Palestine demonstration in London

May 16, 2009

1–2 minutes

By my reckoning, and the photo seems to bear it out, there were in the region of 3000 people at today’s Remember Gaza – Free Palestine demonstration in London which was called by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, Palestinian Forum in Britain and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had a much longer list of supporting organisations. The organised left was there in some force and the event lacked the combative energy of some of the mobilisations against the assault on Gaza.

The clash with the Unite demonstration in Birmingham would not have helped the turnout but there was a fair sprinkling of union banners and the fact that the event takes place unfailingly every year gives it a strong symbolic importance. Louise is likely to give her impressions here.

4 responses to “Palestine demonstration in London”

Faust

May 16, 2009 at 7:16 pm

I went to it, and then walked down Whitehall to the ongoing Tamil protest. Noticeably angry and tense mood. At one point a few cops waded into the crowd for no obvious reason.

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Steve R

May 17, 2009 at 10:18 pm

what was the Tamil demonstration like?
in Birmingham there were up to 10,000 (Ceefax i hear reported 7,000) but heavy rain depleted the rally as it began, andi couldn’t really hear what Woodley was saying…. not bad anyway, considering it should have been caled by the TUC and i hear (from Birmingham Unite members among others) that it was hardly built

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Liam

May 17, 2009 at 10:54 pm

More on the Birmingham demo at http://socialistresistance.org/?p=495

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Faust

May 18, 2009 at 2:52 pm

About a thousand people at the Tamil one on Saturday. I suspect the Tamil support base in the UK and elsewhere remains intact, despite the conventional military defeat of the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government has created a desert, and called it peace, only it isn’t peace.

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