Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
REPORTED BY KALAHAN DENG
Hundreds of demonstrators have protested in London against the killing of two black men in the United States.
Roads running through Brixton were brought to a standstill for more than six hours as a crowd chanting “black lives matter” and “hands up, don’t shoot” took to the streets on Saturday.
The crowd of approximately 300 people gathered in Windrush Square at around 5pm before marching to the nearby police station, and then through neighbouring streets.
It followed a protest in central London on Friday after the shooting of black men by US police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and St Paul, Minnesota. Those deaths were followed by the reprisal shooting of five officers in Dallas, Texas.
Demonstrators brought traffic to a halt by staging a sit-down protest in the middle of Brixton High Street.
Police stayed back from the crowd who chanted “racist police, off our streets”.
On several occasions cars attempted to squeeze through the throng of demonstrators but quickly became surrounded by the crowds who demanded they stop. Police would then attempt to separate the vehicle and the crowd, causing confrontations.
Some protesters cheered as one man shouted through a loudspeaker “we have locked down Brixton”.
Despite a few pockets of tension, the protest remained largely peaceful.
Police said one man, believed to have been a passenger on a bus, was ushered away after becoming involved in an altercation.
One man, Vincent Lee, 37, and his partner Jessica Osibona came to the march as a mark of solidarity of the events in the US over the past week.
