premature deaths | >Re-PHOTO

Forgotten Journalists, Immigration Deaths & Traffic Fumes – 2017

Forgotten Journalists, Immigration Deaths & Traffic Fumes: On Thursday 21st September I photographed a protest in Islilngton against the deaths and detention of journalists in Eritrea, a protest at the Home Office following the the deaths of men in immigration detention centres and ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ bringing traffic to a halt at rush hour to dance in Trafalgar Square in a short protest about the illegal levels of air pollution.

Free forgotten jailed Eritrean Journalists – Eritrean Embassy, Islington

Sixteen years earlier in September and October 2001 Eritrean dictator Isayas Afewerki closed all independent media and began the arrests of journalists and opposition politicians.

Around a dozen prominent journalists were arrested along with politicians. Since then they have been in isolation without charge, without trial and without contact with the outside world. Nobody knows their whereabouts and only four are now thought to be still alive.

One man with dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, Dawit Isaak, was in 2024 awarded the Swedish Edelstam human rights prize for his exceptional courage. In 2001 he had founded Eritrea’s first independent newspaper Setit which had called for democratic reforms and had criticised the government. His daughter accepted the prize on his behalf. If still alive he is now 60, having been in jail for 23 years.

The imprisoned journalists were represented at the protest by empty chairs, with people sitting on them holding posters showing the names and photograph of those thought to be still living. Others stood with similar posters of those thought dead as well as some with pictures of the missing politicians.

More at Free forgotten jailed Eritrean Journalists.

No More Deaths in immigration detention – Home Office

The protest had been called at short notice after the death was announced of a Chinese man held at Dungavel immigration detention centre. Earlier in the month a Polish man took his own life in the Harmondsworth centre after the Home Office refused to release him despite the courts having granted him bail.

Since 1989 there have been 31 people who have died in immigration removal centres. “Britain is the only country in the EU which subjects refugees and asylum seekers to indefinite detention, and the conditions in the detention centres have been criticised in many official reports and media investigations.” It leads some to lose hope.

No More Deaths in immigration detention

Trafalgar Square blocked over pollution deaths

“Campaigners from ‘Stop Killing Londoners‘ cleared Trafalgar Square of traffic in a short protest against the illegal levels of air pollution in the capital which result in 9,500 premature deaths and much suffering from respiratory disease.“

Trafalgar Square, an iconic meeting place at the heart of London is also a major traffic junction, with five major roads bringing traffic in and taking it away with often long queues. Stopping the traffic at all five points needed careful planning and coordination, with five groups with large banners stepping out and blocking traffic.

The square itself was greatly improved when the road along its northern side was pedestrianised and the current terrace built with its wide steps leading down into the rest of the square. Though I think a more drastic pedestrianisation of both Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square along with Westminster Bridge – with some provision for buses, cycles and horse-drawn vehicles – would now be a very welcome improvement.

The protesters had planned to hold up the traffic for ten minutes. They told drivers, a few of whom were irate, that the protest would only be brief and to stop their engines to cut pollution – though most failed to do so. The protesters then danced in the roads to loud music from the sound system they had brought with them.

Among those leading the protest was Roger Hallam, recently released from a four year prison sentence for organising a series of protest to block the M25 which took place in November 2022. Earlier this month, three of the activists who were on trial for actually climbing the gantries in the protest against the government’s plan to licence over 100 new oil and gas projects against all expert advice were unanimously found not guilty by a jury which decided they had a reasonable excuse for their actions.

The activists stopped their protest which was to demand action by the Mayor and TfL after about the ten minutes they had previously decided it would last and when police came and asked them to do so they immediately left the roads.

Since 2017 under London Mayor Sadiq Khan, elected in 2016, London pollution levels have dropped dramatically with the first 24-hour Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, extended in 2023 to cover the whole city, the switch to less polluting vehicles including buses and taxis and the encouragement of cycling and other measures. Protests such as these and others will certainly have helped spur the city into action.

More at Trafalgar Square blocked over pollution.

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Pollution, Corporate Greed & Cycle Deaths

Pollution, Corporate Greed & Cycle Deaths: Protests in London on Thursday 12th October 2017.

