View allAll Photos Tagged FreedomofExpression

Today I choose to publish these discarded images from a multiexposed film with light leaks from my 1930 Rolleicord Art Deco camera. You will understand what, as in Macbeth, made the green turn red.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a multi-national agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement.

 

(version 2)

 

IF YOU THOUGHT SOPA AND PIPA WERE BAD...

 

Sign the petition to END ACTA

We need to stop ACTA before it is finally approved by all countries involved. If you value your privacy and you don't want "Big Brother" watching over you, sign this petition and spread the word. Research ACTA and see just how dangerous it is to the Internet, our privacy, and our liberties.

 

The source image for the Statue of Liberty is a photo by Carol Highsmith from the Library of Congress.

See:

www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz-trace/

 

From the exhibition @Large: Ai WeiWei on Alcatraz

 

General information about the exhibition:

www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/

 

New York Times review:

www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/arts/design/ai-weiwei-takes-hi...

 

Trailer for "Never Sorry," a film about Ai WeiWei:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MYFOzP6Xns

Against censorship!

 

Flickr sperrt uns aus! Und auch dich!

Seit vorgestern werden für deutsche Nutzer keine Bilder mehr angezeigt, die als 'moderate' oder 'restricted' markiert sind! Es gibt keine Möglichkeit das umzustellen - das ist eine grobe Unverschämtheit und Frechheit von Flickr!

 

Wer noch mehr wissen wil / Want to know morel!!

  

English

If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. In other words that means, that German users can not access photos on flickr that are not flagged "safe" ... only flowers and landscapes for the germans ... We will not let this happen! Copy and upload this picture to your account - show flickr who we are!

 

Francais

Si votre compte Yahoo! est basé à Singapour, à Hong Kong, en Corée ou en Allemagne, vous ne pourrez voir que les photos qui n'ont pas été marquées comme ayant un contenu qui peut choquer. Toutes les autres ne vous seront pas accessibles. Vous serez donc condamnés à ne voir que des paysages et des fleurs. Il ne faut pas laisser faire ça. Envoyez cette photo sur votre compte pour montrer à Flickr que nous savons nous mobiliser contre la censure !

 

Español

Si tu Yahoo! ID está basada en Singapor, Alemania, Hong Kong o Corea sólamente verás contenido llamado seguro basándose en nuestros términos de servicio locales y no podrás deshabilitar el modo de búsqueda segura... En otras palabras esto significa, que usuarios alemanes p.ej. ya no podrán acceder a fotos en flickr que hayan sido "flagged", es decir marcadas como no seguras y para todo público... solamente flores y paisajes para los alemanes... No permitiremos que ésto suceda! Copia y carga esta foto a tu cuenta de yahoo por favor para mostrar a flickr quienes somos!

In every country in the Americas, the relationship between democracy and a free press has tensions and complications. In some countries, outright violence, censorship, or indirect restrictions on freedom of information threaten the free exchange of ideas and information, while in others, the threats to a free press are more subtle and pernicious—including disinformation, propaganda, and manipulation. In all cases, the press remains an essential tool to fight corruption and guarantee democratic accountability. As a result, efforts to expand transparency, freedom of expression, and access to information remain critical across the hemisphere.

 

The Inter-American Dialogue is proud to partner with Fundamedios USA, the Organization of American States, the IACHR Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression, Freedom House, the Pan American Development Foundation, and Colpin for a sustained conversation on the interplay between media and democracy in the Americas. This conference brings together Hispanic journalists in the United States with their counterparts in Latin America to discuss common challenges.

Tell the truth... you WISH you spent your dayz with girls who wear tutus and cowboy boots and love to hold chickens!

القاتل فى لندن - مظاهرة ضد زيارة سيسي

 

Anti-Sisi protesters taunt the dictator's supporters who had been bused in by the Egyptian Embassy as chear leaders during Sisi's meeting with Cameron in London.

 

Why a depiction of Sisi as Mickey Mouse ? Because just the previous month an Egyptian Facebook user had been sentenced to three years in prison for photoshopping a picture of Sisi and adding the mickey mouse ears.

 

The idea and design of the placard used in the demonstration was a British woman's who was also among the protesters.

 

But unfortunately repression in Egypt is much much wider than arrests for trying to poke fun at your president.

