Students Protest Fees & Cuts: On Wednesday 24th November 2010 several thousand students set out to march from the University of London Union in Malet St through Whitehall and then on to the Lib-Dem HQ in Cowley St.
The protest was called by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts and Revolution and was a part of a national day of action after the Browne Review of Higher Education Funding had advocated a huge increase in tuition fees, allowing them to rise from £3,290 to £9000 a year – £27,000 for a three year course. The increase was approved by Parliament in December 2010.
Living costs were also increasing and by 2010 a typical student in London needed around £5000 each year. With the increase in fees that meant those students who relied on loans would end their three year course owing over £40,000.
The government had also anoounced the previous month that the Educational Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year old students in full-time education from low income homes were to be scrapped. Many youger students from schools and colleges had come to the protest along with those in higher education.
Universities were also being hit by the coalition government cuts in funding for arts and humanities courses. Many departments were being shut down, greatly reducing the opportunities for students.
So there were many things for students (and anyone concerned about education) to be angry about, but the march had begun peacefully and most of those taking part were not out for trouble.
The students intended to march to Trafalgar Square and then down Whitehall past Downing Street and on through Parliament Square to the Liberal-Democrat headquarters in Cowley Street, a short distance to the south.
But it soon became clear that the Metropolitan Police had other ideas and were out to confront the students and stop the march. When the marchers turned into Aldwych a line of police stopped them continuing.
The students then surged down towards Temple Station and marched west along the Embankment, then up a side street onto Strand and on to Trafalgar Square. On Whitehall and met another group of students who had started their march at Trafalgar Square but had been stopped by police just before reaching Parliament Square.
“There were now perhaps 5000 students milling around in a small area, some chanting slogans (rather than the rather ordinary ones about education and cuts many favoured “Tory Scum, Here we come” and a long drawn out ‘David Camero-o-on’, answered by the crowd with ‘F**k off back to Eton’) but most just standing around waiting for something to happen. “
“Police had thoughtfully left an old police van as a plaything for the protesters outside the treasury. Perhaps because the tread on its tyres was so worn it would have been a traffic offence to move it – and it looked very unlikely to pass an MOT.”
“The stewards told the protesters it was obviously a plant, and certainly the press I talked to were convinced. This didn’t stop a few masked guys attacking it (and I was threatened with having my camera smashed for photographing them doing so) despite a number of students who tried to prevent them, some linking hands and forming a chain round it. It was possibly the same small group who earlier had smashed the glass on the bus stop across the road.
A few protesters managed to burst through the police lines, but most of those there “were probably well-behaved students on their first demonstration, and although the police line was breached a number of times most of them just stood around wondering what to do rather than following them.”
On My London Diary I try to describe the confused and dangerous situation that developed as police began threatening protesters and some making rather indiscriminate use of their batons. I was shocked at the police tactics which appeared designed to create public disorder by kettling – and a small minority of the students rose to the bait. The great majority of the students had come for a peaceful march and rally and to exercise their democratic right to protest, but the police, almost certainly under political pressure, had decided not to allow that.
Eventually I’d had enough and it seemed that the protesters would be kettled for some hours, and I decided to leave in order to file my pictures and story.
Sean Rigg Memorial – 4 Years – Brixton Tuesday 21st August 2012
There is a lengthy piece on Wikipedia about the death of Sean Rigg whic states that his “case became a cause célèbre for civil rights and justice campaigners in the United Kingdom, who called for “improvement and change on a national level” regarding deaths in police custody and the police treatment of suspects with mental health issues.”
It goes into some detail of the circumstances of his death and the various enquiries that followed but fails to properly represent the huge effort investigating and campaigning by his family, particularly by his sister Marcia Rigg, which brought to light the many lies and failures of the police.
In 2023, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) made an unprecedented apology in a letter to Marcia Rigg which you can read in full with her response on the Inquest site.
The Inquest post also has a clear brief summary of Sean’s arrest and the detention that killed him ad the failures of the IPCC investigation, along with a comment by Inquet’s director Deborah Coles, as well as the background to the case.
Mona Donle, Sean Rigg’s mother and his sisters Marcia and Samantha lead the march
I’ve written on a number of occasions about the case – and of other suspicious deaths in police custody, including others involving Brixton Police Station, in particular the death of Ricky Bishop in 2001. Here I’ll simply write about the events in Brixton on the evening of Tuesday 21st August 2012.
Fortunately I did not want a seat in the Assembly Hall inside Lambeth Town Hall as every one was filled for the memorial event four years to the day after his death. By the time this was over people were standing around the side of the hall and others waiting outside for the vigil.
Around 200 people lined up behind Mona Donle, Sean Rigg’s mother and his sisters Marcia and Samantha to march with the Sean Rigg banner to the memorial tree outside Brixton Police Station. Some held placards and carried flowers with his sisters carrying a framed portrait of Sean.
People laid flowers and lit candles at the memorial tree and put up Sean’s portrait and there were some speeches.
Mona Donle, a Brixton resident described a disturbing incident the previous Sunday in Windrush Square when three police officers violently assaulted a man who was clearly disturbed and acting unpredictably: “One officer choked him by holding his forearm across the man’s throat. Then another officer stamped on him. The foot was on his face and then the man passed out – we kept telling them to call an ambulance.”
