Demos against US police brutality: Protests worldwide embrace ‘Black Lives Matter movement’

LONDON/DENVER/WASHINGTON: Thousands of people took to the streets in European and Asian cities on Saturday, demonstrating in support of US protests against police brutality.

Police in the German city of Hamburg used pepper spray on protesters and were ready to deploy water cannons. Several hundred “hooded and aggressive people” had put officers under pressure in the city centre, police said in a tweet, adding “We have already had to use pepper spray. With all due respect for emotions: attacks on police officers are unacceptable!”

At another location nearby, the authorities said some 350 people were standing in front of police water cannons and that officers were calling on loudspeakers for them to disperse. One officer was injured, the police added, reported British wire service. The rolling, global protests reflect rising anger over police treatment of ethnic minorities, sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white officer detaining him knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes as fellow officers stood by.

Europe has seen an unprecedented wave of anti-racism rallies drawing tens of thousands onto the streets.

In London, thousands of protesters ignored wet weather to crowd into Parliament Square, wearing face masks amid the coronavirus threat and waving placards and chanting: “No justice, no peace, no racist police.”

Interior minister Priti Patel urged people not to protest in view of the pandemic, which has killed more people in Britain than anywhere in the world outside the United States. “I completely understand people’s views and their desire for the right to protest but ... we are in a health pandemic across the United Kingdom,” Patel told UK broadcasters. “I would say to those who want to protest - please don’t.”

However, several hundred protesters, some holding “Black Lives Matters” signs, gathered on Place de la Concorde, close to the Embassy. Police had installed a long barrier across the square to prevent access to the embassy, which is also close to the Elysee presidential palace.

In Berlin, demonstrators filled the central Alexanderplatz, while there was also a protest in Warsaw.

In Brisbane, one of several Australian cities where rallies were held, police estimated 10,000 people joined a peaceful protest, wearing masks and holding “Black Lives Matter” placards. Many wrapped themselves in indigenous flags, calling for an end to police mistreatment of indigenous Australians.

Banners and slogans have focused not just on George Floyd but on a string of other controversies in specific countries as well as mistreatment of minorities in general.

In Sydney, a last-minute court decision overruled a coronavirus ban as several thousand people marched amid a heavy police presence.

In Tokyo, marchers protested against what they said was police mistreatment of a Kurdish man who says he was stopped while driving and shoved to the ground. Organisers said they were also marching in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. “I want to show that there’s racism in Japan now,” said 17-year-old high school student Wakaba, who declined to give her family name.

In Seoul, dozens of South Korean activists and foreign residents gathered, some wearing black masks with “can’t breathe” in Korean, echoing George Floyd’s final words as he lay on the pavement.

With coronavirus pandemic restrictions in Bangkok, activists went online, asking for video and photos of people wearing black, raising their fists and holding signs, and explaining why they “stand united behind Black Lives Matter”.

Protesters were expected to gather in Washington for a huge demonstration on Saturday as street marches across the United States entered a 12th day.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people gathered Saturday in cities from Australia to Europe, to express anger over the death of George Floyd and to demand an end to racial discrimination in a sign that the Black Lives Matter movement is going global.

Demonstrators in Paris tried to gather in front of the US Embassy, defying restrictions imposed by authorities because of the coronavirus pandemic. They were met by riot police who turned people away from the embassy, which French security forces sealed off behind an imposing ring of metal barriers and road blocks.

Pamela Carper, who joined an afternoon protest at London’s Parliament Square that headed towards the UK Home Office, which oversees the country’s police, and then on to the US Embassy, said she was demonstrating to show “solidarity for the people of America who have suffered for too long.”

Protesters outside the US consulate in Naples chanted “Freedom!” and “No Justice, No Peace, (expletive) the police” in English and Italian as they clapped and carried handmade signs and a big banner printed with “Black Lives Matter” and a clenched black fist.

