Posts Tagged ‘South Africa House’

Occupy & Women’s Equality – 2011

Sunday, November 19th, 2023

Occupy & Women’s Equality – On Saturday 19 November 2011 Occupy London was in full swing in St Paul’s Churchyard and elsewhere and the Fawcett Society were protesting against government cuts that were reversing the movement to greater equality for women.


Don’t Turn The Clock Back – Temple to Westminster

Occupy & Women's Equality

The Fawcett Society were angered by government’s cuts which they said were putting the clock back on the advances which women have made towards equality since the 1950s, and had organised a march in protest with a 1950s theme.

Occupy & Women's Equality

Many of the marchers, mainly women, had come dressed in 1950s styles “ranging from the most elegant of Paris fashion of the day to aprons, hairnets and curlers. Others carried brushes or brooms, wooden spoons or other kitchen implements as symbols of what they felt was the only role our government can envisage for women, the ‘good little wife’.”

Occupy & Women's Equality

Many women had been particularly angered by the sexist and patronising putdown in parliament made by then Prime Minister David Cameron, a man who a few days ago made a surprising return to a leading role in UK politics. Probably insulated as he has been from normal life by an education at Eton and Oxford and wealth he thought little about his sexist and patronising put-down ‘Calm Down Dear!’ to Labour’s Angela Eagle in the House of Commons, but it enraged at least half the nation.

Occupy & Women's Equality

On the march people chanted ‘Calm Down Dear!’ followed by the deafening response ‘No We Won’t!‘ The marchers also had some caustic comments directed at the press (though not us journalists covering the march) for their “belittlling labelling of some groups of women in public life – such as ‘Blair’s Babes‘ – as well as the general predominance of semi-pornographic imagery and demeaning attitudes to women.”

But it was the cuts that really were the focus of the march, particularly the cuts in public services. A majority of those who will lose their jobs are women, employed in the NHS and elsewhere. And women depend more on the various services that will be cut, and will also have disproportionally to provide unpaid services such as care to make up for those cut. Finally the cuts in pensions will also have a larger effect on women who were already seeing a raise in their pension age.

The Fawcett Society was founded in 1866 to campaign peacefully for votes for women and remains a powerful campaigning organisation for equal rights. It had called on a wide range of speakers for its rally including journalist Tanya Gold, Estelle Hart, NUS Women’s Officer, comedians Kate Smurthwaite and Josie Lond, Heather Wakefield of Unison, Vivienne Hayes from the Women’s Resource Centre, Chitra Nagarajan of Southall Black sisters. Aisha Mirza from UK Uncut and a spokesperson for the Turkish and Kurdish Refugee Women’s group.

More at Don’t Turn The Clock Back.


At Occupy London

Morning at St Pauls

I’d visited Occupy in St Paul’s Churchyard briefly before going to photograph the Fawcett Society march and returned later in the day to visit the ‘Bank of Ideas’ in Sun Street and Occupy Finsbury Circus before returning to St Pauls to hear a range of speakers on other campaigns both in London and around the world, including news of the Occupy movement from the USA and Bristol, where the occupation seems not to have attracted the opposition shown by the City authorities and sections of the church in London.

A meeting in progress in the Bank of Ideas

The Bank of Ideas was an empty former UBS bank building in Sun Street that was occupied and used for a wide range of meetings and discussions.

Occupy Finsbury Square
People listen to a wide range of speakers on the steps of St Pauls
Jeremy Corbyn
Vivienne Westwood

Later a group who had taken part in the non-Stop Picket of South Africa House started by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group on 19 April 1986 shared some of their songs and their experience.

They had defied defied the attempts of British police, the British government and the South African embassy to remove them for almost 4 years until Mandela was released in 1990. There had been around a thousand arrests, but 96% of the cases brought to court were dismissed. Before this they had organised a number of shorter non-stop protests outside the embassy, the first of which in 1981 lasted 86 days and resulted in South African political prisoners including David Kitson being moved to better conditions.

The official Anti-Apartheid Movement opposed their actions and expelled them from the movement, warned trade union and local anti-apartheid groups not to have anything to do with them and asked Westminster Council to remove them. It wanted to avoid any confrontation with the British Government and opposed the City of London group’s support for other African liberation movements as well as the African National Congress.

