PKK | >Re-PHOTO

Free Syria & Keep the NHS Public – 2011

Free Syria & Keep the NHS Public: On Tuesday May 17th 2011 I photographed two protests, a march against the continuing privatisation of parts of our NHS and the Health & Social Care Bill then going through parliament, and a protest at Downing Street calling for the government to support the revolution against the Assad regime in Syria and work to end the bloodshed taking place there.

Fourteen years later the NHS is still under threat with more and more of its services being taken over by private healthcare companies, and although some changes have been made to the disastrous ‘reforms’ introduced under Andrew Lansley but implemented by Jeremy Hunt who later called the fragmentation that it caused ‘frankly, completely ridiculous’ and tried hard to ignore much of it.

What Hunt thought was the only successful part of the Act was that it established the independence of NHS England from the government. On 13th March 2025 the Labour government announced they were scropping NHS England, putting the NHS firmly under the control of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, two men who one of my Facebook friends posted should not be in charge of a first aid kit let alone the NHS. If only, many of us think, had Leanne Mohamad got another 529 votes in Ilforn North in 2024 and she had become the MP for Ilford North rather than Streeting. It was perhaps the greatest disappointment of that General Election.

Both Britain and the USA failed to support the Arab Spring in Syria with much more than weak words and when Russian put the forces behind Assad his survival was ensured until finally ousted by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and others after 13 years of brutal civil war in December 2024.

The US gave some support to the Kurds to enable them to defeat ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) despite the support ISIS received from our NATO ally Turkey. But by 2024 lamost half a million Syrians had been killed and around 6.7 million refugees had fled Syria with another 5 million internally displaced. And Turkey had taken advantage of the situation to invade and occupy some largely Kurdish areas.

In deference to Turkey, the UK government proscribed the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistani (PKK) or Kurdish Workers Party in 2001, later adding a whole list of other names it used, KADEK, Kongra Gele Kurdistan, Teyre Azadiye Kurdistan (TAK) and Hezen Parastina Gel (HPG). For some years the PKK had moved from fighting for an independent state of Kurdistan to calling for greater autonomy and civil rights for Kurds in Turkey and a few days ago at a PKK conference it announced it was to disband and disarm.

Keep The NHS Public – UCH Euston Road to Whitehall

Over a thousand people, including many medical professionals and medical students, marched through London to show their opposition to government reforms which threatens jobs and many feel would destroy the NHS.

After a rally at University College Hospital on Euston Road the march, the second large march in London aimed at saving the NHS and killing Andrew Lansley’s Health & Social Care Bill, set off for Westminster.

There was a brief ‘die-in’ at Cambridge Circus and a small ‘sit-in’ outside Downing Street before the marchers held a final rally in front of the Department of Health at Richmond House before dispersing.

You can read a fuller account of the protest and see many more pictures on My London Diary at Keep The NHS Public.

Syrians Ask For Support at Downing St

Syrians supporting the ‘People’s Revolution’ in their country called for support from the British people and government to support their demands for reform and to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

A large group of Syrians including Kurds from Northern Syria called for support from David Cameron and the British people for the Syrian people.

Since demonstrations for political and economic freedom and an end to the tyranny and bloodshed of the Assad regime started in Syria on March 15th 2011, more than 800 innocent protesters have been killed, over 2000 injured and many more detained.

Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad was president of Syria from 1971 until he died in 2000, and was responsible for many deaths and disappearances, including a massacre of 40,000 people at Hama in 1982. His son Bashar Al-Assad, nicknamed as ‘The Butcher’ continued the “arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, and mass surveillance.”

More about the protest and many more pictures at Syrians Ask For Support.

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.

Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova – 2018

Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova: Protests in London on Saturday 27th January 2018 against migrants being sold as slaves in Libya, the continuing cruel trapping of animals to use in clothing sold by Canada Goose and the attacks by the Turkish army on Kurdish areas of North Syria.

End UAE support for slavery in Libya – UAE Embassy

Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova - 2018

African Lives Matter and the International Campaign to Boycott UAE protest at the UAE Embassy in London against the funding by the the United Arab Emirates of armed Groups in Libya which imprison, torture and kill African migrants and sell them as slaves.

The protest also called for an end of the human trafficking of African migrants to and from Dubai and for help to be given for slavery victims in Dubai to return to their families in Africa.

This turned out to be a fairly small protest, although the police had obviously planned for something much larger and I had expected more after earlier protests over the issue.

End UAE support for slavery in Libya

Canada Goose protests continue – Regent St

Protesters were again outside the Canada Goose flagship store in Regent St asking shoppers to boycott the store because of the horrific cruelty involved in trapping dogs for fur and raising birds for down used in the company’s clothing.

