UK: far right disrupts anti-racist protest in London

Text by: RFI Follow

Demonstrations took place in a tense atmosphere this Saturday, June 13 in London, where the authorities had planned a heavy police force to try to avoid a repeat of the violence of the last weekend but also to avoid a confrontation between anti-racist protesters and protesters far right. 

Publicity

With our correspondent in London, Muriel Delcroix

The Metropolitan Police, the London police, had together with the mayor Sadiq Khan tried to cut the grass under the feet of the demonstrators of the movement "Black Lives Matter", by hiding controversial statues and monuments behind metal panels.

The police were also instructed to intervene between the two main groups of protesters, anti-racists on one side and right-wing activists on the other. Finally, the protesters were obliged to disperse after 5 p.m. under a curfew introduced the day before.

These precautions did not prevent groups of a few hundred demonstrators, mainly from the far right, from confronting the police on Parliament Square, as well as around Trafalgar Square with glass bottles and tear gas canisters. These groups claimed to have come to defend the historic symbols of the country remained massed for several hours around the statue of Winston Churchill, protected behind a caisson.

But in the end, the "Black Lives Matter" movement had decided to cancel its rally in Hyde Park and the few hundred anti-racist demonstrators who came despite everything dispersed calmly. This striking contrast led to the unanimous condemnation of the violence perpetrated by far-right activists.

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• United Kingdom
• Racism