Sharia Law | >Re-PHOTO

UAF Oppose EDL Westminster March – 2010

UAF Oppose EDL Westminster March: There is a long history of protests where anti-fascists come to oppose marches and rallies by extreme right groups in London, including of course the Battle of Cable Street, but I think we have had more of them in recent years, if not on that same scale.

But looking back on my coverage of this event of Friday 5th March 2010 what we have seen different is the policing of such confrontations. The more recent such events have seen huge mobilisations of police to keep the two groups apart, with extensive use of double barriers with a large ‘sterile’ no go area between them, and often some fairly aggressive policing and arrests to achieve this.

Attending more recent events journalists and photographers have had to choose which side of the event to be at, with often rather long detours being needed to go between the two – and having a Press Card is seldom of any use.

In 2010 police did keep the two groups apart, but only on opposite pavements of the road in front of the Houses of Parliament, and as my photographs show, I was able to move fairly freely from side to side.

Unite Against Fascism had tried to block the road a couple of hours before the EDL march after holding their rally in Old Palace Yard on the north side, but were then forced across the road onto the opposite pavement by police. I wasn’t there to see this but was told by others that there had been a few arrests when people had refused to move.

I had walked away down Millbank where the EDL were to hold a rally before marching to Parliament. I was early and nobody was there but as I had expected there were several hundred at a packed pub a couple of hundred yards further on with many standing on the pavement outside.

Most were in in a good mood and happy to talk to me and other journalists about why they were protesting – and you can read more about this on My London Dairy. I think I represented them fairly in my article, though as always they felt strongly that they did not get fair treatment in the press. I felt that the coverage was generally fairly accurate, the problem was more with the views and actions of some EDL members rather than the reporting.

As I noted in my account: “Later during the actual march I did get sworn at, threatened and given the finger, but only by a small minority of marchers, and a young female Asian journalist seemed to attract considerably more aggravation than me. There was also a considerable amount of clearly anti-Muslim shouting and singing, and the placards and slogans that attack the building of mosques seem to threaten all Muslims rather than just the extremists. The atmosphere was unpleasant, and really gave the lie to the earlier denials of racism.”

I went along with them to the rally outside Tate Britain, but the start was delayed and they went back to the pub. When it did finally start the main speaker was the Sikh Amit Singh (Guramit Singh Kalirai), and his speech seemed to me at times to be clearly racist in its attacks on Muslims. Police took no action over this or his other speeches, but three years later he was jailed for taking part in a violent attempted armed robbery.

From there the EDL were escorted by police as they marched to Parliament and taken into a pen on the north side of the road opposite the UAF. As I commented, “The first thing that many of the EDL did on arriving in the pen was to urinate against the wall of Westminster Abbey” but mostly they shouted often racist abuse at the UAF who responded with calling them racists and fascists.

The EDL made great play of denying they were racists and showing off their few Black and Asian members to the press. But there was a hugely visible difference between their largely white male crowd and those across the road which reflected the multiracial nature of London – and where women were in a majority.

After around an hour of shouting across the road the UAF crowd began slowly to drift away. Police kept the EDL in their pen but did escort a few to Westminster Station.

I decided it was time to leave. As I commented I hadn’t enjoyed spending much of the afternoon in the company of the EDL “hearing their racism and right wing simplicities. It was an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon, but I think its important to show these events and these people honestly.”

More about the event and more pictures on My London Diary at UAF Oppose EDL Westminster March.

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Brian Haw, Syria And EDL Stopped – 2011

Brian Haw, Syria And EDL Stopped: My working day on Saturday 3rd September 2011 began in Parliament Square, then an extreme right protest in Westminster, Syrians at Downing Street and finally to Whitechapel where several thousand came to stop the EDL entering Tower Hamlets.

Brian Haw Peace Protest Continues

Three days earlier, police had come to Parliament Square and taken away all of the material in the permanent 24/7 peace protest there begun by Brian Haw in 2001 and now continued after his death in June 2001 by Barbara Tucker and other supporters.

Despite the protestation by those carrying on the protest there, the police claimed the material had been abandoned and removed it. The police have for years been under pressure from politicians to end the protest and took advantage of the fact that Barbara Tucker was then being held in Holloway Prison. But a team of others had kept up the protest while she was away and were there when the police came are were still continuing the protest.

