Palestinian Land Day remembers the day in 1976 when unarmed protesters were killed when marches in Arab towns against the confiscation of land were confronted by Israeli army and police. Six unarmed Palestinians were killed around a hundred wounded and hundreds arrested. Most of the information here on Land Day is from Wikipedia.
The numbers involved now seem so small compared to the over 32,000 murdered in Gaza in recent months but it was a significant event as the marches were the first since 1948 in which Palestinians had organised nationally together against Israeli policies with these marches and a national strike.
The protests were against plans to confiscate Arab land and to expand Jewish settlements in Galilee were a part of an increasing seizure of Arab land.
In response to the planned strike and marches there had been a much increased police and military presence in the area, with armoured vehicles and tanks being driven “along the unpaved roads of various villages of the Galilee“. Some of these military convoys were attacked by youths with stones and even, according to Israeli government sources, Molotov cocktails.
The Israeli government had declared the strikes and all demonstrations illegal and some Palestinian leaders had voted against supporting them, but these actions seem only to have hardened the resolve of the Palestinians.
According to the Wikipedia article, quoting an academic source, the events led to “a new sense of national pride, together with anger toward the state and police and sorrow over the dead protesters, developed among the Arab community in Israel.” And in 1988, Land Day was announced as “a Palestinian-Israeli civil national day of commemoration and a day of identification with Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, to be marked by yearly demonstrations and general strikes.“
The Freedom, justice & equality for Palestinians protest in London close to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington on Land Day, 30th March 2019 came a year after the 2018 Land Day Protest in Gaza, also known as The Great March of Return. On that day in Gaza, 30,0000 Palestinians took part in a largely peaceful march some distance from the border fence. But Israeli snipers in safe positions opened fire on those who approached the fence, some to burn tyres or through objects at the fence. 17 Palestinians were killed, including five Hamas members, and more than 1,400 injured.
A small group of Zionists had come to oppose the protest
Smaller marches in Gaza continued at weekly intervals and by Land Day 2019 a total of over 250 mainly unarmed protesters had been killed and thousands injured.
It’s hard to look back on history to Land Day (and beyond) and not see how Zionist right wing policies have failed both Israel and Palestine and are continuing to fall all those in the area. Balfour is often blamed for kicking the situation off, but had his “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” ever been taken seriously we would not be where we are now.
A line of police protects the Zionist pen
The Oslo Accords were another start to a possible peace process, but again firmly opposed by the right-wing Zionist parties – and Israeli prime minister Yitshak Rabin was assassinated for signing them. Leaders opposed to the accords – Ariel Sharon and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power.
This man shouts repeatedly ‘There are no Palestinians in Gaza!’
On Land Day 2019, a group of Zionist extremists had come along to the Palestinian protest to try and shout down those speaking. Police kept them a short distance away and with a relatively powerful public address system their efforts were largely inaudible.
Some of the Palestinians took a large Palestine flag and hid the group behind it until police persuaded them back and other protesters moved in to argue with and shout at them. Police tried to move the Palestinians away with little success while I was present
Taking part in the Palestinian protest were as usual many Jews, including the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta who see Zionism as diametrically opposed to Judiasm.
Free Palestine, Free Ahad Tamimi – Six years ago Palestine was also in the news and on Saturday 23rd December 2017 I photographed three protests in London related to the country and its occupation by Israel. These were protests called at short notice and there were larger protests in the New Year.
Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine – US Embassy
Outside the US Embassy – still then in Grosvenor Square – a rally by Palestinians and their supporters condemned the decision by US President Trump’s announcement that the US Embassy in Israel will move to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is one of the oldest of world cities and is of great significance to three major world religions. It was where Soloman built the first temple after the city had been captured by his father, King David around three thousand years ago. Here Jesus was tried and crucified around 30AD, and here that the prophet Mohammed died and ascended into heaven in 632AD, and the Temple Mount is the third holiest site in Islam with the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque.
Jerusalem was from 1923 until 1948 the capital of Palestine, and in 1948 was declared by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 to be an international city. After the 1967 Six Day War Israel gained control of the whole of the city and in 1980 Israel passed its Jerusalem Law declaring it the “complete and united” capital of Israel. The United Nations Security Council responded with ‘Resolution 478 on 20 August 1980, which declared that the Jerusalem Law is “a violation of international law“, is “null and void and must be rescinded forthwith“. Member states were called upon to withdraw their diplomatic representation from Jerusalem.’
Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem was a clear dismissal of this UN resolution and was condemned by those who spoke at the rally. They called for peace and freedom for Palestine and also condemned the increase in hate crimes following Trump’s announcements and the brutal repression of protests against it in Palestine, including the shooting of peaceful protesters, one in a wheelchair by Israeli forces, and the beating up and detention of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi and members of her family.
