Archive for June 2008
>200 School Pupils In Huts On A Construction Site
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Tuesday 3 June 2008, Brent Town Hall, London, NW9 – in a noisy meeting filled with members of the public opposed to the project, Brent council members approved the planning application for Ark child charity private Wembley Academy school.
A short video has been posted on YouTube.
Previous YouTube videos on the Wembley Academy Campaign – one, two, three, four.
Previous blog post.
With only one council member voting against the application the deal was secured, allowing Ark to open the school by September 2008.
Ark claims they have already accepted more than 200 places for the school. The only problem is the school is not built yet, as ITV London Tonight recently reported .
The planning approval authorised 200 children to be taught in rundown shacks and portacabins on the Wembley Sports Ground, next to Wembley Park underground station, while construction of a six storey school is built around them. This allows the private funder Ark to receive funds from the UK taxpayer and being profiting from it.
Local campaigner, Copland school teacher, Brent Secretary for the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Brent Secretary for Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), Hank Roberts said: “It is the usual sort of stitch up. They [the council] are not interested in what the people think.
“We will never accept this. We are going to continue to fight it and we will win.”
Pimlico SchoolThe idea of a private investment school building the Academy school around children is not a new thing. This year Pimlico school in Central London also came under the hold of the Academy school system.
Venture capitalist, and Conservative party donor John Nash, owner of Sovereign Capital, took control of the school, and began demolishing the building around 1050 school children.
“When they first started pulling down the swimming pool we thought it was another earthquake,” said Pimlico teacher Bridget Chapman. “We’re working with the Battersea Crane Disaster group. They’re concerned because there have been a number of crane collapses.
“The cranes will be overhanging a school with children in.”
So, just how is this capable, to be able to risk children’s lives on construction sites so Academy school funders and profiteers can start reigning in the profit?
Arki Busson (middle) with Will Self
Busson has some highly influential friends, ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair for one. Busson claimed Blair was “engaged” with Ark’s Academy program.
Ark is building 12 Academies, six of which, including the newly approved Wembley construction site, will be open for business this September.
The one question to ask, I guess, is will the Wembley Academy be doing a course in construction site safety.
Reel News has given near constant coverage to the Wembley Academy Campaign and the slow privatisation of the UK education system, which culminated in the 22-minute film Save Our Schools! on issue 13.
Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.
All material on this blog, stills, video and print, is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008 All Rights Reserved.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.
>Zimbabwe Democracy: Vote Or Die
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Yesterday, Friday 27 June – Veterans Day in the UK – saw Zimbabwe voters go to the polls, mostly, it would seem, at gun point.
Again BBC News 24 reports were typically neutral, declaring it is “expected” that Robert Mugabe would win the election.
This is not hard to work out, considering the mass killings, beatings and rape of opposition supporters to Robert Mugabe, forcing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to back down from the election, leaving only Mugabe in the running race.
In London the Zimbabwe Embassy on The Strand was strewn with the names of the dead and missing, following a protest earlier in the day, while a single black coffin blocked the embassy doorway.
The UK government response to Mugabe, taking into account British and International actions towards vicious dictators and oppressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq – if anyone believes those constantly reverberated government justifications for those wars – for Mugabe the gloves were off and gauntlet thrown down.
That’s right. The UK government took away his cricket, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe team banned from playing England next year. And the Queen, our poverty-stricken and credit-crunched Queen, stripped Mugabe, who was educated in the UK, of his title.
According to UK newspapers 80 people are are dead in Zimbabwe due to the murderous sham that is still being labelled an election in the UK and 10,000 are are injured. But due to most, if not all, international press banned from Zimbabwe the figures are sure to be much greater.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown called the “elections” “criminal”, but Brown was getting more press that day because Labour came fifth in the Henley by-election, the fascist Brtish National Party (BNP) coming forth with 1,243 votes.
All material on this blog, stills, video and print, is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008 All Rights Reserved.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.
>Our Queen Is Hurt By Credit Crunch
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Lord help us. Terrorists? No. Climate Change? No? Another series of Big Brother, The X Factor, or any other of those brain-destroying abortions that are passed off as entertainment? No. Not even American Gladiators.
