Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Rally for Justice at Scotland Yard Sunday June 11th 2006

Paul O'Hanlon | 12.06.2006 18:36 | March 18 Anti War Protest | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | Repression | London | World

This is a 630 word piece about the rally for justice outside Scotland Yard on Sunday 11th June. 10 photos are attached.












Rally for Justice Scotland Yard Sunday June 11th 2006


Sunday 11th June saw a large and noisy protest outside the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Force, Scotland Yard. The demonstration of about 500 took place outside the 20-storey office block along Broadway and Victoria Street in Westminster. The yard is about 500 yards away from the Houses of Parliament. The rally was in response to heavy handed police tactics in a raid on a house in Forest Gate, East London on Friday June 2nd. The mainly Muslim neighbourhood was invaded by over 200 police, many of them wearing chemical protection suits and accompanied by MI5 agents.

The raid, which occurred at 4.00am on Friday 2nd June led to the shooting of 23 year-old Mohammed Abdul Kahar. He and his brother Abul Koyair were in police custody for a week after being detained in the dawn raid but were eventually released without charge. They were arrested amid great fanfare with tabloid headlines screaming `HUNT FOR THE POISON BOMB` (Daily Mail) and `POLICE HUNT FOR LETHAL CHEMICAL SUICIDE VEST` (The Times). Even the so-called liberal Guardian read `FEARS OF CHEMICAL OR BIOLOGICAL ATTACK TRIGGERED TERROR RAID`. Their release, however, was much more low key and coincided with England’s first game in the World Cup.

The rally was called by a number of organisations including Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), Stop Political Terror (SPT), Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Young Muslim Organisation (YMO), FOSIS MPAC, Muslim Directory, Muslim Parliament, Muslim Prisoners’ Support Group, the 1990 Trust, CAMPACC, United Friends & Families Campaign, ELCAST, Stop The War and Newham Monitoring Project (NMP).


The demonstration was due to start at 2.00pm but due to several speakers being held up it commenced at 2.30pm. The protest started with a recitation from the Koran and the first speaker was the father of Babar Ahmad. He was followed by a speaker from the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) who called for an Independent Public Enquiry. A representative from CAMPACC (Campaign against criminalising communities) said that the so-called plots like the ricin plot were pure invention and asked to see the evidence. He said we should oppose all anti-terror laws. A statement was read out on behalf of the family involved who said the two young men were still recovering from their ordeal and that Inshallah the protest would stop another family going through what they had suffered. Respect MP George Galloway commented acerbically that we should co-operate with the police and he gave an example. He knew of a cabal of dangerous men who were plotting to blow up Afghanistan, Iraq and maybe Iran and they were called the government. He suggested a raid on 10 Downing Street and went on to say there could be no peace until the two Blairs were gone, meaning Tony Blair and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. He will on Monday table a motion in the House of Commons expressing no confidence in Ian Blair and called for his immediate resignation. He shouted that we should, “Speak the truth to power!”

During the protest there were many chants of `What do we want? Justice! ` and `When do we want it? Now! `

There were frequent prompts of `Takbeer` to which the crowd responded with `Allah-u-Akber` (God is great)

A statement from the MAB welcomed the release of the two men and Lindsey German of Stop the War said that the STW would stand `shoulder to shoulder` with the Muslim community. The demonstration finished around 3.45pm.

The event did receive a reasonable amount of TV coverage with substantial items on the BBC1 and ITV early evening news, `London Tonight`; it was also on Sky news, CEEFAX and the online news services.

10 photos of the day are attached.








Word count 637 words.


Paul O'Hanlon
- e-mail: o_hanlon@hotmail.com

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech