The Nether-World

More On That Bush Protest

2008-06-17T00:51:00.011+01:00

This was a very different demonstration to others I've attended over the last five years. It was considerably smaller than the kind of protests unusually associated with the Stop The War Coalition. There are several obvious reasons for this: Firstly, Bush is a lame duck and the spectacle of him limping and quacking into the sunset was never going to attract the huge crowds which assembled earlier in his reign of terror when he first put a torch to the Middle East and when Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were fresh issues. Secondly, people are weary; after years of protests which have been largely ignored by those in power and with numbers always revised down by the media, the large bulk of of the more genteel protesters have fallen away leaving just a core of people angry enough to continue the effort. More prosaically, it was a Sunday afternoon, not a good day to hold a demonstration. The planned march down Whitehall had been banned by our democracy meaning the protesters were limited to hanging around in Parliament Square with an inadequate sound system for speeches and no platform for the speakers.

Nevertheless, according to media reports there were about 2,500 people (I actually think it was a bit less than that). Confined as we were to the Square, the atmosphere was very relaxed at this time in the afternoon. The speeches were, on the whole, very good. The crowd was addressed by Tony Benn, Walter Wolfgang, George Galloway, Moazzam Begg, Brian Haw, Bianca Jagger and Brian Eno among others. It was during Brian Eno's speech that the sound system gave up the ghost leaving about 2,000 people with less to focus on and attention was inevitably diverted towards the fleet of police vans and barricaded blocking Whitehall. We made the token march from Parliament Square to the barricades and that is when the atmosphere changed from something akin to a village fate to something a little more menacing.

Now, if the authorities had allowed us to march down Whitehall, we would have made a lot of noise shouting our displeasure at the warmonger in Downing Street and the cowardly Prime Minister entertaining him. Then it would have been over, the crowd would have dispersed and everyone would have gone home happy. The decision to ban the march merely to spare the world's top terrorist a bit of embarrassment was idiotic in the extreme and a recipe for a confrontation which is, of course what happened. It wasn't a riot by any means, just a lot of angry and frustrated protestors lined up against against the police barrier trading insults with those charged with sparing the two lame ducks the humiliation of seeing the true state of their popularity. There were tussles and, in the centre of the crush; some metal barriers were moved, some banners were thrown, some arrests were made and a few police officers suffered some very minor injuries.

While all this was going on, the fleet of parked police vans manoeuvred to span the width of Whitehall. Mounted police appeared and a short wall hastily constructed. The sea of yellow florescent-clad police men was joined then replaced by the riot squad in dark blue armour and crash helmets. It could have gotten very ugly and for a while I really thought it would. After about an hour of this stand off I thought my energies would be better spent in the pub with Tim, Sim-O, and Gareth so I made myself scarce safe in the knowledge that an event which was unlikely to be reported was now going to get full media coverage. Well done Gordon, you moron! It is a shame however, that all the focus was on these minor scuffles and not on the message being given by the speakers who were preaching to the converted, but alas, that's always the way with these events. By the way, if anyone reading this did record the speeches and put them on on-line, I'll be happy to link to them.

I've got a few more images left to add which I'll do later.

More from Tim and Sim-O

All Images protected by Creative Commons License

Tags: Bush, Protest

That Bush Protest

2008-06-16T01:07:00.005+01:00

I'll write more on the protest later after work and after processing about 80 photos. Anyway the warmonger is is still in town and will meet his favourite poodle tomorrow. So this is a sort of holding post. For now you can read a MSM report here (with video) and see some more pictures from Lenin's Tomb and Indymedia (via).

Tags: Bush, Protest

Top Terrorist Leader To Visit London

2008-06-14T22:01:00.008+01:00

Well, the Nether-World is resembling a bus service today, no posts for ages then several at once (a couple anyway). While I am managing to do a little blogging, I thought I'd mention this (The following is a message from the Stop The War Coalition):

Protest at Bush visit - 5pm, Parliament Square, 15 June

War criminal George Bush will visit London during his European tour this month. He is expected on 15 June.

Stop the War is planning a protest in London on that day against Bush and his war policies, and against the British government's continuing support for his wars. Watch this space for more details.

Anti-Bush demonstration banned from Whitehall.

The Stop the War Coalition has been informed by the Metropolitan Police that a proposed march, co-organised with CND and the British Muslim Initiative, to protest George Bush's visit will not be allowed. The Coalition has organised scores of marches on this route, including during Bush's last visit in 2003.

It seems that when George W Bush visits this country traditional rights of assembly are to be removed from the people. This would be unacceptable for the visit of any foreign leader, but for George Bush, a man many regard as a war criminal, it is particularly deplorable.

We are calling on those who care for our democratic rights to come to Parliament Square at 5.0 pm on Sunday 15 June. Some of those who signed statements accusing Bush of war crimes will be leading this protest, and delivering them to no.10 Downing Street as the march progresses up Whitehall"

George Bush has been dictating British foreign policy for many years. Now it appears his security services are determining our rights of protest. This is a disgrace and we will challenge the ban" Lindsey German, Convenor Stop the War Coalition.

"The ban on the Stop The War Coalition march in protest at the visit of President Bush to this country is a totalitarian act. In what is supposed to be a free country the Coalition has every right to express its views peacefully and openly. This ban is outrageous and makes the term 'democracy' laughable".
HAROLD PINTER

Windsor Protest!

George Bush has been invited to tea with the Queen. This war criminal should not be feted by royalty, he should be explaining his actions to an international criminal court. Protest his visit at 1.30pm at Windsor and Eton Riverside Rail station for a march to Windsor Castle.

End of Message

-----------------------

The bastard has a nerve showing either of his two faces here after the reception he got last time.

Reuters

But Dubya is on a mission. Not content with the chaos he's already caused, he wants to leave his successor with another intractable mess. He's in Europe trying to drum up support for an attack on Iran and is pretending that it's all about diplomacy. He's unlikely to succeed but he should be given the message that he and his neocon cabal are as welcome here as a turd in a swimming pool.

Restrictions on demonstrating are already in place but thankfully his plan to prevent mobile phone 's from being used seems to have failed. Last time the Toxic Texan was here much fun and games were had chasing him around London as he tried to avoid demonstrators. It seems something similar might be on the cards this time round too.

I'm hoping I'm not too late to join Operation Manticore. If I am then I shall try to demonstrate at Parliament Square. If you're at a loose end this Sunday, why not join me?

Tags: Bush, Protest

The Burmese Junta's Accomplices

2007-10-27T07:37:00.000+01:00

There's a new article in the Guardian by John Pilger that I've just read. It's about Burma and it's called 'The politics of hypocrisy'. It seems to be an edited version of an address he gave to a London meeting, 'Freedom Writ Large', organized by PEN and the Writers Network of Burma, on October 25. It's an interesting piece and I urge you to read it in full. Here are some highlights.

