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Posts Tagged ‘no to war’

Peace, Congo, Iran, Egypt, Bikers, Trafalgar Square… 2012

Saturday, January 25th, 2025

Peace, Congo, Iran, Egypt, Bikers, Trafalgar Square: On Wednesday 25th January 2012 I went up to London in the middle of the afternoon and continued to take photographs at various places and events for several hours.

Parliament Square Peace Camp

Peace, Congo, Iran, Egypt, Bikers, Trafalgar Square… 2012

I began with a brief visit to the Peace Camp – as I often had over the years – but found that Barbara Tucker was busy tidying up in anticipation of yet another police raid in their long campaign of harassment of her and here supporters and on this occasion didn’t have time to talk. So I just took a couple of pictures and then walked up to Trafalgar Square. On May 10th 2012 the protest had been 4000 Days in Parliament Square but was evicted shortly after.

Congolese Keep Up Protests – Trafalgar Square

In Trafalgar Square I found a small group of Congolese protesters in a pen on the pavement outside South Africa House, calling on South Africa to put pressure on the Congo regime. They called on South Africa to free political prisoners and recognise opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba as the duly elected President of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 2011 elections were widely regarded as having been fixed and it is unclear whether he or the incumbent Joseph Kabila whose election was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo actually got more votes.

The protesters told me that more people were expected to arrive for the protest soon and I promised to return. But I got a little held up elsewhere and by the time I returned everyone had left.

Peace For Iran – No To War – Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Whitehall

I walked back along Whitehall to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in King Charles St where a small group were protesting against going to war with Iran, calling for peace.

I waited with the protesters who told me they expected more to arrive, but had to leave after around 20 minutes. I think few were coming as a large protest was to happen a few days later (you can see my report and pictures on this at No War Against Iran & Syria)

Egyptians Protest Against SCAF – Egyptian Embassy

I had to leave to go to the main event I had come into London to report, the protest by Egyptians on the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. Egypt was then suffering under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and they called for the revolution to continue and an end to military rule.

This was an energetic and protest by over a hundred Egyptians in solidarity with the estimated 300,000 who had marched to Tahrir Square earlier in the day.

A few from the British left had come to give their support, including Chris Nuneham of Stop the War who was one of those who spoke.

The speakers urged solidarity with the Egyptian people and also with the other revolutions of the Arab Spring, and called for an end to the Western attempts to enforce an agenda on the Arab nations.

They voiced their opposition to the increasingly likely military action against Iran, and called on those present to join the No War Against Iran & Syria protest at the US Embassy on the following Saturday.

Many more pictures from the Egyptian Embassy protest on My London Diary.

Westminster Bikers First Olympic Jubilee Demo Ride – Trafalgar Square

I returned to Trafalgar Square for a protest by motorbike riders, incensed by the so-called experimental parking charges for powered two wheelers.

‘No To the Bike Parking Tax’ see the parking charges introduced by Westminster Council as a simple money-making racket and have been making regular Wednesday protests against it as well as lobbying and making a legal challenge.

The daily fee for parking in a solo motorcycle bay is now only £1, and bikers can move from bay to bay.

More pictures

Around Trafalgar Square

After the bikers rode away I took a few pictures in Trafalgar Square under its dramatic red lighting then walked away. There had been a traffic accident on Northumberland Avenue which seemed to have involved two bikers and a cyclist and the police were now in attendance. I took a single frame as I approached but I didn’t investigate this further, walking down Whitehall.

Opposite Downing St a small protest was taking place calling for Freedom for Syria from the Assad regime, but nothing much was happening there and after making a couple of pictures I moved on, now in a hurry to get home and have something to eat.

You can read and see more pictures of these events on the January 2012 page of My London Diary

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

Tags:2012, Arab Spring, Barbara Tucker, bikers, Chris Nuneham, Congo, cONGOLESE, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Egypt, Egyptian Embassy, Egyptian Revolution, Egyptians, first anniversary, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Freedom for Syria, Iran, King Charles St, London, London Photos, military rule, Night, no to war, parking charges, Parliament Square Peace Camp, peace, peter Marshall, protest, red lighting, SCAF, South Africa House, Stop the War, Tahrir Square, Trafalgar Square, Tshisekedi, Westminster Bikers, Westminster Council, whitehall
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Goodbye & Good Riddance – July & August 2023

Thursday, January 4th, 2024

Goodbye & Good Riddance – July & August 2023: Some more pictures from my Facebook albums for last year.

