12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in March 2025.
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Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in February 2025:
Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in January 2025:
Tommorow some of my pictures from February.
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Al-Quds Day 2007: On October 7th, the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel I find myself thinking about the long fight by Palestinians since so many were displaced and dispossessed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the many thousands who since then have been killed by Israeli attacks.
And of course for those Israelis who have been killed – though in much smaller numbers – by suicide bombers, by rockets and during the October 2023 incursion or among the hostages, and including those Israelis killed by Israeli forces.
What we have seen since however is not a war, not self-defence but genocide, the bombing and deliberate starvation of the entire population of Gaza. It comes on top of years of siege with restrictions on essential supplies and of the bulldozing of people’s homes as well as the establishment of more and more illegal settlements across occupied Palestine.
And our country remains complicit, still supplying arms to enable the genocide despite government statements to the contrary, still labelling protests calling for peace as ‘hate marches‘ and still making false allegations about antisemitism while failing to deal with the real anti-Semites who plan and carry out attacks such at that we all condemn in Manchester.
Thinking about what to post here for today, I came across the Al Quds Day march which took place in London on Sunday October 7, 2007. It was I think only the second time I’d photographed the annual event and I didn’t write a great deal about it then.
I did mention that this event was begun in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeni declared the last Friday in Ramadan as Al Quds Day, (al-Quds being the Arabic name of Jerusalem), an annual anti-Zionist day of protest. In the UK the march has generally taken place on the following Sunday and is a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people, largely by Muslims though also by anti-Zionist Jews and some of the UK left (many of whom are also Jewish.)
In 2007 a mixture of groups came to demonstrate against the march, largely because of its links with Iran both from its founding and also as it was organised by the Iranian Human Rights Commision (Inminds) which is alleged to receive funding from the Iranian government. Unlike later years I saw no counter-protests by Zionist groups or individuals.
Back then many of the march carried flags of the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah which emerged there after the Israeli invasion in 1982 and has strong ties with Iran. As well as running schools and hospitals and other social services it has also taken part militarily in opposing the various attacks by Israel on Lebanon.
Many Hezbollah leaders have been assassinated by Israel, some in what many describe as terrorist attacks. Until 2019 when its political wing was also proscribed the showing of the Hezbollah flag remained legal though contested in the UK.
As in earlier years the march ended with a rally in Trafalgar Square, though after 2008 the GLA refused to allow them to use the square, citing insurance problems.
Many more photographs of both the marchers and the rally and those who came to protest against the march on My London Diary at Al Qud’s Day March And Protest
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Muslim Veils, Illegal Goods, Murders, Union Busting and London: Saturday 25th September 2010 was a day for several fairly small protests around London, involving me in quite a lot of travelling around. As well as photographing Muslim women protesting against a French ban on Islamic face veils, a protest and counter-protest at a shop selling products from an illegal Israeli settlement, families of murder victimes calling for tougher sentences and a protest against a company employing cleaners for their union-busting activities I also took quite a few pictures as I rode buses and walked around between these events.
French Embassy, Knightsbridge
I’ve often commented on how women were normally sidelined – literally – at protests by the now banned Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain but at this protest outside the French Embassy they were very much at the front, with around 80 women, many with children, and only a handful of men – who did seem to be organising the event.
They were to protest against a law passed by the French Senate on September 14th to prohibit all full-face coverings in public places, clearly aimed at Muslim women who wear the niqab or burkha.
Such garments were then rarely worn in France, certainly outside of Paris and some Mediterranean coastal cities, and of France’s 2-3 million Muslim women the ban is thought likely to only effect around two thousand of them.
Very few of the women at the protest wore veil, most simply covering their hair. The protest in a wealthy area of London close to Harrods was passed by quite a few women who were veiled, but who all seemed to ignore the protest.
