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Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change – 2015

Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change: On Wednesday 17 June 2015 the weekly ‘Stand with Shaker’ vigil outside Parliament was visited by two of the new intake of MPs. Outside Downing Street human rights organisations took part in a national day of action calling for the release of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. A mass lobby on climate change brought around 250 MPs out of Parliament to meet voters who were urging them to persuade our government to take a leading role in the forthcoming Paris climate talks and after the lobby there was a large rally on Millbank.

New MPs Stand with Shaker

Parliament Square

Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change - 2015

In 2015 the Free Shaker Aamer campaign was holding a lunchtime vigil on the pavement opposite Parliament every Wednesday when it was in session, calling for our government to urge the US authorities to release London resident Shaker Aamer still held in the illegal Guantanamo torture camp. Two newly elected MPs came to support the campaign.

Aamer was one of the original residents brought to the camp in 2002 after being sold to the US Army by bandits in Afghanistan where he was working for a Muslim charity,. He was first cleared for release in 2007.

He remained held there years later, probably because he would be able to give evidence about his torture at Bagram and Guantanamo which would embarrass both US and UK security services. He was finally released in September 2015.

New MPs Stand with Shaker

Support Saudi blogger Raif Badawi

Downing St

Human rights organisations including Index on Censorship, English Pen and the Peter Tatchell Foundation held a rally and handed in a letter to PM David Cameron calling on him to urge the Saudi government to release Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi.

Badawi was arrested in 2012 and convicted for founding a liberal web site which was alleged to be insluting Islam. Hia sentence was increased in 2013 to a 1 million riyals (£175,000) fine, ten-year in prison and 1000 lashes, a punishment he was unlikely to survive.

Badawi was flogged 50 times on 9 January 2015 and was due to be given another 50 lashes every Friday until the total was reached. But further floggings had been postponed so far as he had not recovered sufficiently.

Threats of flogging continued until at least 2016, but were delayed on health grounds sometimes only hours before they were to be carried out in what seems to have been a deliberate psychological torture. Finally he was released in 2022 but with a ban on travelling abroad until 2032. His wife and children fled the country and were granted political asylum in Canada in 2013.

Support Saudi blogger Raif Bad a wi

Climate Coalition Mass Lobby on Climate Change

Westminster & Lambeth

*Labour’s Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton in the centre of a large group from her constituency*

Thousands came to lobby their MPs, who met constituency groups either inside the Houses of Parliament or in a series of meetings spread out in Victoria Gardens, across Lambeth Bridge and on along the Albert Embankment.

*Some, like Tooting MP Sadiq Khan took advantage of the bicycle rickshaws to ferry them to the meetings*

I listened in briefly to a number of these meetings as I was walking around to take pictures. Most MPs seemed aware of the need for action, but too many were making excuses for not being able to take the kind of urgent action needed, and some seemed to me to have a have a patronising attitude that would certainly have lost them my vote.

The only heated argument I saw was with Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. After talking with him on climate change, the conversation moved on to housing, with Coyle defending the indefensible actions of the Labour local authority in emptying out their council estates and handing them over to be developed for private sale.

Climate Coalition Mass Lobby

Climate Coalition Rally

Millbank

*No to Austerity – Yes to a million climate jobs!’ is the message from the Trade Union Group of the Campaign against Climate Change*

After the lobby, the crowds moved on to Millbank for a rally, though many who had come from more distant parts of the country had instead begun their long journeys home. As well as filling Millbank, others sat on the grass in Victoria Gardens, where they could hear the many speakers, though not see them or the giant screen on which they and some short films were shown.

*Surfers Against Sewage stand with their boards*

With more than a hundred organisations taking part in the lobby, there were rather too many speakers for me, along with a number of celebrities, some of whom had very little of substance to contribute.

But there were others certainly worth listening to – and I name some and there are some photographs on My London Diary. But for me it was only the closing speech by Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth which made a real attempt to tackle the political issues that are central to any effective action on climate.

Many more photographs on My London Diary at Climate Coalition Rally.

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Mass Lobby for Trade Justice – 2005

Westminster, Wednesday 2nd November 2005

Trade Justice means policies that are “designed to deliver a sustainable economic system that tackles poverty and protects the environment.”

The Trade Justice movement includes “trade unions and charities focusing on sustainable development, human rights and the environment.”

Trade Justice is different from ‘free trade‘ in that it calls for trade rules that enable poor countries to chose solutions to end poverty and protect the environment rather than those that allow international businesses to profit at the expense of people and environment and would ensure that the trade rules are made transparently and democratically.

The Trade Justice Movement was formed in 2000 to bring together organisations promoting trade justice to work together more effectively. As you can see from my pictures this event included Christian Aid, Cafod, Make Poverty History, Traidcraft, War on Want, World Development Movement and others, and people had come from around the country to meet their MPs.

Many MPs had agreed to come out from Parliament to meet their constituents and they had agreed to do so at a long line of meetings with some in front of parliament and others through into Victoria Tower Gardens and on across Lambeth Bridge.

They came out despite the weather – and you can see many umbrellas in the pictures I took. There were frequent showers, some heavy and I got rather wet – as I commented “you can’t hold an umbrella and take pictures like this.”