Roadblocks against Air Pollution – Trafalgar Square

On the day the the London Assembly were discussing the problem of air pollution in London, campaign group ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ carried out a series of short protests holding up traffic in London to draw attention to the problem. They had begun the day by a briefly blocking Tower Bridge, close to City Hall, in the morning rush hour, too early for me to easily cover. Many had criticised the group for these protests which hold up traffic, but it proved effective for getting some media coverage for the issue, when almost all protests go unreported.

Their message was simple. The early deaths each year of almost 10,000 Londoners due to air pollution is a health emergency and the politicians need to prioritise the lives of Londoners over the special interests of the car and oil companies.

As well as early deaths, air pollution is also the cause of health problems that make life miserably for many as well as being a drain on the resources of our health system. And road traffic is a major source of pollutants including nitrogen oxides and particulates that cause most of these health problems.

Roadblocks against Air Pollution

Prime Minister, Please Sentence – Downing St

As I rushed down Whitehall later I came across this long row of banners along the whole frontage of the protest pen opposite Downing Street. They relate to the case of John Marshall (no relative) a former nuclear engineer who alleges he is a victim of corporate greed which has ruined his career and his family since around 2010, naming Amec, Sellafield and others involved including Derek Twigg MP and calling for justice. Twigg has been Labour MP for Halton in Cheshire since 1997.

There had been an earlier protest with the same banners here a few months before but there was nobody present to ask more about the case when I made these pictures and it remains something of a mystery.

Prime Minister, Please Sentence

Cyclists Kensington Vigil & Die In – Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall

Campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists held a die-in vigil outside Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall in protest after a young 36 year old woman died at Chelsea Bridge last week when the driver of a heavy goods vehicle turned left crushing her, the second cyclist killed by a HGV in the borough this year.

The point out that Kensington & Chelsea is one of the worst London boroughs in opposing plans for protected cycle lanes, bus-stop cycle by-passes and 20mph speed limits. The borough had failed to build even a single metre of protected cycle lanes, and cyclists in the borough including children and pensioners have to share the roads with lorries, cars and buses.

The protesters demanded that the borough end its opposition to safer cycling schemes and provide suitable infrastructure to make cycling safe in the area. They also called on TfL to redesign the Chelsea Bridge roundabout where 36 accidents had been reported in the previous year.

Many of the cyclists who die each year do so when lorries turn left at junctions with the driver unable to see a cyclists on the left of them who gets crushed under their heavy vehicle. The protest demanded that the Transport Minister legislate urgently to introduce the long-demanded regulations for safer HGV design which would eliminate the huge blind areas and get older unsafe vehicles off the road.

TfL had made plans to fine lorries and other vehicles which illegally drive into mandatory cycle lanes, but have been held up by doing so as the Transport Minister has not issued to order to allow them to do so. Protesters demaned this be issued immediately.

Among those who spoke at the event were Victoria Lebrec, a cyclist who had to have a leg amputated after a skip lorry failed to see her, Stop Killing Cyclists co-founder Nicola Field, other cyclists who had survived accidents and Cynthia Barlow OBE whose daughter was killed by a concrete lorry in 2000. She had become chair of the charity RoadPeace which empowers and support the families of those who are killed and injured on the roads and fights and fights to improve vehicle safety.

Cycling instructor Philppa Robb said that Kensington & Chelsea has a good cycle training programme but the borough has totally failed to proved a safe infrastructure for cyclists and so few residents feel safe to use their bikes.

After the die-in Stop Killing Cyclists co-founders Donnachadh McCarthy spoke and Nicola Field read out one of the posters that someone had brought to the protest, “Why does Kensington & Chelsea give rebates to rich f**kers yet cheapskates vulnerable suckers? Safe Streets 4 All’“

The council implemented a partially segregated cycle lane in Kensington High Street in 2020 but it was removed after vocal complaints from some motorists. In 2023 they consulted on proposals to restore the cycle lanes there and on Fulham Road and found a large majority were in favour of some restoration. However this was only for a dashed line advisory lane rather than one properly segregated from traffic, although this may later be upgraded.

More at Cyclists Kensington Vigil & Die In.

Stop Killing Londoners

Stop Killing Londoners: In the rush hour on Friday 2nd August Rising Up environmental protesters in Stop Killing Londoners briefly blocked the busy Marylebone Road at Baker St in ‘Staying Alive’ road-block disco protest to raise awareness and call for urgent action over the high pollution levels from traffic on London streets which cause almost 10,000 premature deaths in the city each year.

The recent court decision that the Mayor of London can go ahead with the ULEZ expansion planned for the end of August 2023 will be welcomed by many Londoners, despite the continuing protests against it over recent months. According to Transport for London (TFL), 9 out of 10 cars seen driving in outer London already meet the ULEZ emissions standards and so will not need to pay the daily charge.

It is nothing like the blanket scheme many of the protesters allege. Almost all petrol vehicles under 16 years old or diesel vehicles under 6 years old already meet the emissions standards and will be exempt, as will motorcycles etc built since 2007, lorries, taxis, most vans, buses and coaches. There are various exemptions and grace periods for disabled and some other users, and all vehicles over 40 years old are also exempt.

But of course it will cause hardship for some car users, particularly those on low incomes who live outside London but drive into it for work and who will not be eligible for the Mayor’s £110m scrappage scheme for “Londoners on certain low income or disability benefits, and eligible micro businesses (up to 10 employees), sole traders and charities with a registered address in London.” They would be helped if boroughs outside the London border would also offer scrappage schemes.

Back in 2017, Stop Killing Londoners decided to protest to raise the profile of the damage that air pollution at illegal levels was doing to Londoners. Polluting road vehicles produce around half of that pollution, and it is a problem in outer areas of London as well as in the centre – and also in at least some areas of the fringe, including where I live.

The scientific evidence shows that air pollution in London causes thousands of early deaths each year, although there are some differences about the actual number. The studies quoted by Stop Killing Londoners suggest it was over 9,000 a year, though TfL quotes a figure roughly half that.
But as well as those who die, many others suffer from life-changing illnesses caused or exacerbated by the polluted air, including cancer, asthma and lung disease as well as dementia.

Most dangerous pollution is invisible – oxides of nitrogen and small particles in the air, though we can often smell it in London, and we see larger particles deposited on our roads. Since the ULEZ zone was introduced in central London nitrogen oxide levels have almost halved. But cutting dangerous particulates means reducing the number of vehicles on our streets, so we need to see further money going into making cycling safer and improving public transport.

Like the ULEZ expansion, the protest wasn’t welcome with some drivers, although the protesters made clear with notices and on a megaphone why they needed to protest and that they would only hold up traffic for a few minutes – less than some delays caused by road works and their temporary lights. A few left their vehicles and came to argue, and a man in a white van tried to drive through them, only stopping when people sat on the bonnet of his van – when he threw water over them.

Stop Killing Londoners decided that TfL seemed to be doing very little in 2017 to cut pollution and intended their protests to push them into action. Even Boris Johnson as Mayor until 2016 had realised he had a legal obligation to do something about it and had begun plans for a ULEZ zone, but little happened until Sadiq Khan became mayor in 2016. And the ULEZ zone only came into effect in April 2019. Perhaps the series of protests may have accelerated its introduction as they did make news headlines.

Stop Killing Londoners road block

Clean Air and Fair Pay – 2019

Clean Air and Fair Pay – 2019. Two protests on Friday 12th July 2019 over different issues in different parts of London meant I had to leave the first before the rally at the end of the march.

XR East London marches for clean air – Bethnal Green

The march from Paradise Gardens at the centre of Bethnal Green to Hackney Town Hall was the initial event in a weekend of play, protest and education which Extinction Rebellion East London had organised under the title ‘East London Uprising’.

Paradise Gardens was an obvious and appropriate if ironic meeting point for this march calling for the urgent action on the environment we need if the planet is to remain habitable. Although this has been protected commonland since 1678, this public green space is a thin and rather neglected strip between the busy Cambridge Heath Road and Paradise Row, a narrower street lined mainly by Grade II listed houses. It used to be simply a part of Bethnal Green Gardens which are on the east side of the main road but got its current name from Paradise Row – and the northern part of the gardens across the traffic-clogged road became Museum Gardens.

Until shortly before this protest this small area of park had been closed as it was being used by contractors for nearby construction work, with the proviso that they restore it after their work was finished. This appeared to largely have been done, and had not affected the main attraction of the area, the dozen or so large trees along both edges.

When I arrived, people were still getting ready for the march, though most were simply standing around and waiting, some were getting their faces painted while the marching band were practising playing together, and the march stewards were getting their instructions. But finally people lined up behind the main banner with its message ‘THE AIR THAT WE GRIEVE’ and moved onto the fume-laden Cambridge Heath Road.

Air pollution is a huge problem in London, with many areas well above the EU’s legal limits for various pollutants much or all of the time. Traffic is a major source both of gases such as nitrogen oxides and also particulates, and moving towards electric vehicles, though an improvement will not solve the problem as much of the most dangerous particulates come from tyres and brakes. We need to cut traffic, by reducing the need for movement, shifting hugely to public transport and moving to using bicycles, electric bicycles and scooters particularly for shorter journeys.

Air pollution is said to be responsible for almost 10,000 premature deaths in London each year, and a much larger number suffer from serious lung and other conditions from it, greatly reducing their quality of life and creating a heavy burden and costs for our healthcare system. But encouraging people to adopt healthier means of transport needs much more spending on making these safer and more convenient.

The march up one of the area’s busier roads was largely uneventful, though it will have delayed many on their journeys through the area, but it will also have made many people in the area more aware of the problems. Those who drive in London are used to delays, with an overcrowded system in which any minor problem can cause lengthy delays – and as a bus passenger it isn’t unusual I often find myself getting off and walking when I’m in a hurry.

I left the march shortly after it moved across the border from Tower Hamlets into Hackney and was going up Mare Street towards the Town Hall. I was sorry to have to miss the childrens’ assembly which was to take place there at the end of the march, but wanted to be sure to be in time for the protest at Senate House in the centre of London.

More pictures: XR East London marches for clean air

IWGB welcome new Vice Chancellor – Senate House, University of London

Most of the workers carrying out essential but low paid jobs at the University of London are not employed by the university but by contractors who provide their services to the university. This outsourcing results in the workers being poorly paid, often bullied and employed with only the minimum legal conditions of employment.

For years they have been protesting to be employed directly by the university and so get the same pay and working conditions as other staff in similar jobs that are on the payroll. In particular they want the same sick pay, holiday pay and pensions, and of course the London Living Wage.

Their campaigns have met with some progress – and three years on many have been brought in house, but the university dragged its feet for many years, spending large amounts on extra outsourced security staff and refusing to talk with the unions representing the low paid workers. Although trade union legislation means that as employers have to recognise unions, neither the contractors who employed these workers nor the university in whose premises they worked were willing to recognise or negotiate with their unions.

Progress has only been made by direct actions such as this by the grass-roots trade union IWGB, and by strikes by the workers. They had tried to meet with the new Vice-Chancellor Wendy Thomson but their request had simply been ignored.

After a rally at the main gates and a protest outside Student Central (the former University of London Union, closed down by the University because it supported the workers) the protesters returned to Senate House. A small group pushed down some flimsy barriers with the extra security unable to stop them and the rest surged in after them to dance noisily in protest in the yard in front of the locked entrance to Senate House.

More at IWGB welcome new Vice Chancellor

Refugee Children, Dead Cyclists & A Squat

Refugee Children, Dead Cyclists & A Squat – 11th February 2017

Dubs Now – Shame on May

Five years ago, on Saturday 11th February 2017, a crowd of supporters of Citizens UK and Safe Passage joined Lord Alf Dubs at Downing St to take a petition to Theresa May urging her to reverse the decision to stop offering legal sanctuary to unaccompanied refugee children.

The Tory government had been forced into an unusual humanitarian response when Parliment passed the Dubs amendment, and they were then given a list of over 800 eligible children – although there were known to be more whose details were not recorded. And because of Lord Dubs, around 300 have been allowed into the UK. But although twice that number remain in limbo, many in the Calais camps, Prime Minister Theresa May decided to end the scheme.