As I noted, “The police account reads differently, making no mention of the violence and suggesting that the ambulance arrived ‘approximately’ five minutes after the arrest.” An eye witness told me it was around 20 minutes before the ambulance came and that the man had only just come round.
Sean’s mother spoke briefly and then Mona Donle went in to take in a formal complaint about the incident she had seen. At first I watched them from the doorway but when others piled in I joined them.
It was very crowded inside the police station lobby. The complaint was handed in, and a signed and dated copy was returned to the complainant.
But they demanded to hear from a senior officer about what had happened, and after a few minutes Superintendent David McLaren came out, gave a short statement and tried to answer some of the questions, though clearly no-one was satisfied with his answers. The lobby was very crowded and getting hot and it was soon time for me to leave.
It didn’t seem likely that there would be much more happening. One of two people had tried to stir up a little trouble but the Rigg family had made it clear that they wanted this to be an occasion where respect was show for Sean and with others had helped to quieten things down.
Protest Under Threat – On Saturday 12th January 2008 I photographed six protests in London, and two of them were against the increased restrictions on public protest introduced by SOCPA, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which considerably increased the powers of arrest of police, criminalised trespass at designated ‘Protected Sites’ which included nuclear sites and a long list of royal, parliamentary, and government sites.
But most controversially it seriously restricted our right to demonstrate within a “designated area” of up to one kilometre from any point in Parliament Square. Although Trafalgar Square was excluded from this, it was a wide area which included areas on the south bank of the river including County Hall, the Jubilee Gardens, St Thomas’ Hospital and the London Eye and extended west on the north bank as far as Tate Britain.
These sections of the act were repealed or rather replaced in 2011 by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which narrowed its scope to prohibiting some activities in Parliament Square, more specifically aimed at protests such as that by Brian Haw.
Hizb ut-Tahrir protest Bush’s Middle East tour – Marble Arch – Saudi Embassy
Other protests on the day included a march by supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain from Marble Arch to the Saudi Embassy in Mayfair to show their opposition to George Bush’s Middle East tour and American policies in the region as well as against the current corrupt ruling elites in the area.
Although I don’t support the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir and was certainly worried by their global intentions which we later saw put into practice by Islamic extremists in ISIS in Syria and others elsewhere as well as uneasy about their treatment of the women who were at their protests clearly as second-class citizens (and who I was often requested by stewards not to photograph), this like their other protests was extremely tightly managed by the organisation.
Clearly the protest presented no real threat to public order and it was hard to see why there was such a large police presence, when all that was needed was some traffic control and perhaps a few officers to monitor the speeches for any illegal content – though I don’t think there were any present who could understand those not in English. more pictures
Young Rich Protest Siena Airport Expansion
There were two protests taking place around Trafalgar Square, and one of them I found it a little hard to take seriously. This was what I described as a “small but very select” protest against the expansion of Sienna airport “led by the young grandson of a Lord” by “models and young people from some of the richest families around (the kind of people who own Guinness rather than drink it)” who enjoy their times at nice big villas there and don’t “want all sorts of riff-raff coming in on cheap flights“. Of course we should all be against airport expansion. more pictures
CSG Freedom to Protest Border Post – Trafalgar Square/Whitehall
On the traffic island at the south of Trafalgar Square and the top of Whitehall a group calling themselves the CSG (Citizens Supporting Government – rather than the Met’s TSG, sometimes said to stand for Thugs Supporting Government rather than its official Territorial Support Group) set up a ‘Freedom to Protest Border Point’ again on Saturday on the edge of the SOCPA zone to advise the public about the danger of passing into the an area where freedom is severely restricted. more pictures
Freedom to Protest – outside Downing Street
But the main Freedom To Protest demonstration was taking place at the gates of Downing Street with a couple of hundred protesters. Although police usually try to move protesters away from the gates, things as I arrived seemed fairly relaxed.
But when a number of protesters decided to sit or lie down in the middle of the road this prompted the police to take action. “They grabbed the first couple of guys who went down on the tarmac and handcuffed them as well as seeming to try out a few strange holds.”
And when a dozen or so laid down in a neat line along the carriageway a squad of around 20 officers who had been waiting 50 yards down the road rushed in and began by clearing photographers and others standing on the road back onto the pavement. “Any who showed a reluctance to move were given a hand, sometimes with what seemed like unnecessary force. I was almost knocked flying when they threw one man bodily backwards – and I was in his way, probably rather luckily for him, as otherwise he could well have cracked his head open on the pavement.”
They then carried those sitting or laid on the ground back to the pavement, warning them they would be arrested if they returned to the road. Some who had linked arms were separated with some of the police clearly seeming to be enjoying themselves using pain compliance holds and inflicting unnecessary pain as they twisted arms behind backs and generally pushed the guys around.