 

Sisi's regime has been responsible for the death of hundreds of protesters on the streets, hundreds of disappearances and death sentences, a clampdown on the press and media, trade unions and universities and allowing key Mubarak figures to return to politics and big business.

 

After disbanding parliament, Sisi's regime decreed that the government could delegate business and construction projects to the military without any tender process and subsequently the Egyptian army has been awarded contracts worth billions of dollars.

 

Meanwhile anyone who speaks out, whether Islamist or secular, is at risk of arrest or being "disappeared" and currently it is estimated that the country has approximately 40,000 political prisoners.

 

This is what Human RIghts Watch conclude in their latest country report -

 

"Egypt’s human rights crisis, the most serious in the country’s modern history, continued unabated throughout 2014. The government consolidated control through constriction of basic freedoms and a stifling campaign of arrests targeting political opponents. Former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took office in June, has overseen a reversal of the human rights gains that followed the 2011 uprising. Security forces and an increasingly politicized judiciary—apparently unnerved by rising armed group attacks—invoked national security to muzzle nearly all dissent."

  

Find out more

 

About Amr Nohan and his 3 year sentence for attaching "Mickey Mouse" ears to a Sisi photo -

 

advox.globalvoices.org/2015/10/14/egyptian-facebook-user-...

 

About Human Rights in Egypt .

 

www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa...

 

www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/egypt

 

freedomhouse.org/blog/stopping-egypt-s-downward-spiral-re...

 

( Freedom House uses one of my photos in its report. )

  

How to help/Join a campaign -

 

egyptsolidarityinitiative.org/

  

To email me for any reason

 

alisdare@gmail.com

A protester lies on the ground in a final, quiet act of civil disobedience, her sign displaying the exact words that organisers had announced would lead to arrest during a protest against the proscription of Palestine Action in London's Parliament Square on 6 September 2025.

 

Her calm expression speaks to the premeditated nature of the protest, where participants arrived fully aware they would be detained under counter-terrorism law. It was typical of protesters' attitudes that day, a personal and resolute statement of conscience in the face of potentially life-changing legal consequences.

Hip Hop Performance by the “The Little Morellos” Dance Company (city days). The majority of hip hop moves are done standing up. The feet are flexible and dancing shoes differ from the ballet ones. The movements show freedom of expression in the bodies. Individual identity: costuming, music (even normal music), hair and makeup design, staging, and lighting. The hip hop dancers with a good sense of rhythm share the dance and their love for the more bouncy music with the audience.

The United States Mission and the Institute for Media and Global Governance (IMGG) nominated seven "Internet Freedom Fellows" writers, bloggers and journalists from around the world who are using social media, mobile communications and digital networks to promote human rights. The Fellows will spend two days in Geneva June 9-10, 2011 for discussions with diplomats, ngos and international organizations.

 

U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers

The United States Mission and the Institute for Media and Global Governance (IMGG) nominated seven "Internet Freedom Fellows" writers, bloggers and journalists from around the world who are using social media, mobile communications and digital networks to promote human rights. The Fellows will spend two days in Geneva June 9-10, 2011 for discussions with diplomats, ngos and international organizations.

 

U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers

This caption should also be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation as I did not see the initial moments and context of this woman's arrest.

 

This black and white image portrays a moment when the police seem to pause and deliberate during one of many arrests made during the protest against the proscription of Palestine Action in London's Parliament Square on 6 September 2025. The deliberation was in itself presumably a routine part of the bureaucratic processing requirement that accompanies each and every arrest , a part of the pre-scripted political theatre that played out that day, where both protesters and police acted out their foreseen roles.

#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong #PoliceState

 

Bell Chan | BGfotologue

 

follow me on :

Facebook Page | Instagram

Committee to Protect Journalists and Index on Censorship join online platform

Chief Executive of Index on Censorship Jodie Ginsberg, and European Union correspondent of the Committee to Protect Journalists Jean-Paul Marthoz signed the agreement on behalf of their organisations during a meeting with Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland.

 

Photo : Sandro Weltin/©Council of Europe

 

Protestas estudiantiles debido al cierre de RCTV y la amenaza en contra de la libertad de expresión en Venezuela. Maracay , Venezuela .

