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UK police arrest 36 at anti-lockdown protests
LONDON, March 21, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – London police arrested dozens of people
Saturday after thousands turned out in the British capital to protest against
ongoing coronavirus lockdown restrictions, with the city’s police force in
the spotlight over its officer’s conduct after a series of recent incidents.
The Metropolitan Police Service said it had made 36 arrests, most for
breaching months-old virus regulations that outlaw leaving home except for a
limited number of reasons.
Several thousand people were estimated to have gathered for the
demonstrations, which began Saturday lunchtime at Hyde Park.
After the crowd marched through central London, a group of around 100
returned to the park where police said they threw missiles at officers.
“Several were injured as a result of targeted assaults,” Deputy Assistant
Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led the policing operation, said in a
statement.
“It is totally unacceptable and saddening that officers enforcing
regulations that are there to protect us all were the victims of violent
attacks.”
England’s Covid-19 lockdown measures have been in place since early
January, when Britain saw a surge in infection rates, hospitalisations and
deaths.
The situation has improved markedly since then, and Prime Minister Boris
Johnson last month outlined a gradual easing of the restrictions, with the
stringent stay-at-home order set to end later this month.
Anti-lockdown demonstrations by hundreds or even thousands have occurred
regularly during the pandemic, often resulting in a small number of arrests.
– Met complaints upheld –
However, the police response to Saturday’s protests was under particular
scrutiny in light of the outrage over the Met’s handling of a vigil last
weekend for a woman who was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by a member of
the same force.
On that occasion, police scuffled with the predominantly female crowd of
several hundred and physically restrained demonstrators, arresting four
people. Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, who faced calls to resign in
the aftermath, agreed to both internal and independent reviews into how
officers responded.
But in a development likely to increase pressure on the force, The
Observer newspaper revealed Sunday that Met employees faced hundreds of
sexual misconduct allegations between 2012 and 2018.
According to documents the paper accessed under freedom of information
laws, 119 of the 594 complaints were upheld after investigation.
The accusations probed included that an officer had had sex with a rape
victim and another had assaulted a domestic abuse survivor, it said.
The rape victim complained the officer “took advantage of her
vulnerability and had sex with her on two occasions”, The Observer reported,
with the officer subsequently dismissed.
The Met told the paper the claims involve “a small percentage of staff”
but that it takes “allegations of this nature extremely seriously”.
“If standards are proven to have fallen below what is expected, we take
appropriate action to ensure both accountability and that lessons are learnt
from each case,” it added.
Meanwhile, recent events have also sparked renewed debate about legal
curbs on protests during the pandemic.
More than 60 lawmakers signed a letter Saturday, co-ordinated by rights
groups Liberty and Big Brother Watch, warning that criminalising protest “is
not acceptable and is arguably not lawful”.
BSS/AFP/FI/0853 hrs