PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.
PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster
On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.
I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.
Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.
Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.
Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.
Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.
There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.
After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.
Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.
Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.
Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.
CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.
And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.
The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.
The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.
Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.
DPAC – Stop & Scrap Universal Credit: A couple of days ago the media were carrying news of a report by the Resolution Foundation on the working of the Universal Credit benefit first introduced in 2013. This found that seven in 10 (71%) families on UC were worse off in real terms now than they would have been under the previous benefits, and that out of work people with disabilities were those likely to have lost most.
Six years ago, DPAC were already pointing this out and on Wednesday 18th April 2018 campaigners from DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts), MHRN (Mental Health Resistance Network), Black Triangle, Winvisible and others began a nationwide day of action against Universal Credit in London with a rally in Old Palace Yard and a protest inside Parliament.
Security meant I was unable to cover their protest inside the Houses of Parliament but I met those who had been protesting inside when they came out to join those protesting outside and held a rally in Old Palace Yard.
As that rally ended the campaigners marched into Parliament Square where they blocked the roadway for around half an hour before ending their protest.
DPAC and others say that Universal Credit has so many flaws it must be scrapped, calling it “an economic and political disaster bringing further distress and impoverishment to those forced to endure it“.
Back in 2018 they pointed out it has been particularly disastrous for disabled people. The removal of Severe and Enhanced Disability Premiums means single disabled people lose around £2,000 per year and a disabled couple over £4,000.
There have been some changes in Universal Credit since 2018, but these have mainly been administrative and have not affected the basic unfairness towards the disabled. The Resolution Foundation report suggests that a single person with a long-term disability which prevents them from working would now be £2,800 per year worse off than under the old benefits system.
Their report suggests overall cost of Universal Credit in 2028 will be about £86bn a year, while under the previous system it would have been £100bn, a saving of £14bn, which is being made to the cost of those disabled and others out of work – the poorest groups in our society. In contrast those working and also claiming UC will be a little better off than under to previous benefits system.
As always police found dealing with disabled protesters difficult. It doesn’t look good to be harassing them in the way they would normally act to protesters, and they have a great problem in making arrests of people in wheel chairs or on mobility vehicles. Apparently the Met have only one vehicle which can safely carry either – and only in limited numbers, perahps one at a time.
As well as this protest there was also a large protest in Parliament Square by Kashmiris and Indians from many sections of the community including Tamils, Sikhs, Ravidass, Dalits, Muslims and others against the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and smaller groups supporting him and his ultra-right Hindu supremacist policies. Indians protest President Modi’s visit Hindus support Modi Save Girl, Educate Girl
And in late afternoon I went to join Environmental group Biofuelwatch holding their ‘Time to Twig’ Masked Ball Forest Flashmob outside the Marylebone hotel where the largest international biomass conference was taking place. ‘Time to Twig’ Masked Ball
March 8th – Women Strike And Protest. In 2021 on International Women’s Day I published a long post, 8 March: International Women’s Day with some images from my coverage of the day from 2002 until 2020, and in 2022 I posted International Women’s Day Marches with a little history and more of my pictures from previous years.
This year I look back seven years to Thursday 8th March 2017 when I covered a number of events on International Women’s Day.
From Russia With Love – Parliament Square
When I arrived to photograph a couple of protests about to take place in Parliament Square I found around a dozen young Russian men in white caps andjackers with a strange heart-based logo clutching large bunches of red roses being briefed before they went around the square stopping women an handing them roses.
Apparently this was a stunt for Rusian TV by the ‘Make Her Smile Movement’ and was taking place in various capitals around the world. Some women refused the flowers, but most took them and seemed pleased if rather confused by the gesture.
Global Women’s Strike had come to the square to celebrate the resistance of women worldwide and hold a protest in solidarity with the International Women’s Strike taking place in 46 countries.
They held a rally opposite Parliament as the Budget was being delivered inside, with speakers from a number of groups supporting women including the victims of domestic violence, the disabled and the victims of family courts.
Among the speakers were women from the Scottish Kinship Care Project, Dr Philippa Whitford SNP MP for Central Ayrshire, Denise McKenna, co-founder of Mental Health Resistance Network and Paula Peters of DPAC. Police initially tried to prevent the speakers using a microphone but were persuaded to let them go ahead.
