Between 10 and 100 thousand people (eleven ?) from all over Britain marched against the occupation of Iraq in London yesterday.
Pictures and comments: [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]
Pictures, story and comments: [ 1 ]
Women contingent: [report and pics]
Video: [1 long clip, 1 short clip, 1 quicktime virtual tour of crowd]
Debate about coverage of demo on IMC: [ 1 ]
Simultaneously, in Edinburgh a banner drop and a rally took place, whilst it was streaming down with rain.
Aerial view looking towards Speakers Corner and Park Lane
Between 10 and 100 thousand people marched + Dorset Stop the War call for help on Tuesday.
Around 40 protesters coached up to London to join marchers from all over the country. There were banners from Derby to Exeter, Sheffield and Nuneaton to Southend and Dorset. People from the length and breadth of Britain were in London for the march. Most international newswires say there were 20,000 of us. (This may not sound a lot but compare it with the 4-5,000 in Turkey or the 3,000 in Paris.) In the spring I was uncomfortable with the chant 'Bush, Blair, CIA, How many kids did you kill today?' but yesterday, it was sickeningly true. Reliable Sheffield Samba were there and so was the brilliant band on a trike (who *are* those guys?) who rapped for a solid 3 hrs really funny songs and biting satire. Where did it get us all? Who can say but it can't be totally ignored. There were a lot of foreign correspondents there (I spoke to a Chinese reporter). The speakers included a Union rep who was vociferously against Blair's form of government and what with the Labour Conference coming up this week, that can't be a bad thing. There were two school children reps, one was 11 yrs old and spoke to very loud applause - as she said 'We are your future' and our masters ignore her at our peril. The mood was only sometimes angry but everyone seemed totally aware of why they were there, I mean not wishy washy stuff but marching against specific wrongs. One 70 yr old literally grabbed my arm under Eros and angrily asked why no-one was protesting against Bush - my banner was UK/US out and there were loads of other anti-Bush slogans and so on - but my point is that she was really involved though she hadn't joined the march. (I did a bit for indymedia by chalking it on the paving in a few places.) Sorry -no pics cos the camera's being crass again, but there are loads on London indymedia
There was a call from Dorset Stop the War to join them in Bournemouth on Tuesday to deomonstrate against Blair when he makes his big speech.
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