This was not the first time that the display here has been stolen by police, the most famous being in May 2006, after which a reconstruction by an artist was controversially put on display at Tate Britain. Since 2006 there had been restrictions on the size of the display allowed there and continuous harassment and arrests of Brian Haw, Barbara Tucker and others involved.

Parliament Square had then been fenced off to the public for some time, with the public denied access to the statues of Churchill, Lloyd George and others, with protests and public limited to the pavements around two sides of the square. But the fencing was useful to display a number of banners. Police did not touch the other peace protest on the pavement by Peace Strike.

Brian Haw Peace Protest Continues

Alternative Action Anti-Sharia Protest

Alternative Action brought together “patriot activist groups” from the far-right who had previously taken part in EDL protests. They said they wanted to dissociate themselves from the loutish behaviour, violence and racism of EDL protests and in particular from the inflammatory incursion into Tower Hamlets the EDL were intending later in the day.

Among the groups involved were the English Nationalist Alliance, the British Patriotic Alliance, the Combined Ex Forces, the Ex EDL Association and the National League of Infidels. ‘Tommy Robinson’ had been reported as saying that the EDL would come to disrupt the peaceful march they had organised but this did not happen.

The setting up of Alternative Action reflects various bitter disputes over the leadership and policies of the EDL, in particular over the lack of accountability in the organisation and the behaviour of some of its self-appointed leaders, including Robinson and the ‘Jewish division’ of the EDL.

They had come to march from the Ministry of Justice to Downing Street to hand in a letter calling for one system of law in the UK and an end to Sharia courts. The march was peaceful although there was one minor incident when English Nationalist Alliance leader Bill Baker shouted at Syrian protesters, mistaking them for Islamic extremists, but others soon persuaded him to stop. Later some of those on the march expressed the view that it was inappropriate to allow protests involving foreign flags so close to the Cenotaph with its flags honouring our military dead.

Although well over a hundred had indicated on Facebook that they would march, only around 20 turned up. The march paused at the Cenotaph to lay a wreath and observe a minute’s silence in memory of the soldiers who have given their life for their country before continuing to the gates of Downing Street.

Although they had earlier made arrangements with the Downing St police liaison officer to deliver their letter, police at the gate refused to let them do so and would not take the letter. Other protests have had the same reception, which seems to me to be against the letter and spirit of democracy. The marchers then stopped on the pavement just past Downing Street for a rally and after a few minutes I left.

Alternative Action Anti-Sharia Protest

Protest Against Repression In Syria

Around a hundred members of the Syrian Community in London had marched from the Syrian Embassy to hold a noisy protest at Downing St calling for freedom in Syria and an end to oppression, atrocities and humiliation by the Assad regime.

They called on the UK to support further sanctions and bring diplomatic pressure to support the peaceful protests in Syria against the Assad regime which had begun on 15th March 2011 and had met with brutal repression.

Marches has been met with tanks, cities and villages attacked by helicopter gunships, men, women and children tortured and more than 1800 people killed, including many children. Soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians or take part in torture have been themselves killed.

Many of the women taking part wore Muslim headscarves, but there were others who did not, and although most of the drumming, dancing and flag-waving was by the men, this was not a rigidly segregated event although men and women mainly stood it separate groups. The variety of Syrian flags suggested that those taking part included those from various groups opposing the Assad regime.

Protest Against Repression In Syria

Tower Hamlets Unites Against EDL

The protest in Tower Hamlets by residents and their supporters against the plans by the English Defence League to hold a rally somewhere in their borough had started around 11am, but I only arrived later at the time the EDL rally was scheduled to start close to Aldgate East Station.

The street there was empty but blocked by a row of police who refused to let me through despite showing my press card, and I was prevented from going to where the EDL were holding their rally a short distance to the west, just inside the City of London.

Initially the EDL had planned to march through Whitechapel but home secretary Theresa May had banned marches. The EDL then tried to have a static demonstration on a supermarket car park close to the East London Mosque, but the supermarket and other possible sites in the area refused them. Pubs in the area where they intended to meet up for the protest also said they would deny access, and the RMT announced they would close the Underground stations because of the danger to staff.

Police stopped some EDL supporters and turned them back as they tried to enter London. Others got lost wandering around London trying to find pubs that would serve them, and the numbers at the EDL rally were apparently considerably less than the organisers or police had anticipated.