The event ended with a short play by the All African Women’s Group about sexism and racism of the immigration system by the Borders Agency courts and in immigrations detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre.
A few yards away in Old Palace Yard Women Against State Pension Inequality – WASPI – were holding a rally against the changes in the state pension scheme which are unfair to women born in the 1950s.
The 1995 Pensions Act included plans to increase the pension age for women to 65 but it was only 14 years later that letters were sent to many women born in 1951-3 Their situation was worsened by the accelerated raising of women’s pension age under the 2011 Pension Act, also made without properly informing those affected, with the age for both men and women increasing to 66 by 2020. Many got as little as one year’s warning of the up to a six-year increase to their State Pension age and it was not possible for them to make alternative plans. For men and women born in 1959 the state pension age is now 66 years.
The women affected are still awaiting the result of an independent investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman which was started in 2019.
Global Women’s Strike went on to hold a silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields in solidarity with the farmers of Thailand. Many of them are women in the Southern Peasant Federation of Thailand and the vigil was also in support of others all around the world risking their lives to defend land and water from corporate land grabs.
Fourth Wave London Feminist Activists held a protest at Downing St on International Women’s Day, drawing attention to the impact that cuts have had on women.
The unjust, ideologically-driven cuts to public services are disproportionately felt by women. Their protest contrasted to the more highly publicised corporate events on the day which are given a high degree of coverage in the media and concentrate on getting more women in boardrooms and other highly paid jobs. Though important issues, these are clearly irrelevant to the huge majority of women who have to deal with the realities of low pay, expensive housing, and caring for children and other family members.
International Women’s Strike Flash Mob – St Pancras International
Finally I went to St Pancras International station where London Polish Feminists were joined by Global Women’s Strike in a flash mob celebrating the struggles of women around the world .
Wearing black and red clothing, after practising their routine with umbrellas with messages on them and a large banner at the entrance to St Pancras International they went down to the main concourse to perform it there.
Police came to see what was happening and made sure they did not block the concourse but remained friendly, and the waiting passengers applauded and took photographs.
BP Greenwashing & Benefits Cuts – Thursday 19th May 2016 – Seven years ago today.
Greenpeace ‘Sinking Cities’ banners at BM/BP show – British Museum
There are some protests which are advertised well in advance and other actions which are kept highly secret with only a small group taking part being in the know. And the action on the opening day of the BP sposored exhibition Sinking Cities at the British Museum was definitely one of the latter.
I heard about it only as I was on my way up to London for another event close by, and detoured slightly to cover it. I live on the edge of London, just inside the M25 and can’t usually respond to ‘breaking news’ as it takes me too long to get there.
Clearly the BP sponsorship of ‘Sinking Cities’ was going to be controversial as there has been a long campaign, particularly by ‘BP or Not BP’ to get the British Museum to end the deal which has allowed BP to ‘greenwash’ their polluting and climate destroying activities, which have significantly contributed to global warming and so to recent floods in cities across the globe.
Greenpeace had come with very professionally produced large banners for ‘Sinking Cities’, naming some of the places which have been flooded recently by global warming induced climate change and had managed to come inside and hang this down the columns across the front of the museum’s Main entrance. At first glance they really looked as if they were a part of the Museum’s own publicity.
It really was impressive, and the Museum had been caught on the hop, reacting in panic they closed the whole museum for the day, dissapointing many who had come. This seemed unnecessary as the museum could simply have closed this front entrance to deal with the climbers and remove the banners. The climbers on the columns were obviously experienced and operating safely and apparently without damage to the museum structure.
It served as rather a good advertising stunt for the show, but of course was rather embarrassing for the sponsors BP which is why the Museum felt it necessary to remove them. Most other major arts organisations in London including the Tate Museums, the Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery had dropped BP as a sponsor following pressure by protests such as these and pressure from artists, musicians and staff who work in them.
No More Deaths from Benefit Cuts – Tottenham Court Rd
I had come to London that morning as delegates at the TUC disabled workers conference led by activists from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) and Winvisible (Women with visible and invisible disabilities) were to hold a lunchtime protest which I had been invited to photograph.
