Sunday Morning: Markets, Graffitti and Parkours
Sunday December 14th 2008 was a chilly and cloudy however brilliant winter day as I made my method from Waterloo Station to Columbia Market, stopping to take a couple of photos of the younger males leaping across the road buildings by the Waterloo roundabout earlier than catching a bus to Bethnal Inexperienced to {photograph} in Columbia Market.
The market was busy with individuals shopping for Christmas bushes, decorations and flowers, however I hadn’t actually include the suitable digital camera to work unobtrusively, however was utilizing the DSLR-size Nikon D300 with the reasonably cumbersome unique DX Nikkor 18-200mm zoom, a flexible mixture however not one of the best for this sort of work. I wandered round taking a couple of photos earlier than leaving to stroll to Brick Lane.
I used to be early for the protest which was to happen there, and took some photos, primarily of graffiti whereas I used to be ready. As I famous, “Someway the individuals appear much less attention-grabbing than within the outdated days, much less eccentric and dodgy characters, and,besides on the very fringes, the market appears reasonably extra business in character.”
However the market was additionally helpful for me, as I used to be getting a little bit chilly, and after I put my hand in my coat pocket discovered my woolly hat was not there. ” A few stalls alongside I discovered a brand new one for a quid, with a label calling it a vogue hat and a £9.99 price ticket. And there have been fancy goodies like those I couldn’t deliver myself to pay the ridiculous costs in Waitrose going for round 1 / 4 of the associated fee… ” However there wasn’t room for anything in my digital camera bag.
Markets, Graffitti and Parkours
Solidarity with Whitechapel Anarchists! – Brick Lane, 14th December 2008
The earlier week members of Whitechapel Anarchist Group had been harassed by police whereas distributing their e-newsletter on the prime of Brick Lane and had known as for assist this week to hold out their solely authorized actions right here.
This week a largish contingent of police had come alongside to observe, clearly anticipating bother, however at first they primarily stood on the alternative facet of the street, observing and photographing the protesters. When one protester stood in entrance of an officer taking photos he was hauled off a brief distance down the street and questioned earlier than being marched away to a ready police van. I photographed this, taking care to maintain at a distance the place I used to be clearly not obstructing the police. Apparently they determined to arrest him for swearing when he was being questioned, though this Is clearly not an offence.
The police spent reasonably numerous time photographing and videoing me in the course of the occasion, in a method that was clearly meant to harass me, in addition to equally harassing the protesters. This occurs usually at protests, and the police have at occasions admitted preserving a photographic database by which they will lookup individuals and see which demonstrations they’ve attended. Although as I famous, all these I am going to are recorded in My London Diary.
A while later I submitted a Freedom of Data request to the Metropolitan Police to try to discover out what pictures and movies that they had of their information exhibiting me, giving a listing of a few of the events the place I knew that they had taken photos. The response denied that they had any photos of me.
As my account ended, “Clearly their actions round Brick Lane right now had been a waste of public cash, and worse than that. They don’t make us any safer and weren’t combating any actual menace to public order. If they’ve an agenda it appears purely political.”
Solidarity with Whitechapel Anarchists!
Solidarity with Revolt in Greece – Dalston, 4th December 2008
I arrived exterior Dalston Kingsland station at 2.30pm to discover a group of round 50 protesters ready on the pavement exterior station for a protest march in solidarity with protests by Greek anarchists following the killing of a 15 12 months outdated youth by the Athens police.
The police had are available drive to the start line of a march which might have walked peacefully alongside the streets to the peace mural on Dalston Lane for a rally with some speeches and a few noisy chanting. It could solely have brought about a couple of minutes stoppage to site visitors as that they had marched the brief distance alongside the street.
On the finish of the rally the couple of hundred who had turned up would most likely have dispersed to their properties and native pubs and the occasion would have ended with no bother. However police determined to impress a confrontation by taking motion towards individuals sporting scarves throughout their faces – a part of the anarchist ‘uniform’.
However this makes it arduous for the police to take pictures for the database that they often deny they’ve. Part 60(4A) of the Felony Justice and Public Order Act 1994, Act provides the police powers to require the elimination of face coverings that an officer is glad is worn wholly or primarily to hide id, supplied that an officer of or above the rank of inspector has given an authorisation for such motion inside a given space for a interval of as much as 24 hours.
So both they had been performing illegally or clearly that they had determined upfront to acquire this authorisation and had been decided to utilize it. Clearly this was going to trigger bother. They started by approaching certainly one of a males beside a banner with the message ’15 YEAR OLD SHOT DEAD BY GREEK COPS PIGS KILLERS’ and instructed him to take away his masks. An argument ensued and finally, nonetheless sporting his masks he was led away.
Police then grabbed one other protester who was alleged to have punched a policeman, ppushing him to the pavement and looking out him. Different individuals protested on the violence getting used and I believe a minimum of certainly one of these was additionally arrested. Others held up a banner with what appeared now to be a reasonably applicable slogan for London in addition to Greece, ‘TERRORISM IS THE POLICE IN OUR STREETS’.
Extra masked protesters had been grabbed by police, although I’m undecided what number of had been truly arrested. Police started to type a cordon across the protesters in entrance of the station and photographers had been made to go exterior this – and there have been fairly a couple of protesters now on the alternative facet of the road – being photographed and videoed by police.
Police vans had been then moved up between the photographers and the principle a part of the defend, conveniently hiding most of what was happening from the press. However we noticed a protester who tried to argue his authorized rights with police being handcuffed – in a reasonably panotmime vogue in my sequence of images. These protesters who weren’t but held contained in the police cordon then surged out onto the principle street – a pink route – and blocked site visitors solely till police – a minimum of one officer utilizing his baton – pushed them again.
By this time, most of the black-clad and masked anarchists who weren’t contained in the police kettle had moved away leaving primarily Greek supporters of the protest on the alternative facet of the street.
It appeared clear that the police had come to the occasion decided to show it right into a present of drive between police and protesters – and that the police had received. However in doing so that they had spent a small fortune in public cash and brought about an hour and a half of disruption to regular life and to site visitors on certainly one of North London’s essential arteries. And what might I believed might have been meant as “some form of political charade organised to extend public assist for rising surveillance and repressive laws” had in actual fact reasonably advised the reality of the biggest banner on the protest’s opening assertion ‘THE STATE IS THE ONLY TERRORIST’.
Solidarity with Revolt in Greece
Tags: 15-year outdated killed, anarchists, arrest, arrests, Athens police, Brick Lane, Columbia Market, Dalston Kingsland, deliberate provocation, face masks, graffiti, Greek Anarchist, Greeks, handcuffs, kettle, killing, London, London Images, Markets, newsletters, Parkours, peter Marshall, police, police database, police harassment, police photographers, police terrorism, protest, search, shot lifeless, solidarity, terrorism, Waterloo, Whitechapel Anarchists
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