Iraq War

From the archive: a cold march

Several hundred people turn out on a freezing Saturday in Whitechapel to march in protest against British and American troops in Falluja and the number of people being killed there. The march begins in Altab Ali Park, where Whitechapel Muslims and people from across London and the UK gather to hear speakers criticise New Labour's Iraq policy and the violence in Falluja, and to demand that the western troops leave Iraq.

Large groups of young Muslim men and women gather with banners, flags and loudspeakers. They say that they hope that news of the turnout get to Downing Street, and that they will keep coming, because they can't be ignored forever. Members of one group have dressed in orange like Guantanamo Bay prisoners and chained themselves together in a row.

Police arse about as usual at Parliament Square peace protest.

It's the final morning of the weekend-long Parliament Square peace camp and famed protestor Brian Haw seems tired enough to swing at somebody: the police probably, but maybe a journalist if it comes to it.

'It's called sleep deprivation!' he screams, trying to get a moment to himself in his blue chair by the traffic. 'It was the bastard police, being their usual bastard selves.' The peace camp was set up for the weekend to remember the 2004 Fallujah slaughter and as a protest against the occupation of Iraq. The tents were set up in the grass on the Square. Haw says that he was up until at least 6am this morning, because the police were circling the camp, and then looking for him, as usual.

Mendolin Kay, thirty-five, roared out of her anti-war meeting at nine in the evening, electrified by a vision that she had worked up, during the meeting's final and perhaps least directional hour, of herself as the charismatic focal point of the whole anti-war exercise.

'I am Mandela!' she told herself, the crowd of Mendolin-enthusiasts in her head growing so large that she couldn't always see herself through it. 'I am Scully!’ she said. I am...' Her chin was up and her shoulders were back and her timing with the rain was tremendous as she trotted to the station with a hand inside her plastic handbag, at ease on her umbrella. The dainty evening mist conditioned her hair, rather than soaked it, and she seemed to have developed an extra sense about the placement of the grimy potholes that yawned underwater along the pavement and usually collected anybody who was wearing light cotton boots.