Among those who spoke at the protest before an emergency petition with over 40,000 signatures was taken to Downing St were speakers from four London Labour councils who all said they had told the government they would take more children but their offers had not been taken up.

Dubs Now – Shame on May

Invest in Cycling – Stop Killing Cyclists

Cyclists and supporters met in Trafalgar Square to march to the Treasury on the edge of Parliament Square to call for a significant increase in spending on infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians on our streets.

That week five people were killed on London streets as a result of careless or dangerous driving – accidents are rare, but such deaths are made much more likely by a road system engineered around the needs of car and other vehicle drivers and cutting their journey times through the city. Facilities for cyclists and pedestrians have long been treated as secondary and chronically underfunded.

But these 5 killed, who were remembered in the protest and die-in are a small fraction of the numbers who die prematurely each week in London as a result of high and often illegal levels of air pollution – estimated at around 180 per week, as well as the much higher number of those whose lives are seriously affected by health problems – both figures including many who drive. Powerful lobbies for motorists and vehicle manufacturers have led to the domination of our cities by cars and lorries.

There are huge health benefits from cleaning the air by cutting down traffic and congestion, and also by encouraging healthy activities including walking and cycling. And the main factor discouraging people from taking to bikes for journeys to school, work and shopping etc is the danger from cars and lorries. Better public transport also helps, particularly in cutting pollution levels, and anything that cuts the use of petrol and diesel vehicles will reduce the major contribution this makes to global warming.

Invest in Cycling – Stop Killing Cyclists

ANAL squat in Belgravia

My final event that day was a visit to 4 Grosvenor Gardens, a rather grand house short distance from Buckingham Palace (and more relevant to me, from Victoria Station.) Squatting collective the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians (ANAL) had taken over this house on February 1st after having been evicted from the Belgrave Square house owned by Russian oligarch Andrey Goncharenko which they occupied for a week.

I’d meant to go there a week earlier, but a domestic emergency had called me away earlier in the day from a protest at the US Embassy before a programme of workshops and seminars in the seven-storey squat had begun. There was nothing special happening on the afternoon I visited (though some things were happening in the evening) but I was welcomed by the occupiers, several of whom recognised me, and they were happy for me to wander around the building and take photographs.

Apart from being careful to respect the privacy of some of the occupiers who were sleeping or resting in a couple of the rooms I was able to go everywhere from the basement to the top floor, but the door leading onto the roof was locked, probably to stop any possible access from there by bailiffs. Like many other houses and hotels in the area it has a view into the grounds of Buckingham Palace, but I had to make do with the view from a rather dusty window, or the less interesting view from lower down where windows could be opened.

Few squats have blue plaques – this one for soldier and archaeologist Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, but more recently it has been in use for offices, business meetings and conferences. The squatters have tried hard to cause no serious damage and had last week turned out some people who had come to make a mess of the place.

There are around 1.5 million empty buildings in the UK, many like this deliberately kept empty as investments, their value increasing year on year. The number is enough to enough to house the homeless many times over. ANAL say that properties like this should be used for short-term accommodation while they remain empty and they have opened it as a temporary homeless shelter for rough-sleepers.

It remained in use for almost month, with the squat finally evicted at 8am on 27th February. As I ended my post, “There clearly does need to be some way to bring empty properties back into use, and councils should have much greater powers than at present to do so. Until that happens, squatting seems to be the only possible solution.”

ANAL squat in Belgravia

Fuel Poverty, NHS Staffing & Zero Hours – 2013

Eight years ago there were protests about fuel poverty and NHS staffing which seem still very much in the news today, and zero hours contracts remain a problem, though unscrupulous employers have found another unfair way to screw their workers with ‘fire and rehire’, although legal actions brought by smaller and more active unions have begun to curb some of the more obviously illegal aspects of the gig economy.

Justice Not Jumpers at NPower HQ

But fuel costs are rising fast and putting many energy companies out of business. Not that they were really energy companies, simply middlemen gambling to make a quick profit, buying energy as cheaply as they could and attracting customers to deals which have become uneconomic to honour as fuel prices have risen. The scheme to rescue their customers, passing them on to those companies still in business makes life tougher for those who have to pick them up, and with the latest company to go under – or at least into administration – means that either taxpayers or possibly electricity customers – we await the details – will have to shoulder the bill.