The protest invited people to “discover more” about M&S and to boycott the Israeli goods they sell
The Revolutionary Communist Group held a weekly protest outside Marks & Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street for 13 years as a part of their ‘Victory to the Intifada‘ campaign in support of freedom for Palestine and an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.
They point out that M&S support Israel by selling goods produced their including the illegal sale of some items produced in the occupied territories and urge shoppers to boycott M&S and support the growing BDS campaign – Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.
They say many British companies including Marks and Spencer are collaborators with the apartheid regime in Israel and call for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, many of whom are being held effectively indefinitely without trial or have been sentenced in unfair trials. Israel has reacted to the BDS campaign with a number of schemes including campaigns in both the Tory and Labour parties. Many of the controversies about anti-Semitism in the Labour party and elsewhere are a part of this orchestrated anti-BDS campaign, particularly directed against Jeremy Corbyn for his very public support for freedom for Palestine.
Today’s protest was a special one called to demand the immediate release of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, beaten up and arrested by Israeli soldiers at her home in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank at 4am on Tuesday 19 December.
Another group of protesters calling for the release of Ahed Tamimi were in Trafalgar Square to condemn the kidnap, beating up and arrest of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi by Israeli soldiers at 4am on Tuesday 19 December, and the later arrest of her mother Nariman Tamimi and cousin Nour Tamimi, and called for their immediate release.
The two younger women had earlier slapped Israeli soldiers in their occupied village of Nabi Saleh when their 14 year old male cousin was shot in the face by Israeli soldiers. Among those taking part in the protest were some who knew Ahed and her family personally and had visited them in their village of Nabi Saleh where regular protests are brutally repressed by the Israeli army.
Ahed’s father Bassem Tamini was also in some of the photographs the protesters held and he has been detained by the military many times in the past.
This was a fairly small protest in front of the National Gallery and had been going for some time when two men turned up to shout at the protesters and disrupt it.
They tell the protesters that Palestine will never be free and that Israel has offered peace, but the protesters reply that Israel has never been prepared to make a serious offer of peace with justice. When a two state solution seemed possible following the Oslo accords, Israel prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated for having signed them and Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, both opposed to the peace, took power in Israel, and the building of settlements on occupied land tripled.
The two men told the protesters they should “go home” which seemed a peculiarly stupid and insensitive comment as some of those present had lost their homes in Palestine when they were forced out of them by Israel.
Both of the men were well-known Zionists who have attempted to disrupt other protests calling for boycotts of Israel and supporting Palestine. Their shouting and disruption had the effect of calling more attention to the protest calling for the release of Ahed Tamini. After some minutes they were joined by a third Zionist, and angry woman who joined them to scream a message of hate and then left.
Eventually police arrived and told two men that they should behave themselves and suggested they leave. They didn’t go but quietened down considerably. The following year after even more aggressively disruptive behaviour at a pro-Palestine protest one of the two was fined and issued with a restraining order under the Public Order Act.
One of the protesters complained to the officers about the racist comments the two had made to him, but the police showed no interest. The protest continued but it was soon time for me to catch my train home.
Three years ago on Saturday 1st February 2020 I went to London to photograph a protest against Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ plans which, according to the BBC, “gives Mr Netanyahu all he wants – and offers Palestinians very little; a sort-of state that will be truncated, without proper sovereignty, surrounded by Israel’s territory and threaded between Jewish settlements.” When that finished I took a short walk along the Thames Path towards Battersea Power station before catching a bus back to Vauxhall for the train home.
Later in February I did quite a lot of walking and riding in buses and trains around London, and as in quite a few other months, gathered together some of the pictures I took on these journeys together with a link from the bottom of the page on My London Diary for the month.
Palestinians against Trump’s Deal – US Embassy, Nine Elms
Supporters of Palestine came to the US Embassy in Nine Elms in protest against Trump’s so-called peace plan, which they say aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause and minimise sovereignty for the Palestinian people across Palestine, marginalising them in isolated ghettos in a rigid implementation of the current apartheid regime.
The protest was supported by a wide range of organisations including the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), the Palestinian Community Association in London, the General Union for Palestinian Students/British Branch, The Palestinian Youth Foundation in Britain “Olive” and Stop the war and supported by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Friends of Al-Aqsa (FoA) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB).
There were quite a few protesters of Palestinian heritage living in the UK, as well as many supporters from the wider British left at the protest.
A handful of some of the usual anti-Palestinian Zionists came to oppose the protest, shouting at the protesters. Police moved in to protect them when the protesters began shouting back and kept the two groups apart. There were also Jews present protesting on behalf of Palestine.
Among the protesters was one dressed as Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman,holding a bone saw, like that used to dismember Saudi dissident and journalist for The Washington Post Jamal Kashoggi by the team he sent to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 2 October 2018. He posed with a man in a Trump mask who was handing him fistfuls of dollars to support the plan. There was also a giant inflatable of the Saudi prince, with large black horns.
There were a number of speeches supporting the Palestinian cause as well as a great deal of chanting against the Trump plan, which had no chance of being implemented but was largely a propaganda exercise to enhance Trump’s support among the Jewish population of the USA.
Nine Elms is one of the largest developments in Europe. The bank of the River Thames here was once crammed with wharves and full of varied industrial sites, but by the 1970s these had either closed or were about to close. At the end of the protest I took another short walk around the area.
In this area much of the land was taken up by railway yards and depots, but the area closer to the River Thames also had a jam factory and some paint and engineering works. and at the Vauxhall end, a giant cold store.
In 1971 the New Covent Garden Market began to move here from central London on Land that had formerly been a railway goods depots and an engine shed, and two markets, one for flowers and the larger for fruit and vegetables, south of the railway, opened for business in 1974. Both markets have been redeveloped since and are planned to move out to a site in Dagenham in the next few years.
The largest area north of the railway was occupied by Battersea Power Station, a relatively late-comer to the area. It occupied a site which had previously been a waterworks, taking water from the Thames. At its south end was a large Great Western Railway Goods Depot, and to the east a gas works. Another gas works occupied the site roughly where the US Embassy now stands.
In the nineteen-seventies there were a few new blocks of riverside flats but development of the area only really got into gear in this century and is still continuing. The power station, which finally closed in 1983 and lay derelict for some years, particularly after its roof was removed by an early development which failed, was only finally re-opened as an up-market shopping centretourist attraction with luxury flats at the end of 2022.
Most of these pictures come from several bus journeys from or to the station, from Waterloo Bridge, in Holborn and some in the City of London. Also a few from closer to my home in Staines and Laleham.
Some of you may like to try to identify these locations before you go to look at more in London Images on My London Diary, where captions reveal them.
On Saturday 25th September 2010 I made a few pictures while travelling around London to photograph some rather varied protests and then took a walk mainly beside the Regent’s Canal in Shoreditch and Haggerston before going home.
My day in London began with a bus ride from Clapham Junction to Knightsbridge, where around 80 Muslim women from Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain had come with a letter to the French Ambassador protesting the French parliament decision to ban face veils.
Although the ban prohibits all face coverings, it is mainly aimed at Muslim women who wear the niqab or burkha. Both were then uncommon in France outside of Paris and some Mediterranean coast cities and some estimate they were only worn by around 2000 of France’s 2-3 million Muslim women, most of whom, like the great majority of women at the protest wear headscarves rather than face coverings.
Judging from the slogans, placards and speeches this was more a protest against ‘liberal values’ and “the objectification and sexualisation of women’s bodies in pornography, lap-dancing clubs, advertising, and the entertainment industry, all permitted under the premise of freedom of expression and driven by the pursuit of profit in Western societies.”
The French ban seems an unfortunate restriction of the rights of women to decide how they wish to dress, but is also a measure to oppose the power of clerics and others to limit the freedom of women by forcing them to wear face coverings, which seems to to be fully in line with the French tradition of liberty. And being a liberal and secular society doesn’t necessarily mean giving free rein to the exploitation of women or others for profit. We can oppose these without wanting to impose the kind of restrictions on others that groups such as Hizb Ut Tahrir advocate.
From Kensington I went on to Covent Garden where Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were holding another of their fortnightly demonstrations outside the Covent Garden Ahava shop which sells products manufactured in an illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
As on previous occasions their protest was met by a smaller counter-demonstration by supporters of the right-wing English Defence League (EDL) and Zionists. At previous protests there had been some attacks by the EDL on the protesters, but while I was present they were content with shouting.
The Ahava protests are part of an international ‘Stolen Beauty’ campaign organised by ‘Code Pink’, a women-initiated grass-roots peace and social justice movement which began when American women came together to oppose the invasion of Iraq. They say that Ahava “has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labelling.”
I walked down to the Embankment, pausing to photograph a rather fine Routemaster bus with vintage advertising, and a few boats taking part in the ‘Great River Race’. In Temple Place I met protesters from ‘Families Fighting For Justice’, members of families of murder victims, who were calling for tougher sentences for murder – with life sentences meaning life imprisonment.
Some of the stories I heard from them were truly heartbreaking and showed why many ordinary people have lost faith in our justice system. Although I don’t feel that their ‘Life 4 A Life’ campaign would actually do much if anything to solve the problem, clearly some action is called for, both in improving child protection by our social services and also in how we regulate behaviour on our streets. Part of this is better policing, but increased spending on youth services and community support is vital. Instead we got years of austerity cutting these and other essential services.
I left the march as it headed off towards a rally in Waterloo Place; it was smaller than expected and police insisted they march on the pavement rather than taking to the road, which reduced its impact.
