Anti-Racism Protesters Hold Rally in Front of US Embassy in London (+Video)


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters held a demonstration against racism and police brutality in front of the US Embassy in the British capital.

Hundreds of young people also marched through London for justice for Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her home by Louisville Metro Police Department in March, and for all those who have been killed by police brutality in the US and the UK, CounterFire reported.

The protest started with speeches from young black people, mainly from the organisation Justice for Black Lives, who called for charges to be brought against the officers who killed Breonna Taylor and more generally for reforms in education.

Chants of ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘Say her name: Breonna Taylor’ continued as the protest moved from the embassy to Vauxhall Bridge, where protestors knelt down, stopping traffic and held a two minutes silence to remember all those killed by the police in the US and UK. People in cars passing by beeped their horns in support and pedestrians clapped and cheered. There were several chants of ‘Boris is a racist’ or ‘Tories are racist’ and the energy grew and grew as we moved towards Westminster, with calls for justice for the Windrush generation and for Grenfell.

The protest stopped again in Parliament Square, where there were more speeches from the organisers, a campaigner for Windrush and a nurse. Links were made between the Palestinian struggle, the bombing of Yemen and the Black Lives Matter movement. There were calls for defunding the police and reinvesting it in public services cut by austerity.

Demonstrations, some of which have been marked by riots, have been held across the UK every weekend since the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Protests against racial discrimination and police brutality have been held globally, sparked by the killing of African-American man George Floyd by a policeman in Minnesota in the US.