In Britain, the official PR line has changed; Burma is a favourite New Labour "cause"; Gordon Brown has written a platitudinous chapter in a book about his admiration of Suu Kyi. On Thursday, he wrote a letter to Pen, waffling about prisoners of conscience, no doubt part of his current empty theme of "returning liberty" when none can be returned without a fight. As for Burma, the essence of Britain's compliance and collusion has not changed. British tour firms - such as Orient Express and Asean Explorer - are able to make a handsome profit on the suffering of the Burmese people. Aquatic, a sort of mini-Halliburton, has its snout in the same trough, together with Rolls-Royce and others that use Burmese teak.
When did Brown or Blair ever use their platforms at the CBI and in the City of London to name and shame those British companies that make money on the back of the Burmese people? When did a British prime minister call for the EU to plug the loopholes of arms supply to Burma. The reason ought to be obvious. The British government is itself one of the world's leading arms suppliers. Next week, the dictator of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, whose tyranny gorges itself on British arms, will receive a state visit. On Thursday the Brown government approved Washington's latest fabricated prelude to a criminal attack on Iran - as if the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan were not enough for the "liberal" lionhearts in Downing Street and Whitehall.
And when did a British prime minister call on its ally and client, Israel, to end its long and sinister relationship with the Burmese junta? Or does Israel's immunity and impunity also cover its supply of weapons technology to Burma and its reported training of the junta's most feared internal security thugs? Of course, that is not unusual. The Australian government - so vocal lately in its condemnation of the junta - has not stopped the Australian Federal Police training Burma's internal security forces.
Read the whole article.

Other crises have shunted Burma further down the news agenda but the problems are obviously still there. We knew that despite protestations from the Government that British companies are supporting the regime, as are French and American companies. So it's no surprise that Chevron and Total are part of a consortium with the junta and that Halliburton was involved in the construction of the gas pipline which was built with forced labour. Thanks to the Burma Campaign UK we can easily find out which companies are still propping up the vile regime in Burma and learn of the lamentable lack of meaningful action from the EU. And blogs like Ten Percent have done an excellent job in helping to keep the issue alive with active campaigning. What isn't being as widely reported on is the arming of the regime and the countries which are involved. It seems that the EU arms embargo on Burma has been compromised by India by their selling of European made military helicopters to the junta. Russia, China and Ukraine have also been arming the regime supplying it with everything from small arms to surface-to-air missiles. Israel too is playing a role in keeping the junta armed so that it can slaughter defenceless monks. Israel and Burma have developed a military pact. And when it comes to supporting despotic regimes, Israel has plenty of previous.

It could be that the Myanmar troops who've been shooting demonstrators to death were using Uzi submachine guns that Israeli arms dealers sold to the country's military dictatorship. According to Jane's Intelligence Weekly, Israeli "security companies" are believed to have sold Uzis and parts from Galil assault rifles to the junta. Israeli mercenaries are also said to have trained Myanmar's infamously repressive police force.
"Given its sensitive nature, it is difficult to see how this assistance could be given to Myanmar without the active involvement, or at least the full knowledge and support, of the Israeli government," reported Jane's in 2000. Myanmar, formerly Burma, has been one of the world's worst police states since 1988.
[...]
To the list of military clients Israel never liked advertising, you can add the dictatorships that once ruled Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries, as well as past and/or present military dictatorships in Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone and other African nations.
The sadistic Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega owed his life, and his power, to Mike Harari, the ex-Mossad agent who led the team of mercenaries that was Noriega's palace guard. The Israeli arch-mercenary Yair Klein and his boys trained Colombia's right-wing death squads, drug cartels and whoever else would meet his price. When the apartheid regime of South Africa was having problems with black demonstrators, Israeli "security companies" sold the white rulers electrified fences and gravel-spraying trucks.

Back in March questions were asked in Parliament about Israel's help to Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe which took the form of advice on demonstration control and supplies of tear gas. Isolating and starving the Burmese junta of revenue is obviously the best way to get it to stop its crackdown on protesters and take steps leading to democratic reform, but as long as so many countries are arming the junta to the teeth then there is little incentive for it to co-operate.

Tags: Freedom, Burma, Myanmar, Protest, Democracy, Israel, Arms Trade, John Pilger

Free Burma

2007-10-04T03:32:00.000+01:00

Click on the banner to learn more. Oh, and there is this (via Justin):

MARCH FOR BURMA
GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION

SATURDAY 6th OCTOBER 2007

Join us for a march and rally in solidarity with the monks and peaceful demonstrators in Burma and demand international action.

Assemble at Tate Britain, SW1P 4RG at 11.00am
Nearest tube Pimlico

March to Trafalgar Square for a rally at 12.45pm

For more information visit www.burmacampaign.org.uk, call 020 7324 4710 or email demo@burmacampaign.org.uk or call Crisis Action on 020 7324 4752/4758

Organisations supporting this march include: Amnesty International, Avaaz, British Muslim Forum, Burma Campaign UK, BDMA UK, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Crescent Network UK, Federation of Student Islamic Societies, GMB,GNNSJ UK, Hindu Council UK, Human Rights Watch, Muslim Council of Britain, NUS, Prospect, Sikh Aid, Sufi Muslim Council, ‘Support the Monks in Burma’ (Facebook), TUC, United Nations Association of the UK, Unison, Unite the Union, Waging Peace.

For the latest news on the situation in Burma I urge you to read the excellent series of posts by Ten Percent.

Tags: Freedom, Burma, Myanmar, Protest, Democracy

The Crisis In Burma

2007-09-27T08:58:00.000+01:00

I was going to write a long link-laden piece about the situation in Burma but I don't think it's really necessary. You'd have to be from another planet to not know what's going on over there and I doubt I could add much more to the excellent series of posts by Ten Percent and Mask of Anarchy who have covered this crisis comprehensively. I urge you to read them and also the information in the useful set of links compiled by Mr Eugenides.

I've been watching the events unfolding in Burma with a growing sense of alarm. It was apparently too much to hope for that the peaceful protests led by the monks would not be put down with the brutality we've come to expect from the thuggish Junta running that country. The people of Burma (Myanmar is the name given to the country by the Junta) have been crying out for democracy for years (silently because of the awful repression) and have largely been ignored. All they ask is that the West stops investing in the corrupt regime and applies strong diplomatic pressure to secure change, something that so far hasn't really happened. The pathetic hand wringing and rhetoric we've heard from the UN and the EU is just that. We can be grateful, however, that the media is reporting reasonably well on the crisis and Burma is now getting the attention it deserves. But the momentum has to be kept up otherwise some other crisis will push Burma down the news agenda and an opportunity to achieve a relatively peaceful regime change will have been lost.

Of course there isn't that much we can do other than to pressure our leaders to isolate the regime and to force the companies investing in Burma to stop. Another (admittedly very small) thing we can do is to sign this petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council and get others to do so.

To Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council: We stand alongside the citizens of Burma in their peaceful protests. We urge you to oppose a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, and to support genuine reconciliation and democracy in Burma. We pledge to hold you accountable for any further bloodshed.

China is an ally of Burma and both countries have atrocious human rights records. China, however is in a difficult position. Because of the Olympic Games soon to be hosted in Beijing, the country is trying to buff up its international image and supporting a violent crack down on peaceful protesters isn't going to help. China is also keen to be seen as a major player on the world stage and is even sending peace-keepers to Darfur. India too has a role to play in resolving this crisis as does Russia. Both China and Russia are, at the moment opposing meaningful sanctions.

Even president Bush now seems to be belatedly taking the matter a bit more seriously (though he needs to go much further) and Gordon Brown is also calling for tougher sanctions but we've heard Gordon wax lyrical about Burma before without any noticeable effect.

There has been some debate recently about the amount of investment British companies have in Burma. The Foreign Office denies that Britain is the second biggest investor in the country.

Contrary to some reports, the UK is not the second largest investor in Burma. The State Peace and Development Council’s investment records are far from transparent, but we believe the figure they quote for the UK is cumulative, and includes investments by companies such as Premier Oil and British American Tobacco who have since withdrawn. It also includes investments that were agreed but never occurred. The DTI figures for current active UK investment are very low. For example in 2003, the DTI recorded UK foreign direct investment flows into Burma as negligible (i.e. between £0 and £500,000).

This statement is however, misleading as there are British companies abroad trading with Burma. From the Burma Campaign UK (a good source for the latest news) there is a long list of companies (some British) which support the military regime. Among them are:

Abercrombie & Kent
Chevron
Rolls-Royce
Siemens
Suzuki
Total Oil

One thing we can do is to write to some of these companies and pressure them to stop supporting such a vile regime.

The protesters in Burma are showing incredible bravery by continuing with their peaceful protests despite the worsening violence inflicted on them by the authorities who are now launching raids on monasteries. They deserve whatever support we are able to give. This situation is urgent and could turn into a bloodbath very quickly.

*UPDATE*

Much of the news coming out of Burma has been because of bloggers or reporters using the internet. Now the Burmese junta is trying to cut off communications with the outside world by closing off internet access and telephone links. This is bad news and an ominous sign of things to come. So is this.

*UPDATE 2*

One of the monks holed up in a monastery surrounded by soldiers stated what the protesters are asking for. They want three steps to be taken:

The first step is to reduce all commodity prices, fuel prices, rice and cooking oil prices immediately.
The second step – release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all detainees arrested during ongoing demonstrations over the fuel price hike.
The third step – enter a dialogue with pro-democracy forces for national reconciliation immediately, to resolve the crisis and difficulties facing and suffered by the people.

Not too unreasonable under the circumstances.

Tags: Freedom, Burma, Myanmar, Protest, Democracy

Tony Blair Will Announce His Resignation Today

2007-05-10T01:58:00.000+01:00

Well, hooray! I'll have more to say about Blair's time in office later over at Blairwatch, but for anyone in London who wants to express their gratitude to Tony for ten years of wars, corruption, sleaze and the erosion of civil liberties and democracy, the Stop The War Coalition is providing an opportunity.

Thursday 10 May Downing Street
3.30 to 5.00 pm: Symbolic protest when Tony Blair resigns
(Please note time change)
Tony Blair is resigning early and in disgrace due to his support for the Bush wars. He will announce his resignation on Thursday 10 May. We are asking for as many people as possible to come to Downing Street from 3.30 to 5.00 pm for a symbolic protest in memory of the thousands who have died as a result of his war policies. Please bring old shoes to lay at Downing Street. Local Stop the War groups are asked to bring their banners.

Tags: Blair, Protest, Iraq

Help Make Ugly Rumours Number One

2007-02-28T14:04:00.000Z

*UPDATED*

This is one of the best ideas the Stop The War Coalition has come up with; to get an anti-war song into the charts on the fourth anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq. And the idea seems to be working. At last Saturday's massive protest, thousands of people bought the song using their mobile phones after it was successfully plugged by George Galloway. The song is actually quite good in my opinion; soulful and funky at the same time, and it has been a while (as far as I know) since a song has entered the charts which has any meaningful content.

The Song is called WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? and it is a cover of an Edwin Starr song played by a band called Ugly Rumours. If that name sounds familiar, it should - it's the same name as Tony Blair's student band. According to Music Week magazine, early sales suggest the song will go into the top 10, the BBC reports.

Ben Grey, who produced the song, told the BBC News website: "We wanted to try and reach the people who might be more into watching X-Factor than listening to politics.

"Marches and rallies can be dismissed and ignored but a hit record will mean everyone is talking about this issue."

Next month marks the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Grey said: "Imagine what a message it would send to the world if this record was number one during that anniversary."

So, by now, hopefully, you'll be wondering how to get hold of the song. I'll leave it to the Stop The War Coalition to explain:

Thousands of protestors on yesterday's magnificent TROOPS OUT / NO TRIDENT demonstration used their mobile phones to buy the Tony Blair spoof record WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR.
http://www.uglyrumours.com
We need your help. Join the many thousands who have already bought WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? and we can get it into the Top 10. Buying the record is extremely simple. There are two methods:
If you have a mobile phone, all you have to do is text PEACE1 to 78789. This will charge £1.50 to your mobile phone bill and you will immediately get a text message explaining how you will receive WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
To buy the record online, go to http://tinyurl.com/33j4oj and follow the instructions for downloading WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
For just £1.50 you can get a prime minister into the charts with a song for peace, but of course we want to do more than embarrass Tony Blair. We want his warmongering in Iraq and Afghanistan to end immediately. We want to help stop plans to attack Iran. We think Tony Blair should be held accountable for war crimes. Getting the spoof Blair record into the Top 10 can play a part in publicising the anti-war message, which represents the view of the majority in this country who oppose the Bush-Blair wars.
Please buy WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? now and encourage as many people as you can to do the same.
TO BUY:
Mobile Phone text message PEACE1 to 78789
or
Download at http://tinyurl.com/33j4oj

Demonstrations are all well and good, and, of course, very necessary, but they do tend to be ignored and the police, with the help of the media, are less than honest about the numbers of people who turn up. Making this single Number One in the charts will send a strong message to Tony Blair and his gang of warmongers and pile even more embarrassment onto him. That's £1.50 well spent as far as I'm concerned. Here is the video on YouTube to entice you further (plays better second time).

*UPDATE*

I'm hearing from Lenin's Tomb that the BBC has already banned the single as it entered the Top Ten, fearing that its anti-war message will offend our very pro-war government. Needless to say, I think this is a very dumb move by the BBC. Banned songs have a tendency to rocket up the charts and if questions are asked in Parliament about the banning of the song (as George Galloway MP is threatening to) then that will be even more publicity for the song and further embarrassment, not just for the Prime Minister, but also for the BBC.

This demonstrates what a good idea the producing and publicising of this single was. Now there is even more of a reason to buy this single. Please buy the single from here or text "peace1" to 78789 and strike a blow not just for peace but also for freedom of expression.

Tags: Ugly Rumours, Stop The War, Protest, Iraq, Iran, Blair

The February Stop The War Protest In London

2007-02-25T02:59:00.000Z

All in all, the Stop The War protest was a fun day out as well as a serious exercise in democracy and (it seems) the only way to get heard these days. I emerged from Hyde Park Corner tube station into pouring rain thinking that it would be as miserable an experience as the tube journey (no Northern or Victoria lines so the Piccadilly line was very overcrowded). Anyway the weather cleared up shortly after I met up with Rachel and the rest of the day was very pleasant.