No, the Queen, our Queen, the monarch, symbol of our sovereignty, £40 million of taxpayer’s money per year – although I remember figures in 2000 being somewhere in the region of £300 million. Another 1984-style fact, rewitten and hope no one bothers to research it – The Queen, God bless her Corgi dogs, the Queen, one of the richest people in the country, the Queen is feeling the credit crunch.
This has to be one of the most rude, depraved and insulting news headlines, even by London newspaper Evening Standard standards.
It had to be a joke, to the point that when I saw the first ES stall tonight I remarked: “You gotta be fucking kidding me!”
In a time where “recession” was newspeaked to “necessary downturn” to “credit crunch”, when the average household has seen an increase in weekly costs of 40 percent, pay strikes popping up all over the country because workers can’t even squeeze a working wage out of the private corporations now in control of our public services – taxpayers expected to bail out private banks like Northern Rock to the sum of £100 million – the Queen is complaining they don’t enough have money to replace the lead roofing on Buckingham Palace.
You may have guessed by now this has really got my back up. Objectiveness out the window, I found myself today almost agreeing with certain comments by Ian Bone of Class War, for about five minutes, but then I managed to calm down . The sheer arrogance to make this statement defies belief, in any climate, let alone now.
All material on this blog is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008 All Rights Reserved.
That includes all stills, video and PRINT.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to all material and the extensive four-year video archive.
>Agent Provocatuer? Covert Police Inside London Bush Demo
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It would be incredibly naive to think that the police and state would not have undercover agents inside this protest, considering the president of the United States, “the leader of the free world”, or most brutal global dictator the world has ever seen – it depends on who you ask – was barely 500 metres away. But, uncover agents inciting others to join the frontlines of an already violent situation takes it one stage further to agent provocateur.
On Friday 13 June in an Evening Standard report a Met spokeswoman stated that a “large amount of covert work” would be going on around the Bush Downing Street visit.
On that afternoon, I too had an incident that made me, despite the incredibly cramped and crushing conditions, switch on the camera to grab a clear shot of the perpetrator.
The man, who forcefully barged past to get to a position right in front of me, knocking into a woman and others at the same time, wore a black shirt, black fleece and a black baseball cap. He was late 30s early 40s.
Once in position he looked nervous and completely out of place. I spotted a walkie-talkie sticking out of his right pocket. He too, like the account of Yasmin Whittaker-Khan, seemed to be carrying a large and expensive-looking camera, and at first impressions looked like a photojournalist.
After barging into me and the woman, I confronted him, asking: “What the hell do think you’re doing?”
He replied by saying something like, “don’t even think about it, pal.”
From then on, until I was distracted by batons raining down on protestors heads, I filmed him as he moved further into the protest, to stand close to Respect MP George Galloway, still looking nervous and edgy.
He did not participate in the protest, in fact he seemed visibly offended by the protestors, and at no time did he seem interested in the police clashes, which, at that time, every other journalist was pointing their cameras at, snapping vigorously. In short, he stood out like a sore thumb and did not belong there.
The Evening Standard also reported the police and security costs for that day would be somewhere in the region of £1 million ($), whereas the policing to protect the Beijing Olympic Torch back in April was £746,000.
By Monday 16 June, according to the free London newspaper The Metro – not the most newsworthy of papers, but free – the final cost to welcome George W. Bush was around £5 million ($). Scotland Yard refused to comment on the full cost at the time of that report.
But still, the question is laid down: what would the police and state gain from inciting violence or provocation during this protest?
My last article asked what the state response would be to two recent anti-war protests turning to unrest and even violence. For one thing, in the eyes of an authority with a set political agenda, these recent incidents only highlight the need for the current restrictions on protest and civil rights and the impending further laws to be brought in under the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act.
The sceptic would claim if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about. But as the last eight years has seen, even before 9/11, despite the UK government assurances this would never happen, the terrorism and other laws have been used against peaceful protestors, to curb military veterans speaking out and to curtail demonstration and the everyday public life.
