“The protesters also chanted “no justice, no peace”, “black lives matter” and ‘we have a duty to fight for our freedom, we have a duty to win, we should love and protect one another, we have nothing to lose but our chains”.
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Scotland Yard said four people were arrested in the Heathrow incident and taken to west London police stations where they remain in custody.
The activists unfurled a banner with the words “this is a crisis” and laid down on a turnoff from the M4 freeway heading to the airport, one of the world’s busiest.
The BBC said demonstrators in the city of Nottingham also lay down on tram tracks in the city.
The campaigners said they aim to highlight “the struggle for black lives in the United Kingdom and £Shutdown state-sanctioned racialised sexism, Islamophobia, classism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia”, adding: “We fight for liberation”.
Nkonde, 31, a Zambian migrant living in London, said she recognised that a lot of people were “upset, angry, and irritated” that protesters had caused traffic gridlock during rush hour.
Similar protests disrupted traffic on major roads throughout the country during morning traffic, including the Birmingham airport and a main thoroughfare in Nottingham.
Black Lives Matter started in the United States as a reaction to fatal shootings of black people by white US police officers.
“We are working with the authorities to resolve the issue but advise passengers to allow more time to drive into Terminals 2 and 3”.
The group this week called for a “nationwide shutdown” to mark the August 5, 2011 killing of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, shot by police in the London neighborhood of Tottenham.
‘A number of people were reported to be blocking the road leading to the airport.
“Five years ago. One day after they killed Mark Duggan”.
In 2014, an inquest jury concluded that Mr Duggan had been lawfully killed by police, but his family won the right to appeal in October 2015.
“The group’s 23-year-old spokesperson Wail Qasim told CNN the demonstrations were meant to highlight deaths in police custody”.
The group said: “We stand in solidarity with the families and friends of all who have died at the hands of the British state”.
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The Daily Mail reports, “Violent gangster Duggan was holding a gun when a police marksman opened fire, and the officer shot him because he saw the weapon and thought the gangster was about to open fire”.
