My day in London on Saturday eleventh October 2008 – 14 years in the past
100 Days to cease Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Seize! Shell Centre
The ‘Arms of Iraqi Oil’ coalition together with Company Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and Battle on Need and supported by the Cease the Battle Coalition protested on the Shell Centre in opposition to plans to had over most of Iraq’s oil reserves to overseas corporations, significantly Shell and BP.
From 1961 on the Iraqi authorities took rising management of the oil business in Iraq, lastly nationalising it it 1970. Earlier than the 2003 invasion of Iraq it offered 95% of the federal government’s revenues.
Any lingering doubts in regards to the true cause behind the US-led invasion have been dispelled by the seize for the nation’s key nationwide useful resource, a transfer strongly supported by knowledgeable consultants equipped by the UK and US who beforehand labored at a excessive degree for corporations like Shell and BP who drafted the invoice for the giveaway which is opposed by Iraqi commerce unions and oil consultants.
The protest passed off firstly of the ultimate 100 days of George W Bush’s administration and commenced at Shell’s UK headquarters on the South Financial institution earlier than the samba band, ‘oil staff’ and different demonstrators with an enormous and grotesque US Vice President Dick Chaney set off to make their option to BP’s HQ in St James’s Sq. and on to the US Embassy. However I wanted to go to a different protest.
Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Seize
Freedom not Concern 2008 – New Scotland Yard, Victoria St
Freedom not worry 2008 occasions have been going down in over 20 international locations to show in opposition to extreme surveillance by governments and companies, organised by a broad motion of campaigners and organisations.
Within the UK the primary occasion was at New Scotland Yard in London, against the restriction of the best to show below SOCPA, the intimidatory use of images by police FIT squads, the proposed introduction of ID playing cards, the rising centralisation of non-public information held by authorities, together with the DNA database held by police, the unimaginable development in surveillance cameras, ‘terrorist’ laws and different measures which have affected our particular person freedom and human rights.
Though police handed out notifications below the SOCPA laws warning them that protesting within the zone round Westminster they have been in was unlawful, neither the police nor the demonstrators appeared to be taking this very critically within the 45 minutes or so I used to be there or once I briefly returned an hour later.
Rosary Campaign of Reparation – Westminster Cathedral
Half a mile or so up the highway individuals have been gathering outdoors the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral for the Rosary Campaign of Reparation, one of many bigger walks of public witness by Catholics in London.
The Rosary marketing campaign was begun in Austria in 1947 by Franciscan Fr Petrus Pavlicek who prayed for his nation to be free of its communist occupiers and it attracted half 1,000,000 supporters. The primary annual parade with the statue of Our Woman of Fatima wasin 1948 in Vienna on the feast of the Identify of Mary, Sept 12. This feast celebrated the defeat in 1683 of Turkish invaders surrounding Vienna by Christian armies who had prayed to the Blessed Virgin.
The London procession takes place on the closest Saturday to the anniversary of the ultimate look of Our Woman at Fatima in October 1917, near the tip of the First World Battle. These current noticed the solar dancing round within the sky, and he or she promised peace and an finish to battle if males confirmed contrition for his or her sins and adjusted their lives.
This was the twenty fifth annual procession in London, ranging from Westminster Cathedral and making its option to a service at Brompton Oratory. The statue of Our Woman of Fatima was carried by the Catholic Police Guild and two thousand or extra Catholics walked behind saying Rosary and singing hymns dedicated to Mary.
This 12 months’s procession had as its particular theme atonement for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Invoice then passing by way of Parliament.
Parliament Sq.
I left the procession because it began off and walked again previous New Scotland Yard to Parliament Sq., the place a number of protests have been going down. Tamils have been calling for an finish to genocide in Sri Lanka and for an unbiased state of Tamil Eelam within the north and east of Sri Lanka.
Within the centre of the sq. was a small protest by London Towards Detention demanding an finish to the detention of asylum seekers and the closure of immigration detention centres.
And Ben and Ben of ‘Nonetheless Human Nonetheless Right here” have been approaching the tip of their two week protest in Parliament Sq. over the scandalous remedy of asylum seekers who’re being pressured into abject poverty in an try to drive them overseas. They spent two weeks in a tent within the sq. residing on the emergency rations that the Pink Cross will provide to those inhumanely handled asylum seekers.
Brian Haw was then nonetheless within the sq., then in his seventh 12 months of long-term protest. As standard I went to speak to him, and was there when a person got here as much as snicker at him and insult him. He smelt strongly of alcohol, was speaking nonsense and appearing unpredictably. Considered one of Brian’s supporters stood between him and Brian who was filming him. I put down my bag as I took pictures in case I wanted to step in and assist, however thankfully he finally moved away.
Danny was mendacity on the grass and referred to as out to me as I walked previous after speaking to Brian. He advised me he had been on starvation strike for 2 weeks demanding a correct investigation into his case. He claims to have been abused by police and social companies following an incident during which as a seven 12 months outdated youngster in Llanelli he was implicated within the loss of life of a child brother however I discovered it onerous to make a lot sense of his allegations.
Whereas I had been speaking to Danny I’d seen a bunch of individuals on the road reverse carrying placards go up Parliament Road and I’d later caught up with them on the high of Whitehall. I discovered they have been Obama supporters hoping to seek out and persuade People right here to register and vote within the election.
Tags: asylum seekers, Ben and Ben, BP, Brian Haw, digital camera, Danny, Dick Chaney, finish detention, freedom, Freedom Not Concern, Arms off Iraqi oil, human rights, invasion of Iraq, Iraq, London, London Towards Detention, Obama supporters, oil seize, Our Woman of Fatima, parliament sq., peace marketing campaign, peter Marshall, police, protest, Roman Catholic, Rosary Campaign, Rosary Campaign of Reparation, scandalous remedy, Scotland Yard, shell, SOCPA, Nonetheless Human Nonetheless Right here, Surveillance, Tamil Eelam, Tamil genocide, Tamils, terrorism legal guidelines, Tow Bens, US Oil Seize, Vice-President, Westminster Cathedral
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