They came out and marched, led by people in wheelchairs from Congress House to Tottenham Court Road calling for an end to government benefit cuts which have led to the deaths of many disabled people – including 2 DPAC members the previous day.
Two long banners gave the message ‘NO MORE DEATHS FROM BENEFIT CUTS’ and on arriving at Tottenham Court Road they held these across the road stopping traffic in both directions.
Another banner was full of the names of some of those known to have died because of sanctions and cuts in benefits, among them David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier who died penniless, alone and starving after being sanctioned. He didn’t even have enough money to keep the refrigerator to store his insulin running.
Another banner asked the question ‘IS THIS HOW 2 TREAT Disabled People?’. The protesters held a short and noisy rally, getting considerably support from many around including many workers also on their lunch breaks. There were a few short speeches before it was time for the protesters to march back for the afternoon session at Congress House, with a police officer arriving just as they were about to leave. As usual he is confused to find that no-one is in charge.
When the Tories got into power, at first in coalition in 2010, they determined they would save money by cutting benefits thinking the disabled would be an easy target. Groups such as DPAC and the others at this event have shown them how wrong they were. These people rely on benefits to live and to have a decent life and have organised and reacted to try to retain them against the government’s attacks.
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.“
The Braille spells out SHAFTED
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.
On Friday 4th March 2016, campaigners from the Mental Health Resistance Network and DPAC protested outside City Road Surgery where Remploy/Maximus job coaches will “create jobs by prescription.” They say disabled people will be bullied into unsuitable work and lose benefits through sanctions if they refuse – and protest ‘No Job Coaches in GP Surgeries‘.
Particularly since the Tories came into power in 2010, disabled people have been systematically attacked with cuts in benefits and unfair tests of fitness for work which have led to many suicides.
What should be a supportive system of Job Centres encouraging and helping people find work has increasingly become a vindictive system reducing the benefits to many for often ridiculous, trivial and arbitrary reasons and attempting to force people into unsuitable jobs. Benefit sanctions can leave people without the necessary means to stay alive for months or even years at a time.
In January 2022, people on Universal Credit, either unemployed or on low paid jobs were told they had only four weeks before they had to look for jobs outside the sectors they had previously worked in, and if job centre staff feel they had not tried hard enough or had turned down jobs, however unsuitable, they would have their benefits cut.
And a few days ago, the government announced an incentive scheme awarding £250 monthly prizes to the staff whose Job Centre forces the most claimants into work and forcing claimants who have been on the benefit for thirteen weeks a to attend a job centre every weekday for a fortnight for “intensive support”.
The government clearly believe that the only incentive is cash, while most of us want jobs that we feel are worth doing and have some interest as well as pay enough to live on. Even Job Centre staff are poorly paid and their union dismissed the prize scheme, calling instead for their poverty pay to be increased. But these staff are generally not evil people, and being made by the government to bully people rather than help them must be painful for many of them as well as their clients.
The protest was a creative and colourful piece of street theatre, if sometimes chaotic, with a man dressed as a doctor wearing an Iain Duncan Smith mask and a name label ‘Dr Iain Duncan Smith, Dept of Eugenics‘ handing out prescription forms for a ‘Mr A Scrounger, 17 Lazy House, Sink Estate, Tory Britain‘.
The forms prescribed ‘Endless Job Coaching in Surgery, Major benefits reduction and PRN (‘pro re nata’ – as needed) Regular Sanctions‘ on the basis ‘Continue until complete cure or death‘ from ‘Dr A Lackey, DWP Surgery, c/o Nudge Unit, Tory Headquarters‘.
Then Maximus ‘Job Coaches’ pounced on the patients to issue G4S or Ingeus Deloitte Ltd ‘work cures’ and red ‘Sanctioned’ notices. Perhaps appropriately one of those job coaches was in costume as a squirrel and had a placard reading ‘Nuts to IDS – Squirrels Fight Back’.
There were also some serious speeches, including from a local GP, Roy Bard of MHRN, Paula Peters of DPAC, and Petros Elia, General Secretary of the United Voices of the World trade union who had come with a banner, drummers and plastic horns to add some noise to the protest.
