Report and video from London protest

We gathered at 4 opposite the Japanese embassy. There is a big four lane road between us and the security staff of the embassy who kept his eyes on us all the time. A big road that brings plenty of people along to find out about Jamal. At first we stand quietly with our banner and placards. Then we started using the loudhailer; it is strong enough to get across the road and down the road, despite the traffic. As soon as we started to speak the security staff at the embassy moved into action and after a couple of minutes the police arrived. They had a brief conversation with the staff and left. I guess the police informed them about our freedom of speech, even with a loudhailer. The nice thing that happened once we started using the loudhailer was that many people stopped and listened to what we had to say about Jamal and his situation in Japan. A human rights lawyer from Japan talked to us and offered support. Others expressed their support as well. We chanted slogans like: Deportation to Iran is execution by Japan! which we had also painted onto the banner. We also chanted: Shame on Japan! One of us went in front of the embassy to distribute leaflets about Jamal and got rid of all of them. Some people already knew about Jamal’s case. All in all a handful of people with a strong loudhailer can make a huge difference! We hope that the Japanese embassy and the Japanese government realise that we are indeed making their treatment of Jamal and other refugees in Japan very public. Last week we went to the embassy for an appointment with embassy staff and this week we chose to stay outside to let the public know too what is happening. I think it was a good decision.
To be continued…

Here is the video with parts of our speeches: