Scores of Black Lives Matter protesters took to Swindon’s streets on Saturday for a second anti-racism march.
Between 50 and 100 people walked from Regent Circus to Wharf Green in a repeat of a similar demonstration last month. Protesters knelt in a minute's silence for George Floyd, who died allegedly after a police officer kept his knee on the man's neck.
The Swindon protest was joined by relatives of Simeon Francis, 35, a black man who died in a cell in Torquay police station on May 20 after being arrested in Exeter. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating his death.
In a speech written by one of his relatives, which was read out by organisers of the Swindon march, they asked if police had behaved differently towards Mr Francis because of the colour of his skin.
They said: “The overriding questions we have are: was he treated differently because he was a black man? Was he stereotyped as an aggressive criminal because he was a black man? Did police see fit to use excessive force, have Simeon cry out for his own life in the hands of the police because he was a black man?”
Protesters chant as they start marching down Commercial Road. @swindonadver pic.twitter.com/34jPEuBxbA
— Tom Seaward (@Adver_TSeaward) July 11, 2020
Organiser Zak Agilah told the Adver before the march: “We’ve not given up. We’re not going to stop.”
Mohamed Agilah, 32, said: “The message for me is it’s about equality. It’s about everyone having the same equal rights regardless of skin colour or creed.
“No one is trying to say white lives don’t matter.
“We’re saying black lives matter because at the moment they don’t seem to.”
Black Lives Matter protesters take the knee at Swindon #BLM protest in Regent Circus pic.twitter.com/flk14HxhWW
— Tom Seaward (@Adver_TSeaward) July 11, 2020
One 17-year-old girl said it had taken her two years to tell her mother she had been racially abused by a group of boys while at school. Asked what impact that had had on her, she said: “It’s indescribable.”
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