At the end of the protest DPAC led a march down City Road, with police vainly trying to move them onto the pavement.
The march stopped at the busy Old Street roundabout where they held a noisy protest letting all around know why they were protesting for around 20 minutes blocking all traffic while police tried to move them away. Eventually after police began seriously to threaten arrests they decided it was time to end the protest and slowly moved off the street.
PIP, NHS, Trident & Wood St Cleaners – On Wednesday 13th July 2016 I photographed two protests about the inadequate and badly run Personal Independence Payments for disabled people, a protest supporting a cross-party bill to save the NHS from privatisation, a party against replacing Trident and the longest running strike in the history of the City of London.
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall – Vauxhall
The hardest part of photographing the protest at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre was actually finding the place, hidden away in a back street. This was one of around 20 protests around the country at the centres where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP.
The assessments are almost solely designed to save money for the DWP, enabling them to ignore medical evidence of need and are carried out by people who are given a financial incentive to fail claimants. They often mean that genuine claimants lose essential benefits for months before they are restored on appeal. They have led to many becoming desperate, with some needing hospital treatment and a few have committed suicide after being failed.
NHS Bill protest at Parliament – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood was later in the day presenting a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles.
People from various campaigns had come out to support the bill, which although it had no chance of progressing into law did lead to a greater awareness of the privatisation which is slowly but apparently inevitably putting our NHS into the hands of private, mainly American, health companies, and eroding its basic principles.
Among those who came out to speak was Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott.
Campaigners from Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and other supporters met outside the Victoria St offices of Capita PLC, one of the companies along with ATOS responsible for carrying out the shoddy cash-saving PIP assessments.
In particular these assessments are unfair on many claimants whose conditions vary day to day including many with mental health issues. The assessments make no allowances for this and fail to take any account of the medical evidence in coming to their conclusions.
After protesting for some time on the very busy pavement where there were a number of speakers, Paula Peters of DPAC led the group out into the the middle of Victoria Street where they stood with banners and in wheelchairs blocking traffic.
They then marched the short distance to the DWP headquarters in Caxton St, holding a further protest with speakers in the road outside.
Finally they marched past the Houses of Parliament to College Green where the media had set up their ‘Westminster village’ crowded with cameras for Theresa May becoming Prime Minister. Police stopped them as they tried to go onto the grass in front of the TV cameras, and for some time they stood along the side before finally ignoring the police and going on to the green. Where the TV crews ignored the protest.
CND members and supporters were today lobbying MPs against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.
In Parliament Square they had organised a ‘Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party’ and there were various Christian groups with placards placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement, with Buddhists from the Battersea Peace Pagoda adding their support.
Finally I went to the heart of the CIty of London where a rally was taking place in support of cleaners belonging to the United Voices of the World union employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE.
By 13th July this had already become the longest-running strike ever in the City of London and it continued into August. The UVW say:
As days became weeks, the inconvenience for white-collar workers at 100 Wood Street rightly turned into a major embarrassment for their employers, and especially for CBRE, the managers of the building. City of London police were called many times, security staff were intimidating, and the tenants were barely coping with a trickle of the former cleaning operation. Eventually, after a surprise flashmob in the CBRE’s lobby, and then a big march to mark the 50th consecutive day, the decision was taken after 61 days to raise all their pay to the London Living Wage!
10 Years Ago – London, Atos & Guantanamo – 3rd Feb 2012
London Walking
I was early for the protest I had come to photograph so I took a little walk around the area just north of the Euston Rd. I’d used Transport for London’s Journey Planner, but forgotten that this sometimes hugely exaggerates the time taken to make changes between trains and between train and bus for those familiar with routes. Walking helped stop me from completely freezing with the temperature around zero and a cutting wind. Some days even thermal underclothing isn’t enough.
Later I walked around Kings Cross looking for a protest outside a place that didn’t seem to exist – I think the organisers had got the address wrong – but in any case I could find nothing happening in the area and then went to get a bus and photographed the St Pancras hotel from near the bus stop. Eventually my bus came.
Disabled people and their supporters braved freezing weather to stage an hour-long protest outside the UK offices of Atos, protesting against the unfair testing of fitness to work and benefit cuts and supporting the ‘Atos 2’.