Brian Haw – whose continuing peace protest in Parliament Square had been one of the main targets of SOCPA – was there using a small video camera to record the police violence and I photographed him with a nasty trickle of blood running down his left cheek after an officer had forcefully pushed the camera into his face. When he tried to complain to the officers in charge he was ignored and finally told to go to a police station if he wished to complain. Some of the police were rather obviously amused at both his injury and his complaints. more pictures
Kenyans Demand Justice after Election Fraud
Across Whitehall in the designated protest area there were two protests taking place. Kenyans were protesting against election fraud in their country, where the man who had almost certainly lost the vote set up an electoral commission that was certain to declare him as the winner, and he remains President. SOCPA was having an effect on their protest as my picture shows, with a man using a megaphone hidden under brown paper! more pictures
End the Siege on Gaza
Also across Whitehall from Downing Street were a group of protesters calling for an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza which severely limits the supply of essential goods including medicines and for an end to the military occupation of Palestine.
Among the protesters still present when I arrived rather late to photograph it were Jewish activists supporting Palestine and a boycott of Israeli goods, part of the growing campaign for BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. In 2024 the UK government is putting through a Bill to stop “businesses and organisations–including those affiliated with Israel-being targeted through ongoing boycotts by public bodies” because of the increasing success of this campaign. If passed it will stop public bodies, “including universities, local authorities, and government departments, from making investment decisions that align with their human rights responsibilities and obligation.” They will be unable “to avoid causing or contributing to human rights abuses and international crimes” such as “the Chinese government’s systematic repression of Uyghurs, Israel’s crimes of apartheid or war crimes in Israeli settlements, Saudi Arabia and UAE’s war crimes in Yemen, or the Myanmar junta’s crimes against humanity.“ more pictures
Democracy, Mansion Tax & Justice – on Saturday 22nd November 2014 I photographed protests about democracy and justice in the UK, the brutal persecution of Christians in Pakistan and Class War protesting outside the homes of millionaire objectors to a proposed mansion tax. My day’s work ended in Brixton with an annual march remembering young men killed in Brixton Police Station.
Occupy Democracy at Supreme Court – Parliament Square
Activists from Occupy Democracy had spent the night on the wide pavement in front of the Supreme Court on the west side of Parliament Square and were getting ready to hold two days of workshops there.
The Supreme Court is housed in the ornamented former Middlesex Guildhall facing the Houses of Parliament across the square and does not sit at weekends, perhaps why the police had not tried hard to remove the protesters.
Parliament Square itself was still fenced off and guarded, with police fearing that Occupy protesters might come and set up up a tented camp there. One of the banners the protesters had brought read ‘WE ARE THE GHOST OF BRIAN HAW’, the peace protester who had defied legal and illegal attempts to remove him from his camp facing Parliament for many years.
A small group of protesters was sheltering from the rain in the doorway of the Supreme Court and I went to say ‘Hello’ and take a few pictures.
Others were holding posters and banners and waiting for others to come an join them for the workshops. I couldn’t stay but hoped to come back later, but ran out of time to do so.
Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi were Pakistani Christians who had been trapped into bond labour at a brick kiln in a Muslim village 35 miles south-west of Lahore. Shahad was involved in a dispute with the kiln owner and landlord as he wanted to pay off his debts and leave and the landlord’s accountant is alleged to have raped Shama.
Shama had cleared out and burnt some items belonging to her father after his death on 30th October 2014. These included some black magic amulets and written charms. The ashes were seen by a Muslim worker and he accused her of burning the Koran.
A large mob came from surrounding villages and attacked the couple, stripped them and tied them to a tractor, beating them as they were taken to the kiln, where petrol was poured over their bodies; accounts differ as to whether both were still alive when they were then thrown into the furnace while there six year old child watched. Armed police stood by but refused to interfere in their murders.
The police and authorities appear to have tried to cover up the case and buried the remains of the bodies in secret to avoid their families arranging a funeral. But the news leaked out and the federal government had appointed a minister to co-ordinate the case. At Downing Street there were prayers and speeches calling for justice including from an Elim Pentecostal minister and singer Si Genaro.
Class War Griff Rhys Jones Mansion Tax – Fitzroy Square
Earlier in the month, Class War had announced they would stand a number of candidates in the forthcoming 2015 General Election and had put together a manifesto largely as they walked the short distance from the pub to a Poor Doors protest.
Marina Pepper rang the bell at Griff Rhys Jones’ house
Class War did not expect to win any seats – or even save their deposits, but “to launch a furious and coordinated political offensive against the ruling class with the opportunity an election gives us to talk politics to our class.” And they intended to “make ourselves central to the campaign in a funny, rumbustious combative and imaginative way.”
One of the key pledges in their manifesto was for a 50% mansion tax, and it was also a policy on a rather less punitive scale for the then Labour party (no longer in existence.) And several well-known and filthy rich people had voiced their objections including Griff Rhys Jones who said he would leave the country if Labour levied a mansion tax.
On Saturday 22nd November a small group from Class War, including two of their election candidates Marina Pepper went to protest at the £7 million home of Griff Rhys Jones in Fitzroy Square, telling him to “f**k off now“, offering to pay the fare.
Class War rang on the bell though nobody came to answer it, although there were signs of movement inside. They put hazard tape around the area outside the house before going for a walk around the square, pausing for another brief protest outside the home of Guy Ritchie, another millionaire objector to a mansion tax.
Continuing around the square, next to the house where both George Bernard Shaw and later Virginia Woolf both lived, they came across the Magistrates Association – who got another sticker, as did the locked gates into the private garden in the centre of the square.