It’s a crisis that has its roots in the privatisation of the industry and the absurd belief in competition that has created an overpopulated market in companies taking a cut out of our bills, with others profiting from persuading people to switch suppliers. Along of course with a government failure to provide proper support for insulation of homes – as Insulate Britain have been gluing themselves to the M25 and elsewhere to highlight, as well as ending the building of onshore wind farms, failing to put investment into other renewable sources such as tidal power and instead backing climate-destroying wood burning and expensive nuclear schemes. The recent half-hearted support for heat pumps is yet another failure by government. We should have schemes that ensures that new build properties are built with either air or ground source heat pumps and high levels of insulation and provides incentives for them to have solar panels.

On Tuesday 26th November I went with fuel poverty activists to march to the offices of NPower, one of the big six energy providers to protest against the profiteering by them that leads to people having to choose between eating and keeping warm, causing unnecessary deaths.

They included people from Fuel Poverty Action, UK Uncut, the Greater London Pensioners’ Association and Disabled People Against Cuts and were protesting against the huge increase in energy costs and against the deception of the energy companies who blame price rises on ‘green taxes’. The protests, in London and at British Gas’s new Oxford HQ, as well as in Lewes and Bristol were supported by other groups including No Dash for Gas, Campaign Against Climate Change, Climate Revolution, Young Friends of the Earth, Frack Off London, Power for the People, Barnet Alliance for Public Services, Lewes Against the Cuts, SOAS Energy & Climate Change Society and Southwest Against Nuclear.

They went to the NPower offices in Threadneedle Street in the centre of the City of London because NPower is the UK’s most complained about energy company with double the customer complaints of its nearest rival EDF and higher price rises in 2013 than any of the other Big Six companies. It had then paid zero corporation tax for the past 3 years despite a 34% profit rise of £413million and in the previous winter its price hikes were estimated to have pushed 300,000 people into fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty leads to premature deaths – and the figure for these announced that day for winter 2012-3 was a shock, with an increase of almost a third on the previous year, to 31,000 people. The protesters emphasized this by carrying a coffin to the offices, with several of the wearing masks with the faces of the prime minister and chancellor, David Cameron and George Osborne, and wearing jumpers with the logos of major energy companies.

Police protected the offices of NPower while the protesters held a peaceful rally outside, where many testimonies were read from people who were having to chose between heating and eating, already cold and dreading the coming winter. In a press statement, Susan Jarrett of UK Uncut said: ‘The fact that people are dying of fuel poverty as Npower and other energy companies rake in the money and avoid tax is a scandal. This Government is not only unnecessarily cutting our services in the name of austerity but are allowing these energy companies to literally get away with murder which is why we are fighting back today.’

This winter fuel costs are higher. Global warming means our weather is far less predictable, and its possible we may have an unusually cold snap. Or we may be lucky and avoid extremes of cold. But if we do get them, then there will be more deaths.

4:1 legal minimum NHS staffing

Back in 2013, the Dept of Health was still in Richmond House on Whitehall, and nurses were there to campaign for a manadatory staffing level of one nurse for every 4 patients in the NHS. They were joined by other groups protesting against closures and privatisation in the NHS. Its probably because of protests like this and many others that the department moved to obscure offices some way down Victoria St – which at least one protest I photographed marched past without noticing and got several hundred yards down the road before they realised they had missed it. Richmond House is now set to hold Parliament while the old building undergoes extensive and very expensive modernisation.

The protest was a response to various disastrous news stories about the problems of the NHS, including the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) revealing the NHS has over 20,000 nursing vacancies and the Department of Health’s decision to downgrade (effectively close) 100 A&E departments. Protesters also urged people to sign a petition calling for the NHS to be exempted from the provisions of the EU-US trade treaty then being negotiated in secret; and post-Breixt the government has made clear they will not protect the NHS in UK-US negotiations.

