Al Quds Day March in London meets opposition

Peter marshall | 28.09.2008 21:45 | Palestine | Repression | London

Several thousand demonstrators marched through London on Sunday 28 September to celebrate Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day and support oppressed people across the world and particularly the Lebanese and Palestinian people. Counter-demonstrators gathered at Piccadilly Circus to oppose the march.
Pictures © 2008, Peter Marshall, all rights reserved.

Neturei Karta rabbi at front of the march

Marchers on Park Lane

Waving banners at the counter demonstrators

Whose Side are we on? It seemed a good question

U B A next to Israeli flags

Police grab Iranian demonstrator who tried to climb barrier

U B A shout at marchers

Police restrained marchers behind the tape

UBA gestures at the marchers

Marchers ignore the counter demo

Marching on to the rally

The annual Al Quds Day march is supported by Crescent International, FOSIS, Friends of Al Aqsa, Friends Of Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Innovative Minds, Islamic Centre of England, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Muslim Council of Britain, Neturei Karta, Palestine Internationalist, Palestine Return Centre, Respect Party and Stop the War.

Among those groups demonstrating against it were the United British Alliance, March for Enlgand, International Alliance of Iranian Students, the Worker Communist Party of Iran, Workers Liberty and a group waving Israeli flags (apologies to any other groups I missed.)

The opposition from some of these comes from the fact that Al Quds Day was started by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, that some of the organisations that support it receive support from the Iranian government and that it supports the Islamic regime in Iran. Others oppose it for very different reasons.

I've no sympathy for the Iranian regime under which friends of mine have suffered and which has brought a proud and historic civilisation to a fundamentalist authoritarian terror state. Nor for that matter am I an unquestioning supporter of Hezbollah. But despite my misgivings about Iran, I marched with the Muslims, orthodox Neturei Karta rabbis and others. Perhaps it would be better for those wanting to protest against Iranian involvement of the event to organise an Al Quds Day event with wider participation to show support for the Palestinian cause as well as freedom in Iran.

There has to be a better way to demonstrate opposition to the Iranian regime and also support for the Palestinian people rather than joining with other groups who clearly do not do so. The United British Alliance were possibly the largest and certainly the most vociferous group opposing the march.

The marchers remained proudly defiant in the face of the insults flung at them across the road from the various groups, and stewards had some problems in keeping a few of the younger and more militant marchers moving, but unlike last year there were no serious attempts to rush across the street, though police did push back a few. At one point I found myself pushed out from the march by some of the militants, which provided me with a better vantage point until I was pushed back by the police! One supporter of freedom in Iran attempted to climb over the barrier towards the march and was quickly surrounded by police.

I left the march before the rally in Trafalgar Square to attend another demonstration. Speakers were expected to include Dawud Abdullah, Les Levidow, Massoud Shadjareh, Rabbi Ahron Cohen, Taji Mustafa and Yvonne Ridley.

More pictures from the march on My London Diary