In Italy, racist incidents have been on the rise in recent years with an influx of migrants from Africa and the growth of anti-migrant sentiment. Italy’s race problem also makes headlines when derogatory slurs are directed at black soccer players, incidents that result in fines and sanctions for clubs.

A US District Court Judge ordered Denver police on Friday to stop using tear gas, plastic bullets and other “less-than-lethal” force such as flash grenades against protesters.

The temporary injunction was in response to a local lawsuit filed on Thursday in the Denver District Court by protesters complaining about excessive force used by officers during public demonstrations following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis last month.

The ruling cited examples of protesters and journalists being injured by police. “Peaceful demonstrators’ legitimate and credible fear of police retaliation is silencing their political speech,” it said.

In Denver, throngs of marchers have gathered around the state Capitol every day for more than a week, chanting and carrying signs protesting Floyd’s killing.

Some people among the mostly peaceful crowd broke windows in the state Supreme Court building and a nearby museum overnight on May 29. Some store front windows were smashed and looters made off with merchandise. While the lawsuit, brought by four activists, acknowledged that some demonstrators “engaged in destructive behavior,” and it also said the vast majority were peaceful.

At least one woman sustained a serious eye injury when she was struck by a projectile, the lawsuit said.

The court ruling cited numerous instances, captured on video, of police using tear gas, projectiles and other measures against peaceful protesters engaged in their US Constitutional rights to gather and protest.

Journalists were also specifically targeted and shot with projectiles, “while in the process of documenting the scene,” the ruling said.

In his decision, US District Judge R. Brooke Jackson said that Denver police had “failed in its duty to police its own.” “If a store’s windows must be broken to prevent a protester’s facial bones from being broken or eye being permanently damaged, that is more than a fair trade,” Jackson wrote in his 10-page ruling.

“These are peaceful demonstrators, journalists, and medics who have been targeted with extreme tactics meant to suppress riots, not to suppress demonstrations.”

Tyrone Campbell, a Denver Police spokesman, said that the force would comply with the judge’s order.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a knee during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Ottawa on Friday.

Trudeau's act of solidarity comes after he declined to comment earlier in the day about whether he would be attending the protest. Still, he arrived at Parliament Hill -- home to Canada's Parliament -- wearing a black cloth mask Friday afternoon and surrounded by security guards, according to CNN affiliate CTVnews.

Trudeau did not speak at the event, though he clapped and nodded along with some of the other speakers, including a moment when a speaker asserted there is no middle ground on racism. At another point, he yelled "Amen" along with other protesters after a speaker discussed promoting love and justice.

Some in the crowd shouted at him to stand up to US President Donald Trump, CTVnews reported. Though many celebrities have been outspoken about their support for protesters in the US, support from world leaders has been muted, despite global protests featuring the Black Lives Matter slogan.

The crowd had a moment of silence for almost nine minutes -- the amount of time former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee pressed on Floyd's neck. During this silence, many took a knee, too. Trudeau joined them.

Meanwhile, protesters stirred by the death of George Floyd vowed Friday to turn an extraordinary outpouring of grief into a sustained movement as demonstrations shifted to a calmer, but no less determined focus on addressing racial injustice.

Formal and impromptu memorials to Floyd stretched from Minneapolis to North Carolina, where family members will gather Saturday to mourn him, and beyond.

Josiah Roebuck, a university student who used social media to help gather 100 people to demonstrate Friday in an Atlanta suburb, is confident the momentum will last. “Once you start, you’re going to see this every day,” said Roebuck, who has attended multiple protests. “I just want minorities to be represented properly.”

In Washington, city workers and volunteers painted “Black Lives Matter” in enormous yellow letters on the street leading to the White House on Friday in a sign of local leaders’ embrace of the protest movement. The mural stretched across 16th Street for two blocks, ending just before the church where President Donald Trump staged a photo-op earlier this week after federal officers forcibly cleared a peaceful demonstration to make way for the president and his entourage.