Posts Tagged ‘Muslim Brotherhood’

Racist Thugs Not Welcome – 2014

Friday, August 30th, 2024

Racist Thugs Not Welcome: Recent events in Southport and elsewhere have brought racist thugs to the attention of politicians and police, but many of the same people have been out on our streets for many years, under various different names – the National Front, BNP, EDL, Football Lads and more, their activities largely ignored by the media and sometimes assisted by police.

Racist Thugs Not Welcome
An anti-fascist protester sends a clear message to the South East Alliance as police drag her away

They represent a small rotten mouldy patch on the skin of our society, which inside and at its core is decent and open-minded, but they have been encouraged by the red-top newspapers of the right and also by the speeches and actions of politicians of both our leading parties in their ever rightward rhetoric around “illegal immigrants“, hostile environments and more, and the attacks on Muslims as a whole while refusing to take Islamophobia seriously.

Racist Thugs Not Welcome

As many – including Amnesty International point out, there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant. The term is a “pejorative term of uncertain meaning“. As the Migrant Rights Network puts it more directly, it is “dehumanising, immoral, and contributes to the demonisation of migrant communities.” It is a clearly racist term and one that politicians and media should be treating in the same way as the ‘N‘ word, the ‘P‘ word and others.

Racist Thugs Not Welcome

Ten years ago today, on Saturday 30th August 2014, racist thugs who then called themselves the ‘South East Alliance’ (SEA) came to Cricklewood to protest close to the empty offices they say are used as a recruiting centre by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Racist Thugs Not Welcome

They were a small group, perhaps around 30 people and a much larger group which grew to several hundred organised by ‘North West London United’ had come to oppose their protest.

The office had been that of World Media Services, run by Egyptians who supported the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation set up in their country in 1928 which had set up hospitals, schools and businesses as well as preaching Islam. In 2012 its candidate Mohamed Morsi had become the first Egyptian president to gain power through a democratic election, but a year later had been overthrown by a military coup and the group was banned in Egypt. World Media Services had, along with other publishing services, produced an unofficial English Language web site about the Brotherhood.

Police were also out in force and from the bus from Kilburn along the route the SEA were to march later saw around a dozen police vans as well as a row of motorcyclists. Outside the offices on Cricklewood Broadway I found people had already started to gather with banners around 90 minutes before the march was due to arrive – and by the time I got on the bus to go back to the start of the march there were around 150 there, with more arriving.

At Kilburn Station it was very different. The SEA were supposed to be arriving from 12 and the march setting off at 1pm, but when I arrived there were only a small group of police. Ten minutes later, SEA leader Paul Pitt (I met him before when he was the Essex EDL organiser) arrived with three others. There were still only four when the march set off at 1.15pm and after photographing them marching I got on a bus back to Cricklewood.

By this time a few SEA protesters had arrived directly in Cricklewood and been directed into a pen on the pavement opposite the offices, and police were keeping the two groups well separated. But around 30 anti-fascists moved towards the march – now up to 11 people – as they saw its flags in the distance. Police stopped both groups in “an uneasy confrontation, with just a double line of police separating the two groups, and photographers milling around.

At one point Paul Pitt who had refused to stop shouting foul abuse was warned by police and then when he tried to push through the police line was handcuffed and cautioned.

But another officer then intervened and he was was freed. Police then escorted the 11 to the pen with the other SEA protesters.

A few minutes later another small SEA march came down a side street, with a few holding up posters, banners and flags. They used the poles holding the flags to try to injure photographers, but police did nothing to stop them.

Later when I was photographing them inside the pen they again used these long bamboo poles as weapons. Rather than warn them or take away the poles, police moved photographers back and set a small line of police to keep us out of range. I complained to the officers but as usual they took no notice.

While I was there a number of the anti-fascists were arrested and taken away by police, but none of the SEA were arrested and the police made it clear to them that they were ‘facilitating their protest‘. The extreme right often complain about “two-tier policing” and this did seem to be a clear example of this, but with the SEA being awarded kid glove treatment.

