March & Rally In opposition to Custody Deaths: The march in London on Saturday twenty sixth October 2024 by the United Households and Associates Marketing campaign (UFFC) was the twenty fifth annual remembrance of the hundreds who’ve died after being arrested by police or held in prisons, safe psychological well being and immigration detention in suspicious circumstances.
The precise variety of these deaths is just not identified, however is clearly very a lot bigger than any official statistics. At some earlier of those occasions individuals have carried an inventory with nicely over 2000 names from the final 40 or so years.
Just some of those instances have develop into well-known, each by persevering with protests by the households and associates of those that have been killed and in just a few instances additionally by inquests and prosecutions. However prosecutions have been uncommon and convictions non-existent even the place the proof has appeared clear.
Most have concerned bodily match younger males, often of their 20s, who’ve been arrested by police. Individuals from all communities however with younger black males being over-represented, however there are additionally these of Asian heritage, white British and all others, girls, older individuals. Virtually all from the poorer components of our society.
Makes an attempt by the households to get details about the deaths have typically been obstructed by police and official investigations into what occurred have typically been at finest cursory, typically extra involved with masking up than investigating. Regardless of the large variety of deaths there have been no convictions, no instances the place households have felt they’ve obtained justice. And one of the crucial frequent chants is ‘No Justice, No Peace!’
Few of those instances obtain greater than a brief paragraph in a neighborhood newspaper, and the place they do get extra protection it’s largely because of the persistence of the households to find the proof, campaigning and shows to inquests – typically intentionally delayed for a few years by the authorities.
One among these is in fact the case of Sean Rigg, killed by Brixton Police in 2008. At his inquest 4 years later, regardless of a number of law enforcement officials committing perjury, the jury concluded the police “greater than minimally” contributed to his demise – and had been extremely essential of the restraint that killed him. Finally one officer was charged with perjury however acquitted by the jury regardless of the proof. His household, significantly his sister Marcia Rigg, proceed to struggle for justice.
This annual march and rally has often been utterly ignored by the mainstream press – although journalists together with myself have coated it. This yr there was reasonably extra curiosity than traditional following the ‘not-guilty’ verdict on the police officer who shot Chris Kaba within the head at shut vary.
On Saturday The Guardian misreported this occasion in a single sentence in an article on web page 6 about Robinson’s arrest: “the United Households and Associates Marketing campaign is planning a protest in Trafalgar Sq. towards the acquittal this week of the firearms officer who shot Chris Kaba useless.”
The UFFC wasn’t. It had deliberate its traditional annual commemoration and protest over the numerous hundreds of custody deaths, although supporters of Chris Kaba’s household took half in it, and one in all them spoke breifly initially and on the rally in Whitehall the place there have been additionally a variety of audio system from different household campaigns.
Trafalgar Sq. – or reasonably its southern edge – was solely the beginning of the march, which was to a rally in Whitehall. Usually this might have taken place on the entrance to Downing Avenue, however this yr there was a police barricade far earlier than this, and as a substitute the rally came about in entrance of the Cupboard Workplace.
The curiosity aroused by the Kaba taking pictures did make for a bigger protest than in earlier years and it was augmented too by some individuals who had arrived early for the Stand As much as Racism rally. A number of thousand stuffed out throughout the road to take heed to the households talking.
As traditional a small delegation from the occasion had been to ship a letter to the Prime Minister at Downing Avenue, although in some years they’ve been refused entry by the police. They too had been prevented by the police barricade, however later I heard that police had helped them ship it. However in addition to the letter, the envelope contained a replica of the 1998 booklet by Keir Starmer, ‘The Proper To Life’ through which he had written “When residents die by the hands of the police, or make critical allegation of torture in police custody, the response of the state raises very critical questions in regards to the safety of human rights.”
You possibly can take heed to one of many speeches from the rally, by Temi Mwale, founding father of the 4Front Mission, through which she quotes from that booklet in a video on the Actual Media website.
The letter which was delivered to Keir Starmer additionally comprises that quote from the his booklet, earlier than some particulars of some instances and a list of the 5 calls for of the UFFC marketing campaign:
As bereaved households, we demand:
- An finish to all killings by the hands of the state.
An finish to all racist police apply and an finish to deadly use of pressure. - A radical discount in using prisons. Individuals are unnecessarily dying, as prisons
don’t handle underlying causes of social hurt. - The people and state our bodies answerable for deaths are pro-accountability for
their wrong-doings, and an finish to all cowl ups. - Authorized Help is made accessible to all households, routinely.
Extra footage from the 2024 UFFC Annual March & Rally In opposition to Custody Deaths
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Photographs – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photographs
All pictures on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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