I was on my way to Old Street where the RMT and other unions were holding a short demonstration outside the Initial Rentokil Offices in Brunwick Place as the start of a campaign against the company’s union-busting activities towards its cleaning staff.
The RMT say Initial Rentokil intimidates and bullies its members and deliberately employs workers whose immigration status is doubtful so that they can pay minimum wages and provide sub-standard working conditions, often requiring them to work without proper safety equipment or precautions. They allege that workers who question their rights or attempt to organise have been reported to the immigration authorities who have then raided the workplace. The protest was also supported by members of Unite and Unison.
It was still before 3pm when the rally ended and I decided to take a walk before going home. I walked roughly north to the Regent’s Canal.
On the Haggerston Estate I found flats bricked up as people have been moved out to redevelop the estate. They are said to be moving back when new social housing is built – along with some at market prices.
Shoreditch and Haggerston were both very much up and coming areas, with some expensive flats beside the canal.
One of the reasons to walk this way was to see a large art work on the long block of flats by the canal, ‘I am Here’, one of London’s largest art installations., with giant portraits of the residents.
But I was also keen to photograph other buildings in the area, including the Bridge Academy.
And, on Kinsgsland Road, the Suleymaniye Mosque.
Even when finally I got on the 243 bus I was still taking pictures, including a rather sad view of the former Foundry, a lively venue where I had been to a great photo show not long before, now boarded up and covered with a giant advertising hoarding,
More pictures from my walk and the protests on My London Diary:
Central Hill, Brian Haw & Al Quds. 18th June 2017 was a Sunday, and though I now prefer to observe Sunday as a day of rest, five years ago it was for me another working day. Since the lockdown I get tired much more quickly and I’m cutting down a bit on work. Today I’ll probably go for a walk with my wife after lunch, stopping off on the way home to sit and eat an ice cream before picking more strawberries from the garden and relaxing a little before dinner.
But back in 2017 I was making good use of a Travelcard, going first to the Central Hill Estate which looks down over London close to Crystal Palace then travelling to Westminster to remember Brian Haw before taking the tube up to Oxford Circus and walking to the BBC to join marchers gathering for the annual Al Quds march.
Ted Knight speaks for Central Hill – Central Hill Estate
A woman comes to talk to me about living on the estate since it was built
I deliberately arrived very early at Central Hill so I could take a walk around and make more pictures of one of London’s finest council estates, but almost missed the start of the talk I had come to hear opposing Lambeth Council’s plans for its demolition as I spent some time talking with a woman who had seen me taking pictures who was still living in the home she had moved into when the estate was built and had raised her family here. She told me how good it had been living here in a fine home that was still in good condition and had never needed any major repairs.
Ted Knight, former leader of Lambeth Council, had come to speak in support of the campaign to save the Estate, passed for demolition by the council despite the almost unanimous vote of residents for plans to refurbish rather than demolish and the plans by Architects for Social Housing which would achieve the increase in density desired without demolition.
Knight as council leader earned the name ‘Red Ted’ from the gutter press for standing up to the Tory Government’s rate-capping 1984 Rent Act which severely limited the spending of local councils – which eventually led to him and 31 other councillors being surcharged and banned from political office for five years in 1986. He remained an active trade unionist and in the Labour Party and when he spoke was Branch Chair of the Gypsy Hill ward which includes Central Hill. Although his politics and mine were not entirely the same, I was sad to hear of his death in 2020.
As Knight said, under borough architect Ted Hollamby the estate was planned by Rosemary Stjernstedt as a living community and had remained remarkably successful, with a number of original residents from the 1970s still living there and wanting to continue to do so. At that time Labour believed that nothing was too good for the working people and the estate was built to high specifications and is still in sound condition. A deliberate process of managed neglect – like that which had resulted in the Grenfell Tower disaster had – had been carried out by Lambeth Council to legitimise its demolition.
Lambeth council now refuse to allow the community to use the resource centre
Although the meeting was poorly attended, surveys of estate residents have shown a very high proportion of residents want to remain on the estate and oppose the demolition. The council quotes very different figures and its response to feedback from estate residents has been to remove the estate representatives from the consultative body.
Faults in the paving are marked but left without repair
Lambeth Council has also ridiculously inflated the estimate for the refurbishment of the estate and rejected without proper consideration a carefully planned alternative scheme for a much cheaper limited infill of the site rather than demolition which would involve far, far less disruption to the families who live here and also result in the retention of much-needed social housing. The only real problem with the alternative scheme proposed by Architects for Social Housing is that it would not generate excessive profits for the developers.
This was the sixth anniversary of the death of peace campaigner Brian Haw who had made a ten-year political stand against war in Parliament Square despite considerable harassment by police urged on by politicians, laws introduced against his and other protests, Westminster Council officials and almost certainly MI5 agents.