The company had obtained an injunction to try to prevent protests, but this had been amended in the previous month to allow more protesters and to enable them to use loud hailers between 2pm and 8pm. They were now carrying out weekly protests on Saturdays as well as occasional protests during the week.

Finally in 2022 Canada Goose announced it would stop purchasing new fur from trappers and transition to using reclaimed fur, though it seems unclear whether they have achieved their goal. The company is apparently still selling garments made with its large stocks of trapped fur and continuing to use feathers from geese and ducks which campaigners allege are plucked from live birds.

Canada Goose protests continue

Defend Afrin, stop Turkish Attack – BBC to Downing St

Several thousand people, mainly Kurds, marched through London from outside the BBC to a rally opposite Downing St, calling for an end to the attacks by Turkish forces on the Afrin Canton of Northern Syria, now a part of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.

Many see Rojava with a constitution based on a democratic socialism which treats all ethnic groups as equal and women as equal to men as a model for a future federal Syria, although it seems unlikely to find favour with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

Turkey is the second largest military force in NATO, second only to the USA and appeared to be using its position in NATO and the threat of closer relationships with Russia to eliminate the Kurds on its borders, who it alleges are a part of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist organisation regarded by Turkey and its allies as a terrorist organisation which was proscribed by the UK in 2001.

Kurds are around 15-20% if the population of Turkey, its largest ethnic minority and were violently suppressed following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with a number of massacres and a continuing attempt to erase their language and culture. Even the words “Kurds” or “Kurdistan” were banned and in 1980 their languages were banned, with those found using them arrested and imprisoned. It remains illegal to teach using Kurdish in schools in Turkey.

Kurdish forces,aided by US air support played a major role in the defeat of ISIS in Syria. Eventually the Turkish attacks on Afrin were halted after the Kurds in Rojava reached an agreement with the Syrian army to aid them in the defence of Syria. Further Turkish encroachment into Syria was prevented by the setting up of the Second Northern Syria Buffer Zone, part of the Sochi Agreement, in 2019.

Turkey encouraged ISIS in Syria as a part of their attempts to remove Kurdish influence in the areas close to their borders. Sales of oil smuggled through Turkey with the connivance of leading figures in the Turkish government provided most of the funding for ISIS.

The marchers met at the BBC who they say has failed to report over many years on Turkish atrocities and their genocidal attacks on the Kurds before marching to Downing Street.

Police apparently seized a number of PKK flags before the start of the march, though I did still spot one when the marchers reached Downing St. Kurds largely view the PKK as a nationalist rather than terrorist organisation and there were many flags with the image of the PKK’s long imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan. His nickname ‘Apo’ means uncle in Kurdish. It was his reading and thinking during long years of solitary confinement that led to the new thinking in the constitution of Rojava.

I listened to a few of the speeches at Downing Street before leaving for home and you can see many more pictures of the march and some of the speakers on My London Diary.

Defend Afrin, stop Turkish Attack

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.

Naked Vegans, Acid Attacks, Anonymous & Kobane

PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

Wikipedia tells me that World Vegan Day is an annual event celebrated by vegans around the world every 1 November and was established in 1994 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UK Vegan Society and the coining of the terms “vegan” and “veganism”. The exact date of the founding wasn’t known and Nov 1st was chosen for its association with “Samhain/Halloween and the Day of the Dead”. November 1st has also been All Saints Day since AD 835.

I’m not a vegan. But I have no problems with eating vegan food or vegetarian food, but often prefer meat or fish in my meals. But clearly reducing the amount of meat that is eaten by people around the world would be a useful contribution to reducing carbon emissions, although some vegetable production does involve a considerable carbon footprint, as well as environmental problems.

I welcome that many people now choose not to eat animals and avoid animal products, whatever their reasons, but also think there are good reasons to keep farming animals though there are plenty of farming practices I think should be banned. But keeping livestock is very much a traditional part of life in this country, one that has produced the landscape we enjoy and the animals we like to see in it. It can be done in an ethical and humane manner, though this means paying a price that allows farmers to do so.

So although I was happy to photograph PETA’s World Vegan Day protest in Trafalgar Square when activists wearing little clothing and smeared with fake blood lay on a large tarpaulin, I was not in sympathy with some of the views expressed by PETA. But the posters held by those taking part in the protest (I think less than half the advertised 255, the number of animals killed for food in the UK every second) simply noted the “1 billion animals killed for flesh each year” and encouraged people to “Choose Life: Chose Vegan“.

