If you’ve been paying attention today, you knew this was coming.
Today, in Northern Ireland, Black Lives Matter protests went ahead in Belfast and Derry, despite intimidation of the organisers by police. Many people who attended were issued with £60 fines, using Covid-19 legislation, despite adhering to social distancing guidelines and wearing masks whilst protesting.
Being able to have these kinds of protests in Northern Ireland is especially important, because racism is a real problem in Northern Ireland, and reports of racist incidents to the police now outnumber reports of sectarian incidents. Everyone who went to the protests today was incredibly brave to do so.
Furthermore, the fining of people for attending a peaceful protest is all kinds of messed up and sets a nasty precedent within UK law.
Please consider donating to this fundraiser: https://localgiving.org/appeal/BLMFundBelfast/
If you’re a UK taxpayer, you can gift aid your donation too.
It will be used to help those on low incomes pay these fines, and also to fund a possible legal challenge to these fines.
Please do not share identifying photographs of the demos in Northern Ireland- people are genuinely worried about police reprisals.
This image shows one of the protests compared to an IKEA queue elsewhere in the UK where no fines were given.