Brian Haw began his camp here on 2 June 2001, and remained in place despite many attempts, legal and otherwise to remove him for almost 10 years, leaving only when arrested, for court appearances and to speak at protests at Trafalgar Square and Downing St until 1 January 2011 when he left England to receive treatment for his lung cancer in Berlin. He died in Germany in the early hours of 18 June 2011.His ten years of protest and the frequent and repeated harassment undoubtedly hastened his decline and death.
His protest in Parliament square was continued by Barbara Tucker who had joined him in 2005 and had been imprisoned twice for her role in the protest and arrested 48 times. The level of harassment increased and she went on hunger strike on 31st December 2012. Late in January 2013 she was taken into hospital close to death, and was treated for frostbite and exposure. Her protests continued on-line.
Several thousands came from around the country for the annual Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day march in London. Organised by a Quds committee with the Islamic Human Rights Commission it was supported by various groups including the Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods. At the front of the march were a group of Imams and Neturei Karta anti-Zionist Jews.
The march called for ‘Freedom for Palestine’ and for all oppressed peoples across the world. It supports of the BDS campaign for a boycott of Israel Israeli goods, divestment from companies supporting Israel and sanctions against the Israeli state. It demands that Israel ends its breaches of international law and its oppression of the Palestinian people in what is an apartheid system, and ends its siege and attacks on Gaza.
Zionists oppose the march with a protest close to the final rally at the US Embassy, but a small militant group carrying Israeli flags attempted to stop the march on its route, calling those taking part supporters of the banned terrorist group Hezbollah.
A number of the marchers were holding Hezbollah flags, which carried a message indicating they were supporting Hezbollah as a political organisation – it is one of two main parties representing Shia Muslims, Lebanon’s largest religious group – as a part of national unity governments in the Lebanese parliament.
Police seemed very reluctant to move the Zionists off the road in front of the march which was held up for some time, with marchers simply waiting for the police to clear them. After some time the the marchers held their planned minute of silence for the Grenfell Tower victims before getting up and telling police that unless the police cleared the road they would simply push them aside and march through.
The Al Quds day march is very much a family event but with the numbers involved the march stewards would clearly have been able to do so and the statement did galvanise the police into action, and the march was able to move on slowly.
The event organisers make it very clear that this is not an anti-Semitic event, and I think one or two placards which might have suggested this were rapidly removed by stewards. In 2019 Home Secretary Sajid Javid decided to proscribe Hezbollah’s political wing as well as the military wing which had been proscribed in 2008, so showing any support for Hezbollah would be an offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists – My agenda for Wednesday 2nd June 2010 was a busy one, with protests about democracy in Parliament Square, London’s Black Taxis at Aldwych, a picket at BP’s St James’s Square HQ, trade unionists protesting at the Turkish Embassy and Zionists supporting the Israeli attack and killings on the Gaza aid flotilla.
Democracy Village Protest – Parliament Square
People had been camping in the Democracy Village in Parliament Square for just over a month and a few of them had come across the road with banners to protest. They held up banners, including a large one saying ‘We Respect The Soldiers We Do Not Support The War‘ and another ‘We Demand Peace In Afghanistan and No More War‘ and several made speeches with a megaphone. Another very artistically written notice on a large square of cloth on the pavement read ‘With Each Conscious Breath May You Know How Loved You Are in All Ways. You Are Divine. Let Your Light Shine’.
Brian Haw – Summons Marks 9 Years in Parliament Square
I went back to the other side of the road to talk with Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker who I had come to visit on the 9th anniversary of the start of Brian’s protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. A week ago they had been arrested and held for 30 hours on the day of the state opening of Parliament before the court released them on bail.
The arrest had come after Brian objected to police searching his tent in the early morning without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search they have made, all part of a continual campaign of harassment. As we were talking we became aware of three police a few yards away standing and watching us. They then came over and served Barbara Ticker with a summons for using a megaphone in Parliament Square.
Brian and Barbara asked why she was being singled out for attention as there were at that time others In the Democracy Village actually using a megaphone and she was not at the time doing so. The officers made no attempt to answer this question.
I don’t use taxis in London – or at least very seldom. I can only remember two occasions in the last thirty or so years, both when others insisted I go with them. It’s a wasteful, outdated and overpriced system which is responsible for much of the congestion in London, both by cabs carrying only small numbers of people compared to other public transport and also by ‘cruising for hire’ with no passengers on board.
My account on My London Diary gives some of their grievances, some of which I have some sympathy with, and I agree the police should be enforcing the law (rather than harassing protesters) but the whole system needs to be updated, taking into account the general availability of smart-phones and improvements in satellite navigation systems which increasingly make the ‘knowledge’ redundant and can provide real-time congestion information.
I didn’t find it an easy protest to photograph, which I think shows in the results. Lots of taxis are frankly rather boring, and not that unusual in London, where I commented that “While standing at a bus stop a couple of weeks ago I counted over 30 empty taxis going past before my bus arrived, and I couldn’t help but think we could have a better public transport system without taxis.”
BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square
BP have a long-running dispute with the workers on the Cusiana oilfield in the Casanare department of Colombia, and its one where they are playing dirty, with union members accusing BP of carrying out a campaign of misinformation about what is happening in the plant, and in particular of falsely claiming the support of government officials for their lies about the action.
More or less as this picket was taking place, armed commandos from the Colombian army leapt over a security grid at the plant and attacked the workers who were carrying out a peaceful occupation of the Cusiana CPF (Central Processing Facility) in Tauramena.
Previously BP had come to an out of court settlement on a UK High Court challenge over the pipeline from this oilfield to the coast, when farmers alleged that BP benefited from the actions of Colombian paramilitary forces who harassed and intimidated them in their protection of the pipeline. During the preparation of the case, of the lawyers for the farmers discovered she was on a death list and fled the country; she was granted political asylum in the UK.
The protest was organised by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and was supported by the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, based in Switzerland which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, uniting trade unions in its sector around the world.
Protest for Murad Akincilar Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square
Trade unionist Murad Akincilar was arrested on a spurious charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation while on an extended holiday in Turkey last September and was in prison in Istanbul. His treatment in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. He was known personally to some of the protesters as he studied for a Masters Degree at the LSE, but since 2001 he has lived in Switzerland and worked for Swiss trade union Unia which was leading the campaign for his release.
The protest opposite the Turkish Embassy was organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gik-der, an organisation founded in north London in 1991 by migrants fleeing political and racial persecution in their home countries of Turkey and Kurdistan.
Zionist Federation Support 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 smaller group of pro-Palestinian protesters had come to oppose them, although both the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.
Although official Zionist sources had expressed some regret at the violence and loss of life, the mood of the supporters here appeared to be one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation. I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum’ ” and appalled to find this was “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.”
Attempts to justify the summary execution of one of the victims by shots to the head at close range by the existence of so-called weapons on the ships seemed insulting – almost all those shown in the photographs are “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. The possible exceptions are a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.”
I’m very much in favour of peace in Palestine and Israel, but like many I feel “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… Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”
Police had to step in at the end of the protest when four press photographers were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators but all I suffered were a few threats and hostile gestures.
Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop – Six years ago, the 14th May 2016 was also a Saturday, and like today there was a protests for Nakba Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’, remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced to leave their homes between December 1947 and January 1949, but also several others on the streets of London which I covered.
Reclaim Holloway – Holloway Road
Local MP and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke outside London Met on Holloway Rd at the start of the march by Islington Hands Off Our Public Services, Islington Kill the Housing Bill and the Reclaim Justice Network to HMP Holloway demanding that when the prison is closed the site remains in public hands, and that the government replace the prison with council housing and the vital community services needed to prevent people being caught up in a damaging criminal justice system.
A group of around a hundred then marched from there to Holloway Prison, apparently already largely emptied of prisoners, and held a long rally there with speeches by local councillors, trade unionists and campaigning groups. Islington Council would like to see the prison site and adjoining housing estate then owned by HM Prisons used for social housing rather than publicly owned land being sold for private development.
The Ministry of Justice sold the site to housing association Peabody for £81.5m in 2019 and their plans include 985 homes and offices, with 60% of so-called affordable housing as well as a women’s building with rehabilitation facilities reflecting the site’s history. The development stalled in February 2022 with Peabody saying they were unable to afford the money needed to fit out the women’s centre.
Protesters made their way along Oxford St from their regular Saturday picket outside Marks & Spencers, handing out leaflets and stopping outside various shops supporting the Israeli state for speeches against the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people and attempts to criminalise and censor the anti-Zionist boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Nabka Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’ remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced out of their homes between December 1947 and January 1949 is commemorated annually on May 15th, but the protest was a day earlier when Oxford Street would be busier. The Palestinians were later prevented by Israeli law from returning to their homes or reclaiming their properties, with many still living in refugee camps.
The protesters included a number of Jews who are opposed to the continuing oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. A small group of counter protesters shouted insults and displayed Israeli flags, accusing the protesters of anti-Semitism but the protest was clearly directed against unfair and illegal policies pursued by the Israeli government rather than being anti-Semitic. The counter-protesters tried unsuccessfully to provoke confrontation, standing in front of the marchers and police had at times to move them away.
Vegan Earthlings masked video protest – Trafalgar Square
Vegans wearing white masks stood in a large circle in Trafalgar Square holding laptops and tablets showing a film about the mistreatment of animals in food production, bullfighting, etc. The protest was organised by London Vegan Actions and posters urged people to stop eating meat to save the environment and end animal cruelty.
Refugees Welcome say protesters – Trafalgar Square
Another small group of protesters stood in front of the National Gallery held posters calling for human rights, fair treatment and support for refugees. Some held a banner with the message ‘free movement for People Not Weapons’.
