Save The Juice
Pro-Israel Demonstration for Gaza – Trafalgar Square, London
January 11, 2009
Every day for the past few weeks, Palestinian supporters have been protesting outside the Israeli Embassy against the situation in Gaza. Today, Israeli supporters held their own demo.
The Trafalgar Square fountains have frozen over! I’ve never seen that before.
“Stop the War” demonstrators were stopped by police from entering the area.
If you’re unfamiliar with the “Stop the War” group, basically their demonstrators are pro-Palestine, and the placard above belongs to them, so they’re easily recognised. It was clear that the police didn’t want any of these demonstrators to mix with the Israeli supporters, for obvious reasons.
After taking the above picture, I was questioned by a policeman quite stringently. He wanted to know who I was taking pictures for and why. I got a lot of that today – quite surprising really. I’ve never been questioned this much before. It’s funny how a camera can arouse so much suspicion!
Along the side of Trafalgar Square, pro-Palestine supporters held a counter demo.
Both sides chanted at each other, separated by the police.
This woman below had “Legal Observer” written on the back of her yellow jacket.
She was questioning this man on why he was taking pictures. He had a small compact digital and was doing nothing wrong at all. She physically shoved him to make him move. Now, I have two questions. What is a “legal observer“, and what on earth gives her the right to move a man who was causing no fuss at all? The man stood his ground and she complained to a policeman, who let the man stay.
Here we have more “legal observers” who were writing notes as a policeman questioned someone.
As you can see, these “observers” are affiliated with the Islamic Human Rights Commission. According to Wikipedia, “The purpose of legal observers is to monitor any illegal or improper behaviour by the police“. I’m therefore perplexed as to why one of these people was requesting the removal of an innocent photographer. They cannot enforce anyone to do anything. Maybe we need observers for these legal observers.
Back to the main demo.
Randomness
I also had a major issue with the security group for the Israeli demonstration, called CST, who seemed to think they could enforce laughable rules. They were often alongside policemen and on one occasion, after taking some pictures, I heard one of them talking into a walkie talkie. He said something along the lines of “we have a female here taking pictures..”, and when I turned around and looked at him, he lowered his voice and walked away. I was the only female photographer in that area at that time.
On another occasion, I noticed a guy waving an Indian flag. I found this interesting, so I started to move towards him but was stopped by a CST guy. He asked where I was going and he wanted to see a press pass. Now, bearing in mind that I was walking in a clearly public area, which was open to everyone else, I found this surprising. I answered him simply and without hesitation. I told him I wanted to take pictures and he asked why. When I told him it’s because I enjoy photography (since when has a common hobby become so controversial?!), he turned to a bystander and snorted and said “do you believe that?”. What kind of ridiculous questioning is this? Why was he even questioning me? Why didn’t he question all the other people walking around with or without cameras? Perhaps it’s my paranoia but I got a distinct hostile vibe from these security men.
I asked him to clarify why I couldn’t pass him and again he told me I needed a press pass to do this. I immediately approached a policeman and asked if I could enter the area and he said “of course”. I told him that he should perhaps inform the CST man that he is making up rules.
This whole episode bothered me, so I asked another policeman to explain to me who these CST people were. He told me that they had just as many rights as I have, and they can’t enforce rules or laws. They were simply affiliated with the organisers. He also told me that just because they were wearing yellow jackets, that did not give them any more rights than me, and they certainly were not policemen. He even suggested that the guy was clearly suspicious of me and didn’t want me there, which I obviously realised for myself. This is the first time I have ever been singled out in this way. What I find most ironic is that in Israel, everyone (including security/soldiers) was friendly with me and I took pictures freely without being questioned once, yet here, I have a member of a Jewish-affiliated security group trying to stop me from entering a pro-Israel protest which is open to everyone else. Just not me, apparently.
And no, I wasn’t walking around in a headscarf or carrying anything on me that would have identified me as pro-Palestine, but sadly, I get the distinct feeling that my skin colour has something to do with this. Ironic, since in Israel, people mistook me for being Israeli : ) I was very tempted to tell him “No, I’m not Muslim, so you don’t have to worry”. They even stopped some boys and asked if they were Jewish.
Anyway, I got my picture of the guy with the Indian flag :P
I asked what Save The Juice was all about. It was his reaction to a protester in New York who had a placard that said something like “destroy the juice”.
Protests are set to continue for at least the rest of the month.