I wrote:’ Speakers at the event castigated the French government for taking a measure which they felt limited the freedom of women to make decisions on what they wear while at the same time ignoring issues that degrade and oppress women – such as domestic violence, and “the objectification and sexualisation of women’s bodies in pornography, lap-dancing clubs, advertising, and the entertainment industry, all permitted under the premise of freedom of expression and driven by the pursuit of profit in Western societies.”‘
More at Hizb ut-Tahrir Protest French Veil Ban.
Ahava, Monmouth St, Covent Garden
This was one of a series of fortnightly demonstrations outside the Covent Garden Ahava shop which sells products manufactured in an illegal Israel settlement on occupied Palestinian land. These protests were a part of an international ‘Stolen Beauty’ campaign organised by ‘Code Pink’, a women-initiated grass-roots peace and social justice movement which began when American women came together to oppose the invasion of Iraq.
As usual there was a smaller counter-demonstration by a few EDL supporters and a handful of Zionists, handing out leaflets which described the call for a boycott as “bigoted, complicitly and politically antisemitic“.
The protesters say Israel in in breach of international law and Ahava “has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labelling.” I read the leaflets they handed out and the web sites calling for the boycott and could find no evidence of anti-Semitism. Many calling for a boycott of Israeli goods are Jewish and I reflected that when I began taking photographs in London no Jewish shop would have opened on a Saturday.
More at Protest Against Illegal Israeli Goods.
Embankment
‘Families Fighting For Justice’, including many families of murder victims, marched through London on Saturday calling for tougher sentences for murder – with life sentences meaning life imprisonment.
The group was formed in Liverpool by Jean Taylor whose sister, son and daughter were all murder victims. She set up a petition which said “Life should mean life, for first degree murder, also tougher sentences for manslaughter” and in 2008 recruited families of other murder victims to join her and march with it to Downing Street.
You can read some of the horrendous stories on the groups web site, and some I was told at the protest were truly heartbreaking and showed why many ordinary people have lost faith in our justice system – and I highlight one of them on My London Diary.
But as I also commented “I don’t feel that the ‘Life 4 A Life’ campaign would actually do much if anything to solve the problem“. Murder is never a rational act where murderers weigh up how long a sentence they might get if caught and draconian sentences would have little or no deterrent effect. Things more likely to help include better social services and policing, but we really need “changes that bring back some of our community spirit and give people a greater engagement.” There really is such a thing as society despite Thatcher’s dismissal and we uirgently need more of it.
Much more at Families of Murder Victims Call For Justice.
Old St
A short protest by around 20 trade unionists outside the Initial Rentokil offices in Brunswick Place near Old Street on Saturday afternoon marked the start of the campaign against the company for its intimidation and bullying of union members who choose to speak out about pay and employment practices and play an active role in the union.
The cleaners employed by the company at the Eurostar terminals at St. Pancras International were RMT members and the dispute between the union and Initial has continued.
The unions alleged that Initial was deliberately employing workers with doubtful immigration status so they can pay minimum wages and provide sub-standard working conditions, often requiring them to work without proper safety equipment or precautions. They allege that workers who question their rights or attempt to organise have been reported to the immigration authorities who have then raided the workplace.
More at Protest over Initial Rentokil Union Busting.
One bus I didn’t travel on but photographed outside the former Aldwych Piccadilly Line Station.
‘I am Here’, one of London’s largest art installations overlooking the Regent’s Canal at Haggerston with photographs of former residents on empty flats where people are moved out to redevelop the Haggerston estate – with the promise they will be moved back to new social housing on the estate
Missing letters on an advert beside the canal for Ron’s Shellfish on sale every Saturday at Hoxton Market create a puzzle for those walking by, though this and another picture on My London Diary concentrate on the images and miss out the centre of the sign.
Decoration on the Suleymaniye Mosque on Kingsland Road which mainly serves the British Turkish community.
More at Around London.
