported in April 2025 that “The Labour Party received four times as much in donations from donors connected to private healthcare than all other political parties combined … in 2023-2025“. Health Minister Wes Streeting alone has received “almost £167,000 from individuals and companies with ties to the private healthcare sector.” The total amount of donations to politicians from people and companies involved in private healthcare in that two year period was more than £2.7 million.
On Byline Times you can read a 2021 investigation “The Conservative Party’s Private Healthcare Patrons” which explores “the financial ties between Conservative MPs and private health companies“. It’s a remarkable list of MPs and Tory Peers with details of their connections and the amounts involved.
Although the Byline Times article is careful to point out that “There is no evidence that any of the companies have benefited due to their relationships with Conservative MPs or donors” it is hard to believe that these and the other donations have had no influence on the increasing takeover of NHS services by private healthcare companies. And although there do seem to be clear possibilities of conflicts of interest so far as I am aware no MP or Peer has ever abstained from a vote because of this.
The MP’s code of conduct is extremely weak on this matter, and simply relies on MPs to do the right thing – “Members must base their conduct on consideration of the public interest. They must avoid conflict between personal and public interest. If there is any conflict between the two, they must resolve it at once in favour of the public interest.”
This is one of the areas which have caused the current high levels of distrust of politics and politicians. We need much tighter controls on lobbying, an end the system which allows large political donations in cash or kind to MPs, and ensure that MPs who have conflicts of interest abstain from voting on these issues. MPs are paid to represent their constituents, not healthcare companies and not their own financial interests.
I left the protest at Parliament when over 500 Kurds marched into Parliament Square protesting noisily against the arrest early that morning of two leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), along with at least 11 MPs.
They sat down briefly on the road in front of Parliament on their way to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square.
At Belgrave Square police tried to stop them and keep them on the opposite side of the road to the Embassy, but they simply walked around the police line and crowded on the pavement and road in front of the Embassy door.
Eventually the police abandoned their attempts to push the protesters back and simply stood several lines deep in front of the doorway while the protest continued.
The rain came down heavily and we were all getting wet but the noisy protest and speeches continued. Eventually the protesters moved away from the embassy and I left them.
Naked Bodies, Acid Attacks, Revolution & Kobane: 1st November 2014 was apparently World Vegan Day and PETA celebrated the event, highlighting the 255 animals killed for food in the UK every second by a similar number of people lying near naked or nearly naked and smeared with fake blood on a tarpaulin in Trafalgar Square. A few yards away the 8th March Women’s Organisation (Iran – Afghanistan) protested against acid attacks on women who do not wear a veil in Iran. I walked onto Westminster Bridge to photograph the distant banner with the message ‘REVOLUTION’ held by ‘Anonymous‘ protesters, some in Guy Fawkes masks, on Waterloo Bridge – and later they brought it to Trafalgar Square where I was covering a rally supporting the Kurds defending Kobane, the capital of Rojava in northern Syria.
PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest
Trafalgar Square
In 1994 Louise Wallis, then Chair of the UK Vegan Society which was celebrating its 50th anniversary, declared November 1st to be World Vegan Day and since then it has been adopted by vegans around the world. It comes at the start of World Vegan Month – which is November.
PETA believe “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way“. They state than in the UK 255 animals are killed for food and they held a protest to dramatise this in Trafalgar Square with a similar number of near naked or nearly naked people smeared with fake blood on a tarpaulin.
Most of those taking part in the protest were women and a few held large posters with the message:
‘1 BILLION ANIMALS KILLED FOR FLESH EACH YEAR PETA’
Others held posters ‘CHOOSE LIFE: CHOSE VEGAN’. It was certainly a protest which attracted the interest of tourists and photographers.
I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan and I commented back in 2014:
“Nature isn’t vegetarian, and certainly not vegan, though of course some species are herbivores. But others are carnivorous or omnivores, and I can see no problem in our own species eating meat or fish though I would like to see all of the current cruel practices involved in producing food for us outlawed. Eating foie gras should definitely be made a crime!”
