Friday 30 July 2010

Still No Justice, Still No Peace

There was hardly anyone among the two hundred or so angry, loud protesters whose lives had not been touched by a police killing. As well as Ian Tomlinson's name the streets echoed with those of a long list who met the Met in a terminal way. 


Fred Tokunpur Akiyemi, Christopher Alder, Arthur Allison, Roger Allotey, James Ashley, Peter Austin, Noorjahan Begum, Mr Benmerabet, Derek Bennett, Ricky Bishop, Ziya Bitirim, Stephen Bogle, Nicholas Bramble, Derek Buchanan, Edwin Carr, Paul Coker, Simeon Collins, Joseph Crensil, Asif Dad, David ‘Duke’ Daley, George Bosie Davies, Brian Douglas, Wayne Douglas, Marlon Downes, Lee Duvall, David Ewin, Michael Ferreira, Henry Floyd, Giles Freeman, Herbert Gabbidon, Ahmed El Gammal, Joy Gardner, Kevin Gately, Robin Goodenough, Ian Gordon, Leroy Gordon, Vincent Graham, Sponford Antonio Green, S. Singh Grewal, James Hall, Mark Harris, Tunay Hassan, Nenneh Jalloh, Cynthia Jarrett, Kebba ‘Dobe’ Jobe, Andrew Jordan, Nadeem Khan, Sultan Khan, Shiji Lapite, Franklyn Lee, Caiphas Lemard, Patrick Louis, Leon Marshall, Michael Dean Martin, Clinton McCurbin, John McDonnell, Jason Oscar McPherson, Shohik Meah, Jean Charles de Menezes, John Mikkelson, Daniel Morgan, Joseph Nnalue, Richard O’Brien, Nicholas Ofusurank Ogburu, Oscar Okoye, David Oluwale, Joseph Palombella, Mohammed Parkit, Vandana Patel, Leon Patterson, Matthew Paul, Blair Peach, Peter San Pedro, Mikey Powell, Oliver Pryce, Oakley Ramsey, Sean Rigg, Colin Roach, Azelle Rodney Winston Rose, James Ruddock, Nuur Saeed, Ibrahima Sey, Lytton Shannon, John Shorthouse, Randhir Showpal, Changa Singh, Shkander, Singh, Kwanele Siziba, Harry Stanley, Jamie Stewart, Roger Sylvester, Sarah Thomas, Fosta Errol Thompson, Ian Tomlinson, Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah, Mark Ventour, Spencer Weston, Donovan Williams, Tyrone Wilson, Kwame Sasu Wiredu and Paul Yorke.
These are just the ones we know to have died at the hands - or boots, or clubs, or guns - of the police. More have been hidden as accidents, suicides. Never a prosecution, the police enjoy their impunity, the killings continue.
No Justice, No Peace.


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Wednesday 7 July 2010

Sex in the garden

There's something about these long light warm evenings.
And the babies will eat the blackfly on my runner beans.

Sunday 4 July 2010

Zombie Law

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 never had much going for it other than its use by dim plods for harassing photographers. A bastard child of Thatcherite paranoia fostered and festered in the foul innards of New Labour it spent its brief decade of life reviled and jeered at by all but the most abject self deluders.

Finally given the coupe de grace by the European Court of Human Rights it is now a dead law walking. A law declared unlawful. But in true zombie fashion it staggers on, treading freedoms won over centuries into the gutter, enforced with enthusiasm and vigour by Met Police, Home Office and kneejerk coppers across the country.

It may be dead, it may be stinking and rotten but today 60+ photographers turned up at the Mausoleum for a joyful foxtrot on its empty grave.
Even in this digital age photographers can still amass enough silver to make one final bullet to lay this shameful, abusive law in its grave for once and for all. And we will.