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Conscientious Objectors, Cannabis Education & Bengali New Year – 2005

Conscientious Objectors, Cannabis Education & Bengali New Year: Three unrelated events on 15th May 2005 in London. May 15th has been observed in Europe as Conscientious Objectors’ Day since 1982 and became International in 1985 when it was adopted by War Resisters’ International. A ceremony is held every year on the day in Tavistock Square at the site of the massive slate Conscientious Objectors’ Commemorative Stone which has the inscriptions:

TO COMMEMORATE MEN & WOMEN
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS TO MILITARY SERVICE
ALL OVER THE WORLD & IN EVERY AGE

TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE
ESTABLISHED AND
ARE MAINTAINING
THE RIGHT TO
REFUSE TO KILL

Their foresight and
courage give us hope

THIS STONE WAS DEDICATED ON 15 MAY 1994
INTERNATIONAL CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS' DAY

Conscientious Objectors, Cannabis Education & Bengali New Year - 2005

I left before the end of the ceremony and hurried to Russell Square for the start of the annual march calling for the legalisation of cannabis, walking with this to Trafalgar Square and then taking the tube to go to Brick Lane for the Bengali New Year Festival. Below is what I wrote in 2005.

The Right to Refuse to Kill – International Conscientious Objectors Day

Tavistock Square

May 15th was International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, and the ‘right to refuse to kill’ group of people from the Peace Pledge Union, Conscience, The Unitarian Peace Fellowship, Christian CND, The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, Pax Christi, The Women’s International League For Peace And Freedom And Dances Of Universal Peace had organised a ceremony at the Commemorative stone in Tavistock Square. After a brief introduction by Tony Kempster of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, Sue Gilmurray sang her song ‘Heroes’ and then Angela Sinclair who was a conscientious objector in the Second World War told her story and spoke about the right not to take part in war.

After a speaker from Amnesty and another from Conscience, the names of almost seventy conscientious objectors, many of who had died for their beliefs, were read out. The organisers had given out white flowers labelled with their names, and as each name was read, the person holding their flower came and placed it on the stone. After a one minute silence the commemoration continued with another song and then dancing, but I had to leave at this point.

more pictures

Cannabis Education March & Rally

Russell Square to Trafalgar Square,

The annual march to demand the legalisation of cannabis had to be postponed and moved to a central London location after Lambeth council had refused to allow it to use Brockwell Park. Probably for this reason, the numbers seemed well down on previous years.

The last year had seen both an increasing recognition of the value of cannabis in relieving pain for some conditions, and also in revealing the mental health problems it causes some users. Despite these, the existing anti-drugs policies are more and more discredited, leading to increasing crime and addiction, and also greatly increasing the probability of cannabis users moving on to more dangerous and addictive drugs.

Cannabis needs to be taken out of the hands of drug dealers, and into some form of legalised supply chain which would cut out the drug dealers, allow better supervision of the product and create a total separation between cannabis and other more dangerous substances.

It would also allow the creation of a tax revenue, some of which could be spent on the rehabilitation of drug users.

Many more pictures

Bengali New Year Festival (Baishaki Mela)

Brick Lane

I went with the march to Trafalgar Square and stayed to listen to a couple of the speakers, but soon lost interest and got on the District Line to go up to Brick Lane for the Bengali New Year Festival.

When I got there it was just too crowded; after walking around for a few minutes I gave up and came home.

More pictures

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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.

10,000 Disabled Dead

On 28th September 2013, disabled activists and supporters came to Parliament Square for ‘10,000 Cuts & Counting’, a ceremony of remembrance and solidarity for over 10,000 who died shortly after the degrading Work Capability Assessments run for the government by Atos.

The figure of 10,000 is the number who died in the 3 months following the degrading Atos-administered tests used by the government intended to assess the needs of people receiving benefits related to disability and ill health. The campaigners are not claiming that the test itself killed people, although some have been driven to commit suicide after being failed by Atos, but that such tests administered in the final days of life are unfeeling, unnecessary and persecute the sick and dying.

At the event we heard moving personal testimonies by disabled people and a mother of three disabled children, with many damning indictments of the failures of Atos and the Department of Work and Pensions, both failing to understand the needs of the disabled and not treating them with dignity and humanity, and of deliberately discriminatory policies, arbitrary decisions and bureaucratic incompetence.

Parliament Square was covered with 10,000 while flowers, one for each of the dead, and there was 2 minutes of silent remembrance for those who have suffered and died.

The silence was followed by four prayers facing the four sides of the square; prayers facing Westminster Abbey for the families of those who have suffered and disabled people still suffereing or despairing; facing the Supreme Court calling for justice and compassion for those without resources and power and for an end to discrimination and violence against the disabled; towards the Treasury calling on those in national and local government who decide on the use of resources to take into account the effect on people of what they do; and finally towards Parliament, calling for a new deal for disabled people and to put right the evident wrongs in the current system.

Unfortunately the prayers were not heard by those in power. The government’s response? They stopped issuing the figures on which this event was based.

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

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