The U.K. branch of the Black Lives Matter movement blocked a road to London’s Heathrow Airport Friday, bringing traffic to a standstill.
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The Telegraph reports that the main road leading to Birmingham airport was cleared at around 9am, and the police arrested five people for highway obstruction, but long tailbacks have built up on the roads to Heathrow. Police say one lane is open but traffic is backed up getting into one of the world’s busiest airports.
Traffic in parts of Nottingham city centre was “gridlocked” at the height of rush hour when protesters lay across tram tracks outside the Theatre Royal.
A West Midlands police spokeswoman said four women and one man were arrested on the A45 in Solihull, close to Birmingham airport, just before 7.30am.
The shooting in Tottenham, north London, sparked riots that summer that lasted at least six days in major towns and cities in England including Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester. Police arrested 19 people in connection with the protests.
The leader of the Black Lives Matter movement recently said in an interview that the Clintons use the black community as a way to garner more votes.
Hundreds of people gathered in Whitechapel, east London, on Friday as part of a day of Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the UK.
Demonstrators lay in the road with their arms linked in front of a banner that read “This is a crisis”.
Black Lives Matter is a movement which started in the U.S. after the killings of young black men by police officers.
“We have chosen today for our action to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Mark Duggan’s death at the hands of the Metropolitan Police”.
The two-minute clip features many notable figures including journalist Wail Qasim, the NUS black students officer Aadam Musse and Marcia Rigg, the sister of musician Sean Rigg, who died in a south London police station, in August 2008, and a dedicated campaigner.
“In the aftermath of Duggan’s death, supposed witnesses claimed they saw police marksmen shoot him after he had already given himself up”. For the sake of transparency the group publicly state those whose work it supports or position it stands in solidarity with.
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A BLMUK activist said in a Facebook video that there have been “1,562 deaths in police custody in my lifetime” – with no officer convictions. We take action because justice has not been delivered through conventional means: “the police, the IPCC [Independent Police Complaints Commission], the courts or the legislature”.