PETA World Vegan Day Naked Protest

Against acid attacks on Iranian women – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

I think I had actually come to Trafalgar Square for this protest, organised by the 8th March Women’s Organisation (Iran – Afghanistan).

They were in the square protesting at the horrific attacks on women who go onto the streets of Iran not wearing a veil. Gangs encouraged by the Iranian regime have thrown acid in the faces of many women, causing intense pain and burning, leaving them scarred and blinded. As the protest also pointed out as well as the forced wearing of the veil, women in Iran have no right to divorce, can still be stoned to death for adultery and can be victims of so-called ‘honour killings’.

Against acid attacks on Iranian women

Revolution Banner Drop – Waterloo Bridge and Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

‘Anonymous’ protesters in Guy Fawkes masks held up a large banner with the message ‘REVOLUTION’ on Waterloo Bridge to publicise their November 5th ‘March Against Government Corruption’ in London. I photographed it from Westminster Bridge, but the banner really wasn’t quite large enough to really stand out against the background of the City.

Later they took the banner to Trafalgar Square where a rally in support of Kobane was taking place (see pictures below) and it was rather more impressive there.

Revolution Banner Drop

Global Solidarity With Kobane – Trafalgar Square, Sat 1 Nov 2014

November 1st was also World Kobane Day, and thousands were in Trafalgar Square supporting the defenders of Kobane against ISIS and fighting for the remarkable democratic revolution of Rojava, calling for aid for the Kurdish fighters and refugees, legitimisation of the PKK and the release of Ocalan. The protest was part of a Global day of solidarity with the YPG (People’s Defense Units) and the women of the YPJ fighting against ISIS.

The protest was organised by the Kurdish People’s Assembly and Peace in Kurdistan Campaign in cooperation with Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), Roj Women Assembly and Free Youth Movement and community organisations, and was also supported by some left and human rights groups, but failed to attract some of the larger groups on the left.

Among the speakers were human rights lawyer Margaret Owen OBE, an adviser to Kurdish human rights groups in London, Jean Lambert, Green Party MEP for London, Mark Thomas, Peter Tatchell and Father Joe Ryan, a Catholic priest from Haringey as well as those from various Kurdish groups.

Many speakers criticised Turkey for supporting ISIS and allowing the smuggling of oil and other goods through Turkey which finance ISIS. They also supported the the model constitution adopted in Rojava, the de facto autonomous Kurdish majority region in northern and north-eastern Syria as an important democratic development, for its pluralism, democratic participation and protection of fundamental human rights and liberties.

Global Solidarity With Kobane

Saturday 27th October 2007

One of my busier days in London was Saturday 27th October 2007, when I began with a trip to Hoxton to collect and take home some pictures from a group exhibition, then travelled back into the centre of London for a number of events. The main protest I covered was the annual UFFC march against deaths in custody, but there were also Kurds protesting against Turkish army attacks on them in Northern Iraq, campaigners calling for a Brexit referendum, an anti-abortion rally and peace protesters around Parliament where I also photographed a new statue in Parliament Square. I ended my working day with a Halloween Zombie Crawl.

Here’s what I wrote back in 2007, with minor corrections including normal capitalisation and some changes of tense – and I’ve included some headings and pictures. As usual there are many more pictures if you follow the links to My London Diary.

On saturday, everything was happening. I had to run around to start with to collect my unsold pictures from the City People show at the Juggler in Hoxton. Fortunately I’d sold one of my four pictures, so that made them easier to carry, but it was a rush to be back in the centre of London and I had to more or less miss the demonstrators who wanted a referendum on leaving the European Union.

Protest Against Custody Deaths – Trafalgar Square & Whitehall, Saturday 27 Oct, 2007

Instead I started at Trafalgar Square, where the annual event remembering those who have died in custody was taking place, organised by the UFFC, families and friends of those killed.

It’s an occasion that always shocks me by the sheer number of people who have died in such disgraceful or suspicious circumstances, in police cells, in prisons and elsewhere. It’s an event I sometimes find it hard to photograph, both emotionally and physically – thankfully autofocus works even when your eyes are filling with tears.
more pictures

Kurds Demand – Stop Turkey – Trafalgar Square, London. 27 October 2007

While that demo was getting ready to march, a large crowd of Kurds swarmed into Trafalgar Square and held a short rally, protesting against the Turkish government’s approval of incursions into Northern Iraq to attack the PKK there. Both the Kurds and the Armenians have suffered greatly at the hands of the Turks (who in turn have been rather screwed by the EU over Cyprus.)

