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File Photo: People take part in a demonstration in Paris, France, on June 6, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)
Thousands of people gathered here on Saturday afternoon outside the United States embassy in Ireland in protest against racism and police brutality in the United States, reported Irish national radio and television broadcaster RTE.
This is the third protest outside the U.S. embassy in Dublin following the killing of African American George Floyd in the U.S. city of Minneapolis. Floyd, 46, died on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he was handcuffed facing down on a Minneapolis street.
On May 31, a group of around 100 people staged a peaceful protest outside the U.S. embassy in Ballsbridge, an area in Dublin where many foreign embassies are located while another group of people held a demonstration outside the official residence of the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, which is located inside Phoenix Park where the Irish president also resides.
One day later, thousands of protesters marched miles from downtown Dublin to the U.S. embassy where they observed a minute's silence for George Floyd and demanded justice for him by shouting different slogans, including the desperate words of "I can't breathe."
The police brutality against Floyd as well as other African Americans in the U.S. and the delayed response of the judicial system in dealing with the four policemen involved in the crime have sparked widespread protests both inside and outside the United States.
During the third protest held in Dublin on Saturday, protesters took to their knees on the streets outside the U.S. embassy to express their anger against police brutality towards George Floyd and demanded a systematic change to the deep-rooted racism existing in the U.S. as well as in other places.
As Ireland is currently under the COVID-19 regulations, organizers had called for people living within five kilometers of the U.S. embassy to attend the Saturday protest while trying to persuade participants to follow a two-meter social distancing rule during the demonstration.
They even handed out personal protective equipment to those who took part in the protest, according to the RTE report.
On Thursday, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said while addressing the country's lower house of the parliament that the world has watched in horror in recent days the events following the killing of George Floyd.
He criticized the United States for the "absence of moral leadership" in dealing with the incident.