‘Anonymous’ protesters had brought a banner to hold up on Waterloo Bridge, with the message REVOLUTION but it was too small to really make an impact even using the longest lens I own and was rather dwarfed by the City backdrop.
Intended to publicise the Nov 5th ‘March Against Government Corruption’ in London it was rather more effective when they brought it to Trafalgar Square where a protest supporting Kobane was taking place.
During the Syrian Revolution the government forces had abandoned Kobane to the Kurish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in July 2012 and it had became a centre of part of the autonomous Kurdish-led region of Rojava in north Syria.
From September 2014 to January 2015 Kobane was under siege by ISIS who managed to occupy much of the city. With the help of US air support and US forcing Turkey to allow Kurds from Iraqi Kurdistan to come to join the fight, Kobane was finally freed from ISIS in January 2015.
November 1st was also World Kobane Day, and thousands had come to Trafalgar Square on a Global day of solidarity calling for aid for the Kurdish fighters in the YPG (People’s Defence Units), the women of the YPJ and refugees from Kobane.
A woman talks with Mark Thomas and Peter Tatchell
They had also come to support Rojava, which many see as an important democratic development with its constitution which enshrines equality, pluralism, democratic participation and protection of fundamental human rights and liberties.
Many were critical of Turkey which was supporting ISIS and financing its fighting by allowing it to export its oil through Turkey as well as preventing Turkish Kurds from joining in the fight while allowing fighters across its border to join ISIS.
Turkey has long suppressed the Kurds and had tried to suppress the Kurdish language and culture, and the protesters called of the release of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, kidnapped in Kenya in 1999 and held in a Turkish jail since then. Protesters also called for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK to be removed from the list of proscribed organisations here and elsewhere.
On My London Diary you can read more about the rally and the speakers and there are many more pictures at Global Solidarity With Kobane.
Gallery Protests, Sikhs, Kashmiris, Kurds, Sewol, Sotheby’s & Black Lives Matter: Saturday 15th August 2015 was probably the day I photographed more events than any other day, covering a total of 8 protests as well as taking a few pictures of London as I travelled around.
Handing out fliers at Tate Modern wearing a sunflower T-shirt supporting the National Gallery strikers
It was the 61st day of the PCS strike against privatisation at the National Gallery, and at Tate Modern staff were handing out leaflets calling for staff who had already been outsourced to get the same pay and conditions as directly employed workers.
It was Indian Independence Day, and outside India House I photographed Sikhs calling for the release of political prisoners and Kashmiris calling for freedom.
In Trafalgar Square Iranian Kurds remembered those killed in the fight for self-determination and a monthly silent protest remembered the Korean children killed when the Sewol ferry sank.
In Mayfair, United Voices of the World were protesting in the streets around Sotheby’s, calling for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions and demainding the reinstatement of two union members sacked for protesting.
Finally I went to Grosvenor Square for a protest close to the US embassy against the collective and systemic unlawful arrests and killings/attacks of black people in America.
You can read and see more pictures from all of these events – and a few pictures of London on My London Diary. Here I’ll post very short introductions to the events with a picture and a link.
National Gallery 61st day of Strike – Trafalgar Square
Cindy Udwin, PCS rep at the gallery, sacked for her union activities. The strikers were determined to get her re-instated – and eventually did
A short rally ended the daily picket on the 61st day of the PCS strike against privatisation at the National Gallery, with speeches and messages of support.
Vicky of Equalitate holds up their flyer calling for equal pay and conditions
Privatised visitor assistants at Tate Modern & Tate Britain get £3 an hour less than directly employed colleagues, are on zero hours contracts and do not get the same employment rights.
Sikhs call for release of political prisoners – Indian High Commission
On Indian Independence Day, Sikh protesters from Dal Khalsa supported the call by hunger striker Bapu Surat Singh for the release of Sikh political prisoners and for the ‘2020’ campaign for a referendum for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan.
Kashimiris Indian Independence Day call for freedom – Indian High Commission
Kashmiris protested at the Indian High Commission on Independence Day, observed as ‘black day’ in Indian military occupied Kashmir. They want freedom for their country, now a disputed territory with areas occupied by India, Pakistan and China.
