Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Celebration – Three very totally different occasions on Saturday February thirteenth 2013 on the streets of London. First an Olympic-themed protest in opposition to one of many dirtiest fossil gas tasks, then a protest by Iranians 31 years after the revolution that introduced the Islamic regime to energy and eventually a Valentine’s Day avenue get together in opposition to the commercialisation of the annual occasion and celebrating the facility of affection.
Canadian Tar Sands Oily-Olympics – Trafalgar Sq.
February thirteenth 2010 was the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Canada, and protesters took benefit of this to stage their very own ‘Oily Olympics’, with groups representing BP, Shell and RBS, competing in a ‘Race For the Tar Sands’, full with a medal ceremony subsequent to Canada Home in Trafalgar Sq..
The sq. was in use for an occasion celebrating the official Olympics full with big screens displaying ski leaping and an ice sculpture of the Olympic rings. However the protesters arrange on the facet closest to Canada Home for his or her tug-of-war, a curling occasion and a relay race for oil.
Getting oil from the tar sands in what’s oddly referred to as ‘The Dawn Mission’ makes use of a course of referred to as Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage which produces from 3-5 instances the carbon dioxide of conventional oil extraction. Till not too long ago BP thought of it to be too economically and environmentally disagreeable, however excessive oil costs and new administration had modified their thoughts.
In addition to their large carbon influence the UK Tar Sands Community say that extracting oil from the tar sands includes “mass deforestation, water air pollution, dangers to human well being, a significant risk to wildlife and the trampling of indigenous rights.”
The heritage wardens who patrol the sq. for the Mayor of London advised the protesters they weren’t allowed to protest within the sq., and referred to as the police once they continued. Police got here and talked to them however didn’t cease the occasion because it was clearly not inflicting any obstruction or public order drawback. A number of the officers have been clearly amused.
It was a enjoyable occasion with a severe objective, and most of these collaborating have been surprisingly aggressive. I wrote: “It wasn’t in any respect clear on what foundation the medals have been awarded. For those who care about such issues, BP acquired bronze, RBS the silver and Shell struck gold. And none of us have been fairly certain why there have been two penguins current.”
Extra footage on My London Diary: Canadian Tar Sands Oily-Olympics.
Iran Opposition Rally in London – Parliament Sq.
The earlier Thursday had been the thirty first anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and had been marked there by each a big pro-government rally and in addition a ferocious clampdown on opposition teams by riot police, undercover safety brokers and hard-line militiamen.
The protest in London was by supporters of the Nationwide Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the Folks’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI). The NCRI is a coalition of Iranian dissident teams however is dominated by the PMOI, which was proscribed within the UK on the request of the Iranian Mullahs in 2001; the ban was lifted in opposition to the UK authorities’s needs after they misplaced an EU court docket attraction in 2009.
The PMOI have been shabbily handled by the US after they signed a ceasefire settlement with them in 2003 for which they gave up most of their weapons and have been confined to their camp in Iraq, leaving them on the uncertain mercy of the Iraq authorities when the US troops left.
In 1995 the NCRI introduced their Constitution of Elementary Freedoms for Iran, which might uphold all worldwide agreements on human rights corresponding to “freedom of affiliation, freedom of thought and expression, media, political events, commerce unions, councils, religions and denominations, freedom of occupation, and prevention of any violation of particular person and social rights and freedoms.”
They name for a republic primarily based on fashionable vote, the abolition of the loss of life penalty, gender equality, a contemporary authorized system with out merciless and degrading punishments, the popularity of personal property, non-public funding and the market economic system and a international coverage of peaceable coexistence with out nuclear weapons.
In addition to many speeches the rally had a show of {photograph} of a number of the 120,000 Iranians killed by the Iranian regime and footage of individuals being attacked at demonstrations in Iraq, with a avenue theatre piece during which protesters have been attacked by a bearded cleric and a militia man and dragged to a ready hangman’s nooses.
Extra on My London Dairy at Iran Opposition Rally in London.
Reclaim Love Valentine Celebration – Piccadilly Circus
Reclaim Love’s free Valentine Celebration across the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus was began by Irish poet and love activist Venus CuMara to reclaim St Valentine’s day from commercialism and to attempt to harness the facility of affection to save lots of the world.
The occasion in 2010 was one of many largest, with individuals coming collectively not simply round Eros the place the occasion had begun six years earlier however there have been occasions on this present day at a complete of 40 places all over the world – elsewhere in England, in Eire, Scotland, Wales, Pakistan, India, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Iceland, France, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and Australia – together with surfers who have been celebrating within the ocean off Perth, Australia.
The get together started with the highly effective drumming of Rhythms of Resistance which attracted an excessive amount of consideration, together with many vacationers within the space who stopped to observe and a few danced and took half.
A big provide of free ‘Reclaim Love’ t-shirts have been handed out by Venus as an expression of the “extra fearless-generous-sharing-Love-centred mind-set” behind the occasion and others handed out free truffles and sweets and provided free hugs.
The climax of the occasion, celebrated all over the world at 15.30 GMT was when individuals joined arms in a big circle across the space in an ‘Earth Therapeutic Circle‘ and collectively repeated an historic Indian prayer for peace in their very own language. The English model “MAY ALL THE BEINGS IN ALL THE WORLDS BE HAPPY AND AT PEACE” individuals repeated right here was additionally on the free t-shirts.
This 12 months there have been so many individuals on the occasion that in locations round Piccadilly Circus the circle was two or three deep.
Venus hoped to maintain constructing the ‘Reclaim Love’ motion and felt it could actually have a tangible impact if there have been 1.5 million or extra individuals collaborating, a quantity she hoped it could attain worldwide by 2015. Sadly for varied causes it by no means managed to succeed in that vital mass. The sixteenth ‘Reclaim Love’ free Valentine’s Day avenue get together which passed off in 2019 was I believe the final, although I may very well be flawed. There’s nonetheless a Fb group, however this 12 months there’s solely a single put up on it, “Hello lovers are we doing something this 12 months on the seventeenth is it?” which has acquired no reply to this point.
Many extra footage at Reclaim Love Valentine Celebration.
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Images – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Images
All pictures on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to purchase prints or licence to breed.
Tags: BP, Canada Home, Canadian Tar Sands, democracy, dirtiest fossil gas, Earth Therapeutic Circle, Eros, free t-shirts, free Valentine Celebration, hanging, indigenous rights, Iran, Iran Opposition, Iranian opposiation, Iraniandissidents, Irish poet, Islamic Regime, Islamic revolution, killings, London, London Images, love activist, mass deforestation, NCRI, Oily-Olympics, peter Marshall, Piccadilly Circus, PMOI, energy of affection, protest, Race For the Tar Sands, RBS, reclaim love, repression, dangers to human healthh, samba, shell, Shell and RBS, avenue get together, Tar Sands, The Dawn Mission, Trafalgar Sq., Valentine Celebration, valentine’s day, Venus CuMara, water air pollution, Winter Olympics
You may go away a response, or trackback from your individual website.