It was obvious from the beginning that this was going to be a very large demonstration, there were hoards of people at Speakers Corner and the march didn't get started until about 1:30 PM and people were still arriving. We positioned ourselves close to some excellent drummers to keep our energy up and we were entertained by some performers dressed in funky day-glow skeleton costumes, a bit like a 21st Century Danse Macabre I thought, only funnier.

The route the march took was down Park Lane then down Piccadilly into Haymarket and finally into Trafalgar Square for the rally. That short distance took over two hours which should help give an idea of how many people there were. Sky News was apparently reporting 'several hundred people', I heard that the police said there were 10,000 protesters while the organisers claimed 60,000 (George Galloway said it was 100,000). From the ground it was impossible to tell but based on previous demonstrations I guessed (and this is just a guess) between 40,000 and 50,000 people turned up. Both Rachel and I had the foresight to take our hip flasks with us. Mine had Cognac and Rachel's had whiskey and when you're shuffling along a few swigs definitely helps. We also had whistles so we could contribute to the drumming and chanting.

Meanwhile, back at Blairwatch H.Q., Tom had the good idea of live blogging the event, the plan being that I'd send pictures from my camera phone and he'd put them on-line. So I put away my digital camera and tried taking pictures on the mobile. I then spent what seemed like the best part of an hour fiddling with the settings in previously unseen menus because although my phone has a nice 1.3 mega pixel camera, you can't send any picture via MMS which is more than 100 kb in size. Luckily Rachel came to the rescue and sent a steady stream of photos to Blairwatch with her phone until I sorted mine out.

Trafalgar Square was totally packed when we arrived and it was very difficult to move about. However, we did eventually manage to find a way to the top of some steps where we watched some of the speeches. The best speech by far was that of Mark Thomas.

Mark Thomas

George Galloway too made a rousing speech. The organisers had erected a large video screen so even at the distance we were at, we could see whoever was speaking. The sound was very clear too, so well done to the organisers for that.

George Galloway

When Yvonne Riddley started speaking we took that as our hint to call it a day and locate a nice cosy pub for some refreshment (after a bit of a search we settled on Le Garrick and very nice it was too). After that it was time to brave the tube again and it was even more crowded than before.

I didn't watch any news reports on television about the event but you can see the BBC report on-line here. You can also see more photos on my Flickr site. Hopefully the demonstration succeeded in showing the Government just how much opposition there is to the Iraq war and to the renewal of Trident. I hope it also sent a warning to Blair about involving himself in the coming war in Iran. The people are no longer buying the bullshit he's been peddling and they are sick of the continuous wars that will be his legacy.

Anyway it was a fun way to make the point, all the more so by having such good company.

More Bloggage and some nice pictures over at Lenin's Tomb. There are also good reports from The Disillusioned Kid, The Heathlander and Devises Melting Pot. If I find any more reports I'll post the links. Feel free to let me know in the comments of any more reports.

Tags: Stop The War, Protest, Iraq, Blair, Bush, 24 February 2007, London

Stop The War Demonstration in London Saturday February 24

2007-02-14T13:56:00.000Z

From the Stop The War Coalition:

Tony Blair took us to war on Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction. There were none. 655,000 Iraqis, over 3000 US soldiers and 130 British soldiers have died in that illegal war. Now Blair wants to spend up to £76 billion on new Trident nuclear weapons for a ‘defence’ policy based on indiscriminate killing of millions.

Stop the War, CND and BMI are calling a national demonstration on 24 February to say no to these insane policies of death and destruction.

JOIN US.

If you need another reason to demonstrate, read this.

Assemble 12 noon
Speakers’ Corner

Rally in Trafalgar
Square, London

Organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Stop the War Coalition and the British Muslim Initiative.

Details for coaches here

Contact Details: office@stopwar.org.uk
020 7278 6694 07951 593525
27 Britannia Street,
London
WC1X 9JP

Press Enquiries 07939 242229 07951 579064

There is a Petition worth signing on the Downing Street website which reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not support America in the event of hostilities against Iran, or any other country without consulting the people of great Britain.

Please give it your support.

Tags: Iran, Iraq, Protest, Trident, Stop The War

The Coming War On Iran

2007-02-12T10:20:00.000Z

Tags: Iran, Israel, Iraq, US Politics, Propaganda, War

I have been trying to avoid writing about Iran for the last week or so; partly in order to focus on other issues and partly because it is such an awful and depressing situation that it's easy to become obsessed with it. However, the drumbeat of war is getting louder so it's time for an update.

On February 24 there will be another demonstration in London against the Iraq war and the looming war in Iran. In my next post I'll provide details, but this roundup is to show why we need to protest. It's been nearly four years since the invasion of Iraq and all the lies we were told in the build up to it. History is now repeating itself. Just as Iraq was demonised with disinformation, so Iran is today. America insists it is not planning for a war with Iran, however all the signs point to the contrary. In fact former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy believes World War III has already begun. It seems that Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the former chief of staff of the Russian Army, was right when he said that there would be an attack "within weeks" predicting that it would start in April:

"we will see the informational warfare machine start working. The public opinion is already under pressure. There will be a growing anti-Iranian militaristic hysteria, new information leaks, disinformation, etc."

Lo and behold, what do we see now?

The United States is moving closer to war with Iran by accusing the "highest levels" of the Iranian government of supplying sophisticated roadside bombs that have killed 170 US troops and wounded 620.

The allegations against Iran are similar in tone and credibility to those made four years ago by the US government about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the invasion of 2003.

Senior US defence officials in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believed the bombs were manufactured in Iran and smuggled across the border to Shia militants in Iraq. The weapons, identified as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs) are said to be capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

How very timely! Note the "speaking on condition of anonymity". Perhaps they are not as certain as we are being led to believe by some media outlets. Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East History has a little more detail. He debunks the New York Times article which claims that:

In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.

Sounds quite authorative and convincing doesn't it? However Juan cole says:

This claim is one hundred percent wrong. Because 25 percent of US troops were not killed fighting Shiites in those three months. Day after day, the casualty reports specify al-Anbar Province or Diyala or Salahuddin or Babil, or Baghdad districts such as al-Dura, Ghaziliyah, Amiriyah, etc.--and the enemy fighting is clearly Sunni Arab guerrillas. And, Iran is not giving high tech weapons to Baathists and Salafi Shiite-killers. It is true that some casualties were in "East Baghdad" and that Baghdad is beginning to rival al-Anbar as a cemetery for US troops:

Hmmm, the assertions aren't quite so convincing now are they? As always, it's the timing of these clains that are suspect. As America makes these claims and denies provoking Iran, a third Navy carrier group is about to follow the second carrier group already steaming toward the Persian Gulf. At the same time as this news emerges, we hear that Israel has been testing a missile system as a "message to Iran". And this is of course after numerous Israeli threats and an alleged attempt to drop nuclear bombs on Iran.

Iran in the meantime still maintains that its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it poses no threat to Israel. Of course America, Britain and Israel refuse to believe the Iranian claim. As John Pilger points out:

Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations – until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use. The IAEA has said that for most of the past three years its inspectors have been able to “go anywhere and see anything”. They inspected the nuclear installations at Isfahan and Natanz on 10 and 12 January and will return on 2 to 6 February. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El-Baradei says that an attack on Iran will have “catastrophic consequences” and only encourage the regime to become a nuclear power.

Compare this threatening behaviour with the complete lack of concern about Israeli plans to build a nuclear power station despite having an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a reputation for flaunting international law as well as a habit of bombing its neighbours and ethnically cleansing the illegally held land it has conquered. As Pilger mentions, Israel has not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has and wants to stay within the rules.

Iran is not defenceless; it too has been testing missiles and it has a formidable military bolstered by a state of the art air defence system purchased from Russia. On top of this, it can create havoc in Iraq and Lebanon and also destabilise oil supplies by blocking the narrow Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes. But it is unknown whether it can see off an American/Israeli attack. A war, if it happens, will be conducted largely from the air. If there is to be any invasion, it would be in the small area known as Khuzestan where 90 percent of Iran's oil comes from (ironically this was the area Saddam Hussein tried to invade with American backing).

The calls for attacking Iran are, of course, coming from the neo con part of the Bush administration personified by Dick Cheney and advised by the American Enterprise Institute. The plan is to taunt Iran into doing something which would give America an excuse to respond. It is assumed that an attack on Iran would disguise the total failure of the Iraq mission. The Bush administration is now planning for the inevitable failure of the ill-advised "surge". This bare faced aggression has prompted Russia's President Vladimir Putin (of all people) to make some very critical statements about America.

"What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master...

"It has nothing in common with democracy because that is the opinion of the majority taking into account the minority opinion...

"People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don't want to learn it themselves."

Needless to say, his statements have sparked a war of words between Washington and Moscow. Putin might be a fine one to talk about democracy and abuse of power but that doesn't make what he said about America any less true.

A Quick Question

2007-01-28T06:06:00.000Z

Tags: BBC, Media, Protest, Anti-War

Has anyone else wondered why the BBC would spend so much time covering the anti-Iraq war protests in Washington when they give minimal coverage to anti-war protests here in the UK? I only ask because I've been watching their coverage and it seems much better than what they report of UK protests. They made it the first piece on their News 24 hourly bulletin with a clips of Jane Fonda and a member of Congress speaking. I don't recall the BBC giving such attention to the numerous similar anti-war protests held in Britain since 2003 when over a million people marched. Is it because it is deemed unusual for Americans to protest against the war (that isn't the case incidentally) or is the BBC prevented from adequately covering UK protests but free to report what happens in the USA? I genuinely don't know the answer.

Last week the Iraq war was debated in Parliament for the first time since 2003 (Tony Blair didn't seem to have the courage to attend despite his stated eagerness to debate these issues). Outside Parliament was a small group of protesters. No coverage was given to this. But for those brave enough to attempt to use the frankly awful search function on the BBC News website, you can find news of peers protesting outside Parliament about, erm... the right to protest outside Parliament (I don't remember that being broadcast), something a bunch of us have been doing for some time.

Hopefully this new-found eagerness to report on anti-war protests will mean some of these coming events will get some coverage but somehow I doubt it.

Mass Lone Demonstration and Carol Service

2006-12-21T07:54:00.000Z

The last Mass Lone Demonstration of 2006 was as much fun as the others I've attended only much, much colder. It really was freezing but that didn't stop a bunch of die-hard democracy fans assembling in Parliament Square once again to make a mockery of the idiotic SOCPA law which forbids protest in the vicinity of the Prime Minister's office without written permission from the police which has to be obtained a week beforehand. There was the usual amusing array of diverse protests; from "Fair Pay For Elves" to my own "Stop the Surveillance Society".

After protesting for an hour, we gathered under the statue of Winston Churchill to break the law by singing Christmas carols, an event organised by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads. Veteran peace protester Brian Haw was presented with a new and more powerful loudspeaker and then the singing commenced in candle light, and very tuneful it was too. Pausing only briefly for some mince pies, we sang:

O Come All Ye Faithful
Away In A Manger
Little Drummer Boy
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Deck The Halls
Good King Wenceslas
The First Noel
Joy To The World
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Jingle Bells
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Clause Is Coming To Town
Amazing Grace
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night

Sorry, I didn't record any of it. Christmas carols aren't usually my sort of thing but this was really quite charming and it again highlighted the utter stupidity of a repressive law. A collection was made for sick children in Iraq and we also had a minute's silent reflection. The police were nowhere to be seen. Obviously they decided to keep an even lower profile than they did last year.

By eight o clock it was all over and we took our frozen bodies down to the Red Lion to thaw out before moving on to another pub to continue the festivities. Among the revellers were Rachel, Gareth from D-Notice, the Disillusioned Kid and of course Tim. As soon as they post something on the Mass Lone Protest, I'll link to it. You can see higher resolution versions of these photos here and Gareth has some more over here. I expect Indymedia will have some more pictures soon.

*UPDATE*
Here are the links to the reports from some of the other bloggers who attended:

If I find any more I'll update this post again. Oh, and we managed to raise £85.93 (and 70 euro-cents) for Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.

Tags: Mass Lone Demonstration, Protest, Democracy, Civil Liberties

A Little Vignette of 21st Century Britain

2006-12-17T20:27:00.000Z

Regular readers will know that I attend the Mass Lone Demonstrations in Parliament Square as often as I can. Not only are they a terrific way to highlight how stupid and pointless the SOCPA laws (.pdf) are, they're also a lot of fun. The next one is on December 20th and will be followed by a carol-singing session (how subversive can we get eh?).

Anyway, in order to be able to protest legally these days, it's necessary to get police permission which for me usually means trotting down to Charing Cross police station and handing in forms a week before the protest. At Charing Cross the police are used to us now and are good-natured and fairly efficient despite large numbers of people turning up and various pranks being played. It is also possible to go to your local police station to get permission but this seems to invite a somewhat different experience as this post clearly shows (via Rachel who was also there).

I'm not going to include any of the post here as I think it's so good you should go and read the whole thing (it's basically a time-line of an interminable wait in a London police station). For me it seemed like a snapshot of life in 21st Century Britain as inefficient bureaucracy meets a determination to stop people exercising their right to protest, but the other details paint a vivid tragicomic picture.

Tags: Protest, Mass Lone Demonstration, Democracy

Message from the Stop The War Coalition

2006-10-29T06:35:00.000Z

I have just received this message as part of an e-mail from the Stop The War Coalition:

EMERGENCY PROTEST ON THE IRAQ WAR
TUESDAY 31 OCTOBER ASSEMBLE 5PM-7PM
PARLIAMENT SQUARE, LONDON SW1
(Nearest tube: Westminster)

On Tuesday 31 October, Parliament will debate and vote on the Iraq war for the first time since March 18 2003. Alex Salmond, one of the MPs who initiated the debate, says: "This is the first time since the invasion of Iraq that the government can be held to account over this illegal and unwanted war."

STOP THE WAR COALITION has called an emergency protest in front of Parliament when the debate takes place between 5pm and 7pm. MPs must end a war which has brought nothing but mass slaughter and devastation to the people of Iraq. There is no excuse. It's what the majority of British people want. It's what even the head of the British armed forces, General Sir Richard Dannatt, wants.

JOIN THE PROTEST. SPREAD THE WORD AMONG YOUR FRIENDS, WORK COLLEAGUES, FELLOW STUDENTS etc. TO DOWNLOAD A LEAFLET FOR PHOTOCOPYING, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/teom7 MORE DETAILS: http://www.stopwar.org.uk

Tags: Protest, Iraq, UK Politics

Another Mass Lone Demonstration

2006-09-23T17:18:00.000+01:00

Once again a group of people descended on Parliament Square to defend the right to peacful protest which is being eroded thanks to the SCOPA laws (.pdf). Like last time it was completely legal as everyone had applied for permission from the police a week beforehand. It was by no means a massive protest and was perhaps a little smaller than the previous gathering. However the atmosphere was just as friendly.
The different issues that people were protesting against were just as amusing as last time. Some favorites were:

Ban all grammatical mistakes on signs
Equal rights for pigeons
Down with people who dress as the Spanish Inquisition
Stop putting bits in cheese
Ban the bendy bus (I wholeheatedly agree)

There were of course many more issues being protested both funny and serious. My attempts at photographing the event using just the camera on my mobile phone were predictably unsuccessful so all these photos are from Gareth at D-Notice. He has more pictures which you can see here.

These Mass Lone Demonstrations are set to become a regular event. After the protest it was decided by a show of hands to hold this event on the third Wednesday of every month at the same time (6pm - 7pm). On Wednesdays MPs are still in Parliament so they will see the protest. Of course as the winter draws in it will be darker, colder and probably wetter so if you plan on coming to future protests remember to dress appropriately and bring provisions.

If the weather becomes too bad to hang about outside Parliament, Tony Blair's local pub isn't such a bad place to go for some refreshment (and that is exactly what Gareth and I did once the protest was over). Hopefully these protests will grow in size as people realise the right to protest is a fundamental element of a democracy.

Tags: Protest

Time to tell Blair to go

2006-09-19T06:22:00.000+01:00

This weekend the Labour Party will hold its annual party conference in Manchester. With all the recent drama over the leadership of the Party, the litany of policy failures and a looming NHS strike, it should be an interesting event. Not that New Labour is planning to let anyone but the most loyal of party members into the conference. Rather than have another repetition of last year when an 80 year old refugee from Nazi Germany was roughed up and manhandled out of the auditorium for shouting "nonsense", the Party intend to strictly veto attendees.

However, this is the best chance we will have to send Tony Blair an unequivocal message:

It's Time To Go!

The Stop The War Coalition, with other groups, is organising one of its most important demonstrations so far. A huge protest is planned in Manchester on September 23 at 1:00 pm. If you are able to make it to Manchester this Saturday, I urge you to attend an help deliver to Tony this very simple message which he is having so much difficulty understanding. For full details of the protest including information on coaches and trains as well as a map of central Manchester with relevant meeting points and the route, please click here.

Tags: Blair, Protest, Labour Party Conference

That Mass Lone Demonstration

2006-09-01T06:46:00.000+01:00

We did it! About 100 people turned up at Parliament Square, each with their own particular issue to protest about, and there were some very amusing issues too. Some memorable ones were: the planetary status of Pluto, free chocolate for pensioners and calls for the exiling of Robbie Williams. My protest against the surveillance state was somewhat less surreal, but in keeping with the spirit of the event I did include my objection to microchips on wheelie bins (I'm not kidding).

Queuing at Charing Cross police station to get permission

It was touch and go whether I'd have the permission from the police that I'd applied for the previous week. As it was, my letter arrived the day of the protest. The atmosphere was very good natured, in fact it was the most fun I've had at a demonstration.

Permission to protest

The police were as well behaved as the protesters and wisely kept their distance (after all this was entirely legal). I met up with some of my fellow bloggers; Rachel who was rightly demanding an inquiry into the July 7 London bombings and also protesting against crap laws, Tim who wants Tony Blair to pay him the £2000 he owes him, and Justin who wants everything legalised and everything banned.

Rachel with D Notice

Tim Ireland from Bloggerheads

Justin from Chicken Yohhurt

Brian Haw was in fine form encouraging the protesters to make plenty of noise and making good use of his loudspeaker (he needs a new one incidentally, one that can be powered from a car battery, so if anyone can help out...). The mass lone protest was organised by the well-known comedian/activist Mark Thomas and there are other similar events planned soon to highlight the stupidity of the SCOPA laws (.pdf). We protested for an hour and then made our way to the Red Lion pub for plenty of liquid refreshment (cheers everyone) before staggering off home.

Tags: Mass Lone Demonstration

A couple of things to do in London on Thursday

2006-08-22T03:48:00.000+01:00

1. Defend Freedom of Speech by participating in this clever little stunt:

(via Rachel from whom I'm cheekily lifting most of this because I can't put it any better.)

A Simultaneous lone demonstration

This is a great idea and well worth doing... [Now over to Rachel]

A recent damn-fool law has made it illegal to protest anywhere near Parliament without official police permission, and comedian Mark Thomas is organising a stunt to highlight the danger and stupidity of having this law in a democracy.

Please note that taking part in this is 100% LEGAL, and the whole purpose of the stunt is to overload the system by dozens of people all asking for permission to protest all at the same time.

The law: Under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (.PDF) it is an offence to organise or take part in a demonstration in a public place within the “designated area” (up to 1 km around parliament) if authorisation has not been given by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.Participants may be subject to a fine of up to £1000 and “organizers” face up to a year in Jail.Tsk! We haven't enough space for this nonsense in our jails. It's an outrage!

DESIGNATED AREA: Dozens of people have been arrested for not complying with the law even when they are taking part in “Lone Demonstrations” - i.e. if they are one person with a placard.

Many people see this legislation as an assault on our civil liberties and human rights. It’s not always practical to plan a week in advance what government activities you may or may not disagree with. Sometimes a spontaneous response is called for. And surely the most appropriate place to demonstrate against the government’s actions is within the newly “Designated Area”, at the very core of this country’s democratic foundation.

And why is New Labour so concerned about peaceful protestors anyway?If you apply for permission 6 days in advance for a lone protest (ie 1 person) they cannot refuse permission, so in order to highlight the ridiculousness of having to ask for police permission to hold a peaceful demonstration, Mark Thomas is organising a mass lone demonstration evening.

Anyone who wants to demonstrate about any issue can come along, or even if you just want to demonstrate your disgust at having to ask for permission to protest in a supposedly free country. Remember. This will NOT be breaking the law in any way!

In fact the purpose of this is to get as many people as possible complying with a ridiculous law. All at the very same time! Huzzah!

