Death of George Floyd: Riot police detained thousands in Paris
London:
By kneeling, hitting the drums and ignoring social distancing, indignant protesters from Sydney to London on Saturday launched a weekend of global rallies against racism and police brutality.
Police death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in the state of Minnesota, took tens of thousands of people out onto the streets during a pandemic that ebbed in Asia and Europe but is still spreading to other parts of the world.
“It’s time to burn institutional racism,” shouted a speaker through a megaphone in front of a crowd of thousands of whales outside Parliament in London.
“Silence is violence,” shouted the crowd in the rain.
Officials around the world have tried to strike a balance between understanding people’s restrained anger and warnings of the dangers of an illness that has officially claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people worldwide.
Yet tens of thousands of Australians have defied Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call to “find a better way”, and thousands more in Britain have ignored the Minister of Health’s warning that ” coronavirus remains a real threat. “
“We want justice! We want to breathe!” hundreds have chanted in Tunis, as protests seizing American cities have spread around the world.
United in pain
“Are you sure you are silent,” asked for a poster of a man wearing a pink rose at a memorial outside the president’s office in Pretoria, South Africa.
In Sydney, Aborigines held a traditional smoking ceremony at the start of a “Black Lives Matter” demonstration, sanctioned at the last minute after being initially banned for health reasons.
Many held up signs and wore masks with the inscription “I can’t breathe” – the words Floyd kept repeating while being handcuffed while a policeman was kneeling on his neck.
A sign simply said “8:46” – the period of time during which the 46-year-old officer was grounded by the white officer before his death.
“The fact that they tried to push us all aside and stop the demonstration makes people want to do it even more,” said Jumikah Donovan, one of the thousands who realized that Sydney ban was still in effect.
Floyd’s death occurred during the spread of a disease that disproportionately affected blacks and ethnic minorities in global centers such as London and New York.
It also entered the throes of a historic economic slowdown that statistically affected the poor and most marginalized.
This confluence and the accompanying outrage at the partisan response of US President Donald Trump have refocused attention on racial divisions around the world, like few other events since the 1960s.
Adopting a more conciliatory tone than that adopted by Trump, the American Embassy in London declared that it was “united to the British public in mourning”.
Angry and brave
In Paris, riot police detained a crowd of several thousand people who gathered outside the American Embassy complex for an unauthorized demonstration.
“I find it scandalous that all these injustices go unpunished,” said Dior, a 21-year-old Senegalese-Ivorian student, amidst the crowd holding up signs saying “Being black is not a crime” and “Our police are assassins “.
French rallies spread to small towns, while in Germany they included Bayern Munich football players, who warmed up in “Red Card racism #BlackLivesMatter” jerseys.
“White silence is violence,” said the song in a crowd of 10,000 people in Berlin.
“How much more?” asked for a poster brandished in a crowd of thousands of people in Frankfurt.
In North Carolina, a long line of cars wound along a freeway as mourners arrived for a visit and a memorial service at a church near the hometown of Floyd.
And tens of thousands of people were again expected in Washington, where Mayor Muriel Bowse renamed the area outside the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza”.
As tensions soared, several US police departments launched investigations into officers who had been recorded hitting, shoving or charging demonstrators and some journalists – including foreigners.
The protests even resonated in war-torn countries like Iraq, where “American revolts” and the Arabic phrase “we also want to breathe” hashtags are spreading on social media.
“I think what the Americans are doing is brave and they should be angry, but the riots are not the answer,” said Yassin Alaa, a 20-year-old camped in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, the site of the month. anti-government protests. .
