Anyone who was in Central London this Saturday probably noticed that it was a bit busier than normal, even with all the Christmas shopping.   The reason for all the people – the Wave protest against climate change.  Organised by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, some 50,000 protesters marched from the American Embassy to Westminster where they surrounded Parliament to call for tough international action to tackle climate change.

The protest was deliberately timed to coincide with the Copenhagen Climate Summit being organised by the UN.  Many are saying this is the best opportunity for the international community to come together and secure a better future for the environment.  However given that the best people are expecting is a political agreement and not a legally binding treaty hope has been fading for a while over what can really be achieved.

So despite the cold and threat of heavy rain the Wave marched through London demanding to be heard and hoping for the best this week in Copenhagen.   As the protest began to come to an end it was announced that the Prime Minister would welcome a small delegation to Number 10, so it sounds like they certainly got a chance to send a message.  I wanted to get these pictures up today because of the start of the Copenhagen Summit, but when i’ve had more time to process my pictures and audio, i’ll do another post.

(To see the video in HD please click on Vimeo)

With a lack of anything much else to post at the moment I thought I would dig into the archives to show you something.  Back in May I went to the Strangers into Citizens protest in Trafalgar Square which was attended by 1,000s of people.

(To see the video in HD, click on Vimeo)

Yesterday London had quite a few protests going on, four in fact.  There was a protest by the Hilsborough Justice Campaign which attracted around 4,000 people, there was a massive protest by the British Tamil community, the daily protests against the Iranian elections continued in Kensington and in Trafalfar sqaure there was a protest for refugees rights.  So I faced a dilemma in choosing which to shoot.  In the end I decided to go for the refugees rights protest mainly because I thought it was a story that needed telling (asylum seekers face an extremely difficult situation in the UK and can be left destitute for years).

The protest was called to mark International Refugee Day and was to support the campaign to end destitution of refused asylum seekers.  Amnesty International’s London groups teamed up with other organisations including the Refugee Council to hold the rally in Trafalgar Square.

Everyone will have seen in the news the daily protests in Tehran against the election results from last week.  What has received less press coverage (or at least none i’ve seen) are the protests that have been taking place in London.

Since the weekend 100’s of people have gathered outside the Iranian Embassy in Kensington to protest against the fraudulent election.  Many, if not most, are supporters of the leading opposition figure Mir-Hossain Mousavi.  They are calling for either a genuine election recount or the annulment of the current result completely.  From all I can tell the protests will continue to take place every evening between 6-9pm.

For more of my pictures from the protest, and to see some excellent and important coverage coming out of Tehran itself, head over to Demotix.com where they have a special feature on the Iran election and its aftermath.

While I was filming at Speakers Corner yesterday I heard a large amount of noise off to my side.  I turned to see a large crowd heading in my direction.  They were clearly heading towards a protest as most carried placards and there was a little bit of chanting.

As you will see in the video and from some of the placards this was a Sikh protest against the Caste system.  It was also an event in memory of a religious leader who was killed a number of years ago.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find much information on this event, but I think its an annual protest as I seem to remember seeing a similar protest last year.  If anyone can tell me any info about the protest i’d love to hear it.

Yesterday the Foreign Minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, visited London to hold meetings with the British Foreign Minister David Miliband and shadow Foreign Minister William Hague.   Given his outspoken views on Palestine (which some have described as racist) it was no surprise that his visit was greeted with protests.

A small handful of protesters, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, British Muslim Initiative, CND, Palestinian Forum in Britain, gathered opposite Downing Street during Lieberman’s meeting with the Foreign Secretary.  The protesters who compared Lieberman to the British National Party were very peaceful and maintained their protest throughout the morning.

This comes just days before a larger demonstration which is planned for Saturday in Trafalgar Square which will remember the most recent violence in Gaza and the conflict that occured in the New Year.

So today was the pretty large Strangers into Citizens protest in Westminster.  Thousands of people marched through central London to call for a change in the UKs immigration law. The protest called for -

- A pathway to citizenship for migrants who have put down roots in the UK
- A recognition that migrants remain vital to the UK economy and society, even in the downturn
- An end to limbo for people fleeing persecution who have waited on a decision for many years

The protest began with a series of religious services nearby Parliament and then saw five separate marches converge on Parliament Square before heading to a rally in Trafalgar Square. The campaign enjoys support from across the political spectrum.

Earlier this week I covered the Tamil protest in Parliament Square that resulted in a mass sit-down protest under Big Ben that blocked the traffic.  Well believe it or not that protest is still going on days later!  By my count they’ve now held their continuous protest for just over four days.  Large numbers of the protesters have slept in the square throughout the night to keep the protest going and on Thursday two protesters who had both recently lost family members in the Sri Lanka conflict have begun a hunger strike.

Now i’m actually out of London for the long Easter weekend so I don’t know if the protest is still going on, but i’m pretty happy to guess that it is.  When I left Thursday night it was still going strong, and from speaking to some of the protesters I learnt there is a protest march planned for tomorrow so i’m assuming it will continue at least until tomorrow.  If not longer!  I’ve now done a new slideshow with a selection of my photos throughout the week.  Enjoy.  As always these photos are available for use though Demotix.com

OK so here are the pictures from today’s Tamil protest outside parliament as promised. It took me longer to process them than I’d expected. It also looks like I was right about the mainstream media coverage.  Considering about 1,000 people held a sit down protest outside Parliament blocking the traffic, I have seen NO coverage in the media.  I’ve had 24 hour news on most of the day and haven’t seen anything.  We’ll have to see what the papers show tomorrow.

EDIT – I stand slightly corrected.  BBC London has just briefly mentioned the protest during its 10.30 bulletin.  It couldn’t have been any shorter mention.  Unbelievably I did learn that the protest is STILL going on, with them sleeping in the street.  I think they’re planning to be there all night!

I’ve just seen one of the oddest sights i’ve seen in a while.  At the moment there are literaly hundreds of protests sat down in the middle of the road outside Parliament.  Right under Big Ben, at the junction of Westminster Bridge Road and Victoria Embankment this group of people calling for a protest in the Sri Lanka/Tamil conflict are sitting their holding their protest.  It’s quite a sight to see!

The group were originally protesting in Parliament Sqaure (I saw them there during lunch) and I guess as they finished there they moved to the street.  The police didn’t seem to fussed by the whole thing and they certainly weren’t making any attempt to move them on.  I haven’t seen any news coverage of this yet, will be interesting to see whether the main stream media will cover it all.

As soon as I finish work i’ll get the pictures up, so check back this evening.