I gave up trying to get to the EDL rally and went instead to the large crowds who had come to Whitechapel High Street and Brick Lane to stop them, and then on to another large crowd who had come to defend the the East London Mosque. The community had clearly united to stop the EDL and there was a huge cheer when it was announced that EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) had been arrested after speaking at the EDL rally, where he had apparently boasted of having broken his bail conditions.

There was more jubilation when the crowd heard that police were moving the EDL away from the rally at Aldgate to Liverpool street and their coaches waiting across the river in Tooley Street.

The protesters began a ‘Victory March’ from the bottom of Brick Lane along Whitechapel High St, led by the Mayor, councillors and others who linked arms across the width of the road.

It stopped at the East London Mosque, but some activists decided to continue and were briefly stopped by police who told them their march was illegal because of the ban in place in Tower Hamlets.

They walked around the police who tried to stop them but a few hundred yards on stewards and some of the protest leaders including Mayor Lutfer Rahmen managed to bring the march to a halt, telling them to enjoy their victory and not continue as arrests now would become the story of the day for the press rather than it being one of a community victory over racism. They calmed down, some took up the offer of a cup of tea back in the Muslim Centre, while others, including myself, went home.

More on My London Diary at Tower Hamlets Unites Against EDL.

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Atos Deaths & Regime Change in Sudan

Atos Deaths & Regime Change in Sudan: Ten years ago on 28th September 2013 I photographed a protest in Parliament Square against the degrading and wholly unreliable tests administered by Atos to determine whether disabled peole qualify for benefits. The I continued to the Sudanese Embassy where a large crowd of Sudanese were calling for an end to the repressive regime in Sudan.

10,000 Cuts – Deaths After Atos Tests – Parliament Square

10,000 White chrysanthemums were spread on the mud and grass of Parliament Square in an act of remembrance and solidarity for over 10,000 disabled peole who have died in the three months after being made to take the degrading Work Capability Assessments run for the government by Atos.

The 10,000 are largely made up of those who already have a terminal diagnosis but still have to come and submit to the tests for ther benefits to continue for their remaining few months of life. And despite compelling medical evidence many are refused benefits and said by Atos to be ‘Fit for work’.

The ceremony took place in the square bounded by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Supreme Court and the Treasury and was organised by the 10,000 Cuts & Counting Campaign which included disability activists, Occupy activists, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and others who recognise that lives are being devastated by the government’s austerity programme.

The campaigners do not claiming that the test itself kills the 10,000, although some have been driven to commit suicide after being failed by Atos, but that such tests adminstered in the final days of life are unfeeling, unnecessary and persecute the sick and dying.

*Sophie Partridge reads the words of Karen Sherlock who died in 2012 after endess pressure and loss of benefits.*

A number of disabled people and a mother of three disabled children gave moving testimonies with many damning indictments of the failures of Atos and the Department of Work and Pensions and their lack of understading of the needs of the disabled. They had not been treated with dignity or humanity, with deliberately discriminatory policies, targets to be met, arbitrary decisions and bureaucratic incompetence. And there was a period of silence and prayers to the four corners of the square.

The Tories had obviously seen the disabled as an easy touch for cuts, thinking they would be unable to defend themselves, but organisations such as DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, have signally proved them wrong. Many of the disabled have become desperate and have been some of the most prominent and most effective protesters, not least because the police have great difficulties (and some sympathy) in dealing with them. Arresting people in wheelchairs isn’t easy.

More at 10,000 Cuts – Deaths After Atos Tests.

Sudanese Call for Regime Change – Sudanese Embassy

I left Parliament Square where the protest was still continuing with a number of people including MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn as well as several disabled activists still waiting to speak to rush to the Sudanese Embassy in Cleveland Row at the end of Pall Mall.

There a noisy crowd of around a hundred were in a protest pen calling for Omar al-Bashir and the National Congress Party to resign. The London protest was in solidarity with those that have been taking place in Khartoum over rises in fuel prices and corruption over the past six days. The protests there have been brutally attacked by the regime.

The protesters in London from ‘Sudan Change Now’ and the ‘National Sudanese Women Alliance’ see the government as a total failure in managing the country for over 23 years, presiding over a political, economic and social collapse.

