LONDON, June 7 (Xinhua) — The Metropolitan Police said a dispersal order has been authorized in the city of Westminster from Sunday night till 6 a.m. on Monday following disorder in anti-racism demonstrations there.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people joined a second day of anti-racism protests in British cities, sparked by the U.S. police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American. Protesters gathered outside the U.S. embassy in London, chanting “silence is violence” and “color is not a crime.”
Later, an anti-racism protest was held at Parliament Square in Westminster. The statue of Winston Churchill in the square was graffitied with a line spray painted through the wartime prime minister’s name and “is a racist” written below, according to a report by the newspaper Guardian.
Around 8 p.m., there were clashes on Whitehall between police and a small number of protesters throwing objects including bottles and traffic cones, the report said.
The City of Westminster Police tweeted: “Due to disorder in central Westminster, a Section 35 Dispersal Order has been authorized by Insp Greenwood for the City of Westminster from 21:15 hours today until 06:00 hours tomorrow.”
Demonstrations also took place in other British cities, including Manchester, Cardiff, Leicester, Bristol and Sheffield.
In the southern British city of Bristol, a statue of a 17th-century slave trader was pulled down by “Black Lives Matter” protesters. Footage on social media showed demonstrators tearing the figure of Edward Colston from its plinth during protests in the city center. In a later video, protesters were seen dumping it into the Avon River.
Floyd, 46, died on May 25 in the U.S. city of Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he was handcuffed facing down and repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe. Enditem