Stage 1 - Decide on your protest!
This can be something you feel strongly about or something very silly – it’s up to you. Then you need to fill in the official SCOPA application form (which is very simple) and there is a copy of the form attached. You can get it from here.

Stage 2 - Meet on Thursday 24th August outside Charing Cross police station any time between: 5.30pm-6pm to hand in your SOCPA forms.
The address is Agar Street, London, WC2N 4JP and a map is attached. You have to fill in form and hand it in to the police 1 week before you protest, so everyone has to turn up at the same time to give their forms to>the Police. This will mean if 100 people turn up and apply for permission, then the unfortunate police have to license and approve 100 lone demonstrations. (Yes, I know they have more imprtant things to do. That's the whole point. It's for the long term good that we do this, so they can get on with catching baddies instead of wasting their time with this nonsense.) If you can’t make it to hand the forms in but want to demonstrate on the 31st, post them to: Ben Stern S2S Suite Z009 Old Truman Brewery 1 Brick Lane London E1 6QL.

Stage 3 - The mass lone demonstrations will be 1 week later on Thursday 31st August and will again be at 6:00pm for 1 hour, so this event is open to those with day jobs. Come along! Join in! Exercise your democratic rights! The more people who come the bigger an impression this will make!

EASY-PEASY STEP BY STEP

STEP 1 Forward this on to any friends who have a burning issue that they might need to protest about and persuade them to come as well. This is also for anyone who finds it terrible that we have to ask for permission from the Police to peacefully protest outside Parliament.

STEP 2 Print out form

STEP 3 Fill in form with the issue that you wish to protest about.

STEP 4 5.30 - 6pm Thursday 24th August, show up at the same time as other>lone protesters at Charing Cross Police Station.

STEP 5 6pm Thursday 31st August, show up and protest about your personal issue in Parliament Square.

STEP 6 Consider continuing your protest again at a later date.

Again a group session for shy lone protesters will almost certainly be scheduled. Once again this is COMPLETELY LEGAL – in fact we are encouraging as many people as we can to apply to the letter of law simultaneously. Dozens of people have already agreed to do this so don’t worry that you’ll be doing this on your own. See the links below to learn more about SOCPA, the groups it has angered and the people it has affected. This is also likely to be covered by the press. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this event.

Links:

Parliament Square.org.uk
Spy.org.uk
Bloggerheads

2. Reward yourself by coming to this:

(Please note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the above protest apart from the fact that I'm trying to get to both events and I'm helping out some friends, as well as cleverly combining politics and entertainment in one long blog post.)

Kamel Nitrate, the embassadors of global psychedelic sexy funk break beat dub, will be performing live at Darbucka this thursday, bringing with them the lovely Scarlet Sahara, carrying light in her shimmering waist and rainbows in her silk veil.

Kamel Nitrate will be performing new tracks from their upcoming album, extending their live shows for over one hour of indulgent sounds. Making a debut on the night with the Kamels, guest percussionist and man of international rhythms, Barnaby Green.

The enchanted evening will be taking place at Darbucka, a lovely venue where you can just sit back and feel like the Kings and Queens of Arabia and indulge yourself on delicious food and try some of the varied perfumed shishas. Or you can dance the night away with the global exotic rhythms of DJ Karim and feast your eyes on the exquisite tribal belly dance group Atalanta, with most tantalizing and gracious Hannah and her friends.

Either way, spoilt for choice I'd say but you have it all under one roof.

This is a night for magic to happen, leave your worries outside, come and get pampered....

182 Basement, St John Street,
Clerkenwell,
London, EC1V 4JZ

7pm - 1am £5 Entrance

Tags: Freedom of Speech, Civil Liberties, Protest, Entertainment

The citizen weapons inspectors strike again

2006-08-09T08:55:00.000+01:00

It doesn’t look like Prestwick airport has improved its security since the last time that the Trident Ploughshare campaign group managed to get on board a US military cargo aircraft in order to search for weapons bound for Israel. Two days after eight of the group were arrested they did it again.

A group of anti-war campaigners yesterday claimed to have broken through security at Prestwick airport and boarded a US plane. Last month it emerged that the airport, near Glasgow, was being used as a staging post for American planes transporting bombs to Israel.

Campaign group Trident Ploughshare said five activists boarded a US Air National Guard plane just after midnight. According to the protesters, they searched through documents on the aircraft before being stopped by airport workers. Strathclyde police confirmed a number of arrests had been made.

The apparent break-in came less than 24 hours after eight people were arrested after a group of protesters allegedly managed to board a cargo plane at the same airport. Four people were also arrested on Prestwick's runway on Sunday.

On Monday, Strathclyde Police revealed it had ordered airport authorities to tighten security. The latest incident proved another embarrassment to the airport's management, which had claimed the existing measures were "effective".
Source

Either security arrangements at Prestwick are really bad or Trident Ploughshare are very resourceful, perhaps it’s a bit of both. Anyway I still think it’s a good way to protest. I only hope that there are equally resourceful groups near RAF (or is that USAF?) Mildenhall in Suffolk where the American planes with their cargoes of death bound for Lebanon via Israel now land.

Tags: Prestwick, Protests, Lebanon, Israel, USAF

Some of speeches at the London 'Ceasefire Now' demonstration

2006-08-08T03:51:00.000+01:00

Having failed in my attempt to record Craig Murray's excellent speech at the protest, and having missed some of the other speeches, I was relieved to discover that Ady Cousins managed to film it in its entirety and also recorded many of the other speeches.

This is exactly what I was hoping to do at the demonstration. So here they are, the speeches than none of the news outlets wanted you to see, or just couldn't be bothered to show you. Shame on them.

Via The Antagonist who has a very good post on the protest.

Tags: Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, London Demonstration, UK Politics, Blair

Citizen weapons inspectors

2006-08-07T09:37:00.000+01:00

I like this idea. Protesters at Glasgow’s Prestwick airport were arrested after boarding a US military cargo flight searching for evidence to suggest the plane was carrying bombs to Israel.

A spokesman for campaign group Trident Ploughshares told BBC Scotland three people had managed to get onto a US cargo flight.

He said they were searching for evidence to suggest the plane was carrying bombs to Israel.

On Sunday, four people were arrested after demonstrators broke through security fencing onto the main runway.

It was reported last week that US military flights carrying bombs to Israel would no longer use any civilian airports in the UK for refuelling.

The protesters describe themselves as "citizen weapons inspectors" and said they were searching for evidence to suggest the plane was en route to Israel carrying bunker busting bombs.

Trident Ploughshares said seven people got through security fencing at the airport and got into the freight area, with three managing to get on board a US plane.

It is claimed one of the protesters was sitting in the pilot's seat reading a manual when he was arrested.

Strathclyde Police said seven people had been arrested at the airport on Monday morning and confirmed a number of protesters had been on board a plane.
Source

Obviously all seven members of Trident Ploughshares have been arrested. Apparently they did not find the evidence they were looking for. However they did show how lax the security is at Prestwick airport which is worrying even though the US are now using military bases to transport their cargoes of death en route to the civilians of Lebanon.

