World witnesses another day of protests over George Floyd’s death

Tens of thousands marched in Australia, Canada, the UK, Japan, Seoul and elsewhere in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement as Washington, DC geared up for what’s being anticipated as the largest ever protest in the US against racism in the wake of the custodial death of George Floyd.

Over 1,000 people marched in Sydney after winning a last-minute appeal against a Friday ruling declaring their rally unauthorised. In Brisbane, about 30,000 people gathered, forcing police to shut down some major streets.

In the South Korean capital Seoul, protesters gathered for a second straight day to denounce Floyd’s death. Wearing masks and black shirts, dozens marched through a commercial district amid a police escort, carrying signs such as “Koreans for Black Lives Matter”.

In Tokyo, dozens of people gathered in a peaceful protest. In Paris, police banned a protest planned for Saturday, citing the risk of spreading Covid-19. In Britain, tens of thousands of people ignored official advice to avoid mass gatherings and came together to protest against the killing.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unannounced appearance at an anti-racial discrimination rally in the capital Ottawa and then proceeded to take the knee for around nine minutes, along with protesters.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo accused China of using the unrest in the US to justify denying its own people basic human rights. “As with dictatorships throughout history, no lie is too obscene, so long as it serves the party’s lust for power,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “This laughable propaganda should not fool anyone.”

China has repeatedly criticised the US over the Floyd case.

The US is now witnessing a weekend of protests described as the broadest in its history, spreading even to smaller cities and small towns, including deeply conservative ones. District of Colombia, which had another night of curfew on Friday, has seen a surging number of protesters, undeterred by the heavy presence of law enforcement. They demonstrated in front of the White House, which has been turned into a fortress with tall fences and concrete barricades and walked peacefully to the Lincoln Memorial nearby.

The protests, now into their 12th day, have spread to more locations than the previous high of 650 places during the Women’s Marches of January 2017, just days after President Donald Trump took office, according to research published in The Washington Post. The study by professors Lara Putnam, Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman noted t “the breadth of the protests is significant” and also because they took place without advance planning and in the middle of a pandemic that has kept many Americans home.