London’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) took a hands-off approach to a large protest against police brutality in Nigeria on Saturday, that was led by Black Lives Matter radical activist and self-described Black Panther Sasha Johnson.
While police took measures to break up an anti-lockdown protest taking place at the same time, the police employed much more mild tactics in dealing with the Nigerian protest, reminding the crowd to abide by social distancing and mask rules.
The #EndSars (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) protest in London was led in part by Johnson, who was seen telling the African protesters to ignore the “white media”.
“You’re not here to talk to white men, you’re here to unite as a nation. You are here to speak for the rights of the people that lost their lives and they are not able to speak for themselves today. You are here to be a voice for the voiceless… I didn’t come out here for you to waste your time talking about white media, I came out here to help find solutions,” Johnson said.
Johnson also took aim at the British police, claiming they were complicit in the brutality in Nigeria, and that they were only out in force on Saturday to “protect statues”.
“You are here to speak up against the injustice against your people. The police officers that surround you are the very officers that helped train the Sars Unit,” she said, before leading the group in a chant of: “No Justice, No Peace!”
Finally, the BLM radical proclaimed: “Take it to the streets, and fuck the British police!”
At one point, a police officer was seen politely asking Sasha Johnson to encourage the crowd to maintain social distancing.
Johnson unenthusiastically announced “peace and social distancing and masks” from her megaphone, before nodding to the officer.
Elsewhere in London, police took a different approach to the anti-lockdown protest, which saw police arrest 18 people.
There has been a noticeable difference in the tactics used by London’s police force when dealing with protests conducted by anti-lockdown activists and those held by Black Lives Matter.
In June, Metropolitan Police commissioner, Cressida Dick, said that the police force took a lax approach to BLM protests out of fear of sparking “serious disorder”.
Sasha Johnson first rose to prominence in July of this year, after a Breitbart London viral video showed the black radical activist pronouncing that the British police are “no different than the KKK”. She also called for the establishment of a “Black Militia” to fight racism in the UK.
In response to the video, author of The Madness of Crowds and The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray, said: “They want to present this country of ours or something that it just obviously is not.”
“There is no reason that in the world’s most tolerant and racially tolerant and mixed country, like the UK, that we should just sit by as demagogues and racists try to portray our country as some extraordinarily racist, KKK-ridden hellhole. It’s not right, it’s totally defamatory to our country, it’s unfair, and it’s wrong,” Murray added.
In August, Johnson announced the formation of the “first black-led political party in the UK”, the Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP).
“We are tired of being let down by Labour, Conservatives, and Lib-Dem and all of them. We want our own political party, one that reflects the multicultural nation that we have become,” Johnson explained.
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