Saturday March 16th 2019, there is something different about the Vortex, we are subjected to a security check. Gilad Atzmon is playing the second night of his residency, yesterday his gig was picketed by a combined group of misfits.

 

For many years Gilad has been the subject of an atrocious witch-hunt, the problem for the witch-hunters is that Gilad has opinions and is articulate verbally as well as musically. Gilad is a rational thinker and a free speaker, the witch-hunters are against rational thought and free speech.

 

I'll be exploring Gilad's music and his philosophy in this set of pictures or Album to use the flickr terminology (it's already open as 'A Set for Gilad', I now rename it 'Gilad Mon Amour'. I've been listening to jazz and going to the Vortex for a very long time, my first flickr posting of Gilad at the Vortex is dated February 2010,

 

Gilad's music speaks directly to those who can hear, so here is a link to 'Gaza mon Amour' on YouTube (11:10).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=esq1cxpGGYo&frags=pl%2Cwn

Listen to the music, let it speak to you directly.

Vigil for the victims of the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Brandenburger Gate, Berlin, January 7th, 2015.

This caption should be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation, as I did not see the initial moment of this woman's arrest. There is no definitive evidence of what exactly her suspected "crime" was and it would be even more erroneous to conclude the photograph is evidence that she had deliberately broken any laws.

 

I've blurred her face because, noticing her mask, I assumed that though the mask might well have been worn purely for medical reasons, she might equally have been nervous of her identity being revealed in any media imagery.

 

The image highlights the significant scale of the police operation deployed for the protest on September 6th. A single protester, one of hundreds detained that day, is surrounded by numerous officers.

 

The visual contrast underscores the systematic and resource-intensive nature of the state's response to the pre-announced silent vigil. Each arrest was a component of a vast, coordinated effort to enforce the new legislation against a crowd that had gathered for a peaceful demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience

 

Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.

 

They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.

 

On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.

 

As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.

 

This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?

 

The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 

To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.

 

Direct Action and the State’s Response

 

Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.

 

Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.

 

That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site.

 

Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.

 

The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

 

Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”

 

Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.

 

By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence.

Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

 

This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.

 

Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.

 

But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.

 

The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime. The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.

 

Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial

 

It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.

 

The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.

 

At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.

 

The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign. By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.

 

Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.

 

www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/

 

Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s

 

The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.

 

The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation. Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.

 

The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All

 

To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.

 

By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.

 

It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.

 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o

 

Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion.

For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.

 

The Price of Dissent

 

The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.

 

The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.

 

The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.

 

The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.

 

In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.

De la Serie Voces Contra el Silencio /From the Voices Against Silence Serie

 

Protestas en contra de la polémica decisión del presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez de cerrar el canal de televisión privado más antiguo e importante del país...

 

Protests against venezuelan president Hugo Chavez polemical decision of closing the oldest and most important private TV channel of the country...

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.

  

Belarusian punk rock band Brutto play a selection of songs including 'Moscow's Calling', based on 'London's Calling' by 'The Clash'.

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v#p035nnxh

(Watch Brutto play Moscow's Calling on BBC iPlayer)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035nqns (Watch Brutto with Reef guitarist Kenwyn House on BBC iPlayer)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutto

  

Watch the full event below from a set point.

  

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035xyzl

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

Individual Identity, The Little Morellos, The Greater Poland Dance Team (city days). Dance is a living art form. The style of ballroom dancing is characterized by the type of music that accompanies. The music influences the dance style. Dancing has always been a popular recreational activity as sweaty as playing a lot of sports.

 

twitter.com/jjspychala/status/674952525154492416

"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.

 

Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."

 

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...

 

www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...

 

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.

 

Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."

 

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...

 

www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...

 

each story has two side. everything has a shadow.

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.

  

KOKO orignally opened as the Camden Theatre in 1900.

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

  

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

 

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_Free_Theatre

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

 

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform 'In Any Tongue' the sixth track from David Gilmour's new album 'Rattle That Lock'.

  

2. In Any Tongue (Gilmour, Samson)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

 

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock/

play.spotify.com/track/1gLIbISS3w1jjyRu1KuM76?play=true&a...

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

that is sexy. Teacher will be teachers, even on the street.

 

This was taken last 2008 Higantes festival in Angono, Rizal.

 

The celebration started as a stirical expression by farm worker during the spanish colonialization in the Philippines. They were trying to make fun of the landlords by making giant replica of them.