My camera was reasonably weather-sealed and I try to wipe the raindrops off the front of the lens before each pictures but zoom lenses which I use for almost all pictures tend to get condensation on inner glass surfaces from damp air drawn during zooming and become unusable until they have dried out. I gave up taking pictures after two hours, but my wife who had gone up to lobby our MP had to wait a further three hours to see him.

Although many MPs came out to meet their constituents, some used the occasion as a way to speak to them in a rather patronising manner about how they didn’t really understand the real business of international trade rather than really listen and take on the arguments they were making.

I think this lobby will have had very little effect compared to the lobbying of major companies and professional lobbyists on their behalf who give MPs large amounts of cash and VIP tickets to sporting and other event etc. We know the huge amounts MPs have received and declared from various sources – including the private health companies and various sources connected to Israel and its hard to believe that they don’t get results from their cash – and it seems clear they do from some government statements and policies. Surely all such donations should be banned.

Anyway, here is what I wrote back in 2005:

“8,000 or more of us queued up along both banks of the Thames from Westminster to Lambeth bridge and beyond to take part in a mass lobby for trade justice. People continued to queue, some for four hours and more to see talk to their members of parliament, despite a long wait in often heavy pouring rain. We arrived at Westminster around 12.15 and it was almost 5pm before my wife was able to meet our MP.

“Others were more fortunate, with a number of MPs from all parties coming out onto the street and into Victoria Tower Gardens to meet their constituents. The lobby aimed to make clear the difference between ‘fair trade’ and ‘free trade’ and to stress the necessity to make trade fair so that economically weak nations have a chance to develop.

“Despite the lousy weather (not good for photography or queuing) spirits were high among those waiting, and there were some street theatre performances that helped.”

Many more pictures from the event here on My London Diary.

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Hardest Hit March Against Cuts – 2011

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts: On Wednesday 11th March 2011 around 10,000 people, many in wheelchairs came to march in London calling for an end to harassment and benefit cuts for the disabled.

The Hardest Hit march was supported by a huge range of charities and organisations representing and supporting the physically and mentally disabled, including major unions such as PCS, UCU and Unite.

The protest came a year after the formation of the coalition government led by David Cameron with Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg as his deputy, with real power staying with the Tory majority and is now widely seen as a disaster for the Lib-Dems. Under Chancellor George Osborne the coalition plunged the country into the start of ten years of austerity, with particularly swingeing cuts to local government services as well as a drastic attack on all those claiming benefits.

The cuts disproportionately affected the poor and the disabled while the wealthiest in our society were hardly if at all affected. In 2018 the UN special rapporter on extreme poverty concluded his visit to the UK by reminding us that ‘Poverty is a political choice‘ and that ‘Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so’.

For the disabled and those on benefits there were cuts and freezes and the situation was made worse by the ignorance and incompetence of Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016.

It was under Labour in October 2008 that Work Capability Assessments were introduced but the numbers made before 2010 were relatively small and they were used for new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants and a small number of ESA reassessments. It was only in Spring 2011 under the coalition government that a programme began to move those on existing benefits onto ESA using the WCA tests administered by Atos began.

Already by 2011 there had been serious criticisms both of the unsatisfactory nature of the tests and of the failures by Atos to administer them correctly, and this protest march called both for an end to the cuts in benefits for the disabled and “and in particular for an end to the discredited and iniquitous testing regime administered by Atos Healthcare, which has replaced proper medical tests by a computer-based system that often ignores the actual needs of those being assessed, and has as unacceptably high error rate, with a majority of appeals against its assessments succeeding.“

Despite the huge body of evidence and the many deaths the system caused, only minor changes were made and it was not until 2014 that the contract with Atos was ended, only for them to be replaced by Maximus who carried on the same way. Atos, now renamed IAS, remains now a part of the assessment system for ESA, Universal Credit and PIP along with Maximus and Capita.

Both New Labour and the Coalition made cuts in many positive projects and organisations set up to help the disabled. One of these was Remploy, whose last state-run sheltered factory set up to employ disabled labour closed in 2013 with the loss of over 1700 jobs. It is now a part of Maximus.

This protest got more media attention than most, largely because of the presence among those leading the march of Sally Bercow, the wife of the then Speaker of the Commons, and actress and activist Jane Asher, president of three of the organisations involved, Arthritis Care, National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s UK. It was followed by a mass lobby of MPs.

Since then there have been many more protests against the unfair treatment of the disabled as various benefits have been scrapped and Universal Credit has led to further problems, but nothing on this scale. Disabled people have not only suffered most they have also become some of the more active protesters, particularly led by groups that were on this march including Disable People Against Cuts (DPAC), Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Winvisible, Black Triangle and others.

This ‘Hardest Hit’ march came during a ‘National Week of Action Against Atos Origin‘ organised by disability activists, claimant groups and anti-cuts campaigners and two days earlier they had protested outside the offices of Atos Healthcare in London. You can see more on My London Diary in Disabled Protest Calls Atos Killers.

More at Hardest Hit March Against Cuts.