Written by Claire Ainsley
Monday, 05 January 2009
March against the Gaza massacre London 3 January 2009
Personal account of riot police charges in Hyde Park underpass

After a week of brutal and disproportionate violence by the Israeli government against the Palestinians, we joined thousands of others gathered at London’s Embankment to march for peace and justice.

It was a brilliant display of solidarity with the Palestinians, but the provocative behaviour of riot police in panic mode escalated an otherwise peaceful demonstration. We are ordinary citizens, who were marching for peace, but who were terrified by series of batoned charges in the Hyde Park Underpass. Conveniently, it meant the police violence went unseen and unrecorded by the TV camera crews, so this is our account for those who weren’t there.

The march was lively and good natured, a diverse mix of Muslims, Jews, young, old, women, men, children and families. We honoured the George Bush shoethrower by chucking some old shoes outside Downing Street as part of the organised photocall, and struggled to fit into Trafalgar Square which was filled with protesters listening to the speakers.

We cheered when we were told it was the biggest turnout of Palestinian solidarity, and booed our own leaders for lacking the political will to resolve this destructive conflict which has blighted the lives of so many innocents, Arab and Jew alike.

The organisers announced they would be marching to the Israeli Embassy at the end of the rally, so as it was finishing up my husband and I made our way to the west side of the square so we could join them. We all waited until well after the rally, but the people in front were getting inpatient and jostling so the police let them set off. We followed close behind, everyone buoyed up by the big turnout and chanting ‘free, free Palestine’ with more vigour than before.

As we approached the end of Piccadilly, with thousands of marchers streamed behind us, the familiar uniforms of the Met Police had changed to the blue helmets and thick plastic shields of riot police.

We were held at the top of the underpass for several minutes and the crowd was growing restless as it was getting darker. We saw a photographer or protester being pushed from the railing to the ground by one of the riot police, an ill tempered exchange followed and some pushing and shoving, and an experienced marcher tried to calm the situation down, which succeeded. We noticed the MP George Galloway had found his way to the front.

The atmosphere was still lively, friendly and peaceful despite the minor incident and the amassing of more riot police. We didn’t think much of it at the time – we had been on plenty of Stop the War demos which had all passed off peacefully.

Eventually we were allowed to continue, down the slope to the underpass. We were held back a couple of times but this was normal to let marchers catch up. The atmosphere was great. We moved nearer to the front, perhaps ten back, amongst us were children and women and older people, predominantly Muslim. We didn’t see any missiles or aggression from the protesters.

The next thing we knew was that a hail of batons came over the top and our bodies were being pushed backwards and people were screaming – the police were charging us. We threw ourselves to the sides and put our hands over our heads. The charge had stopped, and we checked around us to see whether people were ok. Some young Muslim women next to us were crying and clearly petrified.

And then it came again, charging towards us, then stopped. My heart was thumping, I thought there was no way we could go forward or back, I was terrified of being hit or crushed or trampled on. Everyone tried to sit down so we could show the police we were non-aggressive, but that didn’t work. It was total panic.

The police must have charged again, because we were then on the other side of their line, so we grabbed the hands of the women we were next to to make a run out the front of a tunnel. A protester was lying still, face down on the ground in front of us. We tried to leave but someone said we were safer where we were.

Eventually we managed to retreat backwards and we realised they had stopped the march behind us so that there was only about 100 of us down there. We were then released so we progressed out of the underpass towards Kensington, by now cut off from the main march and ringed as a group by riot police.

There were injuries, but mostly we were shocked, we had done nothing wrong, illegal or provocative. We came to the conclusion we had been taken down the underpass deliberately because the police panicked. They wanted to frighten us, but it just turned an otherwise peaceful protest into a hostile and volatile situation.

When we got to the Israeli Embassy most of the main march had dispersed, it was dark and the atmosphere was angry. We felt so frustrated that no media would have seen the violence of the police, but would see the culmination of hostilities at the Embassy, that we rang some of the news media to tell them. The Met had a statement ready: ‘one charge’ they said, using ‘proportionate’ tactics, which was not our experience.

We didn’t know then that as we demonstrated, the Israeli government was preparing its troops for a land invasion, where undoubtedly many more civilians will die and the prospect of peace looks further out of reach. We will keep coming back, with many thousands of others too, and standing up for peace and justice for Palestine.