The far-right in Britain entered the line of protests condemning racism against the background of the recent killing of the American citizen George Floyd at the hands of the police, as the police demonstrated in France, rejecting proposed reforms related to its work.
In London, the police announced that they had arrested more than 100 people for misdemeanors related to violent behavior, vandalism, assaulting the police and possession of weapons and drugs, on the sidelines of demonstrations against racism and other anti-racism.
The clashes took place between protesters from the far right and the police in several areas of the capital, where hundreds of them gathered under the pretext of protecting statues of national symbols from anti-racism.
The police pushed hundreds of its members to break up the crowds, while the ambulance service announced that it had dealt with 15 injured people, including two police officers, and transferred six of them to the hospital.
Activists of the "Souls of Important Black" anti-racism movement also demonstrated in Trafalgar Square and other areas in London, where skirmishes with the police were reported, and another march against racism was organized in Brighton and Liverpool.
During the past few days, protesters have targeted statues in London for figures from the colonial era, among them a statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and this came in the context of condemning the killing of the American citizen by a policeman crouched on his neck during his arrest on May 25 in Minneapolis.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that what he described as extremists had "kidnapped" anti-racist protests, and had criticized the targeting of statues as "absurd and shameful."
Demonstrations and clashes
In the Republic Square in the capital, Paris, thousands of French participated in new demonstrations against racism and police violence yesterday, and there have been clashes between protesters and security forces.
The police used tear gas to disperse the protesters and prevent them from marching towards the opera house, and the demonstration took place under the slogan "Justice for Adama", in reference to Adama Traore, a young man of African descent who died in 2016 while in police custody.
Simultaneously, members of the police demonstrated in their cars at the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris to protest against reforms proposed by Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, which included the abandonment of some rough methods during the arrests.
This demonstration comes after the government pledged not to tolerate any racist practices by the police.
President Emmanuel Macron said last Wednesday that racism is a scourge that affects the whole society, while the Minister of the Interior called for non-tolerance of racism in the police ranks and measures to improve its behavior. For its part, Amnesty International called for a systematic reform of police practices in France.
In the context, more than ten thousand people demonstrated yesterday in Zurich, Switzerland, to denounce racism, and the protesters chanted, "Black lives are important". On the sidelines of the demonstrations, skirmishes occurred between young men and the security forces.
Protests were also organized in the same framework in three cities in Germany, including Stuttgart and Hamburg.
In Italy, unknown persons yesterday night sabotaged a statue of the journalist Andrew Mutanelli in Milan, and they wrote on his base "a racist usurper" and an anti-fascist association had asked the mayor to remove the statue of the journalist who died in 2001, whom he accused of marrying a child in Ethiopia during the Italian colonial period in Africa.
Thousands also demonstrated yesterday in several cities in Australia to demand racial equality and reject racism, and similar demonstrations took place in New Zealand, in addition to fewer gatherings in Thailand and Japan.