The 2005 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) banned unauthorised protest within a kilometre of the seat of UK democracy, the Houses of Parliament. Again, despite abject government assurances this law was solely created to protect parliament from terrorists hiding in a demonstration, “SOCPA zones” started popping up all over the UK. At military bases, nuclear installations and even animal research laboratories. And then “free speech zones” appeared – insinuating free speech was illegal outside those zones.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to the extensive four-year video archive.
>Savage Police Baton Protestors at Anti-Bush Demo
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President Bush: Welcome
But as the Bush convoy of black SUVs with blacked out windows entered Downing Street Clandestinely, under the protection of 2000 police – hundreds of them armed – with snipers and spotters on Whitehall rooftops, and the street blocked off with anti-suicide bomber barricades, more than 2000 protestors gathered to oppose the president’s visit.
The police refused people the right to protest, but at the last minute authorised a gathering on Parliament Square, making any attempt to march on Downing Street illegal and punishable with a criminal conviction and possible jail time.
But the people marched anyway. The response by police against those crushed against the barriers was what any Street Journalist would have expected, especially those journalists that had covered the Smash EDO protest in Brighton several weeks back.
Batons rained down indiscriminately on the heads of men and women. Some protestors tried to remove or push forward the first row of security barriers, but that was met with a further barrage of batons. This did not stop the protestors, though. It seemed to myself and others covering that incident that there had been a slight switch in the protest mood lately, and the more the batons came down on arms, shoulders and heads, the more people resisted demanded their right to protest.
One journalist on the frontline reported that he heard a senior police officer yelling: “No arrests. No arrests. Orders from the top.”
As the protest continued to slowly pull apart the front lines of security fencing, from the rear a black mass of riot police, faces hidden under balaclavas appeared from St James Park and blocked in the protestors. Then the snatch-and-grabs started. The fully armoured units stormed into crowds of protestors and arrested individuals.
The Metropolitan police said they arrested 25 people that evening and claimed ten police officers were injured. The amount of injured protestors is unknown, but photojournalist Marc Vallée caught this protestor on the frontline, his head bleeding profusely.
Again, most of the UK and International media declined to cover the police clashes on the night. One news agency dropped the story almost immediately, a second refused to cover the violence altogether. That evening, according to all television networks the near two-hour battle for Whitehall did not happen at all. Would it be surprising, then, to learn that media mogul Rupert Murdoch was also in Downing Street having dinner with Bush and Brown.
It seemed that President Bush would have a nice British goodbye after all, no mess, not a smear of blood, just “scuffles“.
By Monday morning things were back to normal, apart from some people nursing their injuries. The UK press began to hit out at the police tactics, what some were calling “blood hungry“.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Scotland Yard would be investigating the anti-war protest further, after they accused protestors of “irresponsible and criminal action”. Again, this is not unlike the aftermath of the Brighton Smash EDO protest, where eight homes were raided the day after the protest, police seizing laptops, mobile phones and even clothing.
The question now is, following two high profile anti-war protests, both ending in what police would call rioting and disorder and what protestors would call brutal state repression, what next for protest in the UK?
With protest bans already in place around the UK, the Managing Protest Consultation never finalised and the 2008 Counter Terrorism Bill slowly winging it’s way through parliament and the House of Lords, and police, both in Sussex and London, seeming to label these recent protests one step below a terrorist attack, one can only wait for the outcome.
But what was in it for Bush and Brown? Brown wanted more US assistance for British troops in Iraq to help reduce the UK presence there. Instead he got a demand for more UK troops to be sent to Afghanistan, which he now intends to do.
A video rush of the clashes in the battle for Whitehall can be seen below.
London Welcomes Bush: The Battle For Whitehall
All stills and video footage (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to the extensive four-year video archive.
>"I’m The Mayor"
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As I was busy covering the Unite protest against Fascism (see bottom of article) outside London GLA City Hall on Tuesday 6 May, my girlfriend was cycling around, enjoying herself, her bike and the bicycle police, when who should appear from the rear of City Hall but the new mayor himself.