More from the day at Occupy on My London Diary:
City of London Anti-Apartheid Group
Speakers At Occupy London
Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square
Saturday Morning Occupy London


Chelmsford & Marikana

Friday, August 18th, 2023

Chelmsford & Marikana – On 18th August 2012 I travelled out of London to Chelmsford where an extreme right march was protesting against the building of a mosque, with a rather larger protest opposing them. I travelled back into London where a protest had been arranged at short notice against the shooting of striking miners by police in South Africa.


EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford – Essex

Chelmsford & Marikana

I think this was my first visit to Chelmsford, the county town of Essex although it is only around 30 miles northeast of London and the journey from Liverpool Street station takes just over half an hour. But I didn’t much enjoy my time there and though I’m sure its an interesting place I’ve not been back since.

Chelmsford & Marikana

My day started fine as I walked from the station to the Unite Against Fascism rally in the middle of the city and mingled with the crowd there taking pictures. Everyone was friendly and I had no problems taking photographs.

Chelmsford & Marikana

But then I went to the pub where the English Defence League (EDL) wer gathering for the start of their march, where I was met with abuse and threats and one man complained to the police about my taking pictures. Some others more happily posed for me, making V signs but I was pleased the pub railings were between them and me, and when the police, who had told the complainant that I was within my rights to take photographs, politely asked me if I would move away to to avoid further upsetting the EDL I was pleased to do so.

Chelmsford & Marikana

I crossed back to the opposite side of the road where over photographers and TV crews were standing, and photographed the EDL Essex Division spokesman Paul Pitt who was being interviewed, polite and smiling for the camera, denying that the EDL were racist and promising “there will be no violence from us.

As the march formed up behind several banners I stayed in front of them with the other photographers, not getting as close as I usually like to do to avoid any further trouble. Despite Pitt’s claims the marchers were singing some of their usual Islamophobic EDL songs, and as the march moved off a rather large and fat marcher came towards me as I was taking pictures and said: “I hope all your family die of cancer.

I left the EDL march as it turned into the street leading to where they were to hold their rally and returned to the UAF rally, passing a huge police presence with various fences and cordons across roads to ensure the two groups were kept apart.

The UAF were in the middle of the busy shopping area and as soon as the police had sealed off the street where the EDL were holding their rally the UAF were allowed to march, going around the outside of that area.

The atmosphere on the UAF march was very different. It was several times as large with many more placards and banners and much louder, with almost continuous chanting calling for an end to the racist provocations of the EDL, though usually rather less politely. And the people were certainly much more friendly.

Two EDL supporters appeared at one point and began to loudly shout ‘EDL!, EDL!’ but police quickly moved them away and held them until the march had passed, warning them not to interfere with it again.

More about the march and many more pictures on My London Diary at EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford.


Solidarity with Marikana Miners

I went back to the station and caught the train back to London and then got on the tube to Hyde Park Corner where, close to the station, a small group of protesters had gathered outside building where Lonmin, the owners of the Marikana mine, then had offices.

The killing of the 34 miners at Marikana in South Africa two days earlier had appalled many around the world and this emergency protest had been called as the news broke. But it was too short notice to draw a large crowd.

Lonmin, previously even more infamous as Lonrho, only occupied a small suite on the top floor of this recently refurbished office building. The building seemed empty and was firmly locked when the protesters arrived and there was nothing on the outside or visible through the glass doors of the lobby to indicate that this was the base of one of the world’s larger platinum mining companies, listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a revenue in 2014 of US$ 965 million.

After protesting outside the offices for around an hour the group decided to walk to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square and hold a rally there.

A speaker on the pavement in front of South African House told us how the massacre at Marikana fitted in to the pattern of exploitation and oppression that has characterised the mining industry in Africa. Conditions in many of the mines are terrible, with little or no attention to health and safety issues, and miners are on low wages.

One of Lonmin’s board members at the time of the massacre was Cyril Ramaphosa, who a few months later became Deputy President of South Africa and in 2018 President. Many blamed his emails putting pressure on the police to intervene for the shooting.

The older South African National Union of Mineworkers, a member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions COSATU which has strong links to the governing African National Congress (ANC) is seen by many workers to have done little or nothing to improve pay and conditions in the mines. Many miners including those at Marikana had joined the breakaway Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) which represented over 70% of the Lonmin workers and had led the strike.