They say the government disrespects the Sudanese people and ignores their education and health, with all the money going into ‘security’ spending, which does not make the people secure but is used to repress the people and fight wars, with many of the best Sudanese men and women being killed in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur.

Under the regime of Omar al-Bashir, the judicial system was base on Sharia Law, with stoning, flogging, whipping, hanging and even crucifixtion. Some saw the protests in Khartoum as the start of an ‘Arab Spring’ movement which would lead to regime change but it was not until 2019 that al-Bashir was deposed in a coup d’état, then arrested, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges.

More pictures at Sudanese Call for Regime Change.

Al-Bashir & the Sultan of Brunei

Al-Bashir & the Sultan of Brunei – On April 6th 2019 I photographed two protests in London both linked with the brutal excesses of Sharia law, in the Sudan and in Brunei.

Sudanese for Freedom, Peace and Justice – Sudan Embassy, St James’s

Sudan became united under Egyptian conquest in the 19th century and then coming under British rule in the 1880s after the British occupied Egypt in the 1880s, though since 1899 its governance was nominally shared by Britain and Egypt. After the 1952 Egyptian revolution Britain was forced to end its shared sovereignty and Sudan became independent in 1956.

Independence led to a civil war which eventually resulted in the independence of South Sudan in 2011. There was a military coup in 1958, then a return to civilian rule from 1964-9 with another military coup in 1969 and yet another in 1985 that overthrew dictator Jaafar Nimeiri. But in 1989 came the military coup led by Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who became its dictator under various titles from 1989 until 2019 when the large-scale protests in Sudan which this London protest supported led to him being deposed by the military on 11th April. Later in the year power was transferred to a mixed civilian-military Sovereignty Council.

Under al-Bashir the country had been run under a severe implementation of Sharia law, with stoning, flogging, hanging and crucifixion. In 2020 Sudan ended the rule under Islamic law and agreed there should be no state religion. It abolished the apostasy law, public flogging and the alcohol ban for non-Muslims, and criminalised female genital mutilation with a punishment of up to 3 years in jail.

The protest was large and high energy, and called for an end to the violent and corrupt Sudanese regime and for president Omar al-Bashir to ‘Just Fall’ and stand trial by the ICC for genocide in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and South Blue Nile.

Sudanese for Freedom, Peace and Justice

Brunei Sultan gay sex stoning protest, Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane

I arrived rather late at the protest outside the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane, a short walk away (though I ran much of it) from St James’s to find a rather staid protest taking place against its multi-billionaire Sultan of Brunei who has announced death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, adultery and blasphemy. The hotel was bought by him in 1985.

Although it was a colourful crowd, with a number of people in rainbow clothing and a few in drag, along with several well-known figures who spoke, including Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Emily Thornberry MP and Peter Tatchell, the protesters kept outside the hotel yard with police harassing them to keep the road clear despite there not being enough room on the pavements, and to allow cars and taxis to take and collect hotel guests to the main entrance.

It took Class War to liven up proceedings, pushing aside the barriers in front of the hotel entrance and running inside the hotel yard with their Women’s Death Brigade and Lucy Parsons banners, ignoring the attempts of security and police to stop them. They stood on the steps of the hotel entrance, stopping guests entering or leaving and after a short delay many of the other protesters joined them, bringing placards and rainbow flags.

The protesters ignored the hotel staff who told them to leave and the police who came and threatened them with arrest, and were still blocking the entrance when I left 50 minutes later.

Brunei Sultan gay sex stoning protest

London, Saturday 17th September 2011

I’d gone up to London mainly to cover the march and rally by the Secular Europe Campaign which was calling for an end to religious privileges and for European institutions to remain secular. Its main focus is the Vatican which still has enormous power and privilege – and a three billion Euro tax exemption.

*Maryam Namazie holding the ‘One Law For All’ banner*

Among the groups on the march was ‘One Law For All’, opposed to all religious laws and in particular to any attempt to impose Sharia law in the UK. It was also supported by humanist and gay rights groups including the British Humanist Association, the Central London Humanist Group, the Gay And Lesbian Humanist Association, the National Secular Society, OutRage! and the Rationalist Association.