The Atos 2 were a wheelchair user and a pensioner, Notts Uncut activists who were charged with ‘aggravated trespass’ after peacefully entering an Atos assessment centre in Nottingham on a National Day of Action Against Atos and the Benefit Cuts last December. The charges were eventually dropped but the arrest and illegal confiscation of video material marked a new and disturbing attitude by police towards peaceful protest. There was another protest in Nottingham at the same time as that in London.
The London Guantánamo Campaign marked 5 years of regular protest at the US Embassy and over 10 years of illegal detention with a candlelit vigil, calling for the shutting down of the camp and the return of UK residents Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha.
Ahmed Belbacha was eventually released without charge in 2014, having been twice cleared for release in 2007 and 2009. He had come to the UK from Algeria as an asylum seeker and lived and worked here for a couple of years before his claim was rejected, after which he went to Pakistan to study the Koran. He made a visit to Afghanistan and was arrested on his way back to Pakistan.
Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and legal UK resident married to a British woman who was applying for British citizenship went with his family to work for an Islamic charity in Afghanistan in 2001. He was arrested by Afghans and handed to the US in return for a ransom. Again he was cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, but continued to be held until October 2015.
Pussy Riot, ATOS, Scientology & Stand with Brad January 16th 2013 was an unusually busy day for protests in London on a Wednesday, though not all were quite what they seemed.
My working day started a short walk from Notting Hill Gate station, where a small group of protesters had come to take part in an International Day of Solidarity with Maria Alyokhina, one of the three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot who were sentenced for their performance of an anti-Putin “punk anthem” in a Moscow Orthodox cathedral the previous February.
Alyokhina was sent to serve two years in a prison camp at Perm in Siberia, one of the Soviet Unions harshest areas and was appearing in court that day to plea for her sentence to be suspended so she could raise her son, born in 2008, until he is 14.
She was kept in prison until 13th December 2013 when she was released under an amnesty bill by the Russian Duma, and since has continued her political activism, suffering further arrests and assaults. Last year – 2021 – she served two 15 day prison sentences before being put on a year’s parole.
The protest on the main road close to the Russian Embassy which is hidden down a very private street was scheduled to last three hours, and had got off to a slow start, with some of those arriving deciding to go away for coffee and come back later. Numbers were expected to rise later, but I couldn’t wait as I was due at another protest at the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand.
I arrived at the vigil at the Royal Courts of Justice to find there was also a second protest taking place. I had come to meet disabled protesters who were supporting a tribunal hearing of a judicial review of Work Capablility Assessments on the grounds they violate the Equality Act as they are not accessible for those with mental health conditions.
Those taking part included members of the Mental Health Resistance Network, MHRN, Disabled People Against Cuts, DPAC, Winvisible, Greater London Pensioners Association and others, including members of the Counihan family and PCS members who work at the court.
Speakers at the rally reminded us of the special problems with the Work Capability Assessments for many with mental health conditions, as these are often spasmodic. On good days claimants may not seem very ill and seem fit for work, while on bad days they may be unable to attend an assessment and for this reason be automatically judged fit for work.
Their press release included the statement: ‘Dozens of disabled people are dying every week following assessment. Nearly 40% of those who appeal the decision to remove benefits have the decision overturned, meaning thousands of people are wrongly being put through a traumatic and harrowing experience needlessly. The governments own appointed assessor of the policy has ruled it ‘unfit for purpose’… This would not be acceptable in any other government contract, yet goes without comment or sanction by this government. No-one is called to account, no-one takes responsibility.’
Also protesting outside the courts were the ‘Citizens Commission on Human Rights (United Kingdom)’ who claimed that a child who has never been diagnosed with any mental illness was being dosed with a dangerous anti-psychotic drug prescribed by a psychiatrist. Wikimedia describes the group as ‘a Scientology front group which campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatrists’ and was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology.
The court backed them in the particular case concerned, though most of the information about it was confidential and the court decision may not have been confirmed by the family court.