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Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban: Last Saturday, 6th September, 2025 around a thousand people came to sit calmly and peacefully in Parliament Square holding signs with the message ‘I OPPOSE GENOCIDE – I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION’.
The protest was against the ban on Palestine Action imposed in July by then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper who designated the direct action group as a ‘terrorist organisation’ following extensive and dishonest lobbying from arms manufacturers and the Israeli government. Yvette Cooper is said to have received £215,000 from the Israel lobby last year.
The protest was the second mass protest in Parliament Square organised by Defend Our Jories, (DOJ) an organisation set up to defend the jury system against attempts by the government to “violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial.“
The jury system is designed to “put the moral intuitions of ordinary people at the heart of the criminal justice system“. As DOJ says, “when juries have heard evidence of why people have taken direct action to advance climate or racial justice, or to stop genocide in Gaza, they have repeatedly reached not guilty verdicts.”
“These verdicts are deeply embarrassing to the government and the arms and oil industries, contradicting the narrative that the public supports the ‘crackdown on protest’. Lobbyists for the arms and oil industries, such as Policy Exchange, embedded within government, have been working to put a stop to them.”
As they say “extraordinary measures have been taken that violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial“, with judges telling juries that they cannot acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, and in at least one case threating the jury with criminal proceedings if they did so.
Defendants have been banned from mentioning climate change in court and two Insulate Britain members were jailed for 7 weeks for doing so. Giovanna Lewis, a town councillor from Dorset told judge Silas Reid why she had defied his ruling, “I continue to be astonished that today in a British court of law, a judge can or would even want to ban and criminalise the mention of the words ‘fuel poverty’ and ‘climate crisis’. I wanted to bring public attention to the scandal of thousands of deaths in the UK due to fuel poverty and thousands of deaths around the world due to climate change. There is no choice but to give voice to the truth.”
The UN have declared that this violates international law, and carried out a mass protest after Trudy Warner was prosecuted for holding a sign “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience” outside the trial of Insulate Britain activists, re-stating the principle of ‘jury equity’. This had been enshrined in a English law since 1670 as a memorial at the Old Bailey states. Eventually the High Court rejected the government’s application to send her to prison.
The protests by DOJ against the ban on Palestine Action in August and last Saturday were both entirely peaceful. Those taking part had come to be arrested and sat waiting for the police to do so. But a crowd of supporters in the square were appalled at the way in which the police did so, with snatch squads going into the protest and picking on individuals seemingly at random.
The squads were soon surrounded by crowds, many intent on recording the arrests on cameras and mobile phones, many shouting ‘Shame on You‘ at the police for their actions. While other police simply stood around the perimeter of the square and watched in silence, some clearly uneasy about what was happening, those making the arrests sometimes reacted violently to the crowds around them. I saw one officer lashing out with his baton, though his colleagues soon stopped him.
It was difficult to understand the police tactics. Rather than go about making arrests in an organised and systematic manner by using the very large forces present to surround an area of the protest and carry out the arrests within that cordon, they appeared to have decided to do their job in the most provocative manner possible. Perhaps it was to put on a display for their political masters – and our now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was impressed as she watched the screens in the police control room.
I think they had decided to arrest first some particular individuals in the crowd – perhaps those who were in breach of bail conditions from the previous month’s protest. But nobody present was trying to evade arrest – the 1500 (according to DOJ) had all come to be arrested, although I think almost half got fed up with waiting and left. Others were still being arrested seven hours after the protest began.
I left after watching for almost an hour to photograph the Palestine march, with around 200,000 people slowly marching towards the rally in Whitehall. Later that afternoon I uploaded around thirty images of this protest to Alamy and these together with a few more to a Facebook album.
One of the founders of Palestine Action has been granted an appeal against the ban – although the government is appealing against her right to appeal – almost certainly because they fear it will succeed. I hope for the future of our legal system and country it does.