Solidarity with Marikana Miners


Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Monday, March 13th, 2023

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners. I started my day on Friday 13th March 2015 in Feltham in outer London, outside an Immigration Tribunal before going in to cover three further protests in central London.


Let Ife Stay in the UK! York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Immigration has been very much in the news lately, with the UK government introducing new legislation to attempt to evade its responsibilities under international obligations over the treatment of refugees, demonising those who have genuine asylum claims as “illegal” and refusing them the opportunity to make claims.

For years both our major political parties have vied with each other to produce more and more draconian measures to cut the number of migrants coming to the UK. A part of this has been the setting up of more and more Byzantine and understaffed systems to slow down the processing of claims by the Home Office. More and more people are kept in limbo for years before eventually being granted leave to stay in this country.

It’s our system that has led to the huge growth of people smugglers, at first using lorries and more recently concentrating on channel crossings in unsafe and expendable small boats.

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners
Some of the petition to keep Ife and her family in the UK

The real basis for this trade is that there are no safe routes that most genuine asylum seekers can take to enter this country. Even the few country-specific schemes we have are not working properly. Were we to set up a system that worked fairly and efficiently it would largely put the people smugglers out of business, perhaps cutting the demand for their services by around three-quarters.

Setting up a system that rapidly – perhaps within 28 days – sorted out those with a probable case for asylum from those who were clearly economic migrants would not be difficult, and we could admit those who are likely in the end to be given asylum on a provisional basis, allowing them to work and contribute to our society while their cases were under more detailed scrutiny.

Lineker’s tweet “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s” was simply stating facts. It certainly is immeasurably cruel, and listening to speeches by Tory MPs and ministers both in Parliament and in media interviews we largely hear a complete lack of compassion from people claiming to be “compassionate“.

Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners

Perhaps it might have been politically more acceptable to call it something like Orwellian double-think but government policy often seems to be very accurately following the well-known quote “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” And I probably don’t need to tell you who said that.

Obviously we should not refer to “invasions” or define people’s actions as illegal when their activities are legal under international law, and certainly even people breaking laws are not themselves illegal.

I didn’t know there was an Immigration Tribunal in Feltham before the protest here, rather hidden away on a small industrial estate a mile or two south of Heathrow. And clearly the staff working there didn’t want people to know, and attempted to get police to stop the protest – but were told by police it was legal. It wasn’t a big protest, calling for a 2 year old Ife and her mother and brotheer to be allowed to stay in Peckham where the Ife and continue the medical treatment she needs rather than be deported to Nigeria. You can read more about the protest at Let Ife Stay in the UK!


Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square

It took me a little over an hour to travel by bus, train and tube to Trafalgar Square where I joined (a little late) several hundred people who were there to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.

It’s a sordid business, degrading noble animals and threatening wild lions which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock. Young females are often killed as soon as they have got too large for the petting zoos, as females are in little demand as hunting trophies.

After some speeches on the North Terrace I was invited to go across with a couple of protesters to South Africa House, where I took a few pictures as they posed in the entrance before security told us to leave.

Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting


Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – RCA, Kensington Gore

IWGB members, supported by students, protested noisily at the Royal College of Art against low pay of outsourced workers, demanding they be paid the London Living Wage now, not from September as the college has offered; the workers need it now.

This was a noisy protest with trade union members and students banging on drums, whistling, blowing plastic horns and chanting slogans, mainly “Living Wage Now!” with RCA security and a couple of police looking on.

After protesting at the entrance to the RCA for some time they marched out on to the main road and held a short rally at the end of the college building close to the Albert Hall before going on a further noisy protest at a small enclosed yard next to a college dining area.

Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art.


Free the Hares boys protest at G4S – Victoria St

Finally I went to Victoria Street where protesters on the wide pavement outside the G4S offices were calling or the release of 5 young boys from Hares, held and tortured in Israeli jails which G4S helps to run.

They were arrested two years ago after they had been accused of throwing stones at an incident when an illegal settler crashed into the back of a truck. If they are ever tried, like most Palestinians in Israeli courts they are likely to be found guilty – even if there is little or no real evidence and could be sentenced to over 25 years in jail.

The protesters also called for the release of other Palestinian child prisoners, handing out leaflets and displaying banners which detailed some of the cases and the torture of children often tortured and held in isolation in small dark cells in the prisons for which G4S provides support.

Free the Hares boys protest at G4S


Occupy, Women’s Equality and Bank of Ideas – 2011

Saturday, November 19th, 2022

I did some travelling around Central London on Saturday 19th November 2011, from the City to Westminster mainly to cover various aspects of Occupy London, but also to a march about women’s rights organised by the Fawcett Society.


Saturday Morning Occupy London – St Paul’s Cathedral, Saturday 19 November 2011

My work began at St Paul’s Cathedral, where five weeks earlier I had come with Occupy who were intending to Occupy the nearby Stock Exchange. Police had managed to deny them access to the ‘private’ public Paternoster Square in front of the Stock Exchange, and they had instead set up camp at St Paul’s, where they were still in occupation.

For various reasons, not least my age and health, I hadn’t felt able to take part in this occupation though I felt a great deal of sympathy with its aims, and living on the edge of London had not been able to commit myself to photographing it like some other photographers, but I had kept in touch and had called in a number of times at St Paul’s and to the related occupation at Finsbury Square, as well as meeting people from Occupy taking part in other protests.

There was nothing particular scheduled for my visit on this Saturday morning – it was rather more a social call and an opportunity to find out more about what would be happening later in the day. The occupation at St Paul’s continued until the end of February, and I was sorry to be on a hillside in the north of England when I got a phone call from Occupy LSX asking for me to come and take pictures of the anticipated eviction and unable to make it.

Saturday Morning Occupy London.


Don’t Turn The Clock Back – Embankment to Westminster, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

I walked from St Paul’s to Temple, where around a thousand people, mainly women, were preparing to march from Temple past Downing St to a rally next to the Treasury in King Charles St, calling to the government not to turn back time on women’s equality though the cuts they were making.

The Fawcett Society who had organised the march say the cuts will put the clock back on the advances which women have made towards equality since the 1950s, and called on those taking part in the protest to come in 1950s style, variously interpreted by those taking part from Paris fashions to carrying brushes or brooms, wooden spoons or other kitchen implements as symbols of what they felt was the only role our government can envisage for women, the “good little wife.”

When the march neared Downing Street the slogans changed to ‘Calm Down Dear!’ with the deafening response ‘No We Won’t‘, repeating David Cameron’s sexist and patronising put down directed at Labour MP Angela Eagle in the House of Commons.

There were criticisms of the press for their belittling labelling of some groups of women in public life – such as ‘Blair’s Babes’ – as well as the general predominance of semi-pornographic imagery and demeaning attitudes to women. But most of the criticism was aimed at the government for the cuts which will affect women disproportionally as many more women than men in the NHS and other public sector services will lose their jobs and women are more dependent on these services than men.

As well as the Fawcett Society, founded in 1866 to campaign peacefully for votes for women and still a powerful campaigning organisation for equal rights, many other organisations were represented on the march from across society and politics, including journalists, trade unionists, and campaigning organisations including Southall Black Sisters, UK Uncut and the Turkish and Kurdish Refugee Women’s group.

Don’t Turn The Clock Back


Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square – Sun Street & Finsbury Square, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

Occupy had set up The Bank of Ideas in a disused bank building, empty for several years, on Sun St and there I was able to listen to one of many talks taking place – an interesting and detailed presentation and question and answer session on the surveillance society.

I walked the short distance to Finsbury Square and made a few pictures of the tents in the Occupy camp there, but there were very few people around and little was happening.

I was told most of the residents had either gone to take part in events at the Bank of Ideas or at St Paul’s, where I then also made my way to.

Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square


Speakers At Occupy London – St Paul’s Cathedral, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

On the steps of St Paul’s I joined a crowd of a few hundred listening to speakers giving news from other occupations including those in New York and Bristol.

They were followed by a number of others who had come to give their support to Occupy, including among others Jeremy Corbyn, Vivienne Westwood and the now retired Methodist minister David Haslam who has been involved with many campaigns over the years.

Speakers At Occupy London


City of London Anti-Apartheid Group At Occupy London – Saturday 19 November 2011

Also visiting St Paul’s to give support were a group who had taken part in the Non-Stop Picket of South Africa House started by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group on 19 April 1986 who defied attempts by British police, the British government and the South African embassy to remove them for almost 4 years until Nelson Mandela was finally released in 1990. Over a thousand arrests were made – including of Jeremy Corbyn, but 96% of these were dismissed by the courts.