Having gone around the square they arrived back outside Griff Rhys Jones’s house where they stopped for a group photograph and a few more minutes of protest before leaving for a nearby pub. I would have liked to join them but had to rush to another event.
Ricky Bishop, a fit young black man, died from unexplained injuries hours after being taken to Brixton Police Station on 22 Nov 2001. Family and supporters call it a modern day lynching and march annually to remember him and call for justice.
Ricky Bishop was a fit young black man when taken into Brixton Police Station on 22 Nov 2001, but hours later he died from unexplained injuries. His family and supporters call his death a modern day lynching and march annually to remember him and call for justice.
People met in Windrush Square and marched slowly to the police station, calling out the names of the officers they accuse of murdering him, to hold a memorial event around the tree outside which has been adopted as a remembrance tree for Ricky Bishop and the others killed there by police.
Among the speakers was Marcia Rigg who spoke forcefully of the long battle to get any proper investigation into the death in he police station of her brother Sean Rigg in August 2008. While she was speaking there were shouts from officers inside the police station accusing her and the family of lying about the police.
I felt shocked and disgusted that police still feel the killing people as they did Sean Rigg is defensible and go to great lengths to prevent proper investigation, giving police almost total immunity from the consequences of their actions.
Although many of the over 3,000 custody deaths between 1969 and 2011 may not have been the result of deliberate actions or failures, there has not been a single officer successfully prosecuted, despite considerable evidence of wrongdoing. Instead we have seen repeated instances of failures to properly investigate and interview officers, collusion to give false statements, unnecessary holding up of cases, disallowing of evidence, misleading of juries and other means, including failures of both the Crown Prosecution Service and the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Climate, Malala, TUC, Workfare & Tax Cheats: Saturday 20th October 2012was a busy day for protests in London with a huge TUC march against austerity with various groups on its fringes and other smaller protests around.
Against Austerity For Climate Justice! – St Paul’s Cathedral
The climate block of the TUC ‘A Future That Works’ march held a rally on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral before marching to join the main TUC march.
The block was joined people from Occupy London and UK Uncut who made up a ‘No cuts, no tax-dodging’ block.
The main banner called for a ‘Massive Shift’ to invest in jobs and renewable energy and there were other banners, flags and placards with the Uncut logo calling for an end to tax evasion and tax avoidance.
I left them as they began to make their way to join the main TUC march, hurrying to Downing Street for an unconnected protest.
Members of the Edequal Foundation, an educational charity founded by Shahzad Ali and based in north London which supports teachers and students demonstrated in a show of support for Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban because of her campaigning for education for women.
She began her campaign in 2009 by writing a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under Taliban control and was later filmed by the New York Times. She became well-known for these and other interviews and in 2011 was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated by Rev Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize.
Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban while returning by bus from an exam on 9th October 2012 and this made her the centre of international attention and support. After treatment in Pakistan she was transferred to hospital in Birmingham and after recovering settled there continuing her campaigning. She has since received other awards, becoming the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she was 17.
The TUC march for ‘A Future That Works’ against austerity was impressively large with a reported 150,000 people taking part.
I’d gone to photograph the marchers going past Parliament and up Whitehall to Traflagar Square and Piccadilly Circus. I’d begun taking pictures about half an hour after the front of the march had passed, and two hours later people were still passing me in a dense mass, waving flags and carrying banners.
Most had come with trade union groups and there were many fine union banners, but there were also others taking part. Police generally stood well back and the march with just a few trade union stewards proceeded peacefully along the route.
Quite a few stopped for some minutes outside Downing Street to shout noisily in the direction of No 10, though I think Prime Minister David Cameron was miles away. Certainly the march had no effect on his policies.
There were a few police here and at other key points, but one group on the march got special attention, with a line of officers in blue caps walking in line on each side of around 200 black-clad anarchists. Earlier I had seen one small group of anarchists being chased by a police FIT team who called in other police to surround them while they attempted to take their photographs.
Boycott Workfare were “a UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare.” They say that “Workfare profits the rich by providing free labour, whilst threatening the poor by taking away welfare rights if people refuse to work without a living wage.”
Their campaign was supported by a wide range of organisations including a number of trade union branches and several hundred people turned up on Oxford Street for their protest, including a number dressed in black and masked with scarves or wearing ‘Anonymous’ masks.
They marched to protest at shops and businesses in the area which are taking part in workfare schemes which many of those unemployed had to work without pay or lose their benefits. Many of the shops closed as the protest went part and the protesters briefly occupied others.
Although this had been planned as a ‘a fun and family-friendly action’ and was led by a samba band, while it started peacefully a number of scuffles broke out when police tried to stop or arrest those taking part, and by the time it ended many on both sides were clearly angry.
There was a nasty moment after the protesters had crowded inside a hotel which uses people on workfare on Great Marlborough Street. They made some noise but there was no damage and they would almost certainly have moved on after a few minutes as there were other places to visit. Police entered and tried to forcibly push the protesters out, while police outside were preventing them from leaving. I fortunately avoided injury when pushed down the stairs by police.