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Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka: Saturday 23rd August 2014 was a busy day for protests around Whitehall. I began at Downing Street with a protest by family members kept apart from their loved ones by Teresa May’s cruel and unfair immigration rules in a deliberate breach of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, then photographed a protest against arms sales to Israel and an end to Israeli war crimes. Then in Trafalgar Square Syrians marked the first anniversary of The chemical massacre at Ghouta before marching to Downing Street, where Tamils were protesting the rapes and killing in Sri Lanka.
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights states:
'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.'
But British citizens who are married to foreign nationals from outside the EU and may have children with them can only bring their partners to the UK if they are in well-paid jobs. And even then the visas needed are expensive and there are tough English Language tests, a need to prove greater attachment to the UK than of any other country and a five year probationary period.
The rules are complex and hard to understand and have changed since 2014, particularly by Brexit. Then those earning less than £18,600 a year were unable to bring on-EU spouses to join them – and couples with two children needed an annual income of £24,800. Visa application was also (and still is) very expensive.
More at Divided Families protest over cruelty
Back in 2014 as now people were calling for an end to UK arms sales to Israel and for an end to Israeli war crimes.
The 2014 conflict in Gaza resulted in over 2000 Palestinians being killed including almost 1500 civilians and many more injured, leaving around a thousand children with life-changing disabilities.
Fighting lasted 50 days with many schools and health centres being damaged and over 12,600 homes being destroyed and around a further 6,500 seriously damaged. At the time of this protest UNRWA was housing around 300,000 internally displaced people in the roughly half of its school buildings which had not been destroyed or seriously damaged.
Among the protesters were several groups of Jews, including ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’. Also there were Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews with banners opposing Zionism and the idea of a Jewish political state; they call for all to live peacefully together in Palestine – as Jews and Arabs did before the partition and formation of Israel.
A small group of pro-Israel protesters, one dressed as Superman, tried to disrupt the protest but after a short while were led away by police.
More pictures at Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel.
The chemical attack using the nerve gas Sarin by the Assad regime on Ghouta on 21st August killed 1,477 residents including over 400 children in this Damascus suburb.
Leaders in countries around the world expressed outrage at the attack, called for action to be taken. Pressure did lead to Syria agreeing to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and the US and Russia agreed on a framework to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, and much of Syria’s stock was destroyed in the year following the massacre.
But Assad continued to use chemical weapons, including many attacks with chlorine gas which was not covered by the framework because of its widespread chemical uses, as well as some attacks involving Sarin or a similar nerve gas. In 2023 the UN Security council declared that Syria’s chemical weapons declaration was incomplete and demanded full disclosure and cooperation with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary
Following the Sri Lankan military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, Tamils allege that the Tamils who make up around 11% of the population of Sri Lankan have been the subject of a continuing genocide by the government and the Sinhalese majority.
The protest called for the UN to conduct a referendum over setting up a Tamil state and investigate Sri Lankan genocide of Tamils. The Sri Lankan government had not kept the promises it made to the international community at the time of the Tamil defeat and has subjected the Tamil region to military occupation, rapes and killing.
Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing
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Al Quds & Roma Holocaust Memorial Day: On Friday 2nd August 2013 I photographed the annual al-Quds Day march in London, leaving before it reached a rally at the US Embassy to attend a ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park for Roma Holocaust Memorial Day.
Thousands marched peacefully for outside Broadcasting House to the US Embassy calling for the liberation of Palestine, with a few carrying banners and chanting in support of Hezbollah.
The starting point was chosen because of the continuing pro-Israel bias of the BBC and their failure to adequately cover the Israeli apartheid, the continuing occupation of Palestine and the oppression of the Palestinian people, as well as the siege of Gaza, which already 12 years ago was denying sufficient essential medical supplies and restricting food and other materials.
The celebration of Al Quds day on the last Friday of Ramadan was introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979 and its observance has spread, mainly in Arab and Muslim countries, and for many years there has been an annual march in London in support of Palestine as a show of solidarity with the people of Palestine and oppressed people everywhere.
