Roger Hallam | >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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LSE Decorated Against Inequality & Corruption – 2017

LSE Decorated Against Inequality & Corruption: On Tuesday 25th April 2017 students and workers in the ‘Life Not Money’ campaign took part in “a colourful nonviolent direct action calling on the LSE to change from what they say is thirty years of growing neglect, cruelty and outright corporate greed towards workers and staff at the school to something beautiful and life affirming.”

The main organiser of the protest was Roger Hallam, currently serving time in jail for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for organising protests to block the M25 motorway in 2022, sentenced to five years, but marginally reduced on appeal to 4 years. At the time of the protest he was a Ph.D student at nearby King’s College London, “researching how to achieve social change through civil disobedience and radical movements.” I knew him from photographing him carrying out practical work on the subject on a number of occasions, mainly against air pollution from London’s traffic.

At this protest, Hallam was one of a number of people who decorated the wall of the LSE Garrick Building with water-soluble chalk including the slogan ‘CUT DIRECTORS PAY BOOST WORKERS PAY WE ALL KNOWN IT MAKES SENSE’. They also blu-tacked some small posters resembling £50 notes to the wall.

The group then sat around in a small circle on the pavement in front of their work holding a party, talking and joking and eating sandwiches. Four of them had decided they would wait and hope that they were arrested to show up the LSE and its failure to live up to its stated aims.

They pointed out to the police that they had caused no real damage and offered to remove the markings with the damp sponges that they had brought with them for the purpose, but the LSE security manager refused to let them touch the wall.

Police then handcuffed the four and took them away one by one. They offered no resistance, but Hallam went limp and police had to drag him away. I don’t think any of my pictures from the protest were used by the mainstream press at the time, but one of my pictures of the arrest did appear in quite a few newspapers at the time of his trial for the M25 incident and at his earlier trial after he was found with a toy drone without batteries close to Heathrow – in breach of bail conditions.

Earlier when I arrived at the LSE I met Lisa McKenzie who took me to the shop to show me the t-shirt with LSE written in currency symbols, pound, dollar and Euro, £$€.

This was said by the protesters to show the true face of LSE management – an institution which values money above all else and students soon fixed posters and flowers to the shop window. After this protest the t-shirt was removed from display at the shop and is no longer on sale.

This, they said was an example of the ‘Student-Led teaching‘ the LSE prides itself on, condemning the LSE’s attitude to its key low paid workers. The also said that the cleaning contractor Noonan was an exemplar of spectacularly bad management, alleging among other things that “Women have to sleep with management to get extra hours…”

The protest was in support of the campaign launched in September 2016 by the United Voices of the World during the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by McKenzie to bring the outsourced cleaning workers back into direct employment by the LSE.

I left shortly after the arrest, but returned 3 days later to view the alleged criminal damage, finding no trace of it but several security men guarding the wall.

More on My London Diary at LSE decorated against inequality & corruption.

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King’s College Divest Oil & Gas Now! Strand, London – 2017

King’s College Divest Oil & Gas Now: On Thursday 9th February a colourful protest on the pavement in front of the college’s main buildings on London’s Strand called for the college to disinvest from fossil fuels.

The world desperately needs to move away from burning coal, oil and gas for energy production and transport, as has been clear for at least the last 30 years and recent temperature rise and increasing incidence of disruptive fires, floods and other extreme weather events make impossible to ignore.

Yet governments around the world largely continue to ignore this, or make attempts which are far too little and far too late, with the recently elected demented US president even determined to increase his countries emissions, led by the lobbying of the US industry only interested in its own short-term profits.

Let the world burn seems to be the message from the “ultra-wealthy stakeholders” while they plan their doomsday bunkers in the USA, Alaska or the Antarctic complete with military security forces to keep out the raiders and angry mobs.

Yet the UK financial sector still enables to extraction of more fossil fuels which endanger the future of our civilisation and human life on the planet. Banks still bankroll them, insurance companies still insure their climate destroying activities and many respectable organisations still invest in them, including pension funds, though increasingly investors are divesting.

And one that has now divested is King’s College, who state: “In 2017, King’s committed to full divestment from all fossil fuels by the end of 2022. We achieved this target in early 2021. King’s also does not invest in tobacco and armaments. In 2023, we reached the target to invest 40% of our endowment in investments with socially responsible benefits two years early.“

Although I suspect King’s would say that this protest had no effect on their decision, I’m sure that this campaign and this very public protest was a major factor in moving them in this direction.

And it was successful because it was noisy, public and colourful, employing the kinds of methods that led the Tories to bring in new laws restricting our rights to protest and giving the police new powers to try to prevent effective protest. We still have the right to protest but are now expected to do so discretely.