I left the march to go to Bank, where I had expected to cover a protest, but all I found was the group having a picnic, as well as a long queue of people waiting to take a look at the interior on ‘Open House’ day. So I walked back towards Temple, pausing to take a few pictures on the way – such as the legendary giants Gog and Magog on St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street, who strike the hours and quarters using their clubs on the bells. Traditionally they were simply known at the Giants of St Dunstan, and the ‘real’ Gog and Magog are figures in London’s Guildhall, though these are only replacements installed in 1953, made by David Evans to replace those carved in 1709 and destroyed in the Blitz. These ‘Guardians of London’ are honoured every year in the Lord Mayor’s show – and according to an anonymous commentator are “Symbolic of how The City of London is a Sovereign Satanic Masonic Criminal Bankster Headquarters” and it remains a secretive and undemocratic global centre of money laundering, a criminal cartel “officially outside the authority of parliament“.

Among other things I also photographed the ‘Roman Bath‘ in Strand Lane, a slightly embarrassing National Trust property, though now managed by Westminster Council. A cistern built in 1612 that once fed a fountain in the gardens of old Somerset House, its reputation as Roman remain was an imaginative invention to promote visitors to pay to bathe in it in the 1820s. Normally visits are by appointment, but it opens on Open House weekend and the queue was short.

I was on my way to photograph the City of London Campsie Club, a branch of the Apprentice Boys of Derry, who were holding their annual Carson Memorial parade. You can read more about its origins in my post on My London Diary. Unlike the secular rally I had photographed earlier, this was an event at which I was not welcome by a small minority of those taking part.

As I wrote in 2011:

I’ve photographed this and other Orange parades over the years, and many on them have seen my work on the web and appreciated it – and sometimes used my pictures.
But a few of the nastier elements of Northern Ireland remain, and in 2008 and again while photographing this year’s parade I was threatened and pushed away by some of those taking part. It’s a thuggishness that has no place on English streets, and something that the Orange Order should take firm action against. I fully support religious freedom and the freedom to demonstrate on our streets, but there is no place for this kind of conduct. It sullies the memory of one of our great British (and Irish) jurists, and is an insult to the Protestant faith into which I was born and in which I grew up.

I don’t know why my reporting on these events should lead to such animosity from a few of those taking part. I think it has always been accurate and factual and the pictures show a colourful event and a part of the Orange tradition. Perhaps it is because I also photograph other Irish events but I think more likely that they are aware of my pictures of extreme right protests by groups including the EDL where some of them may have also been in attendance.

Apprentice Boys Carson Memoria l Parade
London Oddments
March For A Secular Europe

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.

Londoners Defeat the EDL: 2012

Londoners came out to defeat the racist EDL when Tommy Robinson decided to hold a march to a rally in Walthamstow against Muslims and Sharia Law. The area is one of London’s more ethnically diverse, with a large Muslim population as well as others of Asian and Caribbean origin and, at least in 2012, many from Romania, Poland, Hungary and other EU countries. Roughly a quarter of the population of the borough of Waltham Forest call themselves Muslim though around twice as many identify as Christian.

The ‘We are Waltham Forest’ campaign brought together many groups from the community to oppose the march, including many from the churches and mosques in the area as well as the main political parties and trade unionists as well as more active anti-fascist groups including Unite Against Fascism.

From a well-attended rally in the centre of Walthamstow people marched to block the road along which the EDL intended to march. As they marched people came out of shops and houses to applaud them and it was clear they enjoyed wide community support.

When they reached the crucial road junction, many of them sat down on the street, while others stood and watched. A samba band played and people danced and it was clear that there were more than a thousand people determined that the EDL were not going to be allowed to pass.

I went to meet the EDL march on its way into the area, and found a group of perhaps 200 surrounded by a police escort which made taking photographs difficult. But since I was getting sworn and and threatened by the marchers the police presence was welcome, and they held back one man who made a determined effort to assault me. I followed their march for some distance; there were a few protesters at the side of the road against them, but police stopped them coming close. Along around half a mile only one person shouted support, leaning out of a first floor window, and was met with a huge response from the marchers.

Police took the EDL along some back streets that led them close to the site where they had intended to hold their rally but then kettled them. Tommy Robinson and the other EDL leaders had set up a PA system but the police held the marchers a short distance away and it soon became clear that a rally there would be impossible. Although most of the opposition was non-violent, stones and other objects were soon flying through the air, and the EDL leaders had to retreat, as I did too, watching from the sidelines.