Tags: Prestwick, Protests, Lebanon, Israel, USA

August 5 demonstration in London against the War in Lebanon

2006-08-06T07:07:00.000+01:00

By anyone’s standards (except for those of the BBC apparently) this was a big demonstration. Let’s get the obligatory numbers argument over with first. The BBC, which always says it is reporting the police estimates as if they were the sole guardians of the Truth, told the world that 20,000 people showed up. Hmm, the word I’m looking for here is Bollocks! The Beeb did also quote the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) estimate as well (100,000) but in such a way as to make readers and viewers distrust their figures. Of course they declined to show any aerial shots of the march. From the ground it is impossible to guess the numbers (at least it was for me), but Tom from Blairwatch applied his considerable mathematical skills to the problem and came up with a much more realistic 52,800 to 66,000 people marching. I would have put the number higher, at about 80,000 to 100,000 but based only on previous experiences of such protests and not on any real calculations.

I did ask a steward what she thought the turn-out was and she suggested it might be between 80,000 and 140,000. Apparently STWC calculate numbers by the not very scientific method knowing how many placards they have and assuming that one in five protesters will pick one up. This of course doesn’t allow for people joining the march as it progresses. Suffice to say, I haven’t a clue how many people were there but there were an awful lot of them. Judge the numbers for yourself from these photos and video clips. People were still pouring into a very crowded Parliament Square halfway through the rally with the march still winding up to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.

The march started at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, went down Park Lane and then detoured off to go around the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square where there was a lot of shouting and booing at the building and its occupants surrounded as they were by the ubiquitous fortifications and battalions of day-glow police.

It then went back onto Park Lane, down Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus from there onto and Lower Regent Street into Whitehall (Downing Street) and finished at Parliament Square where the Rally was held. Holding the rally in Parliament Square was a stroke of genius (I don’t know how the organisers managed to get permission to do that). It meant that the protest was impossible to ignore even with a near total media blackout.

The mood of the march was obviously very angry, and rightly so. However there was still a very friendly atmosphere, no doubt helped by the fine sunny weather (actually it was bloody hot and I’ve gone red) and the huge turn-out. There were people from all walks of life and of different ages and races, which was a very good thing to see. Lots of children attended too which helped to highlight the huge proportion of children’s’ deaths and injuries in this war (a trade mark of Israel).

As the march reached Whitehall, it got much noisier and angrier. The march slowed down as people hung about to hurl abuse at the Prime Minister. His Tonyness was in residence, apparently. We were treated to the frankly surreal spectacle of hundreds of shoes being lobbed towards Downing Street. The shoes represented the children whose lives have been snuffed out in this war. Later they were placed in a touching arrangement at the Cenotaph.

Finally we ended up in Parliament Square for the rally. I think I was somewhere in the middle of the march and so I missed some of the speeches. I would have liked to have heard John McDonnell’s speech as I have been reading his campaign blog recently. It seems I also missed Diane Abbot. I did get to hear Craig Murray’s speech which was very good. I tried to record it but my camera ran out of space so I only managed to capture the beginning (weirdly enough the same thing happened to Lenin on Craig’s speech).

I tried to capture the rest of what he had to say on my cell phone but the audio is so bad that I’m not going to post it here (all the other speeches I filmed on the mobile are also incomprehensible unfortunately – Note to self: buy another memory card for the camera, one with more storage space). I did manage to record the speeches of George Galloway, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn after deleting some photos and accidentally deleting Bianca Jagger’s speech and some others.

I can’t remember all of the other speakers but I liked Jeremy Hardy’s speech about a secular and harmonious Middle East with Jews, Christians and Muslims living together eventually in one state, and Professor Manuel Hassassian’s speech (the would-be Palestinian ambassador to Britain if Palestine was allowed to exist).

After the Rally, the crowd dispersed fairly quickly and I made my way to the nearest comfortable pub with an outdoor area for a well-earned couple of pints. I don’t know how effective the demonstration will be. Demonstrations don’t have a very good record of changing Government policy, but it is important to register dissatisfaction while we still can. The media blackout on the protest is a pretty appalling state of affairs and the mainstream television news channels should be ashamed of themselves. I actually thought they would report this event in a misguided bout of optimism. As it is we will have to rely once more on the bloggers to spread the word and do the journalists’ jobs for them.

There is excellent coverage of the march from Lenin’s Tomb, Septic Isle, The Sharp Side and also Blairwatch. Also, a very good report from the antagonist which has video clips of Rose Gentle from Military Families Against the War, and also the whole of Craig Murray's speech. Little Richardjohn has some more good pictures. If I hear of more reports I’ll update this post.

Finally, while we were protesting, there was some movement at the UN. I say movement rather than progress because this looks like anything but progress. However, I may be proved wrong. The idea seems to be that Israel gets to occupy southern Lebanon (again) until the much-talked about peace keepers/enforcers arrive. Hezbollah has to stop retaliating while Israel can continue to attack provided they call it “defensive” action rather than “offensive” action which is what Israel has called its genocidal wrecking spree all along. This will go down like a lead balloon with Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon. No immediate unconditional ceasefire, just “full cessation of hostilities”. Is that really the best the USA and France could come up with?

Tags: Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, London Demonstration, UK Politics, Blair

Demonstrate 5th August

2006-08-04T04:27:00.000+01:00

Join the national demonstration
Saturday 5 August: Assemble 12 Noon
Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, London
March to Parliament Square for rally

Here's why

For more details including information about coaches and trains click here.

Tags: Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, London Demonstration August 5

While Blair was away…

2006-07-29T00:55:00.000+01:00

While Tony Blair was in Washington being told what it is he now ‘passionately believes’ in, hundreds of people descended on Whitehall to protest at the slaughter in Lebanon and Blair’s refusal do join the rest of the world in demanding an immediate ceasefire.

The Stop the War Coalition delivered a letter to number 10 Downing Street which condemned the lack of action from the British Government. As always it is hard to estimate the numbers of people who were there. My guess, for what its worth, is between 300 and 600 people. So far as I can tell the main news channels are not reporting this event at all so we don’t even have their figures based on police estimates which are always unbelievably low. This panning shot might help you make your own mind up. You can see more short video clips here, here and here. More higher resolution photos can be found here.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Blair once more bowed to the wishes of his master. No immediate ceasefire was called for. Instead the victim was blamed again with no criticism of Israel’s targeting of the civilians, the UN, ambulances and now aid convoys. The great Bush/Blair plan which they have spent the last two weeks formulating involves nothing more than sending the ineffective Condoleezza Rice back to the Middle East to try to convince Hezbollah to surrender without actually talking to them and while they are winning despite the heavy bombardment by Israel, and more talk of an international force to occupy southern Lebanon which will be very difficult to achieve and can’t happen until there is a ceasefire anyway.

More protests are planned to increase the pressure on Blair to call for an immediate ceasefire. Here are two upcoming events in London.

Click for larger image

Oh, and Bush apologised for treating Britain as his personal aircraft carrier by using Prestwick airport as a staging post for WMD on its way to Israel so the IDF can drop them on civilians and the UN. He's promised to go through the proper procedure next time. So that's alright then.

Tags: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Blair, Bush, UK Politics