More at South East Alliance ‘Racist Thugs Not Welcome’.


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.


Armenians, Copts and Venezuela – 20 April 2013

Thursday, April 20th, 2023

It’s easy to forget in our current government racist climate towards asylum seekers that Britain has a long history of giving sanctuary to political activists from around the world who have been forced to leave their countries and there are a number of statures, memorials and plaques around the city that remind us of this.

Of course our historical record is blemished; although we supported those striving for freedom from the rule of other European countries, attempts in our own Empire to gain independence were met with often illegal, ruthless and horrific violence as well as deliberate famines starving many of the general population – as in India, Ireland, Kenya and elsewhere.

Despite increasingly draconian laws enacted in recent years Britain remains a relatively free country. Protests are coming under increasing restrictions, but we can still protest although it is now rather more likely we may end up in prison for doing so in any active way – and protesters have even been jailed recently for contempt of court for attempting to defend their actions.

Over the years I’ve covered many protests by communities from other countries living in the UK, often involving people who came here as asylum seekers. Most are protesting in solidarity with protesters and victims in their home countries and some because those at home are unable to protest.

The three events I covered on Saturday 20th April 2013 were taking place for different reasons but all involved people whose origins are in other countries and were protesting about events in those countries, current or historical.


Armenians Remember the Genocide

Armenians, Copts and Venezuela - 20 April 2013

Armenians march through London every year in memory of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey. Beginning in 2015, Turkey arrested around a thousand members of the Armenian community and murdered them, followed by the killing of around 300,000 Armenian conscripts in the Turkish Arm and then “mass killings, deportations and death marches of women, children and elderly men into the Syrian Desert. During those marches, many of the weak or exhausted were killed or died. Women were raped. The deportees were deprived of food and water. Starvation and dehydration became commonplace.”

Armenians, Copts and Venezuela - 20 April 2013

Most of the deaths came in 1915, but massacres and deportations continued on a smaller scale until 1923, with around 1 – 1.5 million people – roughly 70% of the Armenian population in Turkey – being killed.

Armenians, Copts and Venezuela - 20 April 2013

Armenia has an ancient cultural heritage, with the first Armenian state dating back to 860BC, and at times its territory has included large parts of its surrounding countries. It was invaded by many other countries and in the 16th century was divided between the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Persia (Iran.) Russia took over the Iranian area following a war with Persian in the early 19th century.

Armenians, Copts and Venezuela - 20 April 2013

The Armenian Genocide took place during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turkish revolution of 1908 there had been a massacre of around 20-30,000 Armenians at Adana in 2009. But it was during the First World War when Russia and the Ottoman Empire were fighting each other that the genocide took place, probably as a reaction to Armenian volunteers fighting on the Russian side.

Turkey still denies that the genocide took place, despite the incontrovertible evidence, and say that the deaths were the result of a civil war although the Armenians had no weapons and no military organisation.

Although the UN Commission on Human Rights has described it as genocide and many countries around the world have officially recognised it as such, including the United States, France, and Germany and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland parliaments, the UK government has instead come up with trivial excuses for refusing to do, including the fact that the term genocide was only defined in 1948. When the UN did so then, Raphael Lemkin who had coined the term genocide, described it as “The sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians.”

My London Diary describes the march through London to the Cenotaph, where there were speeches and wreaths were laid. I left the march as it moved off to a service in St Margaret’s Church in Parliament Square.
Armenians Remember the Genocide.


Copts Say End Egyptian Persecution – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Around the corner from the church I joined UK Copts who were protesting Against the new Muslim Brotherhood led fascist regime in Egypt, which is attacking freedom, muzzling the press, undermining the legal system and encouraging attacks on religious minorities.

The protest followed an attack on April 8th on people leaving a mass funeral in St Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo, for 5 Copts who had been killed in violent clashes in the northern suburbs of the city. As the hundreds of worshippers tried to leave they were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails thrown from nearby buildings and had to retreat back into the cathedral.

Clashes continued outside the cathedral, Egyptian security forces fired shots into the building and police fired tear gas. One Copt was killed and 84 people including 11 police were injured.