Kurdish PJAK remembers its martyrs – Trafalgar Square
Iranian Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) remembered its fighters killed in the fight against Iran and ISIS for self-determination.
The monthly silent protest remembered the victims of the ferry tragedy, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put’ on the lower decks as the ship went down.
United Voices – Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2 – Mayfair
A police office tells Sandy Nicoll to get up and off the road with no success
The United Voices of the World marched noisily around the block at Sotheby’s demanding reinstatement of Barbara and Percy, cleaners sacked for protesting for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions. Several police attempts to clear the road and stop them failed.
BlackoutLDN solidarity with Black US victims – Grosvenor Square
Bro Jeffrey Muhammad of the Nation of Islam speaking about police targeting attacks on the Black community in the UK
Two young women, Kayza Rose & Denise Fox, had organised a peaceful protest under the statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, close to the US embassy, in solidarity with events across the US against the collective and systemic unlawful arrests and killings/attacks of black people in America.
Free Syria & Keep the NHS Public: On Tuesday May 17th 2011 I photographed two protests, a march against the continuing privatisation of parts of our NHS and the Health & Social Care Bill then going through parliament, and a protest at Downing Street calling for the government to support the revolution against the Assad regime in Syria and work to end the bloodshed taking place there.
Fourteen years later the NHS is still under threat with more and more of its services being taken over by private healthcare companies, and although some changes have been made to the disastrous ‘reforms’ introduced under Andrew Lansley but implemented by Jeremy Hunt who later called the fragmentation that it caused ‘frankly, completely ridiculous’ and tried hard to ignore much of it.
What Hunt thought was the only successful part of the Act was that it established the independence of NHS England from the government. On 13th March 2025 the Labour government announced they were scropping NHS England, putting the NHS firmly under the control of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, two men who one of my Facebook friends posted should not be in charge of a first aid kit let alone the NHS. If only, many of us think, had Leanne Mohamad got another 529 votes in Ilforn North in 2024 and she had become the MP for Ilford North rather than Streeting. It was perhaps the greatest disappointment of that General Election.
History of massacres by the Assad family – 17,000 missing people in Syria since 1982.
Both Britain and the USA failed to support the Arab Spring in Syria with much more than weak words and when Russian put the forces behind Assad his survival was ensured until finally ousted by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and others after 13 years of brutal civil war in December 2024.
Protesters with a Kurdish flag
The US gave some support to the Kurds to enable them to defeat ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) despite the support ISIS received from our NATO ally Turkey. But by 2024 lamost half a million Syrians had been killed and around 6.7 million refugees had fled Syria with another 5 million internally displaced. And Turkey had taken advantage of the situation to invade and occupy some largely Kurdish areas.
In deference to Turkey, the UK government proscribed the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistani (PKK) or Kurdish Workers Party in 2001, later adding a whole list of other names it used, KADEK, Kongra Gele Kurdistan, Teyre Azadiye Kurdistan (TAK) and Hezen Parastina Gel (HPG). For some years the PKK had moved from fighting for an independent state of Kurdistan to calling for greater autonomy and civil rights for Kurds in Turkey and a few days ago at a PKK conference it announced it was to disband and disarm.
Keep The NHS Public – UCH Euston Road to Whitehall
Over a thousand people, including many medical professionals and medical students, marched through London to show their opposition to government reforms which threatens jobs and many feel would destroy the NHS.
After a rally at University College Hospital on Euston Road the march, the second large march in London aimed at saving the NHS and killing Andrew Lansley’s Health & Social Care Bill, set off for Westminster.
There was a brief ‘die-in’ at Cambridge Circus and a small ‘sit-in’ outside Downing Street before the marchers held a final rally in front of the Department of Health at Richmond House before dispersing.
You can read a fuller account of the protest and see many more pictures on My London Diary at Keep The NHS Public.
Syrians Ask For Support at Downing St
Syrians supporting the ‘People’s Revolution’ in their country called for support from the British people and government to support their demands for reform and to stop the bloodshed in Syria.
