Ascent for freedom: The man who climbed Big Ben

On 25 February 2024, US airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. His words as he did so: “Free Palestine.”

On 8 March this year, people gathered in London outside the British parliament to support a man who had breached security to scale 25 meters up Big Ben, the parliament clock tower, where he perched for more than 16 hours, holding the Palestinian flag and tying a keffiyeh around the tower’s stonework.

Posting on Instagram intermittently, Daniel Day explained that his non-violent act of resistance at what he called the “so-called hub of democracy” was a call for the liberation of Palestine and an end “to state repression.”