From there they returned to Oxford Street and tried to rush into a number of shops known to be using workfare and some also known to be avoiding payment of huge amounts of UK tax. Some got their shutters down and police managed to get to others and block the entrance before the protesters arrived – doing the protesters job for them in closing the shop.
The Salvation Army, one of a number of charities involved in the scheme got a kid glove treatment – with just two protesters standing in the doorway and making short speeches before the protest moved on.
At Marble Arch the protester turned around to march back up towards Oxford Circus, and police tried to put a cordon across the street to stop them. But the gaps between officers were too large and most protesters simply walked through the gaps when officers grabbed one of two of them. Some of the police clearly lost their tempers and many protesters were shouting at them to calm down.
One officer who had tackled a protester was apparently injured and a group of police grabbed a protester and pushed him roughly down on the pavement in front of a shop. As I reported:
While several police forcefully pushed him to the ground, others stood around them. They seemed to see their main purpose as preventing photographers and others from seeing what was happening, with one woman officer in particular following my every move to block my view, while I could hear the protester on the ground shouting that he was not resisting and asking why they kept on hurting him. From the brief glimpses I got as police attempted to prevent me seeing what was happening they appeared to be using entirely unnecessary force.
The protest was continuing but I’d seen enough and taken as many pictures as I could over the day and it was time to go home.
Jobs, Services & Education, Police Violence & More: My work on Saturday May 23rd 2009 began with a march in North London before coming down to a couple of protests at Downing Street and then a march from Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard against police violence.
March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education – Highbury Fields to Archway
Around 1500 jobs had been lost recently in North London, including around 550 mainly support workers from London Metropolitan University, 500 civil servants from Archway tower and more at City University, where adult education is under threat.
Trade unionists from the Islington National Union of Teachers, the Public & Commercial Services Union, London Metropolitan University Unison and the University and College Union and other local groups including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association were marching from Highbury Fields to a rally at Archway in protest against these job cuts.
The cuts in education threaten courses and also the provisions including nurseries that enable many mature students who missed out on education to study and get qualifications later in life.
Speakers at the rally after the march included those from the UCU, CWU, London Metropolitan University, PCS, Islington Trades Council and local Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.
Southern Yemenis Demonstrate For a Separate State – Downing St
The state of Yemen has a long and complex history dating back to ancient times which is dealt with at some length on Wikipedia.
In the 19th century Britain attacked and occupied Aden and the surrounding region with the rest of the country being under the Ottoman Empire. In the 1960s a civil war in the north and a revolt against British rule in the south led to the foundation of two independent states, the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democractic Republic of Yemen in the south, who went to war with each other in 1972. After a ceasefire brokered by the Arab League and a further civil war the two countries were merged in 1990.
This London protest followed protests in Aden a week earlier on the 15th anniversary of an unsuccessful attempt by the southern Yemen leader Ali Salem al-Beidh to end the union with the north, which led to the 1994 civil war, lost by the South.
The protest was organised by Southern Yemenis from the Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ), based in London who want an end to the union and accuse the Yemeni government of grabbing land and property and human rights abuses. They called for an end to the union with the north.
The Reverend Billy and his ‘Life After Shopping’ Gospel choir from New York were in London on their 2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour and gave a brief performance in front of the gates of Downing St.
Police were not impressed and obviously had no idea of who the Reverend was as in response to his questions the officer concerned was diagnosed by Billy as having a “shopping problem.”
The Church of Life After Shopping believes that we need to “back away from the product” and resist the way that advertising and the media persuade us to live only thorough consuming corporate products, and get down to experiencing life directly.
Excessive consumption is clearly at the root of climate change and the demand for incessant economic growth is clearly a long term impossibility in a finite planet. We need to be planning for a fairer sharing of resources between rich and majority worlds and an economy based on sustainability rather than growth – which will clearly mean lower levels of wasteful consumption and a concentration on necessities rather than luxuries.
As Billy made clear, following the G20 summit and the pathetic waste and greed shown in the continuing parliamentary allowances scandal, our government and MPs are clearly in need of the Life After Shopping Gospel.
National Demonstration against Police Violence – Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard.
The United Campaign Against Police Violence was set up following the G20 demonstration in London when Ian Tomlinson, a man not taking part in the demonstration, was assaulted by police and died. Many protesters and some press were also attacked by police during the protest.
It brought together trade unionists and activists involved in organising the G20 Meltdown demonstration as well as campaigners against deaths in police custody particularly those in the United Families & Friends Campaign, UFFC, including the families of two men who died in Brixton Police Station, Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg.
The protest was led by a coffin with a brass plate “FOR ALL OUR LOVED ONES WHO DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY”, and included a giant red figure representing one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – who led the four marches that converged on the Bank of England in the G20 demonstration. Prominent in the march and rally were Professor Chris Knight and Sean Rigg’s two sisters, Marcia and Samantha and the Rev Billy added his voice through a giant megaphone.
At the rally outside New Scotland Yard on Victoria Street there were speeches and a minute of silence for those who had died before the release of black balloons to represent the dead.
The police had until almost the end of the event acted on their best behaviour, arranging for the safe movement of the protest and joking with press and talking calmly with the protesters. The protesters were clearly angry about police violence but the protest was restrained and orderly
But as the rally was about to draw to a close in front of the police headquarters a police van drove up and a woman officer interrupted proceedings to read a statement telling everyone their presence was illegal. It seemed inexplicable other than as a deliberate attempt to try to provoke a violent reaction from the peaceful crowd, but the organisers managed to quieten things down and the rally continued.