As usual Conservative Boris Johnson had a few important words to get off his chest, like: “I’m the Mayor.”
And: “I just have to think.”The video below captures Boris at his bumbling best, and considering he’s only just starting out as mayor, these are probably the best words that will ever fall from his mouth.
>Organise or Starve: Historic Slogans Remembered With New Importance
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“I’ve always been very interested in protest,” said artist Sharon Hayes, as she explained the banner she held that said, “Organise Or Starve”, a slogan that was prominent during the 1933 unemployment strikes.
I asked her if she thought the slogan was poignant at the moment, taking into account the current global food crisis.
Hayes agreed, adding it was particularly interesting how such histroical political statements can mean just as much 75 years later.
All stills (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to stills and the extensive four-year video archive.
>After Sangatte Hits Current TV
>December 2007 saw myself, photojournalist Guy Smallman and journalist Simon Assaf take a short trip to Calais in France, to report on the growing refugee crisis five years after the closure of the Red Cross Sangatte refugee camp.
After Sangatte, The 15-minute film that followed the disturbing scenes we found that cold and freezing pre-Christmas day has now been posted to Current TV.
Sangatte Refugee Camp (c) Guy Smallman 2008
Homeless refugees on the Calais streetsAfter Sangatte is available on Reel News DVD, issue 12.
Please support Reel News to keep our independent journalism going.
All stills are taken from the film.
All stills and video footage (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008, unless otherwise stated.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to the extensive four-year video archive.
>The Synergy Centre, Camberwell, London
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As the credit crunch, downturn, recession – whatever you like to call it these days – takes a stronger hold, communities in the UK are feeling the belt increasingly tighten. Local councils are having to drastically cut funding to vital youth projects. And Camberwell is no different. London, in particular, is being hit harder than most, as money is diverted from such projects to help pay the spiralling preparation costs of the 2012 Olympics.
The the last few months I have been back, again, working with The Synergy Centre at Camberwell in South London.
The Synergy Centre
The aim of these films is to direct outside interest and funding to keep these vital programs running in an area often highlighted in the press for its youth, gang, knife and gun crime.
The Synergy Centre: Lower Room
The Synergy Centre: Upstairs Room
The Synergy Centre: Cafe
Video Two looks at the daily youth and young offender projects run through the centre. As with other parts of the city and the country, youth projects are having much of the government and local council funding cut, leaving many places without the funds to keep such projects going. This was one of the main reasons behind creating these films, to assist in gaining further funding for the Synergy youth projects.
Accra, Ghana
Martha Tilston and the Woods
The Gubi Family, Namibia
To get involved or support The Synergy Centre get in touch here.
Stills taken from video footage.
All stills and video footage (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008.
Please contact the author for access to the extensive four-year video archive.
>Smash EDO: Protestors Justified Police Violence Claim Media
>Emerging from the 2003 UK anti-war protests came what some consider the most powerful direct action campaigns: Smash EDO.
Following the recent release of the Schnews movie On The Verge – which various UK police forces tried to ban using certification laws – on Wednesday 4 June, the 600-strong Carnival Against The Arms Trade marched on the EDO MBM factory in Brighton.
The peaceful protest descended into riot status as scores of riot police attempted to halt the arms-trade protestors from getting close to the factory, that makes bomb release mechanisms for the US and Israeli army.
Since then all press reports, of which – considering the extent of the violence and unrest that day – are few and far between, have skewed and twisted that day’s events by a simple copy and paste of official police statements.
But the trouble with that is I was there. I saw it. And filmed it too, as that is my job.
Four films follow below in consecutive order, documenting each section of the Carnival Against The Arms Trade.
The Carnival Against The Arms Trade: The March
Many protestors wore red masks. The police, as always when making public statements, claim this is because a hardcore element are intent on criminal activity. Although in some cases this can be true, the police never explain to the unknowing public about the extent of surveillance against all protestors and campaigners.
The mask and the hoody has actually now become a form of protest in itself, defying CCTV and police surveillance teams, known as the FIT Squad.