It was a typically exuberant performance, and one that I enjoyed photographing, but rather a distraction from the family and friends event.
more pictures

Pro-referendum on Europe Rally – Old Palace Yard, Westminster. 27 October 2007

There seems to be hiatus in the UFFC demonstration, so I caught a bus down Whitehall. Walking along to Old Palace Yard I passed a few of the pro-referendum demonstrators, though some others had stayed to join in the anti-abortion protest.
a couple of pictures

Anti-Abortion (Pro-Life) Rally – Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Saturday 27 October, 2007

This was rather smaller than I’d expected, perhaps around 500 people, although it was the only event that made the BBC news bulletins I heard when I got home later in the day.
more pictures

Lloyd George – Parliament Square, London. Saturday October 27, 2007

I listened a little to the speeches, but then went to Parliament Square to take a look at the new statue of Lloyd George – which failed to impress me. Of course he was long before my time – although I did have a landlady as a student in Manchester who had worked as a secretary for him – but somehow I feel the statue trivialises him, looking rather like an enlarged version of a plastic figure you might find in a box of cornflakes rather than a statue of a Prime Minister.
another picture

Peace Train – Parliament Square, Westminster. Saturday October 27, 2007

The Peace Train is beginning to form a protest in Parliament Square and I go along to talk to them and take a few pictures.

I rejoin the ‘Famiilies and Friends’ march now making a considerable protest opposite Downing Street, where a delegation has permission to deliver a letter to the prime minister’s residence at No 10. It takes a lot of argument before the police let them in despite this.

For some reason the police decide not to allow those with press cards into the street in the normal way. I don’t like going in – the security checks are a nuisance and being restricted to a pen on the other side of the street is normally hopeless, but I think its a matter of principle that access should not be unreasonably prevented – as it was for this event, even if personally I don’t particularly want to take advantage of it.

By the time the deputation emerge, the mood on the street is getting rather angry. One young policeman is getting surrounded and insulted and is trying hard to ignore it. A few minutes later a motor-cyclist foolishly stays in the route of the march, and is soon surrounded by angry people. He has to be rescued by his colleagues.

There are police who are racist, who are thugs, who are bullies. Too many who have got away with murder, often thanks to covering up or a lack of diligence in investigation by their colleagues. If it were not so, there would be no demonstration. But there are also officers who do their best to carry out a difficult and necessary job in a decent, reasonable and even-handed way – even though they may sometimes get disciplined for doing so. Those who bear the brunt of considerable and understandable hate directed against the police at a demo like this are not necessarily the guilty.
more pictures

Crawl of the Dead IV – City and Southwark, London. Saturday October 27, 2007

It’s time for me to leave and make my way to the City of London, where this year the zombies are starting their walk at a pub on Ludgate Hill. I go into the pub and talk to some of them and take photographs, and am gratified to find that quite a few have seen my pictures from around Oxford Street last year.

By the time they emerge from the pub it is getting dark, and my flash by now is refusing to work at all. I have to make do either with available light (and there isn’t a lot) or the pretty useless camera built in flash, but I still manage to get a few decent pictures, even though some are rather noisier than I’d like.

There are quite a few people around as we go over the Millennium bridge, and more in front of Tate Modern, where zombies decide to play dead for a while. Then we visit the famous crack in the turbine hall, coming out towards the Founder’s arms, where I made my goodbyes and turned for home.

More pictures on all these on My London Diary:

against deaths in custody
kurds demand – stop turkey
for a euro-referendum
anti-abortion (pro-life) rally
lloyd george statue
peace train
crawl of the dead iv

BBC Ignores Turkey’s War On Kurds

BBC Ignores Turkey’s War On Kurds. Six years ago today, on Sunday 6th March 2016, thousand of Kurds marched from the BBC to Trafalgar Square calling for an end to the silence from Turkey’s NATO allies and the western press over Turkey’s increasing war against Kurds since the political successes of the Kurdih political party and the formation of the popular progressive democracy of Rojava in Northern Syria.

*Marchers sat down briefly at Piccadilly Circus*

On My London Diary I posted a list of over 30 UK groups supporting in the protest including the National Union of Teachers, the PCS and RMT as well as other trade unionists and branches, the Stop The War Coalition, the Green Party, Unite Against Fascism, many left wing parties and political groups and of course Kurdish organisations.

The repression and marginalisation of Kurds by Turkey is as old as the Turkish state, formed in 1923. For many years the state even denied their existence, describing them as “mountain Turks”, and it outlawed their language and clamped down on their cultural events such their Nowruz New Year Festival and on the wearing of their traditional dress and Kurdish names. Even the words Kurds and Kurdistan were banned.

