‘It just needs to stop now’
Protesters around globe rising up against racism
ROME — Demonstrators in Rome held their fists in the air and chanted “No Justice! No Peace!” Sunday, while in London people defying official warnings not to gather lay down outside the U.S. Embassy as part of a rolling, global anti-racism movement.
In Belgium, police fired tear gas and used a water cannon to disperse about a 100 protesters in a central part of Brussels with many African shops and restaurants. Some protesters were subsequently arrested.
They were part of a crowd of about 10,000 people who had gathered at the Palace of Justice, many wearing face masks and carrying banners with the phrase “Black Lives Matter — Belgium to Minneapolis,” “I can’t breathe” and “Stop killing black people.”
“Black Lives Matter is not only about police violence. Here, we experience discrimination that other races do not experience. For example, if we start looking for a flat to rent, we have difficulties. Regarding employment, we are disadvantaged. So it’s not only about police violence,” said 25-year-old insurance broker Randy Kayembe.
The second weekend of demonstrations showed the depth of outrage worldwide over the death of George
Floyd in Minneapolis May 25 after a white officer detaining him knelt on his neck. More protests were also planned across the U.S.
Footage posted on social media showed demonstrators in Bristol cheering as they tore down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, and pushed it into a river.
Chaniya La Rose, a 17-yearold student at the London protest, said an end to inequality is long overdue.
“It just needs to stop now,” she said. “It shouldn’t have to be this hard to be equal.”
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock earlier said that joining the Black Lives Matter protests risked contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.
London police Chief Cressida Dick said 27 officers were injured during protests last week, including 14 Saturday at the end of a peaceful demonstration.
In Italy, where several thousand people gathered in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, speakers called out racism at home, in the U.S. and elsewhere. U.S. embassies were the focus of protests elsewhere in Europe, with more than 10,000 gathering in Copenhagen, hundreds in Budapest and thousands in Madrid.