Among those taking part in their protest was a man in a white coat at the protest holding pill bottles representing the drugs they described as redundant and unscientific and instead promoting the benefits of ASEA, which appears to be an unscientific scam, promoted by dubious means. Basically salt water, the web site ‘Science-Based Medicine’ concluded: “The only value of the product is the entertainment value that can be derived from reading the imaginative pseudoscientific explanations they have dreamed up to sell it.”
Finally I went to Grosvenor Square for a protest outside the US Embassy where protesters, including members of ‘Veterans for Peace’, were holding a vigil in solidarity with Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, on day 963 of his pretrial detention while his defence argued in court for charges to be dismissed for lack of a ‘speedy trial.’
They stood holding placards in silence while the audio of a 45 minute video, ‘Collateral Murder’ allegedly leaked by Manning to Wikileaks was played on a PA system. The video clearly shows US forces committing war crimes and has become a symbol of the need for Wikileaks and ‘for courageous whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning.’
The protest was one of a series organised by WISE Up Action, a Solidarity Network for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, and after the vigil at the US Embassy many of those taking part were going to the daily vigil outside the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange was then inside having been granted asylum and under threat of arrest by British police should he leave. But it had been a long day and I decided it was time for me to leave for home before ‘Collateral Murder’ finished playing.
On December 19th 2018, tempers were still running high over Brexit, and I had been photographing extreme Brexiteers shouting at and threatening Steven Bray and other pro-Europeans as they continued their daily vigil outside parliament.
The protests across lunchtime seemed to be drawing to a close when I noticed the small group of extremists interviewing a bizarrely-dressed blogger outside the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament and went across to take some pictures.
Then they saw Anna Soubry, then the Conservative MP for Broxtowe, on the west edge of Nottingham and a vocal pro-European walking past and confronted her. She stopped to talk and argue with them, and they angrily shouted at her. She called to a police officer nearby for support, but he simply told the protesters to stop and ignored them when they failed to do so. Eventually after a minute or so she managed to turn away and walk past more police into Parliament, and officers then prevented the Brexiteers from following her.
I filed the pictures rather more rapidly than usual to meet deadlines as I realised that I was the only photographer present (though at least one of the extremists was filming the confrontation) and was pleased to see a few of them in the papers later. Though had I been with a more active agency I would have made much more from the set.
Extremist Brexiteers at parliament
Here are a couple of the pictures from a few minutes earlier outside the gates of Parliament.
Police were holding them back as they tried to stop cars leaving through the gates.
Extreme Brexiteers clash with SODEM
Earlier the group of extremist Brexiteers had been harassing Steven Bray and the supporters of SODEM, (Stand of Defiance European Movement) the group he founded in 2017 and which was holding daily vigils whenever Parliament was in session.
They accused Bray of being a drunk and asked “Who funds Drunk Steve”, a question that was rather redundant as two large banners were covered with logos of a wide range of organisations supporting SODEM’s daily pickets. There was a lot of shouting, threats and aggressive gestures, but no actual violence with police trying with little success to separate the two groups.
I’d photographed both groups on previous occasions, and had given up on going specially to photograph them, but was still taking pictures when I had gone up to cover other events – as on this Wednesday. SODEM were always pleased to be photographed, but their opposition at times objected to my presence.
MP welcomes Delhi to London driver
Another event that happened while I was there was the arrival of The Turban Traveller, a Sikh with a film crew from Creative Concept Films in Delhi who arrived in London today after driving overland from Delhi and was greeted by Virendra Sharma, Labour MP for Ealing Southall.
Cuts kill disabled people say protesters
But I had come to Parliament to photograph disability groups DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and MHRN (Mental Health Resistance Network) who together with WOW campaign were protesting against the cumulative impact of the cuts on the lives of disabled people.
The War on Welfare campaign attracted over 200,000 signatures to its petitions against welfare cuts, and the protest was in support of a debate due later in the day on the cumulative impact of the cuts on the lives of disabled people.
Among those who came to speak with the protesters was Virendra Sharma MP, who had come out to meet the Sikh overland traveller and although showing an interest seemed to be unaware of the problems the cuts had caused the disabled, Laura Pidcock (then MP for North West Durham) and Lib-Dem peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno. Both the latter seemed very concerned about the terrible effect the various cuts falling particularly on the disabled.