Finally I was back on Oxford St where cleaners union United Voices of the World (UVW) was holding one of protests outside Topshop stores around the country following the suspension of two cleaners who protested for a living wage; one has now been sacked. Joining them in the protest were other groups including Class War, cleaners from CAIWU and other trade unionists including Ian Hodson, General Secretary of the BWAFU and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, MP and Ian Hodson, Baker’s Unions General Secretary outside Topshop
The Oxford Street Topshop was heavily defended by police, as well as by illegal extra security guards wearing no ID. Several hundred protesters held up banners and placards and with the help of the police blocked the entrance to the shop, though the protesters made no serious attempt to enter the building.
Jane Nicholl of Class War poses on a BMW as they block Oxford Circus
After a while some of the protesters, led by the Class War Womens Death Brigade, moved onto the road, blocking it for some minutes as police tried to get them to move. The whole group of protesters then moved to block the Oxford Circus junction for some minutes until a large group of police arrived and fairly gently persuaded them to move.
UVW’s Petros Elia argues with a police officer outside John Lewis
They moved off, but rather than going in the direction the police had urged them, marched west along Oxford St to John Lewis, where they protested outside the entrance, where cleaners have a longstanding dispute. The cleaners who work there are outsourced to a cleaning contractor who John Lewis allow to pay low wages, with poor conditions of service and poor management, disclaiming any responsibility for these workers who keep its stores running.
There were some heated exchanges between protesters and police but I saw no arrests and soon the protesters marched away to the Marble Arch Topshop branch to continue their protest.
One of the original tenants comes to talk with me She tells me she dreads having to move
I began work on Sunday 18th June 2017 on the Central Hill Estate at the south-east tip of Lambeth, built on a hill with splendid views towards central London. Across the road (also Central Hill) at the top is Norwood in LB Croydon, a few yards down from the estate takes you in to the LB of Southwark, while 5 minutes walk east brings you to Crystal Palace in the LB of Bromley.
As Ted Knight, the leader of Lambeth Council from 1978 until disqualified for refusing to cap rates in 1985 and demonised by the press as ‘Red Ted’, told us later in the morning when he came to express his support, the estate was designed and built in 1967-74 when Labour believed that “nothing was too good for the working people” and the estate was built to high specifications and is still in sound condition. Borough Architect Ted Hollamby had earlier brought in Rosemary Stjernstedt from the LCC where she was their first senior woman architect, and she was the team leader, working with structural engineer Ted Happold from Arup & Partners and architect Roger Westman.
The scheme was seen from the start as a living community, and included a burses’s hostel, a day card centre and a doctor’s surgery as well as a small row of shops, a club centre and community hall. It also had a district heating system, though this is no longer in use. The plans made great use of the sloping site and the estate is certainly one of the finest of that era. It has remained a popular estate, with relatively low crime rates, and quite a few of the original residents still live there and wish to stay.
It’s an estate that clearly should be listed, but Historic England decided not to do so in 2016, probably under pressure from politicians, particularly because of the scale of the site and the very attractive possibilities it presents for developers. The Twentieth Century Society were dismayed that their application was dismissed – and you can read their application on-line.
In 2017 Lambeth decided to completely demolish the estate and develop it with an extra 400 homes, roughly doubling the size, most of which will be for private sale. Many residents objected and Architects for Social Housing have developed alternative plans showing how the extra capacity could be achieved at lower cost retaining the existing housing and the main features of the estate.
Nicola Curtis, one of the elected representatives the council refuses to talk with
The council seem to have little concern for the current residents of the estate or their wishes. They have been banned from using the community resource centre on the estate, which was locked. A large mural was painted with council agreement on one of the walls in the estate – but the council then insisted that they remove the name ‘Central Hill’ from it. The council refused to talk with the two representatives of the residents elected to the Resident Engagement Panel. Normal maintenance of the paths and other aspects of the estate appears to have been stopped, and I found examples of very shoddy work by the council on the estate.
I took the train back into central London and to Parliament Square, wherre Veterans for Peace had organised a remembrace of Brian Haw on the 6th anniversary of his death. They held a small banner with the message ‘War is is not the solution to the problems we face in the 21st century’
Brian Haw began his camp here on 2 June 2001, and remained in place despite many attempts, legal and otherwise to remove him for almost 10 years, leaving only when arrested, for court appearances and to speak at protests at Trafalgar Square and Downing St until 1 January 2011 when he left England to receive treatment for his lung cancer in Berlin. He died in Germany in the early hours of 18 June 2011.
His ten years of protest and the frequent and repeated harassment undoubtedly hastened his decline and death. His protest in Parliament square was continued by Barbara Tucker who had joined him in 2005 and had been imprisoned twice for her role in the protest and arrested 48 times. The level of harassment increased and she went on hunger strike on 31st December 2012. Late in January 2013 she was taken into hospital close to death, and was treated for frostbite and exposure. Her protests continued on-line.
