despite torrential rain, groups of young people (from salford, south wales and elsewhere) arrived outside the BAT hq and placed a 1000 shoes on the pavement, tagged with common cigarette-induced illnesses, each meant to signify an estimated thousand yearly deaths in africa

later, the young people successfully harangued delegates as they entered the AGM at the mermaid conference hall. the noisy and boisterous protest was policed by a very hands-off U747 city of london police officer (paul) who sat in his car and observed. BAT were also filming the protest from an upstairs window.

a tv production team filmed the events - they were working on a documentary due to be broadcast in july and fronted by duncan bannatyne (a scottish business entrepeneur known for his role in the 'dragons den' tv shows). he said he hadn't liked the practices he'd seen as part of his research in africa. these include aggressive marketing, the officially sanctioned selling of 'single sticks' (for greater sales and more child-friendliness), the encouragement of corruption in governments, the child labour and restrictive practices in tobacco farming, and many other issues covered in a far-reaching report released by ASH this year.

some of the delegates were astonishingly bravado about their profits from death. comments included that there were too many people in africa already, that child labour was ok if they had no other means, and that they were all foreign so it didn't really matter. lovely people!

ASH have vowed to be back again next year with an even bigger protest. in the meantime you can check out their websie to read more about the issues and their campaigning work

www.ash.org.uk

as well as the movie links here, you can view it on youtube at:
 http://youtube.com/watch?v=o9nSr8jRcCc