 

It has evolved into a fun celebration during the angono fiesta.

Once we were told that we had freedom of expression in Spain.

 

Una vez se nos dijo que teníamos libertad de expresión en España.

 

Indígnate en www.elindignado.com

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

Charlie Gilmour, David Gilmour, Bryan Chambers and Boombox leave the stage.

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

 

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

 

by Falko. 4 parts

 

The concept of Splitpiece

It is to take one image. Divide it into sections. Each section is done in area `different’ to the other. Each section stands alone as an artwork, with its own meaning, in its respective location but once all sections are completed they are brought together to make ONE fully comprehensive image.

 

We took one residential road, created murals on selected areas on all the homes, inside and outside. Then using all the murals, we combined them to make Splitpieces in several ways.

Using the residential area of Darling East, South Africa was ideal for this project because of several factors.

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.

  

Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.

  

4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

This caption should be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation, as I did not see the initial moment of this woman's arrest. There is no definitive evidence of what exactly her suspected "crime" was and it would be even more erroneous to conclude the photograph is evidence that she had deliberately broken any laws.

 

However, whatever the precise reason for this particular arrest, the photograph captures the logistics of the mass arrests that day, as protesters were systematically processed near police vehicles. The calm demeanour of the sitting woman reflects the quiet, almost solemn defiance that characterised the protest.

 

Rather than a scene of chaotic confrontation, the image depicts the methodical reality of the day's events. It shows an individual who, having been suspected of breaking a law presumably while protesting the proscription of Palestine Action, now awaits for the bureaucratic process to run its course. A process hundreds of protesters (and I don't know if this includes this particular protester) knowingly and courageously initiated in order to hold a mirror up to the state's repressive power.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience

 

Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.

 

They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.

 

On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.

 

As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.

 

This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?

 

The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 

To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.

 

Direct Action and the State’s Response

 

Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.

 

Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.

 

That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.

 

The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

 

Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”

 

Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.

 

By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence. Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

 

This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.

 

Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.

 

But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.

 

The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime.

The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.

 

Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial

 

It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.

 

The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.

 

At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign.

 

By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.

 

www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/

 

Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s

 

The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation.

Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.

 

The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All

 

To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.

 

By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.

 

It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.

 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o

 

Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion. For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.

 

The Price of Dissent

 

The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.

 

The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.

 

The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.

 

The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.

 

In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.

AfrikaBurn X 2016 - Freedom of Expresion

In a year when two out of three Latin Americans will elect new leaders, freedom of expression remains a crucial but fragile pillar of the region’s democratic systems. In 2017, 22 media workers were killed in the Americas, and other practices—from threats of violence to criminal prosecutions—were employed against individuals exercising their freedom of expression to better inform society. In addition, new challenges to democratic debate have emerged, including the deliberate, malevolent spread of disinformation—or “fake news”—and the corresponding danger of regulatory overreach by governments in response.

 

The Inter-American Dialogue, Reporters Without Borders, and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) are pleased to host a public forum to analyze persistent threats, emerging challenges, and potential solutions for protecting freedom of expression in the Americas.

"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.

 

Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."

 

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...

 

www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...

 

Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE

KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1

  

David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd), Jon Carin and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform the Pink Floyd classic 'Wish You Were Here' from the 1975 album of the same name.

  

3. Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035l86p (Watch this song on BBC iPlayer)

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_song)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_album)

www.pinkfloyd.com/music/albums.php

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)

  

www.koko.uk.com/history-koko

  

#StagingaRevolution

@bfreetheatre

belarusfreetheatre.com

  

www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...

moc.media/en/events/22

  

The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned

  

www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v

 

Line Up (in order of appearance)

 

Stephanie Pan

Miles Jupp

Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons

Natalia Kaliada

Sir Mick Jagger

Brutto

Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin

Viktoria Modesta

Sam West

Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)

Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy

David Gilmour with Boombox

This is a demonstration for Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage, Papuans who were given long prison terms for raising the Papuan flag in a peaceful demonstration. Indonesia occupied western New Guinea in the 1960s, and has faced sporadic resistance since. While much of Indonesia is in Southeast Asia, Papuans are a Pacific people.

 

Indonesian and other countries struggle with issues of self-determination.

 

Usable with attribution and link to FutureAtlas.com

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