On Wednesday 31st March 2010 I reported on three unrelated protests in London.
Ford/Visteon Workers March For Pension Justice
In 2000 Ford when split of some of its parts factories to Visteon, a company described as ‘An Enterprise of Ford Motor Company’ and initially with the same shareholders, promising the workers their conditions and pensions would remain exactly the same as they had been with Ford. Ford’s assurances were repeated by Visteon.
But in 2009 Visteon closed down and workers in their factories in Belfast, Enfield, Swansea and Basildon were given just six minutes to leave the sites. In Belfast and Enfield workers refused and occupied the sites for a month, but were let down by their union, Unite who failed to give them support. The occupations eventually forced Visteon/Ford to pay the redundancy pay they were entitled to under their agreements, but pensions were not covered and they only received the lesser amounts covered by Pension Protection Fund compensation.
Since then their fight for the pensions they were promised has continued. I met around 500 former Visteon workers outside the Unite Offices in Theobalds Road, Holborn, where many wore hats and t-shirts with the Ford logo, but with the name replaced by the word ‘Fraud’, which succinctly expressed their view of the company’s action.
I marched with them to Downing Street where they had problems in delivering a letter and petition. As I commented then: “it does now seem unnecessarily complicated and difficult to get access to our elected government, hiding away behind their tall gates and high security. Its both an expression of and doubtless fuels their paranoia over terrorism far in excess of the real threat.”
The marchers then went on to a rally in Parliament Square.
Their fight for a fair deal over their pensions went on for another four years, when eventually as the case was about to go to the High Court, Ford agreed to top up the Pension Protection Fund compensation so that they would receive the full value of benefits accrued when working for Ford. It didn’t cover the nine years they had worked for Visteon, but Unite recommended acceptance as it would settle the claim without the expense (and possible failure) of a court hearing.
Ethiopians Protest Bloodthirsty Tyrant – Downing St
Ethiopians came from across the UK to for a day of demonstration opposite Downing St where Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was co-chairing the UN climate finance group. They demanded the UK stop appeasing the Ethiopian dictator, and calling for the release of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa and other political prisoners in Ethiopia.
Zenawi who became chair of one of the leading military groups fighting in the Ethiopian Civil War was the leader of a coalition that took power in 1991, becoming President then and was Prime Minister from 1995 until is death in 2012. His control of the military made Ethiopia an effective one-party state.
Although the country formally has democratic organisation and elections, elections have been rigged and oppostion politicians jailed, notably the leader of the main opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, Mideksa (or Midekssa), a former judge. Many other politicians and journalists have also been jailed and in 2007 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named the country as “the world’s worst backslider on press freedom over the previous five years.”
Human rights violations and corruption are rife in Ethiopia, and food aid, education and jobs all depend on membership of the ruling party. His opponents regard Zenawi as a bloodthirsty tyrant and call for him to be brought to trial at the ICC at The Hague on charges of genocide. Human Rights Watch (HRW) have accused it of war crimes in the Somali regions of Ethiopia and against the Anauk communities in Gambella in 2003-4. Human rights abuses have continued in Ethiopia since Zenawi’s death.
Ethiopia is one of the larger countries in Africa and has received large amounts of development aid and humanitarian support from the USA and the UK.
Rioters United! 20 Years Since the Poll Tax Riots – Trafalgar Square,
The largest protest against Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax was in central London on Saturday 31 March 1990, shortly before the tax was due to come into force. Unfortunately I had missed that event, probably deciding it was best to keep out of trouble. Back in 1990 I was photographing relatively few protests, mainly concentrating on urban landscapes and culture.
Around 30 people turned up for a rally to commemorate the occasion when “the London mob who brought Thatcher down … as well as to promise that the mob were still in business and to pronounce sentence on politicians.”
The ‘Carnival of Death‘ they were promising was not of course a literal death threat, but street theatre in which the effigies of George Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Nick Griffin were to be executed at a May Day Party. As Chris Knight reminded the gathering, “the only good politician, the only honest politician is a dead politician.”
Our police often fail to understand the difference between rhetoric and reality, and protests involving anarchist groups such as Class War are often ridiculously over-policed, sometimes with disastrous consequences, but almost always provoking more violence than they prevent. On April 1st 2009 for the G20 – Financial Fools Day they had turned up with squads of riot police psyched up to batter largely innocent and joyful protesters – and one of the police killed a newspaper seller simply walking home through the area.
So in my account of this event in Trafalgar Square I was at pains to tell them that the ‘Carnival Of Death’ was “called a carnival; if you want to take part, come ready to dance.”
Shortly after people began the commemoration, a PCSO came to tell those taking part they were not allowed to hold protests or other events in Trafalgar Square without permission. When he was laughed at, he brought over a Heritage Warden who told us the Square was the property of the GLA (Greater London Authority), and that permission was needed for events.
“Fine” said those present. “The GLA is a public body; we own it, this is a public place and we give ourselves permission and intend to continue.” As I pointed out in my account, Trafalgar Square is not just a public place, but one that since its building in the 1830s has been a traditional place for demonstrating radical dissent. It was a tradition that those present were determined to continue.