Often the march has been met with opposition from various Zionist and Iranian freedom, communist and royalist movements as well as fringe UK right wing groups including the EDL and March for England, but there was no sign of protests against it this year, though I imagine there will have been a counter-protest to the rally at the US Embassy, but I had to leave for another event before the march reached this.
There were also Jews taking part in the march calling for freedom for Palestine, both from the obvious and small group of ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta Jews and others from the British left.
The march, attended by many Muslim families from mosques across England, was heavily policed but was as always an entirely peaceful and closely stewarded event that requires no policing other than traffic control unless others come to try and disrupt it.
Many more pictures at Al Quds Day March.
A ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park on Roma Holocaust Memorial Day remembered the mass killing of 3,000 Romas at Auschwitz on 2nd August 1944 and protested against the rise of neo-Nazi attacks against the Romas in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Around a quarter of a million Sinti and Roma were killed by the Nazis in Germany, and many others in Romania and Croatia. A Jewish socialist, who spoke at the event regretted the fact that the memorial only refers to the Jewish victims of the holocaust, which also included many others.
After a short introduction there was a two minute silence followed by speeches in Czech and in English including by Professor Rainer Schulze who spoke in some detail about the way Sinti and Roma were treated by the Nazis and of the fight they put up even as they were being forced into the gas chambers.
As well as speakers from various Roma and Sinti communities others included a Japanese peace activist who brought a statement of support from Hiroshima. Some of those present had earlier protested against the rise of Neo-Nazi attacks against the Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and were going on to protest at the French Embassy against deportation of Roma from France.
Recent years have seen increasing discrimination against Roma across Europe and here in the UK, including harassment of those sleeping rough on the streets of London.
More pictures at Roma Genocide Commemorated.
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Hunger Strikers & Sotheby’s: Ten years ago today this protest over Palestine was about Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails against the use of indefinite illegal administration. Later I went to Mayfair where cleaners and their supporters were protesting for the reinstatement of two cleaners sacked and victimised because of their trade union activities.
The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners Muhammad Allan and Uday Isteiti held in Israeli jails under administrative detention was in its sixth week, but the BBC had failed to report this and other hunger strikes.
So Innovative Minds in cooperation with The Prisoner’s Centre for Studies in Jerusalem had come to the BBC to protest against the continuing pro-Israel bias among management and some reporters. It’s a bias that has often been confirmed by academic studies and is continuing, though the recent use of starvation in Gaza and its appalling consequences we have all seen has resulting in some toughening of the BBC reporting on Israel’s war crimes.
Administrative detention allows people to be held without any real evidence and without trial and although in Palestine it is supposedly time-limited, in practice many are immediately re-arrested when their sentence ends to begin another term and so is in practice indefinite.
As I concluded in 2015: “Many who used to regard the BBC as a great institution and praised its high standards are now disillusioned and feel that they need to listen and watch other broadcasters to get an impartial and more complete view of both overseas and UK news.”
The BBC has some fine reporters but they often come under pressure from their managers – who themselves are under pressure from powerful lobbying groups and politicians with strong sympathies for the Zionist cause, including leading figures in our government. But they also misinterpret their ideas of impartiality, often ignoring the facts of the situation in a misguided attempt to show both sides. As it has been said “there are no two sides to genocide.”
More at BBC protest over Palestinian Hunger Strikers.
Early in 2015 the United Voices of the World union had come to an agreement with the company who then employed the outsourced cleaners at auction house Sotheby’s which had guaranteed the workers non-toxic products, reinstatements, fairer schedules and the London Living Wage (backdated.)
Sotheby’s, who make huge profits by selling art works and other items, decided to sabotage that deal by ending the contract with that company and starting a new contract with Servest, who decided not to honour the agreement that had been reached earlier.