The picket gained widespread support around the world but were attacked and disowned by the official leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, because of their support for revolutionary movements other than the ANC, and because the official movement wanted to avoid confrontation with the UK government. The group had been expelled from the AAM around a year before their long non-stop protest began, after carrying out a number of shorter protests. The group came and spoke about the protest and also sang – singing played an important part in keeping up their four year non-stop vigil outside South Africa House.

City of London Anti-Apartheid Group


Gender-based Violence, Arming Israel, Trans Pride, Anti Racism

Wednesday, September 14th, 2022

Protests in London three years ago today on Saturday 14th September 2019 all with some connection to human rights violations.


Criminal Abuse of Women in South Africa – Trafalgar Square

People, mainly women and including many South Africans, dressed in black to protest in Trafalgar Square following the rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana and many other women in South Africa.

Protests were taking place across South Africa calling for the government to declare a state of emergency over gender based violence, and to protest against gender-based violence across the world.

After speeches and silences on the North Terrace they moved to light candles for the victims at the entrance to South Africa House.

Criminal Abuse of Women in South Africa


HSBC Stop Arming Israel – Oxford St

Protesters led by Young London Palestine Solidarity Campaign took part in a National Day of Action outside the Oxford St branch of the HSBC Bank calling on it to stop its support of military and technology companies that sell weapons and equipment to Israel to be used against Palestinians. The bank had closed for the protest.

Although HSBC had divested from Israel’s largest private weapons company, it still owned shares in Caterpillar whose bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and construct illegal apartheid settlements, BAE Systems whose fighter jets attack Gaza and Raytheon which suppliers the ‘bunker buster’ bombs used to target Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Stop Arming Israel HSBC Protest


London’s First Trans+ Pride March

People met at Hyde Park Corner for this first march in the city to celebrate trans, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals and to protest against the continuing discrimination here and around the world against them.

As well as many from the trans+ community there were family, friends and other supporters taking part in an event which aimed to increase the visibility of trans+ people.

Recent years have seen an increasing transphobia in the British media with considerably publicity being given to the views of anti-trans activists. There has been an increase in attacks attacks on trans people on the streets, hate speech by trans-exclusionary feminists, and by right-wing national and state governments around the world.

Too often trans+ people around the world are subject to human rights abuses. They have always been an integral part of the gay community and at the forefront of the fight for gay rights – from the Stonewall rebellion on.

There were a few short speeches before the march set off, going along Piccadilly to a rally in Soho Square. I marched with them as far as Green Park where I caught the Underground for a protest in Brixton.

London’s First Trans+ Pride March


Brixton Anti-Racist March

Movement for Justice and Lambeth Unison Black Workers’ Group were protesting in Brixton against the continuing persecution of Windrush family members and other migrants, calling for freedom of movement, the closure of immigration detention prisons, and an end to Brexit which they see being used to whip up immigrant-bashing and nationalism by Boris Johnson.

The event began in Windrush Square, where one of the speakers was Eulalee Pennant, a Jamaican great-grandmother who has been fighting the Home Office for 16 years against deportation. Here uncle was one of the Windrush generation, her grandfather had served in the UK armed forces for his working life, and her cousins, daughter, grandchildren and great-grandson were British. She had worked and paid tax here for many years but was detained days before her 60th birthday and locked up in Yarls Wood, where she contracted a serious stomach infection. She was still vomiting blood when the Home Office tried to put her on a deportation flight.

Eulalee had tried to regularise her and her son’s immigration status with the Home Office in 2003, and among the documents she sent was her passport. The Home Office kept claiming they did not have it, and it was only in court 15 years later they finally admitted they had failed to send in back. Her son spent five years fighting his case to stay in the UK but was deported to Jamaica in 2008, and was murdered there the following June. Her fight against deportation has cost many thousands in legal fees and she has been unable to work since 2003.

There had been relatively few at the gathering in Windrush Square but there was a larger audience when the group marched to Brixton Market to continue the protest there and Green MEP for London Scott Ainslie also came to speak about his LDNlovesEU campaign.

The group then set off to march noisily around central Brixton, returning to Windrush Square for some final speeches.