Fortunately the dozen or so police who arrived shortly after the PCSO had phoned to call for reinforcement simply stood and watched and had enough sense not to try and stop the commemoration, which ended after around 30 minutes when the organisers decided it was time to go down the pub.
At the end of the event, copies of an anti-Election manifesto and a suitably defaced poster showing the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and BNP leaders were distributed by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group. They advised us to “Use your cross wisely”, under a picture of the four leaders in the cross-hairs of a gun sight, and attached to the bottom was a ‘Free Gift’ – a safety match, with the message ” Burn Your Ballot”.
As they wrote: “It’s time to end the unjust, corrupt system of terror and build a fair, equal society that will benefit the majority. We all know voting doesn’t change anything and our collective apathy allows this folly to continue. It’s time for REAL change. It’s time for revolution.”
Protests had begun against a small EDO-MBM factory at Moulsecoomb on the outskirts of Brighton in 2003 after the press had revealed that it was making parts for a guided bomb that was being used in the invasion of Iraq.
Police push Smash EDO protesters, 2010
In April 2005, EDO attempted to get a wide-ranging injunction to prevent protests at the site, including stepping onto the road outside the factory, playing music and taking photographs. This was the start of a lengthy legal action in which the UK Attorney-General became involved, as the defendants had submitted a detailed dossier on war crimes involving air strikes on civilian areas and infrastructure and were arguing that the invasion was an illegal war of aggression in breach of the UN Charter.
The Wikipedia article states “The court found that if there was an imminent war crime that the protesters believed on reasonable grounds, was about to take place, in which EDO were complicit, then preventative direct action could lawfully be taken against the company without waiting for the authorities of the state to intervene. This ruling effectively allowed proportionate direct action against companies by protesters, if the threat of the crime was imminent and specific.”
Coffins to remember the 1417 Palestinians killed – some by Brighton-made bombs
Some of the defendants signed an out of court settlement with EDO in April 2005 after it was put forward by Keir Starmer and they were then told legal aid would be withdrawn unless they agreed. They then intervened with a suggestion which was them he would withdraw their legal aid and they signed “undertakings not to do certain things that they had never done and had no intention of doing” with EDO agreeing to pay their costs, as well as their own, and the injunction against those not in court was lifted.
The case against three defendants who were conducting their own defence continued as they refused to sign these undertakings. In March 2006 a judge agreed with them that EDO had failed to make the preparations for a speedy trial as ordered by the court, and the company dropped the case rather than face further proceedings for abuse of process, paying the full costs of all those involved. The whole legal business is thought to have cost EDO between £1-1.5m, more than a years annual profit for the Brighton factory.
Police block the road to the factory
In 2009 weapons supplied by EDO were being used in the Israeli attacks on Gaza and a small group of activists decommissioned’ the factory to prevent exports to Israel. Again EDO went to court and they were again unsuccessful with the court finding all of those charged not guilty.
On Monday 18th January 2010, the first anniversary of the end of the Israeli war against Gaza, I went to photography Smash EDO activists in Brighton who were protesting against arms manufacturer EDO MBM/ITT who made some of the weapons that killed 1417 Palestinians, mainly the elderly, women and children, during the three-week assault.
Despite earlier rulings that such protests were legal, the police had come determined to stop this one taking place, responding to the protesters who they probably outnumbered with an impressive display of force and violence as they attempted to make their way to protest at the factory.
I went with the protesters as they tried to go around the police lines through the woods and along a footpath and was able to photograph some of the confrontations. You can see more of what happened on that day in the pictures and the captions in my post on My London Diary.
What I don’t mention there is that like many of the protesters I was also assaulted several times by some of the officers while taking pictures, and at one point only just managed to stop myself going over a roughly 50ft drop when pushed violently by one of them. Other officers helped me up and to move away from the edge, but it was at times a scary event to cover. I was bruised and shaken as well as tired and left Brighton while the police were still harassing the protesters who had marched back towards the centre of the town.
Protests continue at EDO’s factory, now led by Brighton Against the Arms Trade, after the Moulsecoomb factory was found in 2019 to have produced arms used in a Saudi ‘attack that violated international law’ against a civilian target in Yemen and to be involved in helping Turkey to get around US attempts to prevent the proliferation of drone warfare.
EDL Saved by Police in Slough – 1st February 2014.
Berkshire Anti-Fascists were among those trying to stop the EDL marching
I don’t often go to Slough. While I wouldn’t entirely share John Betjeman’s sentiments “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now” it isn’t one of my favourite places, and although its only a fairly short bike ride or bus journey away, I seldom feel moved to go there.
Back in the 1990s I did go to take pictures, particularly on the trading estate, the largest industrial estate in single private ownership in Europe. I was then working on a project related to Thatcher’s de-industrialisation of the UK, as well as beefing up the almost non-existent selection of industrial buildings in one of our national collections.
And later in the 2000’s I rode there a couple of April Sunday mornings to photograph the annual Sikh Vaisakhi procession from the Gurdwara in the north of the town, always a very enjoyable experience. Most recently I went to reclaim my phone which I’d dropped on a bus journey and was handed in at the bus station after the driver found it at the end of the route. And I’ve been driven through Slough a few times on the way back from walks in Burnham Beeches and other sylvan walks in the countryside on its fringes.