After the attack President Morsi spoke with Pope Tawadros II and issued a statement that he had given orders that the police guard the cathedral and that the state would protect the lives of both Christians and Muslims. But this was just one of many attacks on Copts in Egypt and they feel the authorities are encouraging violence against them.

The Copts see this as part of a growing Islamicisation which is also undermining Egypt’s judicial system, and as a deliberate attack on all opposition, including the liberal and left political opposition as well as all minority religious groups. The stress their protest was not against Muslims but to persuade the British government to stop supporting the current fascist regime in Egypt and to put pressure on the Egyptian government to uphold human and civil rights.

Copts Say End Egyptian Persecution


Stand Off at Venezuela Embassy – South Kensington

Following the death of President Hugo Chávez on 5 March 2013, elections were held in Venezuela on 14 April 2013 which resulted in a close victory with a majoirty of around 223,600 votes for Nicolás Maduro, the successor chosen by Chávez to stand for the United Socialist Party.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles refused to accept the result, demanding audits – which confirmed he had lost. Venezuela has a highly sophisticated and automated voting system that left no room for reasonable doubt that he had lost.

Middle-class Venezuelans who oppose Maduro and come along to protest at the embassy, and a wider group of people, mainly South Americans but not all from Venezuela, had come to defend it.

As I commented:

Maduro’s support comes largely from the workers in Venezuela, for whom the Chavez ‘revolution’ has seen real gains, including much improved healthcare. Many of those who were there to support him today had come to Britain as refugees – largely as a result of US-backed military coups in their countries. Their support for Chavez, and after him Maduro is hardly surprising.

More about the protest on My London Diary: Stand Off at Venezuelan Embassy


Racist Thugs Not Welcome 2014

Tuesday, August 30th, 2022

On 30th August 2014 I went to Kilburn and Cricklewood, where the far-right South East Alliance had annnounced they would protest at some empty offices they claimed were used as a recruiting centre by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement largely based in Egypt whose candidate Mohamed Morsi was became the first to be elected as Egypt’s president in 2012, but was deposed by the military after massive popular protests a year later. The MB was then declared a terrorist group and Morsi was tried and sentenced to death. He was retried after that trial was overturned and died during his second trial, possibly due to being denied medical care.

A few other countries also declared the MB a terrorist group, but it had few members in the UK, though some of its supporters set up a ‘global information centre’ here in 1999 which I think operated from this small first floor ‘World Media Offices’ in Cricklewood. In 2014 Prime Minister David Cameron set up an investigation into its alleged terrorist activities, and the office closed down, moving its activities to Austria. The investigation reported that the MB had not been linked to terrorist related activity against the UK and had condemned the activities of Al-Qaeda in the UK.

My bus to Cricklewood took me along the route of the march planned by the South East Alliance (S.E.A.) from Kilburn Underground Station, and I saw a number of police vans and motorbikes waiting for the event to start. There were a group of around 50 people and quite a few banners for groups in North West London United ready to oppose the S.E.A. march and tell them that fascists and racists were not welcome. I made a few pictures before taking the bus back to Kilburn station.

The station had been closed in anticipation of trouble there, but there are two stations on other lines a short walk away. Eventually 4 people arrived with a megaphone and flags, including Paul Pitt, leader of the S. E. A. and former Essex organiser for the English Defence League, who apparently expelled him two years earlier which led to him forming the S. E. A.

It was a rather embarassing situation with so few people present, and Pitt recognised me from previous exteme-right events I had photographed – which had led to threats against me in person and on-line. Although my photographs tried to show these events objectively, that was perhaps the problem so far as they were concerned. But there were plenty of police around.

Eventually the march set off, with the three men leading it and a woman walking more slowly with the aid of a stick completing the group some yards behind.

At Cricklewood the anti-fascists were waiting, with a line of police across the road to keep the two groups apart. Police were also surrounding and protecting a handful of S. E. A. supporters who had come directly to the end of the protest, and there were a few scuffles and arrests as anti-fascists tried to reach them.

Police stopped Paul Pitts small group of marchers and held them on a corner a short distance away. For a while it seemed he was being arrested, but then more officers arrived and he was told his protest would be facilitated.

I returned to the other small S. E. A. group surrounded by police. While some of them were busy photographing police and myself and other photographers and trying to stop us taking pictures others were holding up banners and posters and demanding we photograph them.

In front of the former office the anti-fascist protesters were continuing with speeches and shouting against the S. E. A. and I saw police make at least one more arrest, though it was unclear why. I think they may have objected at some of the language used.

Then I saw some flags approaching along a side road, still several hundred yards away and rushed down to meet them. Another group of S. E. A. supporters was arriving, perhaps bringing the total number to around 50. Police arrived there just before me and stopped them.

As I took photographs these protesters at first began to hold flags in front of my lens then used the long canes holding the flags as weapons, trying to poke the photographers in their eyes. Eventually police escorted them to join the other S.E.A. protesters where they continued to try to attack photographers with their flag sticks.

Police eventually did react to the violent attacks with flags – by forcing photographers to move further away. By this time I was fed up with being insulted and attacked – and in any case people on both sides were drifting away and nothing much more seemed likely to happen. The road had now been reopened and I saw a bus coming and made for the nearest stop to make my way home.

More at South East Alliance ‘Racist Thugs Not Welcome’.


1984 Remembered

Tuesday, June 8th, 2021

Every year around the 8th June, Sikhs march in London to remember the 1984 destruction at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The Soviet government forged documents in 1982 to show that Sikh militants were getting CIA support for their plans to establish an independent Sikh state of Khalistan in the Punjab and these were taken seriously by Indian intelligence services and prime minister Indira Gandhi, who on June 1st 1984 sent in the Indian Army in Operation Blue Star, attacking scores of Sikh temples across the Punjab.

On 3rd June Indian forces surrounded the Golden Temple in Amritsar where many of the militants who were well armed had taken refuge, along with thousands of pilgrims who were there for the anniversary of the death of the fifth guru, Arjan Dev Ji. The siege lasted several days and many were killed, mostly pilgrims who had been allowed by the army to enter on the 3rd June but not allowed to leave later that day. As they secured the Temple, the army carried out many executions of those they detained and fired on men and women as they were trying to follow army orders to leave.

Acoording to Rajiv Gandhi, around 700 Indian Army soldiers were killed in the attack, although the official figure was 83. There are also huge discrepancies between the official figures of those who died inside the Temple, with an official figure of 554 casualties and independent estimates of 18-20,000.

Many Sikhs resigned from official positions and soldiers left the Indian Army after this assault on their religion, and five months later Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in an act of revenge. This in turn led to anti-Sikh riots in which thousands of Sikhs were killed.

Many Sikhs still continue to call for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan, combining parts of the Punjab in both India and Pakistan that were severed at partition in 1947 when the whole area was divided between the two and Sikhs, along with other minorities were sidelined. Both political and military activities continue as does their repression by the Indian government, with many Sikhs held in Indian prisons, some under threat of hanging.

Feelings still run very high, and in 2013 four Sikhs were found guilty of attacking one of the generals who led the attack on the Temple, long retired and on holiday in London with his wife. Police have often taken a very keen interest in the annual march and prevented people from carrying some placards and posters which support the proscribed organisation Babbar Khalsa. The pictures here are from the march on Sunday 8th June 2014, which I left as the last of the protesters went down Park Lane on their way to a rally in Trafalgar Square

Sikhs march for Truth, Justice & Freedom


Protest Against Egypt Death Sentences

Also taking place on Sunday 8th June 2014 was a protest against the the 1,212 death sentences imposed on Islamists in Egypt, which was taking place as the new Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was sworn in. These included 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood sentenced in 2014 following an attack on a police station in 2013.

There was a mock trial. People wearing numbers to represent the prisoners made the Islamist R4BIA (Rabia) sign and the event ended with a die-in in front of Marble Arch.

Protest Against Egypt Death Sentences


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.