Brixton anti-racist march


London Solidarity with Marikana Miners

Tuesday, August 16th, 2022

London Solidarity with Marikana Miners
South Africa House, 16th August 2014

London Solidarity with Marikana Miners Today, 16th August 2022, from 5pm people will be outside South Africa House to remember the massacre ten years ago of 34 striking miners at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine, a massacre deliberately planned by South African police working for London mining company Lonmin, whose directors at the time included Cyril Ramaphosa, now President of South Africa.

London Solidarity with Marikana Miners
Outside Lonmin offices, London, 18th August 2012

It was an attack that brought back memories of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the 1976 Soweto Uprising, things we had perhaps thought no longer possible after the overthrow of the white apartheid regime. South Africa may have got rid of its crude system of racial injustice but it was a demonstration that there are still huge differences and exploitation based on wealth and privilege – and of the lengths that those who benefit most from these are willing to go to maintain their position. A naked expression of class war.

London Solidarity with Marikana Miners
South Africa House, 18th August 2012

As usual, Wikipedia gives a detailed account of what took place, although some details are unknown or contested, and my account here largely relies on it. The massacre “was the culmination of a series of violent encounters between the SAPS, Lonmin security, and members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on one side; and strikers on the other.” Various clashes in the five days before it had led to a number of strikers being injured and ten deaths, of “six mine workers, two Lonmin security guards, and two SAPS members.

South Africa House, 16th August 2017

It was not a single massacre on 16th August; police opened fire with their assault rifles on two groups of miners around 500 metres apart, killing seventeen at each of these places. Police say they first tried to control the strikers with water cannons, rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. The miners were largely armed with spears, knives and sticks, but six guns were later found at the site, including one taken from a police officer killed earlier in the week.

South Africa House, 16th August 2018

Police accounts as in this country are seldom reliable, usually decorated or invented to justify and defend their actions. But there were more independent observers. A Reuters photographer present does confirm that he saw one of the strikers firing a pistol before the police opened fire. The noted South African journalist Greg Marinovich who investigated the scene closely found that some of the miners killed were shot at close range or crushed by police vehicles, but most were targeted and killed from around 300 metres, concluding “It is becoming clear to this reporter that heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood.” Other reports say police shot and killed miners who had their hands up in surrender.

South Africa House, 16th August 2019

270 miners were arrested and charged with ‘public violence’ which was later changed to murder, using the doctrine of “common purpose”. Most of those arrested complained that they were beaten in custody. Eventually after great public outcry the charges were dropped and most of those arrested released.

South Africa House, 16th August 2014

A commission was set up into the massacre, though many feel it made its inquiries after the authorities had time to cover up and falsify evidence. And although it made recommendations none has been implemented and no prosecutions have followed. You can watch a recent long interview with Rehad Desai, derector of the documentary film ‘Miners Shot Down‘ (Trailer here) from a few days ago on YouTube, Marikana Massacre | A decade later, still no justice.

South Africa House, 16th August 2014

The first protest in London took place two days later on 18th August 2012, when a small group of people marched from the Lonmin offices at Hyde Park Corner to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square.

Lonmin HQ, London, 16th August 2017

There have been protests each year on or close to the anniversary, with vigils outside South Africa House, where security have often come to harass those holding the events. But after the offices there have closed for the day and the security are off-duty people put flowers and pictures of the murdered miners on the gates and walls.

South Africa House, 16th August 2017

And there are speeches and songs and a silence. Some years those taking part have included guests from the Marikana women’s organisation Sikhala Sonke (We Cry Together), including Primrose Nokulunga Sonti who have joined those from various African and UK organisation members at the vigil.

Marikana Anniversary 16th August

Monday, August 16th, 2021

Justice for Marikana, South Africa House, 2019

In August 2012 workers at the Marikana platinum mine in Rustenburg demonstrated calling for a pay rise and better working conditions. After a week of protests police opened fire on the miners killing 34 and injuring others. The police attack came the day after Cyril Ramaphosa, now President of South Africa, then a non-executive director of mine-owner Lonmin and owner of the company Shanduka, a shareholder in Lonmin, had called on the the police to take action against the miners, who he called “plainly dastardly criminals”.

Protest at Investec, 14 Aug 2015

Although an official inquiry largely cleared Ramaphosa of guilt over the massacre, campaigners still hold him very much responsible for what is often called the “darkest hour of South Africa’s democracy” and still call for him to be brought to justice. Both the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) refuse to invite him to the annual remembrance ceremonies at Marikana.