But on February 1st eight years ago I was there for a very different reason. A couple of hundred EDL supporters from around the country had come to march to a rally in the centre of Slough in an anti-Muslim protest over plans for a new mosque and Islamic community centre.
Large numbers of local people along with a few activists had gathered to opposed them, probably outnumbering them by around 10 to 1. As well as local Asian youths and trade unionists there were black-clad anti-fascists and supporters of Unite Against Fascism. There were two distinct large groups both holding rallies and hoping to prevent the EDL from marching through the centre of the town to hold their rally.
Unusually, as I wrote:
The EDL seemed determined to show they could behave rather better than on many previous occasions, and had banned drinking on the protest. There were plenty of EDL stewards on hand having an occasional word with anyone who seemed to be getting out of hand. A man who started to shout out their well-known chant “Allah is a pedo” was greeted by shouts to stop and quickly grabbed, though later things seemed to get a little out of hand with a large group if not the entire protest joining in with chanting “Allah, Allah, who the f**k is Allah.”
There was also a very large police presence, including a number of mounted police, and they very physically cleared a way for the march, with a number of charges by police horses and some very rough handling. As I wrote: “There were a number of minor injuries caused by police and protesters, and I was hit by a barrier thrown over by EDL supporters as well as a plastic bottle thrown by an Asian youth, as well as getting a few bruises from the pushing, mainly by police.”
The barrier hit me as I was attempting to photograph the EDL rally from outside the barriers and police around it. It hit me on one ankle and was extremely painful, and for a few minutes I could hardly walk. But soon I decided nothing seemed to be broken and managed to hobble around and take just a few more pictures.
Then I decided I’d done enough and needed to rest my ankle. Fortunately I’d come by bus, as cycling home would have been agony, and I was able to leave the town centre and sit on the bus for the longish ride home. Fortunately it isn’t a very long walk from the bus stop.
Margareta D’Arcy, Education and Africans in Israel Three protests on Wednesday 22nd January 2014
Release Margaretta D’Arcy Now! Irish Embassy
Selma James calls for the release of Margaretta D’Arcy
I don’t think my path has ever crossed, at least not knowingly, with that of ‘Guantanamo Granny’ Margaretta D’Arcy, though Facebook tells me we have 163 mutual friends. My eldest brother, around her age but long since dead, may well have sat down with her on Whitehall with Bertrand Russell’s Committee of 100 back in 1961. Her life has been “decades of playwriting, acting, pageantry, pirate radio, books, peace activism, protest and imprisonment whilst bringing up her family of boys. She addresses Irish nationalism, civil liberties and women’s rights.”
Her political activities led to imprisonment in Northern India, in Armagh, in Holloway (for protests at Greenham Common against Cruise missiles.) This protest came after she was due in court after being jailed for lying down on the runway at Shannon in a peaceful direct action by members of Galway Alliance Against War against the use since 2001 of Shannon by US war planes in violation of Irish neutrality – and she served three months for refusing to sign a bond against further trespass on the airport.
The protest at the Irish Embassy called for her immediate release and was supported by organisations including the Global Women’s Strike, Troops out of Ireland, Winvisible, Women of Colour, Kilburn Stop the War, Labour Caribbean Solidarity, Payday Men’s Network, Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group.
Students march to protect Education
London University Students held a peaceful protest to show they intend to keep up their protests for democratic, public education free from exploitation and police violence and to support university cleaners on a 3-day strike for ‘3 Cosas’ – sick pay, holidays and pensions – and for recognition of their trade union, the IWGB.
After a rally outside the University of London Union in Malet St they marched on a tour of key sites including Senate House, the University & Colleges Employers Association in Woburn House in Tavistock Square, Holborn Police station, where they protested loudly against police violence and in particular at the execution by police of Mark Duggan and ending with another short rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
At the Tavistock Square offices, a few of those in a black block at the front of the march made a brief token entry into the lobby, accompanied by rather more photographers and videographers, and some paint was thrown at the outside of the building, hitting several protesters and photographers.
Solidarity with African Refugees in Israel
People protested close to the Israeli Embassy in response to a call by African asylum seekers for international action to support their protests against the arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and inhumane treatment of refugees inside Israel.
Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers have been protesting on the streets of Israel since the beginning of the month, holding mass rallies against their treatment by the Israeli authorities. New laws mean anyone entering the country without proper papers to be held for up to a year without trial, and for those who are already in the country to be held in infinite detention, at a detention facility in the Negev desert which like many other Israeli prisons is run by the private security company G4S.
Although there are around 50,000 African refugees in Israel, only a few hundred have had their applications processed. Most live illegally on the streets, taking whatever work is available in the ‘black economy’, with constant exploitation and threat of arrest. A recent strike by those working as cleaners, cooks, dishwashers and other low paid workers had brought many restaurants, hotels and businesses to a standstill.
Police tried to move the protesters to the opposite side of the busy main road, still further from the embassy which is in a private street, but they refused to move. Eventually police gave up and brought some cones from across the road to allow others to pass the growing protest in safety.
