RSF | >Re-PHOTO

Sudan & Hong Kong Protests – 8 Nov 2025

Sudan & Hong Kong Protests: Last Saturday, 8th November 2025 I photographed a London rally and march against the horrific killings in Sudan before going to the Chinese Embassy where people were protesting for freedom of expression in Hong Kong, where three pro-democracy advocates were to go on trial this Tuesday for “subversion”.

End the UK-Complicit Genocide in Sudan

Gloucester Road Station

Sudan has been a divided country more or less since it gained independence in 1956, suffering a long civil war which eventually led to independence for South Sudan in 2011 and a brutal 30 year military dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir which included an ethnic genocide in Darfur from 2003 -2020. Al-Bashir was finally ousted by a coup early in 2019 following huge protests. Since 2023 the country has been devastated by a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The war is partly one over resources and access to the Red Sea, but also has a strong ethnic dimension with the RSF being “violently Arab supremacist or ethno-fascist“. They are backed financially by the United Arab Emirates who also supply them with arms. In return the RSF has taken control of Sudanese gold mines and illegally smuggles gold to Dubai.

The RSF also control the major gum arabic producing areas of the country. Sudan’s acacia trees produce around 80% of the world total of this vital ingredient used in many consumer products from Coca-cola to lipsticks and pet food. The RSF smuggles this out to be sold on world markets.

The war between the RSF and the SAF has resulted in more than 200,000 people being killed, mainly civilians with huge numbers – perhaps 14 million -being displaced and according to the UN, “2025 will see 30.4 million people in Sudan in need of humanitarian aid due to the military conflict in the country.“

Both the RSF and the SAF are reported as carrying out war crimes. The ‘London for Sudan’ leaflet states:

“The RSF are burning villages to the ground, recruiting child soldiers, poisoning water supplies, attacking hospitals & targetting journalists.

“The SAF are carpet bombing indiscriminately, wiping out markets and other vital infrastructure in their bid for control over the region.”

In the continuing El-Fasher massacre by the RSF, “an estimated 2,500 or more civilians have been executed or murdered since 26 October 2025.” though some analysts believe the actual numbers are in the tens of thousands. The RSF are known to use rape as a weapon and have have committed executions, torture, mass displacement and deliberate starvation, armed by weapons sold by the UK to the UAE. In May Sudan took the UAE to the International Court of Justice for complicity in genocide.

The protesters pointed out the British complicity in supporting the RSF by selling arms to the UAE which are then smuggled to the RSF. They demanded that the UK government designate the RSF a terrorist organisation and called on them to impose sanctions on the UAE for their support as well as ending arms sales to them.

After a short rally with several speeches and a moving poem in English by a Sudanese woman poet the march set off along the Cromwell Road heading for a final rally. I left them at South Kensington to go to a protest at the Chinese Embassy.

More pictures in the Facebook album End the UK-Complicit Genocide in Sudan

Free the Hong Kong Alliance Three

Chinese Embassy, Portland Place

Trade unionists protested outside the Chinese Embassy in solidarity with the three Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders charged with inciting subversion under Beijing’s National Security Law for organising protests and vigils whose trial begins on 11 Nov.

They called for Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and all political prisoners to be released.

One man who continually tried to disrupt the event by shouting pro-China comments through a megaphone was finally pushed away across the road. Police argued with him and he was later arrested when he refused to obey police requests to stop.

More pictures in the Facebook Album Free the Hong Kong Alliance Three

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

15th June 2019

*Grenfell protest at Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government*

Saturday 15th July was one of those days when my local station has no trains. I don’t think it used to happen, or at least only very rarely, before we privatised the railways, but it seems to be happening on quite a few weekends every year now. At first when these weekends began there was complete chaos, with unmarked rail replacement buses where the only way to find out if they were going the right way for you was to ask the driver, who usually knew, though often didn’t know how to get there and had to send a call out to passengers asking if anyone knew where the station was.

One one memorable occasion a passenger directed a double-decker down a road that, although it was the route I might have walked, narrows halfway down to rather less than bus width. After a very tricky and lengthy reverse we got back to the main road and drove on, past the correct turning. I and other passengers jumped out of our seats to tell the driver. He drove on, looking desperately for somewhere to turn the bus in busy narrow streets, finally doing a 3 or 4 point turn where the main road widened a little almost a mile on. This time as we cam back we made sure he turned left at the correct point.

*Grenfell – 72 Dead and still no arrests How Come?*

After a few such incidents, things did get sorted out more, but still too often the rail replacement bus arrived a couple of minutes late and missed its supposed connection – apparently no one had the authority to hold it for the bus. A journey that usually took 35 minutes often ended up close to two hours (and I’d face similar chaos on the way home.) So unless there was something really important to photograph I often stayed home.

*Yvette Williams demanding the Truth and Justice For Grenfell*

My alternative was to take a bus to Heathrow or Hatton Cross where I could join the Underground, and this became more viable once I could simply swipe a credit card to pay for the ride. It was still a slow journey, but more reliable than the rail replacement lottery. And on Saturday 15 June I took the bus and made a few pictures on the way from the upper deck.

It was the day after the second anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 people died, and Justice For Grenfell had organised a solidarity march, starting and finishing at Downing St. After some speeches at Downing St, we marched to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government offices in the Home Office building to protest there, with a few more speeches before leaving to march back to Downing St for a final rally.

The event was supported by housing and building safety campaigners including Defend Council Housing and by branches of the Fire Brigades Union from around the UK.

As I walked through Parliament Square on my way to take the tube to another protest, I stopped briefly to photograph two events there. One was ‘We are the Love’ for Idlib inspired by the Black Eyed Peas song Where’s the love? to raise awareness about the massacre currently unfolding in the province of Idlib in Syria. Just along from this line of people holding large cards each with a letter of their message, and a drummer and a piper, was a small and quieter protest about the wrongful conviction of Brendan Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach in Wisconsin in 2005. The long and convoluted case which reflects badly on both the local police and the US legal system was the subject of a lenghty TV series.

By now I thought I would be too late to join the Hands Off Sudan march at its start at the UAE Embassy and guessed they might have got as far as the Egyptian Embassy, but when I arrived found just a few there waiting for the march. So I began to walk back on what I thought might be their route. I heard them before I could see them as I walked across Hyde Park corner, and the large and noisy crowd emerged from Grosvenor Cresecent as I turned down Grosvenor Place.

They were protesting after 124 peaceful protesters were massacred by Janjaweed militias (Rapid Support Forces) in Khartoum. Protests had begun in December and appeared to be causing a peaceful transition to democracy, removing corrupt president al-Bashir, until the heads of the ruling military council visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, all countries opposed to a democratic Sudan – and today’s march was going to each of their embassies.

The marchers seemed to be stopping every few yards around Hyde Park Corner and singing and dancing and shouting slogans. Half an hour after I met them they had only moved on a few hundred yards are were slowly making their way up Park Lane. I felt I had taken enough photographs and went back to Hyde Park Corner for the slow journey home via Hatton Cross.

Hands off Sudan march
‘We are the Love’ for Idlib
Grenfell Solidarity March
Staines, Heathrow, Bedfont

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.