Tens of thousands of people chanting “no justice, no peace, no racist police” and “black lives matter” gathered in central London on Wednesday to protest racism after the death of Minneapolis.
Floyd died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while handcuffed to the floor in Minneapolis on May 25.
His death sparked outrage in a politically and racially divided nation five months before a presidential election, fueling protests that have erupted repeatedly over the past few years over the police murders of black Americans.
Since then, anti-racism rallies have been held in cities around the world, from Paris to Nairobi.
In Hyde Park, London, many protesters wore face masks and were dressed in red. They chanted “George Floyd” and “Black lives matter”.
“It has taken years to come, years and years and years and years of white supremacy,” Karen Koromah, 30-year-old project manager, told Reuters.
“We came here with our friends to sound the alarm, to make a noise, to dismantle the supremacist systems,” said Koromah, warning that unless action was taken, the United Kingdom would be faced with problems similar to those in the United States.
“I don’t want to start crying,” she said of the American footage. “It boils my blood.”
Some protesters held banners with slogans such as: “The UK is not innocent: less racist is always racist”, “Racism is a global problem” and “If you are not angry, you do not pay attention”.
“Black Lives Matter”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the lives of blacks are important and that he supports the right to demonstrate in a legal and socially distant manner.
“Of course, black lives matter and I fully understand the anger, the grief that is felt not only in America but also in the world and in our country,” he told Parliament.
British police chiefs said they were dismayed by the way Floyd lost his life and the ensuing violence in American cities, but called on potential protesters in the UK to work with the police then that restrictions against coronaviruses remain in place.
But at Hyde Park, near Speakers’ Corner, many warned that racism was also a British problem.
“My mother was a protester in apartheid and it was 30 to 40 years ago – it is quite disappointing that we had to go out today to protest the same thing they were protesting today how many years, “Roz Jones, 21, a student from London told Reuters.
Jones came to Britain as a small child with his mother from South Africa.
“It is a systematic problem all over the world. It is not as if it were a dying person, we live our lives in a terribly conscious way of our race. It is not just, this is not natural order, “he said.
The Hyde Park rally is the second major protest in Britain after hundreds of people gathered in London on Sunday in Trafalgar Square before heading to the U.S. Embassy.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