The Carnival Against The Arms Trade leaflet handed out on the day explained: “We wear red masks to commemorate the faceless, nameless dead victimised by EDO MBM and the ITT Corporation.
“We also wear the mask of carnival not to frighten but to avoid the intimidation of intrusive photography”
I have argued this before in a previous blog covering the London Freedom of Assembly protests. Highlighting police surveillance and intimidation of peaceful democratic protest and free speech has been the sole campaign of FIT Watch.
For years the Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) has been used to document protestors and football hooligans. But more recently the FIT have taken a keen interest in Street Journalists who cover protest. This has led to the National Union of Journalism (NUJ) holding protests and challenging the Metropolitan Police and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on why police intelligence feels the need to put UK journalists under surveillance.
So far no answer has come back from anyone. Not to say there has not been developments in this case. There has. But not in the way those involved were expecting. But more on that as the dirt continues to be sifted.
But now the FIT Teams are coming to a neighbourhood near you, as part of what is being sold as the campaign to use overt police surveillance to intimidate young offenders into behaving themselves. This all sounds good for the general public, but as has already been seen it is not just the young offenders that are being documented, it is all children in the trouble-prone areas.
As with what started to happen across the UK protest scenes, the kids of deprived areas are all being branded the same, guilty until proven innocent. And then it is too late. Got your photo and file already. This is a very dangerous path for the state to be heading along.
CATAT: Riot On The Verge
The video above shows the beginning of the clashes on Home Farm Road and shows clearly this never happened. For one thing if a hails of missiles of “plastic bottles and bricks” were raining down, learning from my own personal experience, the press pack would not have been at the front of the protest without some kind of protection, like a helmet. Previous riot coverage has proven that missiles go astray and more often than not hit other protestors and journalists. And it should also be stated that there is a very big difference between being hit with a plastic bottle and a rock.
The Argus article also claimed that, “activists clashed with police while smashing windows and vandalising cars“. Yet, the Home Farm Road was deserted and the only violence was coming from the police side, who mostly looked young, inexperienced and scared to death. This, myself and several fellow photojournalists commented on, all of us having experience of such situations.
While on Home Farm Road the most the police could have accused the protestors of was breaking police lines, using linked arms and their body weight to push police lines back. There was no punching, no kicking, no missiles. Police units were using batons from the outset, hitting men and women, and on occasion not in the regulated way – body blows and leg strikes. The pepper spray came soon after. And then the riot police were brought in, in their scores.
The BBC reported protestors forced their way into the factory car park. This is one question that everyone I have spoken to since is still questioning. How exactly did an electronically operated security gate open by itself. It certainly could not have been forced open. Electronic gates do not bow under pressure.
All reports claimed that windows were smashed and cars damaged in the factory invasion. This was not the case from what I witnessed. One window did break and several protestors entered one of the factory buildings. One protestor later told me it didn’t so much as smash, more fall out of the frame into their hands.
CATAT: Car Park Clash
Riot police charged along Lewes Road, arresting some people, just pushing and hitting others. It was reported that several police officers were covered in paint.
Again, myself and other experienced journalists questioned the police tactics, as on the ground their actions seemed to be doing nothing more than fuel an already tense situation. One reporter said it seemed like pure revenge tactics.
In all that day, out of around 600 protestors a 10 people were arrested and held for 30 hours. A Smash EDO spokesperson stated that most of the arrests were non-imprisonable offences and all were released on bail without charge.
But in the meantime, eight of those held had their homes raided. Computers, mobile phones and even clothes were seized.
CATAT: Homeward Bound
This may be true, if the allegations of incidents did indeed happen at the time when the police claimed. This video log would state the opposite, as has been seen in many other protests I have covered over the years. The police attack first, usually in a panic, leaving peaceful people with no other option to defend themselves. In all my footage of that day I did not see one protestor strike out in aggression. There is a big difference between hitting first or defending yourself from a baton strike.
Stills taken from video footage.
All stills and video footage (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008.
Please contact the author for access to the extensive four-year video archive.