I’d decided long ago that I was not prepared to wear the kind of protective armour that many photographers use to cover protests – including various kinds of helmet, bullet proof vests, shin pads and more. Fortunately such things are seldom needed at protests in the UK, though photographers have often been targets, particularly at extreme right protests. Here it was the anti-fascists who were throwing things, not at photographers but towards the EDL, but many were falling short.

It seemed to me that a stalemate had been reached and that nothing of interest was likely to happen and I decided to go home. For once I was right – often my leaving seems to be a signal for things to kick off – but this time little more happened. Eventually the police escorted the kettled EDL march away to an Underground station so they could safely leave the area.

More about the event and many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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.

One Law for All

Islam is now the UK’s second largest religion, with 2018 Office of National Statistics figures for Great Britain of 3,372,966, around 5.2% of the population, still considerably lower than the 36 million who declared themselves Christian in the 2011 census.

Along with the rise in numbers we have also seen a dramatic rise in Islamophobia, partly driven by the exploitation of the fear and hate against the terrorism of small groups of extremists here as well as in the US and France, and more recently by the rise of ISIS in Syria – where many of those who fought against and defeated ISIS there were also Muslims.

The ‘Prevent’ strategy introduced by the Labour Government after the London bombings as an aspect of counter-terrorism was essentially aimed at de-radicalising young Muslims through community-based programmes. It stigmatised the entire Muslim community – and did so at a time when extreme right-wing organisations were growing strongly and provoking racial tensions, and removed any real attention from their illegal behaviour – and the terrorist threat they posed.

The coalition government changed ‘Prevent’ radically. No longer was it concerned with attempts to promote integration though community programmes but shifted to a police-led system to indentify individuals who might be vulnerable to ‘radicalisation’ and to provide intervention packages for them. Unfortunately there seem to be no reliable indicators of such vulnerability.

The 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA) made it a legal duty for “teachers, doctors, social workers and others to monitor and report people they consider vulnerable to extremism, embedding discrimination in public services.” As https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/fundamental/prevent/ Liberty point out, “The definition of extremism under Prevent is so wide that thousands of people are being swept up by it – including children engaging in innocuous conduct, people protesting climate change, and a nurse who began wearing a hijab.” They say the Prevent duty must be scrapped.

One Law for All, a campaigning organisation against religious based laws and in defence of equality and secularism, and in particular calling on the UK government to put an end to all Sharia courts and religious tribunals, and had organised a rally opposite Downing St om Sunday 20th June 2010.

Although the Church of England’s courts are now restricted to matters inside the church, courts based on Islamic Sharia Law and Jewish Beth Din courts still have official recognition as arbitration tribunals, particularly related to marriage. The Jewish courts work under the principle that “the law of the land is the law”, giving precedence to English law, but this is not always the case with Sharia courts.

A small group of Muslims dressed in black with a very powerful public address system had come to oppose the One Law for All protest. The claimed to be ‘Muslims Against the Crusades’ or ‘Muslims Against Crusaders’, a group widely thought to be a reincarnation of the banned ‘Islam4UK’ (itself a relaunch of the banned Al-Muhajiroun.)

Maryam Namazie of One Law for All made clear they were not anti-Muslim:

“The battle against Sharia law is a battle against Islamism not Muslims, immigrants and people living under Sharia law here or elsewhere. So it is very apt for the Islamists to hold a counter-demonstration against our rally. This is where the real battleground lies. Anyone wanting to defend universal rights, secularism and a life worthy of the 21st century must join us now in order to push back the Islamists as well as fringe far Right groups like the English Defence League and the British National Party that aims to scapegoat and blame many of our citizens for Islamism.”

And around 20 members of that fringe right-wing group the EDL were there to protest against the Muslims.

After a while police took them to one side and searched them, threatening me with arrest when I went to take pictures, before leading them away.

Half an hour later several hundred young British Asians arrived from a rally in Whitechapel against the EDL – but they were too late to confront them as the EDL had already been removed by police.

Soon the One Law for All rally ended and they marched off towards the Iranian Embassy in Kensington. I walked with them to Victoria and then went home.

UAF Arrive to Oppose EDL
EDL Oppose Muslims Against Crusades
Muslim Crusaders For Sharia
No Sharia – One Law For All