Over the weekend marches and demonstrations were held across the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, demanding an end to racism. Here’s a closer look at the protests that took place in different countries.  

New Zealand

Protesters took to the streets over the weekend in Aukland and Wellington over the weekend to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Crowds were seen making call-and-respond chants lie:

“What do we want?”

“Justice!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Over the years, New Zealand has had to deal with its own race and discrimination related issues, especially with respect to indigenous communities like Maori people. Here are a few images captured and shared by Tweeple:

France

Demonstrations also took place in Paris, where reportedly over 1,00,000 protesters took to the streets. Demonstrations took place at Place de la Republique chanting, “No justice, no peace.” The rally was also attended by Assa Traore, sister of Adama Traore, who was killed in police custody in 2016. Take a look at this video by @EiichiChijiiwa that captures just how any protesters were out demanding justice, and quickly went viral:

However, even though protests began on a peaceful note, police tried to prevent them from marching and soon videos of police brutality against protesters also emerged. This thread has compiled many such videos from not just Paris, but also Lyon and other parts of France where police fired tear gas shells to disperse protesters.

France has been grappling with racial tensions for decades and Black and Arab people often bear a disproportionate brunt of discrimination and targeted violence.

The United Kingdom

Violence was reported from Central London where some far-right activists came together claiming they were trying to protect statues from anti-racism activists. Nearly a hundred such people gathered around the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall and the boarded-up statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square and clashed with the police. Some police personnel were also attacked prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to tweet against “racist thuggery”.

Meanwhile peaceful demonstrations against racial discrimination took place in many parts of the city.

Protests also took place in Germany, Japan and Sweden. Many more are planned in the coming days as well.