London photo credits: Asmeret
At least 23 peaceful protesters were arrested at the London Black Lives Matter protest, part of wave of solidarity gatherings that swept the country on Sunday.
The cop who murdered George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, has only been charged with third degree murder and none of his three accomplices have been arrested.
Organisers estimate the march at 10,000, with more joining to swell the numbers at different points throughout the day.
Hundreds also marched in Manchester after assembling at St Peter’s Square in the centre of the city.
Protests also took place in Liverpool at St George’s Hall in addition to other cities such as Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham and Oxford. There is now a day of action planned on Wednesday as well as further protests this coming weekend.
Alarmingly, the police arrested peaceful protesters by using Section 7 of the Covid Act, which provides them with powers to arrest people who are social distancing.
But where was the rest of government adviser, racist Eugenicist Dominic Cummings?
The arrests mostly took place outside the moated US embassy.
Police moved into the crowd a little after 3pm and began to antagonise people. Two of those arrested under Section 7 were Olha Korovina and Raffaello Donnaloia, one of whom was a minor friends told BLMM.
The police refused to say which police station the two would be detained at.
But despite the intimidation of the police, marchers were not deterred.
The day had begun at Trafalgar square at 1pm where thousands congregated, answering the call from a number of BLM organisations.
The chant “Say his name: George Floyd” rang out from the crowd, alongside the passionate insistent shouting of “black lives matter”.
Following the example of NFL star Colin Kaepernick – who “took a knee” in peaceful protest in support of BLM and was ostracised for doing so by the League bosses and abused by Trump who called him a “son of a bitch” in a vicious speech to his rabid supporters – protesters kneeled in unison.
The UK is not innocent
Chanting “I can’t breathe” and the name of Breonna Taylor, killed by US police in March, the marchers moved off down Whitehall to Downing Street.There, marchers continued to chant George Floyd’s name, interspersed with “Fuck Boris” and “The UK is not innocent”.
At least three black men have been tasered by police in the UK over the past few weeks. The most recent in Manchester where Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara was tasered while holding his five-year-old child and a Tottenham youth who was tasered and fell from a wall as a result and now will never walk again.
All this comes on the top of the disproportionate death toll impacting black and minority ethnic communities in both the UK and US.
The UK and US both have among the highest per capita death rates in the world.
At the US embassy protesters chanted “No Trump – No KKK – No fascist USA”, as they called out Trump for urging police to shoot demonstrators.
Speeches from organisers accused the US of being a “failed state, a terrorist state, a racist state” and urged unconditional support for the US rebellion.
Trump was so scared of the protesters in America that he was rushed into a bunker on Friday night as protesters converged on the White House. The Washington DC protests against Trump continue to grow following more incendiary statements by him.
Joining the dots of this rebellion
One speaker reminded the protesters of a speech by Malcolm X when he said: “If they can’t fix their house they shouldn’t have a house. The house should burn down.”
Racist US society is today reaping what it has sowed for so many generations.
But a new generation has risen up to again confront America’s systemic racism and social inequality.
With mass unemployment now stalking America, people are starting to connect the dots.
As one demonstrator in New York city who gave his name as Sam B said: “Unemployment is gasoline and then abuse of power is the match,”
Another who was looting said: “If a guy can get away with murdering a guy, I’m pretty sure I can get away with stealing an iPhone, is the attitude.”
The truth is the biggest looters are the rich and the biggest gang of violent criminals are the police whose job it is to maintain racist rule and keep working people in their place. Enough!
Some marchers move on to Grenfell Tower in west London where 89 died in a fire because of the poor building standards and fire regulations this government allowed to be introduced to increase the profits of developers.
