‘Like a civil war’: how the world is reacting to the US protests
- Hundreds of protesters rally in London and Berlin over US death
- Chinese officials and state media needle the Trump administration
Nations around the world have watched in horror – and with interest – the civil unrest in the United States following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.
Racism-tinged events no longer startle even America’s closest allies, though many have watched coverage of the often-violent protests with growing unease. Burning cars and riot police in the US featured on newspaper front pages around the globe Sunday – bumping news of the Covid-19 pandemic to second-tier status in some places.
Floyd’s death on May 25 in Minneapolis was the latest in a series of deaths of black men and women at the hands of police in the US.
Thousands gathered in central London on Sunday to offer support for American demonstrators. Chanting “No justice! No peace!” and waving placards with the words “How many more?” at Trafalgar Square, the protesters ignored UK government rules banning crowds because of the pandemic. Police did not stop them.
Demonstrators then marched to the US embassy, where a long line of officers surrounded the building. Several hundred milled around in the street and waved placards.
Protesters in Denmark also converged on the US embassy on Sunday. Participants carried placards with messages such as “Stop Killing Black People”.
The US embassy in Berlin was the scene of protests on Saturday under the motto: “Justice for George Floyd”. Several hundred more people took to the streets Sunday in the capital’s Kreuzberg area, carrying signs with slogans like “Silence is Violence”, “Hold Cops Accountable”, and “Who Do You Call When Police Murder?” No incidents were reported.
Trump rushed to underground White House bunker as protests raged in Washington
Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper on Sunday carried the sensational headline “This killer-cop set America ablaze” with an arrow pointing to a photo of now-fired police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with third-degree murder in Floyd’s death, with his knee on Floyd’s neck. The newspaper’s story reported “scenes like out of a civil war”.
In Italy, the Corriere della Sera newspaper’s senior US correspondent Massimo Gaggi wrote that the reaction to Floyd’s killing was “different” than previous cases of black Americans killed by police and the ensuring violence.
Trump rushed to underground White House bunker as protests raged in Washington
Hu Xijin, the editor of the state-owned Global Times newspaper, tweeted that US officials can now see protests out their own windows: “I want to ask Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Pompeo: Should Beijing support protests in the US, like you glorified rioters in Hong Kong?”
Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign ministry spokeswoman, pointed out America’s racial unrest by tweeting “I can’t breathe”, which Floyd said before his death.
On Chinese mico-blogging platform Sina Weibo, video clips showing Minneapolis police shooting paint rounds at residents on their porch for violating a curfew went viral in the mainland after being posted by top state media outlets including the People’s Daily newspaper and the Global Times.
By Monday morning, “US National Guard firing into residents homes” was one of the top 10 search topics on the Twitter-like service, and the hashtag “US riot” had a total of 1.36 billion views.
In Iran, which has violently put down nationwide demonstrations by killing hundreds, arresting thousands and disrupting internet access to the outside world, state television has repeatedly aired images of the US unrest. One TV anchor discussed “a horrible scene from New York, where police attacked protesters”. Another state TV message accused US police agencies in Washington of “setting fire to cars and attacking protesters”, without offering any evidence.
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Unrest spreads across the US fuelled by outrage over police killing of George Floyd
“To the American people: the world has heard your outcry over the state of oppression. The world is standing with you,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said at a news conference.
“And to the American officials and police: stop violence against your people and let them breathe,” he told reporters in English.
Russia accused the United States of “systemic problems in the human rights sphere”. It denounced Floyd’s death as the latest in a series of police violence cases against African Americans.
“This incident is far from the first in a series of lawless conduct and unjustified violence from US law enforcement,’’ the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “American police commit such high-profile crimes all too often.”
North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Monday reported about the demonstrations, saying that protesters “harshly condemned” a white policeman’s “lawless and brutal murder” of a black citizen. Three large photos from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Reuters news agency and Agence France-Presse showed protest scenes from recent days in the city where Floyd was killed.
The article said hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the White House chanting “No justice, no peace,” and that demonstrations were occurring in other cities and were expected to grow. It did not make any direct comments about the Trump administration.
In US neighbour Canada, an anti-racism protest degenerated into clashes between Montreal police and some demonstrators. On the other side of the globe in New Zealand, about 2,000 marched in solidarity on the streets of Auckland to the US consulate chanting “no justice no peace”.
Another 500 gathered in Christchurch, and a large crowd was expected to maintain a candlelight vigil outside the parliament buildings in Wellington.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and Agence France-Presse