A large group of Syrians including Kurds from Northern Syria called for support from David Cameron and the British people for the Syrian people.
Since demonstrations for political and economic freedom and an end to the tyranny and bloodshed of the Assad regime started in Syria on March 15th 2011, more than 800 innocent protesters have been killed, over 2000 injured and many more detained.
Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad was president of Syria from 1971 until he died in 2000, and was responsible for many deaths and disappearances, including a massacre of 40,000 people at Hama in 1982. His son Bashar Al-Assad, nicknamed as ‘The Butcher’ continued the “arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, and mass surveillance.”
Long Live Mayday! London 2015: I don’t often post recent work I’ve taken on this site but I am still covering events in London though not on the scale I used to. I no longer post regularly on My London Diary as there are almost the maximum possible number of files on that site and I would have to delete older work to continue posting there. But all my new work – or at least my selection of it – now gets posted on Facebook – and you can follow me there.
London, UK. 1 May 2025. Musicians Union prepare to lead the May Day march
As well as albums of new work I also post one of my earlier images every morning – currently colour images from around 1986.
I’m still working on putting a large selection of my earlier work on film on Flickr, both black and white and colour images, mainly of buildings and events in London but also pictures from Paris, Hull and elsewhere. Currently I’ve uploaded almost 40,000 images, mainly from 1974 to 1987, probably around a quarter of those I took. It’s now one of the largest archives of images of London, including many of its less well known parts.
London, UK. 1 May 2025. Stop executions in Iran.
But on Thursday 1st of May, International Workers Day, I was out again on the streets of London, meeting friends and taking pictures at the start of the London May Day March at Clerkenwell Green.
London, UK. 1 May 2025. Socialist Women’s Union.
It was London’s hottest May Day since records began, and I couldn’t walk the whole length of the march taking pictures now. So I started with the marchers and then stopped for the whole long march to go past me, photographing people and banners. Then I walked down the shaded side of Farringdon Road to Farringdon Station to catch the Elizabeth Line – cool in several ways – the one stop to Tottenham Court Road where I changed to the rather warmer Northern Line, arriving at Charing Cross well before the march.
London, UK. 1 May 2025. Kurds call for Freedom for Ocalan.
I walked along Strand and sat down at a bus stop. Traffic had already been stopped along the road ahead of the march, but the TfL indicator board was still showing buses due which would not arrive until after the march had passed and I passed on the news to those waiting so they could find other transport – or stay to watch the march.
London, UK. 1 May 2025. United Voices of the World.
Sitting at the bus stop I was able to eat my sandwich lunch before the march drew close and I walked towards it, continuing moving slowly east as it came past me taking more pictures. I was on my way to the Indian High Commission where I had heard another protest was taking place.
London, UK, 1 May 2025. Sikhs protest opposite the Indian High Commission against Modi over Kashmir
When I arrived at Aldwych I found there were actually two groups of protesters, both there because of the killing of tourists last month in Kashmir. Opposite the High Commission were a group of Sikhs with a effigy of Indian Prime Minister Modi hanging upside down, opposed to his extreme-fight Hindu nationalist government which has threatened Pakistan, suspended the water-sharing agreement and made savage reprisals against Kashmiris after the 22 April attack.
London, UK, 1 May 2025. Supporters of Indian Prime Minister Modi protest against terrorism in Kashmir
After spending a few minutes photographing them I walked across the road to another group of protesters at the side of the High Commission. They had come to support Modi and protest against Pakistan which he claims had supported the militant group which carried out the killing. Part of Kashmir became a disputed territory at partition in 1947 when the local ruler decided to join India despite a majority Muslim population. It was granted some autonomy under an article of the Indian constitution, but this was recently rescinded. The country has been under a savage military occupation by India for many years. Other parts of Kashmir are administered by Pakistan and a smaller area by China.
On May Day I sent three groups of pictures to on-lin agency Alamy, a total of 84 pictures. The pictures in the three albums on Facebook are smaller versions of the same 84 images I posted the following day and a few of them are in this post. Unfortunately I think you need a Facebook login (free) to view the rest.