*The crowd stretched some way past Broadcasting House*

The 1990s and early 2000s saw some relaxation of the repression of their language and community celebrations, but it remains illegal to teach in Kurdish and there is still limited freedom of expression. In 1978 Kurds formed the militant Kurdish Workers’ Party, PKK, which launched a military freedom fight against Turkey in 1984. PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured in Nairobi in 1999 by Turkish agents assisted by the CIA and flown back for trial in Turkey. He was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penality and since then has been held in a Turkish high-security island prison.

Öcalan had argued for a political solution to the conflict since 1993 and even in prison remains the leader of the PKK. Subjected to long spells on isolation there have been periods where he has been allowed visits and has been in negotiations with the Turkish government. He has also written about the democratic confederalism which is at the heart of the constitution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, widely known as Rojava, founded in 2012.

Rojava’s decentralised democratic form of government recognises and includes the various communities in the area – Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians and others as well as promoting the equality of women.

The main ground forces which have been effective against Daesh (ISIS) in the region are from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, men in the YPG and women in the YPJ, who with the help of US air support defeated the Islamic State in Northern Syria.

Turkey regards the YPG and YPJ as being a part of the PKK, regarded by them and many countries as a terrorist group and widely banned. Since 2016 it has used its overwhelming military power (supported by NATO and Russia) to try to crush the Kurds and to capture Rojava, occupying large areas. Together with Syrian allies (including some former ISIS fighters) they are carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds, and have been engaged in a wide range of war crimes.

As well as calling for an end to attacks by Turkey and for full and un-biased reporting of Turkey’s attacks on the Kurds the marchers want the UK to end its support for the Turkish aggression and also to repeal the ban on the PKK under the Terrorism Act 2000. It is banned in most other western countries including the EU, where several court verdicts have found its proscription to be illegal but it has remained.

The march sat down for a few minutes stopping traffic at Piccadilly Circus, then went on the a rally in Trafalgar Square, where I left them. There were no reports of the march on the BBC or in other UK mass-media, though I think it was covered by some foreign news services and our minuscule left-wing press.

More at Break the Silence! Turkey’s War on Kurds.

Defend Afrin, end Turkish Attacks

The largest protest I attended on Saturday 27th January 2018, four years ago was against the Turkish attacks on Afrin in Northern Syria, then a part of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.

Turkey, a NATO member with probably the largest and best-equipped army and air force in the Middle East was taking on the small and poorly equipped Kurdish forces, and despite a valiant fight the final result was predictable, particularly once Russia, the other major player in the Syrian conflict had given them their blessing.

Turkey has continued its attacks on Northern Syria, but mainly through air strikes, but these are seldom reported in UK media although covered by specialist sources such as ‘Foreign Policy‘, part of the Slate Group.

The US gave some support in other battles fought by the Kurds against Islamic State forces, but this was always limited and mostly ended with the withdrawal of US troops which was announced by Trump in December 2018, and again in October 2019, although around 900 were still there in October 2021. Turkey has been a major source of finance for ISIS, allowing them to profit from smuggling of oil, and backing some groups which were fighting with them.

In recent days there have been short mentions on the BBC about the continuing battles being fought by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed, Kurdish-led militia against Islamic State in Northern Syria. The prisons and refugee camps where former ISIS fighters and supporters are held are largely in Kurdish territory and ISIS are still active and fighting to release people from detention to increase their strength.

As I wrote in 2018, “the constitution of Rojava treats all ethnic groups – which include Arabs, Assyrians, Syrian Turkmen and Yazidis as well as Kurds – equally and liberates women, treating them as equal to men. The constitution is based on a democratic socialism and its autonomy is seen by many as a model for a federal Syria.”

Unfortunately there seems little chance that such a model with be adopted more widely. Turkey continues to attack the Kurdish areas and does so using weapons sold to them as a NATO member by the UK, France and UAE. Turkey claims that the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS are an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, founded in 1978 which began its armed struggle for self-rule for Kurds in Turkey 1984.

PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been held in a Turkish jail since 1999 and the organisation has been proscribed in many countries allied to Turkey, including the USA and UK. Several PKK flags were seized by police at the start of the march.

More at Defend Afrin, stop Turkish Attack.

This was not the only protest in London on that day, and I also photographed two other events. African Lives Matter and the International Campaign to Boycott UAE were outside the UAE Embassy in London protesting against the funding by the the United Arab Emirates United of armed Groups in Libya which imprison, torture and kill African migrants and sell them as slaves. On Regent St, the long-running protest outside the Canada Goose flagship store in Regent St was continuing asking shoppers to boycott the store because of the horrific cruelty involved in trapping dogs for fur and raising birds for down used in the company’s clothing.

Canada Goose protests continue
End UAE support for slavery in Libya