Turkish prison | >Re-PHOTO

Daily Mail, Kurdistan, Muslim Brotherhood & Iraq: On Sunday 6th October 2013 I photographed a protest against the Daily Mail, Kurds marching calling for their leader to be released from Turkish jail, protests for and against the removal of President Morsi of Egypt and a protest calling for the release of hostages in Iraq.

Daily Mail You Told All the Lies – Kensington

The Daily Mail has a long history of publishing lies against the BBC, NHS, public sector workers, trade unionists, socialists, women, Muslims, travellers and others, but the protest came after people were outraged by their smears and distortion in an entirely unfair attack of Ralph Milliband.

Their campaign against the father of Ed Milliband was intended to discredit the then Labour leader and Leader of the Opposition and many felt the Daily Mail had gone over the line of what is acceptable in British politics with their headline ‘MAN WHO HATED BRITAIN’, based on an out of context adolescent observation. Of course things in our press have worsened since then, particularly in the orchestrated attacks on Jeremy Corbyn accusing him of anti-semitism.

Ralph Milliband had fled Belgium with his working class Polish Jewish family in 1940 aged 16 when Germany invaded the country and went on to serve in the Royal Navy during the war. He settled in London after the war and became a British subject in 1948. As a sociologist he became one of the most respected academics of the post-war period, respected by people across the political spectrum.

The Daily Mail had supported the Blackshirts and Hitler in the 1930s and continued after the war to express hate for most of those institutions that have truly made Britain great – like the welfare state, the NHS and the BBC and the public sector generally. And more recently it had backed French fascist Marine Le Pen.

The protest was organised by The People’s Assembly, a nationwide group set up in opposition to the current government’s austerity programme and to defend the provision of education, health and welfare from general taxation and available to all. Several hundred came to the show they were proud of Britain and its welfare state and there was a great deal of chanting against the Daily Mail and and some songs before two people delivered boxes of a petition to their offices and the speeches began.

Daily Mail You Told All the Lies

Freedom for Ocalan & Kurdistan – Wood Green

The speeches agains the Daily Mail were continuing as I rushed away to Wood Green in North London where Kurds were marching on the 15th anniversary of the kidnappping of their national leader Abdullah Ocalan by Turkey in 1998.

Since then Ocalan has been held, mainly in solitary confinement, in a Turkish prison.

I left the march as it went past Wood Green Station on its way to the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey to make my way to Mayfair and the Egyptian Embassy

Freedom for Ocalan & Kurdistan

Egypt For & Against Muslim Brotherhood – Egyptian Embassy

Opposite the Embassy in South Street were a group of protesters supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and opposing what the military coup which had recently removed the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi the suppression of protests in Egypt against this.

Many carried placards showing the R4BIA four finger and thumb on palm sign to show support, begun after a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo was violently attacked by the military in August 2013 – Rabaa is ‘four’ or ‘fourth’ in Arabic.

A short distance away a smaller group of Egyptians protested, many carrying pictures of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces who had led the coup and the massacres of protesters – a total of around 3,000 were killed and almost 19,000 arrested, They supported the removla of Morsi, who after a narrow win in the 2012 election had granted himself unlimited powers and issued an Islamist-backed draft constitution.

Sisi installed himself as leader and became president after elections in 2014, remaining in power as a dictator since then (including two further elections in which other candidates were barred from running or boycotted the election due to repression – said to be even worse than under Mubarak who had been forced to step down by the popular revolution in 2011.

Egypt For & Against Muslim Brotherhood

PMOI call for release of 7 Hostages in Iraq – Trafalgar Square

Finally in Trafalgar Square I photographed an elaborate display by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the PMOI (aka MEK and MKO) which since 1986 had been exiled in Iraq (and is now in Albania.)

*Photographs of the 52 killed by Iraqi forces on 1st September*

After the 2003 Iraq invasion the MEK came to a ceasefire agreement with the USA, giving up their weapons – which included 19 British-made Chieftain tanks. When the USA left Iraq they were left at the mercy of the Iraqi authorities and have been subjected to a long history of attacks on their refugee camp.

*Seven hostages are sill held in Baghdad*

The latest of these, ordered by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Mailki, was at Camp Ashraf on September 1, 2013 and killed 52 with 7 hostages taken and held in the Baghdad Green Zone. In response hunger strikes started at Camp Ashraf and in Geneva, Berlin, Ottawa, Melbourne as well as London where they set up a camp in front of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

A line of hunger strikers, on the 36 day of their strike, was seated at the front of the audience at today’s rally, holding roses and taking an active part in the event, raising their fists and shouting.

The rally called for immediate release of the seven prisoners, and for UN forces to be stationed permanently at Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty to provide the protection the PMOI, who the UN granted asylum status.