Cultural Workers against Zero Hours

Finally I went to photograph PCS members from national cultural institutions in London at Tate Modern and on the Millennium Bridge protesting against zero hour contracts which give them no guaranteed weekly hours or income, while stopping them taking on other work. Employers use zero-hour contracts to cut wages, avoid holiday pay, pensions, and ensure the maximum flexibility and profit for themselves. Workers are also unable to take on other part-time work, as they are obliged to be available for work at the whim of the employer.

There have been some minor changes in the law and in 2015 employers were banned from requiring workers to get permission before accepting other work but zero hours contracts continue to be a problem for many workers. Workers on them have no way of knowing their income week to week and although in theory they have the right to refuse any work offered, this still often leads to them being offered fewer hours in future. And while in theory zero hours workers have employment rights, these are often denied – and virtually impossible for individuals to enforce. All workers – particularly those suffering from zero hours contracts – need to join an effective union.

Deaths in Eritrea & the UK and a Peace March 2017

Most embassies are in the most expensive parts of London, with a large number around Belgrave Square and others in Mayfair. Eritrea’s is in Islington and I can only recall once having been to a protest outside it. There should be more, particularly by jounalists, as Eritrea, a one-party state ruled by presient Isais Afwerki since independence in 1993, has one of the worst human rights records and, according to Reporters Without Borders, has the worst press freedom in the world. In 2001 all independent media in the country were banned and politicians and ten leading journalists were arrested and thrown into isolation without charge, without trial and without contact with the outside world. Nobody knows their whereabouts and only four were thought to be still alive in 2017.

Those still alive are still in jail and have now been held for 20 years, along with other journalists imprisoned since then. Very little is known about most of them with no official information being released, other than government denials that some have been tortured, which are widely disbelieved. They are held in jails where torture is commonplace. In December 2020, 28 Jehohova’s witnesses, some of whom had been in jail for 26 years were released, raising hopes of the families of journalists, but there have been no further releases.

On Thursday 21st September 2017 there were 12 chairs set out at the protest across the street from the Eritrean Embassy, one four each of the journalists jailed in 2001, with photographs of them all. Protesters sat on four of the chairs, representing those thought still to be alive.

I went to another protest about deaths in prisons, this time in the UK. It was called at short notice after a Chinese man in Dungavel immigration detention centre. This followed the death earlier this month at Harmondsworth detention centre of a Polish man who took his own life after the Home Office refused to release him despite the courts having granted him bail. There have been thirty-one deaths in immigration removal centres since 1989.

Britain is the only EU country which holds refugees and asylum seekers to indefinite detention, and both official reports and media investigations have criticised the conditions at these immigration prisons. The protest outside the Home Office called for an end to immigration detention, which is inhumane and makes it difficult or impossible for asylum cases to be fairly assessed.

Stop Killing Londoners blocked traffic briefly in a carefully planned operation in Trafalgar Square, which involved the simultaneous stopping of traffic at all five entrances to the road system. As in previous events, it was a token block, holding up traffic for less time than it gets halted by congestion on some busy days, and around ten minutes after it began they moved off the road, returning a few minutes later for a short ‘disco protest’, dancing on the road on the east side of the square for a few minutes until police asked them to move.

The protest was to publicise the illegal levels of air pollution in the capital which result in 9,500 premature deaths and much suffering from respiratory disease. It was one of a series of similar protests in various areas of London.

I hurried down from Trafalgar Square to Westminster Bridge, going across it just in time to meet the World Peace Day Walk as several hundred campaigners walk arrived having walked beside the Thames from Borough Market carrying white flowers. The London Peace Walk was one of a number takeing place in Barcelona, Paris and other cities around the world on World Peace Day.

The marchers wore black and walked in silence to grieve for the recent loss of precious life due to violence in all forms, including terrorist, state, corporate, domestic. They stated that there can be no peace without justice, equality and dignity for all and that “We stand together against the forces of hate and division – for peace.” At the end of their march they went onto Westminster Bridge and threw flowers and petals into the Thames.

More at:
World Peace Day Walk
Trafalgar Square blocked over pollution
No More Deaths in immigration detention
Free forgotten jailed Eritrean Journalists

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