Sharjah 24 – BNA: Thousands of people in Paris on Tuesday evening defied a ban to protest about the 2016 death of a young black man in police custody and alleged racism by security forces.
Many of the overwhelmingly young, racially mixed crowd bore slogans linked to the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the United States, which has seen large protests in recent days after George Floyd, a black man, was killed by police last week.
The protest near the main Paris courts complex was called by the sister of Adama Traore, who died in 2016 after his arrest by gendarmerie police in a town north of Paris, and their supporters, according to Deutsche press agency (dpa).
The demonstration was at first overwhelmingly peaceful and good-humoured, but BFMTV television reported that some demonstrators later blocked the nearby Paris motorway ring road and lit fires before being dispersed by police.
Police spokeswoman Laetitia Vallar told BFMTV that about 20,000 people took part in the protest. The protest comes amid ongoing controversy about alleged racist discrimination by French security forces, notably a series of alleged acts of police violence in poor suburbs during the country's recent coronavirus lockdown.
Marches against police violence, racism and social injustice have gripped US cities for the past week, with solidarity protests held in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, among other places.
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