PMOI call for release of 7 Hostages in Iraq

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Brian Haw, Democracy, Cabs, Colombia & Israeli Atrocity: Six protests on Wednesday 2nd June 2010.

Brian Haw & Democracy Village – Parliament Square

It was 9 years since Brian Haw had begun his peace protest in Parliament Square and police marked the occasion by serving a summons on his fellow protester Barbara Tucker for using a megaphone. An officer writes out the details as I take photographs (more online.)

The previous week both Brian and Barbara had been arrested and held for 30 hours while the Queen came for the state opening of Parliament – as usual others in the campaign continued the protest during their enforced absence.

The arrest had come after Brian had objected to police carrying out a search of his home – a tent in Parliament Square – without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search police have made as a part of the continual campaign of harassment against him over the years.

Still also in Parliament Square were the tents of the separate peace campaign Brian and Barbara label as the Police Camp, Democracy Village, there since the May Day protest a month ago.

A handful of those from the camp were protesting outside the railings around Parliament with banners demanding peace and questioning the authority of Parliament. Police generally left them along apart from telling some to climb down from the wall.

BrianHaw – Summons Marks 9 Years
Democracy Village Protest

Black Cabs Protest – Aldwych

Several thousand ‘black cabs’ had come to Aldwych with a number of ‘knowledge boys and girls’ on scooters currently training for the job, causing considerable disruption and delay to London traffic. They claim they are unfairly victimised by Transport for London, the Public Carriage Office and Westminster city council.

Many non-cabbies feel that these cabs are an outdated relic from the era of the hansom cab and that their operations in ‘plying for hire’ lead to unnecessary congestion. Minicab drivers feel that they are discriminated against in favour of the cabs and arguably have a rather stronger case.

Black cabs are largely used by a relatively small and well-off section of the community and we could surely have a better public transport system for the majority without them. But in my post on My London Diary I have a longer description of their grievances as well as reporting how police attempts to control the protest multiplied its effectiveness.

Black Cabs Protest

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square

The Colombia Solidarity Campaign held a picket outside BP’s HQ in support of Colombian oil workers who have occupied a BP plant on the Cusiana oilfield and are stopping building works there while allowing normal work at the plant to continue.

On My London Diary you can read a lengthy piece on the dispute in an area of Colombia under military occupation and where peaceful protesters occupying the plant were attacked by armed commandos from the Colombian Army together with BP’s private security personnel.

Among the speakers at the picket was Jim Catterson of the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, ICEM, which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, and was calling for international solidarity with the oil worker’s union (USO) and the Movement for the Dignity of Casanare in the fight against BP.

Much more about the dispute and protest at BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers.

Protest for Murad Akincilar – Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

A protest at the Turkish Embassy called for the release of trade unionist Murad Akincilar arrested the previous September while on extended holiday in Turkey and still in prison in Istanbul. Lack of medical care in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. His case was due to come to court again the following day.

Based in Switzerland where he works for trade union Unia, Akincilar had studied in London for a Masters degree at the LSE 18 years earlier and was known personally to some in the protest organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gikder to support the campaign being organised by the Swiss trade union Unia.

Protest for Murad Akincilar

Zionist Federation Supports Israeli Atrocity – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

The Zionist Federation together with members of the English Defence League demonstrated opposite the Israeli embassy in support of the Israeli Defence Force killings in the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.

A few Palestinian supporters had come to oppose this protest but the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.

On My London Diary I quote statements by the World Zionist Orgainsation and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) expressing regret at the loss of life that occurred, but the mood of this pro-Israel protest was very different, “one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation“, and I state I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum‘.“

I also recorded “I had been appalled to find that this was to be a demonstration jointly with the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League, some of whose members many of us have seen and heard chanting racist slogans on our streets. It seems unbelievable that a Jewish organisation should align itself – even if unofficially – with people like this.” Few EDL actually turned up.

One placard read ‘Peace Activists don’t use weapons’ but as I pointed out on My London Diary the the photographs on the WJC web site show “almost entirely exactly the kind of tools that would be expected to be found on any ship in its galley and for general maintenance, as well as items being taken for building work in Gaza” with the exception of “a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.“

As I also pointed out in my report, the “the actions of the state of Israel in their attacks on Gaza, their disruption of everyday life for the Palestinians and the blockade is making the possibility of peace much more distant. I’m not a supporter of Hamas, but Israel needs to ask why Hamas enjoys such support in Gaza and to change its own policies which have led to this. Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”

I had few problems covering the protest but other press were less fortunate. Four “were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators at the end of the protest, before police eventually stepped in to protect them.”

More at Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity.