'Stop this horror': protest imagery, exposure tactics, and the media campaign to end British counterinsurgency violence in Malaya, 1948-53.

This article examines how leftist writers and editors in Britain employed photography as a tool for challenging the legitimacy of the so-called Malayan 'Emergency', which was a twelve-year counterinsurgency campaign engineered to counter uprisings in colonial Malaya after the Second World War. By circulating protest imagery in anti-war pamphlets, newsletters and newspapers, the activists in focus here demanded an end to counterinsurgency violence and the Malayan campaign. The British government's response-denying the images' authenticity and discrediting their sources-illustrates how imperialism was defended in the decolonization era. This article places leaked atrocity imagery within a wider context of protest imagery mobilized by the anti-colonial, communist Left. It explores the complexities and challenges of working with atrocity imagery as a vehicle for exposing and resisting state-sanctioned colonial violence. It highlights the variety and scope of editorial strategies that anti-war campaigners turned to in their efforts to unite struggles against imperial power, capitalist exploitation, and state-imposed 'emergencies' in Britain and Malaya.