**Save Democracy in Israel,** London UK. 30 July 2023.
A large rally in Parliament Square organised by members of the British Jewish community sends a message to the Israeli government rejecting their actions and supporting those protesting for the future of their country and children in Israel after the Knesset this week voted to abolish the Reasonableness Doctrine. They call on all who love and care about Israel’s future to defend Israeli democracy.
Peter Marshall

No To Nuclear War Embassy Walk, London. 4 Aug 2023.
Handing in a letter for the French Ambassador. Campaigners from France and Germany en route to the International Hiroshima-Nagasaki International Fast join British anti-nuclear activists in an “Embassy Walk” to the Russian, French, German Embassies and Downing Street calling on them to sign the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and get rid of their nuclear weapons. There were performances by Raised Voices choir.
Peter Marshall

London CND Hiroshima Day Commemoration. 6 Aug 2023.
Jeremy Corbyn MP holds up and reads from a mug commemorating peace campaigner Bruce Kent. 78 years after the US exploded atomic bombs at the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski, London CND met at the Hiroshima Cherry tree in Tavistock Square to remember the over 350,000 people killed immediately or who died from the bombing in the next few months. Speakers called on the UK government to abandon nuclear weapons and sign the UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.
Peter Marshall

**No To NATO No To War Rally**. 6 Aug 2023.
A rally at Downing Street demanded Britain leave NATO and end support for its continuing proxy war in Ukraine. Speakers including journalists Tony Gosling and Patrick Henningsen, lecturer Niall McCrae and former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford outlined and gave evidence of its anti-Russsian activities since its inception, with Piers Corbyn ending his speech with climate denial, homophobia and ULEZ opposition.
Peter Marshall.

There were relatively few protests in August as many people were on holiday – and I spent some time away from London and protests.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

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

Tags:75 years, Aylesbury Estate, CND, Ealing NHS, embassy walk, French, German, German Embassies, Hammersmith, Hiroshima Day, housing, housing for need not greed, Illegal Migration Bill, intersex, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, London, London CND, march, National Housing Day, NHS 75, No to NATO, no to nuclear war, no to war, non-binary and gender nonconformity joy, peter Marshall, protest, refurbishment not demolition, Russian, Rwanda, Save Democracy in Israel, Save our NHS, Southwark, state racism, Tavistock Square, trans, Trans Pride, trans+ Pride, UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
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International Women’s Day Marches

Tuesday, March 8th, 2022

International Women’s Day Marches. Wikipedia has a good article on the origins of this “global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women” which focuses attention on such issues as “as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women.“

So I won’t go into any great detail here. The earliest manifestation was a Woman’s Day organised by the Socialist Party of America in New York City on 28th February 1909, and the idea was taken up the following year by the International Socialist Women’s Conference. When women got the vote in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8th became a national holiday and the date became established in socialist movements and countries worldwide, being taken up by feminists in the 1960s. International Women’s Day was celebrated by the UN in 1975 and adopted by them in 1977.

Since around 2000 IWD has been ” criticized as heavily diluted and commercialized, particularly in the West, where it is sponsored by major corporations and used to promote general and vague notions of equality, rather than radical social reforms” and in 2009 was hi-jacked by a British PR firm, but other groups have continued a more radical observance of the day and attempted to reclaim it, and it has been largely those that I’ve photographed over the years.

Until 2002 I’d been teaching most years on March 8th and hadn’t been able to photograph daytime IWD events, so I think that year was the first time I did so. Since then I’ve photographed them most years, and here I’ll post a few pictures from some of them, with links.

IWD 2002 – Global Women’s Strike

I only wrote a short text – so here it is:

the 8 march is a world woman’s day and was celebrated by some as a global women’s strike. the march in london stopped outside key sites including the war office and world bank for speeches.

There are 4 pages of pictures, each with a handful of images beginning here
but the links are carefully hidden among the images (I got better at web design later.)

I think this was the first time I photographed Selma James, a leading anti-sexist and anti-racist campaigner and the originator in 1972 of Wages for Housework, “a demand and a political perspective that redefined the working class“. I was pleased to supply a picture for the cover of her recent book ‘Our Time Is Now‘, and recommend it to you.