This led the UVW to organise a series of protests, including a large and noisy one outside a “blockbuster £130m art sale” on July 1st. Sotheby’s responded by sacking four of the most active trade union members who had taken part in the protest, though later were forced by threats of legal action to reinstate two of them.
The protest on 31 July outside another auction demanded the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 2‘, as well as repeating the cleaners demands for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions and the London Living Wage.
The UVW continued with protests in Autumn 2015 and were able to announce in early 2016 that “ALL outsourced workers at Sotheby’s, including cleaners, caterers, porters and security guards would receive both the London Living Wage and contractual (much improved) sick pay.”
More at Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2.
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Stop Starving Palestine Pan Protest: Last Friday evening thousands of us came to Whitehall shocked by the news and photographs coming out of Gaza, where much of the population is now suffering from malnutrition and over a thousand have already died of starvation.
The famine there is entirely due to the actions of the Israeli government and their army, the IDF. Over the past months they have denied access to the normal humanitarian supplies of foods and essential items to Gaza.
Israel has also disrupted the well-established channels through which food was distributed in Gaza through the UN and humanitarian agencies. Together with the USA they have set up an alternative way to supply food which has operated at only four centres; the amount of food supplied has been vastly inadequate and over a thousand of those queueing for it have been killed by the IDF.
The world has been shocked by the pictures coming out from Gaza, and by well-documented stories from medical staff that snipers and not only target those queueing for food but ‘gaming’ by targeting different parts of the anatomy on different days. One day hospitals treated many who had been shot in their testicles.
For months we have been appalled by the accounts of the shelling and bombing of hospitals, medical facilities and the arrests and interrogation of medical staff, some of whom have clearly been tortured.
Large areas of Gaza are now covered with the rubble of people’s homes and people forced to flee and living in makeshift tents, often in so-called ‘safe areas’ have been killed by the military.
The attack began after an attack by Hamas across the border into Israel in which over a thousand died – including some by Israeli military fire and hundreds were kidnapped as hostages. But it has continued for over 600 days, with the killing of many, many thousands of innocent Palestinians, men, women and children in what has clearly become a series of war crimes.
Some Israeli ministers have clearly stated their intention to entirely rid Gaza of Palestinians, and Donald Trump has supported them, with plans to turn the area into a holiday resort. Israel clearly wants to settle the area with Israelis.
From the rest of the world we have seen words of condemnation, but little or no real action, with the USA using its veto in the UN. The UK has banned some of its arms exports and is nowmaking plans for air drops of food – but these will only be a small – and dangerous – drop in the ocean of desperate need.
On Friday evening I travelled up to London with my wife – carrying a large pan and a wooden spoon to bang it with in a protest calling on our government to take effective action.
I began by photographing a rally outside the Foreign & Commonwealth office by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network UK who began weekly protests in October 2023 against the Israeli Ambassador to the UK who had called for the illegal annexation of the West Bank and for “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to be destroyed. Their protests have been hounded by police, banned first from being outside her residence and then from Swiss Cottage.
Among the speakers I photographed there was a woman holocaust survivor who received tremendous support with people banging their pans and was unable to continue for several minutes. This was also one of the few parts of the evening of protest where many people had also come with placards.
A few yards up Whitehall there were crowds of protesters banging pans on both sides of Whitehall. Police tried to keep them on the pavement but when they appeared to be trying to arrest one of those who refused to move, crowds surged around them and occupied the whole of the highway.
There were a couple of speeches from in front of the gates to Downing Street, but many of those present were too far away to hear them and people kept up the banging of pans.
Eventually the organisers asked people to come and leave their pans in front of Downing Street and start moving towards Trafalgar Square. Some did, but many others still needed them to cook with. A thin police line held up the movement towards the square for around ten minutes – though the protesters could easily have broken through they waited patiently and then marched on to the square where I left them.
More pictures on Facebook at Stop Starving Gaza Protest at Downing St and as usual available for publication on Alamy.
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