PROTESTS GO GLOBAL
In cities around the world, thousands support
Rage over the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd spread to cities around the world Sunday as thousands gathered to offer support for American demonstrators.
Chanting “No justice! No peace!” and waving placards with the words “How many more?” at London’d Trafalgar Square, the protesters ignored U.K. government rules banning crowds because of the pandemic. Police didn’t stop them.
Demonstrators then marched to the U.S. Embassy, where a long line of officers surrounded the building. Several hundred milled around in the street and waved placards.
Protesters in Denmark also converged on the U.S. Embassy on Sunday. Participants carried placards with messages such as “Stop Killing Black People.”
The U.S. Embassy in Berlin was the scene of protests on Saturday under the motto: “Justice for George Floyd.” Several hundred more people took to the streets Sunday in the capital’s Kreuzberg area, carrying signs with slogans like “Silence Is Violence,” “Hold Cops Accountable” and “Who Do You Call When Police Murder?” No incidents were reported.
Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper on Sunday carried the sensational headline, “This killer-cop set America ablaze,” with an arrow pointing to a photo of now-fired police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with third-degree murder in Floyd’s death, with his knee on Floyd’s neck. The newspaper’s story reported “scenes like out of a civil war.”
In Brazil, hundreds of people gathered in front of the Rio de Janeiro state government palace to protest crimes committed by the police against black people in
Rio’s workingclass neighborhoods, known as favelas.
The protest, called “Black lives matter,” was interrupted when police used tear gas to disperse people. “I can’t breathe,” said some of the demonstrators, alluding to the Floyd’s death. Protesters called for an end to police operations inside favelas. They shouted the names of some victims, followed by the word “present!” Rio has one of the most deadly police forces in Brazil. In 2019, they killed 1,546 people, the highest number since 1998, and much of that was during police operations in favelas. Over the weekend, Lebanese anti-government protesters flooded social media with tweets sympathetic to U.S. protesters, using the hashtag Americarevolts. That’s a play on the slogan for Lebanon’s protest movement — Lebanon revolts — which erupted last Oct. 17. Within 24 hours, the hashtag became the No. 1 trending tag in Lebanon.
In another expression of solidarity with American protesters, about 150 people marched through central Jerusalem on Saturday to protest the shooting death by Israeli police of an unarmed, autistic Palestinian man earlier in the day.
Israeli police mistakenly suspected that the man, Iyad Halak, was carrying a weapon.
When he failed to obey orders to stop, officers opened fire.