An hour-long protest calling for the troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, organised by the Stop the War Coalition [1], took place opposite Downing Street from 5 to 6pm on Friday, 16 July 2010.

Amongst the protesters were Stop the War convenor Lindsey German and two men dressed in orange jumpsuits from the London Guantánamo Campaign [2]. The latter were calling for Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene to bring permanent British resident Shaker Aamer [3,4], still incarcerated by the US military in Guantánamo Bay after eight and a half years despite being cleared for release in 2007, back home to his British wife and four children living in Battersea, south London; as well as Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian national and former British resident who has been imprisoned in Guantánamo for a similar length of time and was cleared for release in February 2007 [5], but cannot return to Algeria for fear of being tortured or killed. Whilst the former Labour Government asked for Mr Aamer’s return to Britain in 2007, it refused to request the return of Ahmed Belbacha. The orange-clad pair also issued leaflets highlighting the expansion of the legal black hole that is Bagram prison in Afghanistan under President Obama. Various photographers and film crews were documenting the demonstration.

About half way into the protest, people from Democracy Village [6,7,8] appeared from the direction of Parliament Square carrying a long banner that read, “Soldiers, Come Home Alive!” They stood in front of the gates to Downing Street for five minutes, before moving into the middle of the road and sitting down, stopping the traffic down Whitehall. The police made no serious attempt to move the protesters, and eventually shut the whole of Whitehall to traffic. A few participants in the Stop the War demonstration joined the protesters in the road, who joined in with chanting led by the Stop the War protesters on the side, calling for the troops to leave Afghanistan and for an end to the war. After around ten minutes, the sit-down protest was ended voluntarily without any arrests, and the protesters headed back to Parliament Square. The Stop the War protest continued without further incident until the scheduled finish time of 6pm.

On Friday 16 July, the Court of Appeal refused to allow an appeal against the eviction of Democracy Village, in Parliament Square Gardens since 1 May, by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson; and further refused to grant the activists leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. As of Monday 19 July, the villagers were awaiting the appearance of bailiffs and preparing to resist removal. They have issued a call-out for people to assist with peacefully resisting the bailiffs from 6pm on Monday, through to Tuesday, or until the bailiffs appear. [9]

Refs

1.  http://stopwar.org.uk
2.  http://londonguantnamocampaign.blogspot.com
3.  http://www.reprieve.org.uk/shakeraamer
4.  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=82639210948
5.  http://www.reprieve.org.uk/ahmedbelbacha
6.  http://democracyvillage.org
7.  http://democracyvillage.blogspot.com
8.  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=113998618637971
9.  http://london.indymedia.org/articles/5282