Protest outside Lonmin’s office in London, 2017

Ramaphosa himself issues a partial apology for his messages and stated “I am determined to play whatever role I can in the process of healing and atonement for what happened at Marikana” but so far this appears to be an empty promise.

18th August 2012

There were protests in London in the days immediately following the massacre and there has been an annual protests on 14th August each year since then, either outside offices of Lonmin and other companies profiting from the mine or outside South Africa House in Trafalgar Square. When I’ve been in London I’ve gone to take part and to take photographs.

Charlie X is shut out of the block where Lonmin have their offices, 2017.
People place flowers on the portraits of the murdered miners at South Africa House, 2018
A woman holds pictures of the murdered miners at South Africa House, 2018
South Africa House, 2019

More on My London Diary:

2012: Solidarity with Marikana Miners
2014: Second Anniversary of Marikana Massacre
2015: Marikana Mine Murders protest at Investec
2017: Marikana Massacre Protest at Lonmin HQ
2018: Justice for Marikana vigil
2019: Justice for Marikana – 7 years on


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.



Latin Village, Zuma, Boat Dwellers & Syria

Thursday, April 8th, 2021

A human chain surrounds the block containing the Latin Village at Seven Sisters

Four Years ago today on Saturday 8th April 2017 I was travelling around London photographing a very varied set of protests, ending the day at Seven Sisters where London’s most vibrant community market has been under threat since 2006.

The Latin Village or Seven Sisters Indoor Market a few yards from the Underground station exit on the High Rd is a vibrant place in an Edwardian building, Wards Furnishing Stores, a department store which closed in 1972. The ground and mezzanine floors of part of the site house around 60 independent businesses, mainly run by people of Latin American origin but with others from the Caribbean and Middle East and when open it is a vibrant area to walk around, full of music. Covid has of course meant its closure, and the building owners Transport for London in 2010 closed the mezzanine area as unsafe and banned the on-site cooking of food which had been such an important aspect of the market.

Haringey Council and developers Grainger PLC want to clear the site and replace it with a “mixed use development” which would include expensive flats and chain stores – and although it may include a small market it will lose the character of the Latin Village and almost certainly be at rents which would make any of the current businesses uneconomic. Protests against the plans are still continuing.

My work had begun outside South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, where a large group of South Africans were protesting in defence of South Africa’s democracy and calling for the removal of President Zuma.

Jacob Zuma had been president since 2009, and had a long history of legal challenges both before and during his presidency, particularly for racketeering and corruption, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Zuma Wikipedia states his time in office is estimated to have cost the South African economy around 83 million USD. Facing a vote of no confidence he finally resigned in February 2018, succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa, who has also been criticised for various financial irregularities and his call for action against striking miners which resulted in the Marikana Massacre in 2012 in which 34 miners were killed by South African police.

In 2012 the Canal & River Trust (CRT), a charity, took over the running of our canals and rivers from British Waterways and since then have begun a series of evictions of boat dwellers who do not have permanent moorings. The say that it is unlawful for the CRT to impose limitations on their right to live on boats unless they meet arbitrary limitations based on a minimum distance or movement or pattern of travel.

Permanent moorings are expensive – perhaps £6,000 a year along with a licence cost of £1,000, so families who live on boats because they cannot afford houses are being priced out, with moorings going to the wealthy who often only use their boats for a few weeks each year, gentrifying the canal and destroying communities who live on boats. Boat dwellers came to Embankment Garden to picnic and hold a rally against the CRT. As well as opposing evictions they also called for proper maintenance of locks, bridges and waterway banks, more mooring rings, more water taps and more sanitary facilities.

Syrians gathered a Marble Arch for a march to Downing St calling on the UK government to support Syrians against the use of chemical weapons by President Assad’s forces in Syria.

They say that the attack four days earlier at Khan Sheikhoon near Idlib, like that on Ghouta three years previously, used Sarin nerve agent, this time killing over 100 and injuring over 400. Unfortunately our government, along with that of the US, has firmly set itself against any real action in Syria, despite encouraging the uprising against Assad, and is leaving it to Russia (and later Turkey) to ensure that the revolution fails.

More pictures from all these events on My London Diary:
Human Chain at Latin Village
Against Chemical Warfare in Syria
Boat dwellers fight evictions
Zuma Must Go


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.