It was also the day of the annual Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day march in London, attended by several thousand from all over the country. Led by Imams and Neturei Karta anti-Zionist Jews, it called for ‘Freedom for Palestine’, and for all oppressed people’s across the world, and for a boycott of Israel.
As usual the march met with opposition from a small group of Zionists with Israeli flags and they were better organised than in previous years, with around 20 of them managing to block the route for around a quarter of an hour before police managed to move them on and allow the march to continue, though rather more slowly than usual.
Al Quds Day was inaugurated by Ayatollah Khomeini and some of the groups which support it may still receive support from the Iranian regime. Some of the protesters carried a small flag with both the Palestinian flag and that of Hezbollah and the message ‘Boycott Israel’. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group uses the same flag for both, and the militant wing is a proscribed group in the UK. The flag carried by some on the protest made clear in the small print it was in support of the political party.
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.
London events I covered that day and some of what I wrote about them on My London Diary. More at the links below.
A protest in Trafalgar Square calls for an end of the violence by the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua, where since the 19th of April police have killed over 100 protesters and a injured over 600, and there have been many unjustly detained, tortured and raped.
Women wore purple, white and green head scarves to make up three strands of a huge procession in the suffragette colours through London marking 100 years since many British women gained the right to vote.
The 1918 act gave the vote to the first time to all men over 21 and to men like my father over 18 serving in the armed forces, but did not bring in universal suffrage for women. Women had to be over 30 and meet a property requirement. It was another ten years before all women over 21 – including my mother who was by then 23 – could vote.
A large crowd squashed into the street in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy for a rally in support of the oppressed people of Palestine and others around the world.
The event, organised by the Justice for Palestine Committee, is supported by the Islamic Human Rights Commission and a wide range of pro-Palestinian organisations, and was opposed by the Zionist Federation and some right wing hooligans, who were stopped from attacking the peaceful event by a large police presence in the area.
Celebrated in many countries, Al Quds Day, established by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, has been marked in London for over 30 years.
This year’s event was a gesture of defiance to the demonisation campaign and the ongoing murders by Israeli troops of innocent Palestinian protestors in the Gaza Strip commemorating 70 years since Israel was formed on expropriated Palestinian land.
Police had set up barriers to keep the official Zionist protest around a hundred yards down the road from the Al Quds day event, while others who were football thugs roamed the streets
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.
A year ago I was out taking pictures of a protest at the US Embassy in Nine Elms, and it really does seem a huge age ago. I’ve got so used to staying at home, just occasionally going out for a little exercise. But last Thursday I had my first dose of the vaccine, and in a few weeks time I can perhaps be thinking about getting back to work, though until the current lockdown ends (and who knows when that will be) there won’t be many protests for me to photograph.
I never much liked the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, and what architectural attraction it had was rather spoiled when it got hidden behind some rather ugly security additions. The new embassy isn’t perhaps a great piece of architecture and the screen which covers three sides is rather a plastic add-on, but at least it does make it stand out from the buildings around, and the moat is rather a nice piece of landscaping. But I think the main motivation behind the move was to move the many protests at the embassy out of the public eye, away from the centre of London to a rather obscure location.
Protests here are invisible, hidden from any road and only seen by the armed guards patrolling the area and by people actually going into or out of the embassy. On a weekday there will be queues for visas, but at the weekend the area is deserted. Of course this does make filming and photography of any protests and the publication of these more important.
Although it is still very much of backwater London, the area around here is also the largest development area in London, with new flats already around the embassy and others going up to the east and the west where there is huge development around Battersea Power Station. It’s already easy to get to, with Vauxhall station, one of London’s larger transport hubs, just a few minutes away, but will be even more accessible once the Northern Line extension to Battersea opens – supposedly this autumn – with a station at Nine Elms.
The protest on Saturday 1 Feb was against Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ which they say is intended to liquidate the Palestinian cause and minimise sovereignty for the Palestinian people across Palestine, marginalising them in isolated ghettos in a rigid implementation of the current apartheid regime.
It was organised by various Palestinian groups in Britain and supported by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Friends of Al-Aqsa (FoA) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), and there were many Palestinians among the several hundred taking part.
Also coming to protest against the Palestinians was a rather sad group of four Zionists who came to wave Israeli flags and try to disrupt the protest, shouting insults. Some of the protesters confronted them, shouting back, and police stepped in to keep the two groups a short distance apart while the main rally continued.
Among the many protesters were a couple posing as President Trump who handed a fistful of dollars to another dressed as Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who was holding a bone saw like that used to dismember Saudi dissident and journalist for The Washington Post Jamal Kashoggi by the team he ordered to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 2 October 2018.
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.