The one arrest of those taking part in the Stand Up to Racism protest a few days ago on February 1st was of one of those who lit a smoke flare, and similar arrests have been made at other recent protests. Setting off of fireworks on our streets has been illegal since 1875, but only recently have police begun to enforce this against the use of distress flares in protests.

People have been arrested for sticking things on walls and windows, even though they can be readily removed without damage.

In this protest police attempted to take the names and addresses of those who had made small blobs of colour using washable paint on a concrete pillar. This was done as a gesture of solidarity with PhD student Roger Hallam, one of the leading campaigners aat King’s who was suspended by the college for writing “Divest From Oil and Gas Now. Out of Time!” in washable paint at an earlier protest. Like the blobs this had washed off easily without trace, as was other painting I photographed him doing and being arrested for in the ‘Life Not Money’ protest at nearby LSE a couple of months later

*Roger Hallam is arrested at Life Not Money protest at LSE, April 25th 2017*

Roger Hallam, one of the co-founders of Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, is now serving five years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy for organising protests to block the M25, a draconian sentence for a peaceful campaigner. Sixteen Just Stop Oil protesters were given jail sentences last year for peacefully protesting in response to the climate crisis and at their trials were prevented from defending themselves by explaining their motives to the jury. Others are being held on remand for long periods. We now have political policing, political trials and political prisoners in the UK.

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Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party 2019

Extinction Rebellion, XR, was founded in May 2018 by a small group who met in Stroud, including Gail Bradbook, Simon Bramwell and Roger Hallam along with others from the direct action network Rising Up. I’d photographed some of these people before at protests against Heathrow expansion and over air pollution on the streets of London.

Roger Hallam in particular had played a leading role in the ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ protests which perhaps had some influence on getting Sadiq Khan to take some action on this with the setting up of low emission zones, whose planned extension to the whole of Greater London is now exciting considerable controversy. I’d also photographed him at his campaign to get King’s College to divest from fossil fuel companies and supporting the campaign for better pay and conditions for low paid workers at the LSE

Police arrest Roger Hallam at the LSE — *Police arrest Roger Hallam for decorating the LSE, April 2017*

Since helping to form XR, Hallam has gone on to take part in other high profile protests and spent time in prison over breaching bail conditions by holding a toy drone without batteries close to the airport. The whole plan to fly drones in the Heathrow exclusion area had been a publicity stunt, never a serious attempt to disrupt or endanger flights, but gained a huge amount of media publicity, which perhaps helped to increase public awareness of the contribution to climate change and pollution of air transport.

XR continues to attract wide support for its non-violent protests highlighting both the devastating effects of global heating and the continuing failure of governments including our own to take action on the scale needed to combat it. It’s large public protests began with a mass reading of its ‘Declaration of Rebellion‘ in Parliament Square in October 2018 with Greta Thunberg as one of the speakers and continued with mass protests in London and elsewhere, becoming a global movement.

Its announcement at the start of 2023 that it was taking a rest caused some consternation among its supporters, but XR soon made clear that this was for a ‘100 days’ campaign to prepare for ‘The Big One’ on 21 April 2023, https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/ when they intend that 100,000 people will gather outside the Houses of Parliament “To demand a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era.”

The street party in Hackney on Saturday 9th February 2019 was rather smaller, with perhaps a thousand taking part. Unlike in some later protests the police decided to facilitate the event rather than try to block or disperse it, closing the road and setting up diversions for traffic as people blocked the usually busy A10 for two hours with speeches, music and spoken word performances, t-shirt printing, face painting and free food, with dancing to a samba band.

At the end of the two hour party after a brief march up and down a short section of the road, the protesters moved off the street to continue their protest party in Gillett Square, and shortly after this I went home.

Police after all do facilitate other large events which block our streets, in particular sporting events such as the London Marathon, some cycling events, the Chinese New Year, Notting Hill Carnival and more. But later XR protests have been more widespread and longer lasting and clearly the police’s political masters have put considerable pressure on the police to take a more draconian approach – and at times to go beyond the law to do so.

The response of the government has been to produce new laws. The Public Order Bill currently going through parliament gives much more extreme powers to police and courts, including Serious Disruption Prevention Orders which will restrict the movement of people, who they can meet and even their use of the internet, an expansion of stop and search powers, enabling them to search without any suspicion, various new protest-related offences, some vaguely defined allowing almost anything to be an offence and even police powers to shut down protests before they begin.

The Public Order Bill re-introduces most of the amendments that were rejected by the House of Lords in January 2022 and so did not form part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

*The march ended in Gillett Square, freeing the road for traffic*

Many more pictures at Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party on My London Diary.