Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus: On Friday sixth Decemeber 2013 some very diverse occasions had been happening in Central London. Right here they’re within the order I photographed them.
EDL Protest Helps Marine A – Downing St

The EDL had known as for a significant protest at Downing Avenue on the day that ‘Marine A’, Sergeant Alexander Blackman, was to be sentenced, however solely round 50 supporters had been there once I arrived.
Blackman was being tried for the homicide of a wounded Taliban rebel in Afghanistan in contravention of the Armed Forces Act 2006, and have become the “first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield homicide while serving overseas for the reason that Second World Conflict.“

I commented “I doubt if there are a lot of serving troopers who would want to see the Geneva conventions disregarded, and surprise what assist if any this protest would have from serving troopers, lots of whom have condemned strongly the cold-blooded killing of a prisoner by Marine A and known as for an acceptable sentence.“
Nevertheless many did really feel when later that day he was sentenced to “life imprisonment with a minimal time period of ten years and dismissed with shame from the Royal Marines” he had been handled harshly, and in 2014 the sentence was lowered to eight years, then after a public marketing campaign overturned on enchantment and lowered to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished accountability. Given the time he had served he was launched in April 2017.
Tributes to Mandela – Parliament Sq. & South Africa Home

Nelson Mandela, the “Father of the Nation” who had turn into the primary president of a brand new post-apartheid South Africa from 1994-1999, having beforehand spent 27 years in jail earlier than his launch in 1990, had died yesterday, fifth December 2013.

Individuals introduced flowers to the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Sq. and to South Africa Home in Trafalgar Sq., the place an extended queue waited patiently for a number of hours to signal a ebook of remembrance within the Excessive Fee.
Bereaved protest at CPS Failure – Southwark Bridge

Since 1990 there had been 1433 deaths of individuals in custody, many underneath extremely suspicious circumstances and never a single conviction of any police, jail officers or safety guards who’ve both failed of their obligation of care or extra actively brought about their deaths.

Relations and pals of those that dies had come to protest outdoors Rose Court docket, the house of the Crown Prosecution Service. The final profitable prosecution introduced in opposition to a police officer was for involvement in a black loss of life in custody was in 1972, after the loss of life of David Oluwale in 1969. Law enforcement officials have been prosecuted for a number of different black deaths in custody – Pleasure Gardner, Christopher Alder and Mikey Powell – however none was profitable.

The usual response from the CPS – led by Keir Starmer from 2008-2013 – is that there’s ‘not sufficient proof to prosecute’, largely as a result of the instances haven’t been correctly investigated. Typically the police concerned are merely not questioned, and in another instances they merely refuse to reply questions.
Bereaved protest at CPS Failures
‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality – Bloomsbury

Following protests by college students and others in opposition to scholar charges and cuts, the closure of the scholar union and calling for acceptable pay and situations for low paid largely migrant cleaners, catering workers, safety workers and others, the College administration had tried to ban protests on campus and had introduced in numbers of police to implement that ban.

This protest was known as after yesterday police had brutally assaulted a bunch of scholars who had briefly occupied part of Senate Home, arresting various college students together with the Editor of the scholar newspaper and a authorized observer.

The organisers had supposed this to be a wholly peaceable march across the varied s websites of the college within the space to the west and north of Russell Sq., nevertheless it was clear that the police had different concepts. There appeared to be police vans down each side-street within the space as college students assembled on the pavement outdoors the College of London Union in Malet St.

There have been a couple of quick speeches earlier than the march set off to stroll across the block however had been stopped by a line of police throughout the road, with those that tried to stroll by means of it thrown roughly backwards.

They rotated solely to search out police blocking each the opposite finish of the road and a facet road resulting in Gower Avenue and their solely approach open was to go onto the campus, strolling previous SOAS and out onto Thornhaugh Avenue. There they turned up into Woburn Sq. after which turned to make their approach into UCL, solely to search out the gates from Torrington Place had been locked and guarded by safety.

They then become Gower Avenue the place they noticed one other group of police dashing in the direction of them they usually then rushed by means of the gates into the Fundamental Quad. Right here there was loads of dialogue about what to do subsequent they usually finally determined to take a again road path to Torrington Sq., and set off at a speedy tempo. I took a extra direct route to fulfill them there. However by now it was darkish and I used to be uninterested in strolling round London and determined to go residence.

The police operation appeared to me “an unbelievable and pointless waste of public cash, and it resulted in additional inconvenience to the general public than if the occasion had not been policed in any respect.” Maybe extra importantly this sort of policing alienates a big proportion of younger individuals, appearing strongly to destroy the ‘policing by consent’ which has at all times been the the premise of our police system.
Extra at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality.
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Tags: ban on protest, battlefield homicide, Bereaved households, Cops Off Campus, CPD Failure, CPS, deaths in custody, EDL, IPCC, London, London College, Fundamental Quad, Malet St, Mandela, manslaughter, march, Marine A, mourning, homicide, Nelson Mandela, no justice, parliament sq., peter Marshall, police, police brutality, policing by consent, jail officers, protest, Safety Guards, Senate Home, South Africa, South Africa Home, Taliban, Taliban Looking Membership, Tributes, UCL, UFFC, ULU, United Households & Associates Marketing campaign, wounded man
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