Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP: My day was particularly full on Saturday 1st June 2013 as I attended a memorial service for a close friend held at Southwark Cathedral in the early afternoon as well as as the protests in this post.
London Supports Turkish Spring – Marble Arch
I began at 11am at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, next to Marble Arch, where Turks were massing to march to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square in solidarity with the ‘Turkish Spring’ protests against the Erdogan regime in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and across Turkey.
It was a high-octane event with a great deal of high-spirited chanting and more and more people were arriving for the march.
I had to leave as the event was getting underway, with most of the protesters sitting on the ground to listen to speeches. Later I heard that around 4,000 had marched to protest at the embassy,
More about the protest and more pictures on My London Diary at London Supports Turkish Spring.
Cull Politicians, Not Badgers – Westminster
This was the day on which it became legal to cull badgers in two pilot areas and over a thousand, many dressed in black and white and with badger masks or face paint met at Tate Britain on Millbank for a rally and march to Parliament against the cull.
Campaigners argue that the cull is not supported by most scientific evidence and that it will result in many badgers suffering cruel lingering deaths after being wounded by largely untrained marksmen.
I had to leave before they marched to go to Southwark Cathedral for the memorial service, but when I returned after attending this I met some of protesters who were still in Parliament Square, where they danced on the road in front of Parliament until they were cleared by police.
More about the cull and the protest – and many more pictures at Cull Politicians, Not Badgers.
BNP Stopped From Exploiting Woolwich Killing – Old Palace Yard
Fortunately police had stopped the BNP from holding a mass protest in Woolwich capitalising on the killing there of soldier Lee Rigby and had also banned their proposed march from Woolwich to Lewisham on grounds of public safety. Both would have been inflammatory and Lee Rigby’s father had also made clear that he and his family did not want his son’s death to be used to stir up hatred against Muslims.
Instead Nick Griffin and a small group of BNP supporters had come to Old Palace Yard intending to march from there to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths in Rigby’s memory, but their gesture to exploit the killing was opposed by a thousands of anti-fascists. It was a confrontation that stirred up memories from the anti-fascist mobilisation at Cable Street against Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, and as on that occasion the police attempted to force a way through for the fascists, arresting large numbers of protesters, but eventually the BNP had to abandon the attempt to march.
There were only a small group of supporters with Griffin, who blamed the low attendance on police turning back his supporters and making Westminster a “a virtual exclusion zone”. But I’d walked there with no problems from Westminster Station; there were large numbers of police and parked police vans as well as thousands of protesters, but I was not challenged or stopped.
Griffin and his group waited for around for several hours while police attempted to clear the route for him, arresting and driving away two double-deck buses full of protesters, but there were still enough to block the route. Eventually they walked in the opposite direction to their coaches.
BNP Exploiting Woolwich Killing Stopped
Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying – Parliament Square,
I walked back from Old Palace Yard where Nick Griffin was being photographed and questioned by the press the short distance to Parliament Square where I saw a steady stream of protesters being arrested and taken onto two double-deck buses.
I photographed a number of those arrested, mainly walking calmly with police who were rather more violent with some others, and saw them threatening legal observers, then walked through the lines of police to the protesters who were still blocking the route. I imagine few of those arrested were charged with any offence, but probably detained for a dozen or more hours before being released – probably in the middle of the night. It’s a short period of arbitrary punishment that avoids the police having to do much paperwork.
There were some in wheelchairs who had come to block the fascists – and some were at the front of the protest.
Others were in ‘Anonymous’ masks.
Many linked arms to make it harder for police snatch squads to grab individuals
And there were some of the ‘badgers’ who had stayed on for this protest too.
The stand-off between protesters and police continued – and it was clear that it would not be possible for the police to clear the route without a clearly excessive use of force – and that they were not going to drift away as police had hoped.
There was much celebration When they heard that the BNP had abandoned their march and left the area, and the protesters marched up Parliament St to the Cenotaph, where there was a short speech and people began to leave.
Many marched up to Trafalgar Square but I went back the other way on my way home.
More on My London Diary at Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying.
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