Hundreds of Congolese and their supporters marched through London to protest against violence that has been raging through the African country for decades and, according to the activists, is now driven by the World’s greed for Congolese natural resources. 

The crowd called against the UK’s support of Rwanda and Uganda who they claim is backing M23 also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army - a Congolese rebel military group that is for the most part formed of ethnic Tutsi. According to them, the M23 is responsible for much of the violence including rapes of women and children as young as 6. In the long running violence, over six million people were killed and over ten million displaced.

Activists now say the conflict is fuelled by greed for the DRC’s mineral resources, essential in making smart phones. laptops, and electric vehicles. But this comes at the cost of human lives and unimaginable suffering.

Selection of my pictures from London protests features in a beautiful book Pentaxians Mono.

I am pretty confident that no other brand has such a devoted user base that would produce catalogues of this calibre. Huge thanks to Stephen Obermeier who made all this happen. And congratulations to all the Pentax shooters whose pictures are featured.

A selection from my Car Boot England project is now on show in České Budějovice, CZ. The Kotva cinema café is an intimate place so I had prepared 50x40cm prints in white frames to carefully fit the interior. A fantastic group of people joined me at the opening including some ex colleagues from my times spent in the city and also co-students past and present from the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, CZ. Hours before the opening, I had the pleasure of presenting my photography to students of (not only) photography at the SUPŠ sv. Anežky České high school. Some of the students then took the oportunity to help me with selection of images for the exhibition.

Pictures: Václav Němec, Petr Maurenc, David Sládek