LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th June, 2020) A wave of protests against racial inequality and police brutality that has swept through the United Kingdom after the death of George Floyd in the US has emerged due to the prevalence of violent acts conducted by law enforcement officers in both countries as well as the structural racism that remains in society, former deputy leader of the Green Party Shahrar Ali told Sputnik.
The UK's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has continued to make headlines over recent days after the death of Floyd, an African American male, in the custody of US police officers.
"The US experience of police brutality is directly relevant to the situation in the UK, where black people are disproportionately unjustly criminalized and persecuted by the police, whether through racial profiling or deaths in custody. Beyond policing, many of our state and social institutions embed structural racism, which negatively impacts BAME [Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic] people in their life chances and health inequalities," Ali, who now serves as home affairs spokesman for the Green Party of England and Wales, said.
The protest movement itself derives from the original US-version of the BLM group, which has gained renewed attention in recent weeks through the widespread and sometimes violent protests in the US following the police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
Asked about the situation in the US, which has seen multiple incidents of looting and clashes with police officers alongside otherwise peaceful protests, Ali stated that President Donald Trump's reaction had all the same been disproportionate, especially following threats to potentially use the US military to restore order.
"Trump's response to the George Floyd murder has been morally bankrupt on so many levels, in terms of the failure to empathize with the victim and his family, failure to act decisively on police brutality, and threatening to use state violence on protesters who were considerably less intimidating than predominately white, armed civilians protesting against lockdown just days earlier," the Green Party official said.
However, violent incidents in the UK, which so far have led to 35 police officers receiving injuries, were not to be supported, Ali stated. One policewoman suffered significant injuries when her horse appeared to panic and bolt after being targeted by protesters hurling debris, with the resulting fall from the saddle leading to a collapsed lung, broken ribs and a broken collarbone.
BLM activists also defaced a statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a statue in Bristol of 18th-century slave trader Edward Colston was torn down and thrown into the harbor. Police officers came under attack in London multiple times over the weekend, prompting a sizable deployment of anti-riot officers onto the streets on Sunday night.
"I do not condone but would condemn isolated cases of people throwing projectiles towards police or property, but this behavior was not representative of the vast majority of protesters and should not have been used by the prime minister or home secretary to tarnish them with the same brush," Ali stated.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated on Sunday that the protest movement had been "subverted by thuggery," which amounted to a "betrayal of the cause they purport to serve."
In a rare display of apparent agreement, London Mayor Sadiq Khan also condemned the violence, stating that such actions undermine the political message of the broader movement.
Controversy has also arisen as thousands of protesters take to the streets at a time when the UK remains beset by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst critics have cited the apparent hypocrisy of allowing such displays to go ahead, others have been more supportive, pointing out that issues of racism within western society are themselves an issue that demands immediate action.
"This latest movement and backlash against police violence has all the makings of a major step-change in tackling institutional racism, to combat not just widespread incidents of racism but the structures which would allow such inequality to fester and afflict generation upon generation," Ali argued.
Tackling the UK's systematic racism, represented by the statue of Colston that previously stood in the city of Bristol, appears to be far more important to demonstrators than the risk of contracting the coronavirus disease, Ali stated.
"The toppling of Colston statute in Bristol represents the depth of feeling around institutional hypocrisy. The determination of people across society to march despite [the] risk of [the] deadly virus demonstrates that some things are worth fighting for even at the risk of dying from the act of doing so," the Green Party official remarked.
In Parliament on Monday, Home Secretary Priti Patel stated that roughly 200 protests against police brutality and racial inequality took place across the United Kingdom over the past weekend. The majority were peaceful, but a total of 135 people have been arrested after several demonstrations turned violent.
Protesters in London marched on Parliament Square on Saturday, before turning their attention to the US Embassy on Sunday, in protest against the death of Floyd.
