Category Archives: Black Lives Matter movement

Paramedic convicted in Elijah McClain’s killing will be released from prison

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Judge reduces sentence to four years of probation for Peter Cichuniec, who injected McClain with ketamine in 2019

A Colorado paramedic convicted in the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whose name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the US in 2020, is being released from prison after a judge reduced his sentence to four years of probation on Friday.

Judge Mark Warner ruled that “unusual and extenuating circumstances” in the case justified reducing the five-year prison sentence for Peter Cichuniec, the Denver Post reported.

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UK galleries rushed to diversify art after Black Lives Matter, artist says

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South Africa-born painter Gavin Jantjes says institutions tried to buy work they ignored decades earlier

British arts institutions deployed “kneejerk” and “stopgap” responses in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement as they attempted to avoid criticism for the lack of diversity in their collections, according to the artist Gavin Jantjes.

The South Africa-born artist, who was a key figure during the British black art movement of the 1980s, told the Guardian that under-pressure organisations approached him to buy work that they had ignored since it was made decades earlier.

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Texas governor pardons man who killed Black Lives Matter protester in 2020

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Greg Abbott on Thursday pardoned Daniel Perry, who has been serving a 25-year sentence since 2023 murder conviction

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.

Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023.

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London protesters block coach taking asylum seekers to Bibby Stockholm

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Dozens of demonstrators in Peckham surround coach before it can take people to barge in Dorset

A standoff was under way in London on Thursday after a coach sent to collect asylum seekers and take them to the Bibby Stockholm barge was surrounded by protesters.

Dozens of demonstrators blocked the coach before it was able to pick up passengers, surrounding it on all sides. Hours later, the bus was still at the scene while protestors were also sitting in front of a number of police vans carrying a number of people who were arrested.

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Black History Month to celebrate women and UK’s Windrush generation

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Hundreds of events lined up for October, with focus on role black women have played in shaping British history

Black History Month launches with hundreds of events planned across the UK in October, with celebrations focusing on the contributions of black women and the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush.

First celebrated in the UK in October 1987, Black History Month has since morphed into a big cultural and political event to highlight the historical and contemporary contribution of black Britons.

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US man who killed woman by driving car through BLM protest pleads guilty

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Dawit Kelete, 30, pleads guilty to multiple charges after hitting two protesters, one fatally, during 2020 protest in Seattle

A man who hit two Black Lives Matter protesters with his car, killing one of them, during a 2020 demonstration in Seattle has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies.

Dawit Kelete, 30, pleaded guilty Thursday to vehicular homicide in the death of 24-year-old Summer Taylor, the Seattle Times reported. He also pleaded guilty to vehicular assault and reckless driving charges.

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FBI broke own rules in January 6 and BLM intelligence search, court finds

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Critics decry ‘egregious’ abuse after Fisa court shows repeated violations related to vast foreign intelligence database

FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when they searched a vast repository of foreign intelligence for information related to the January 6 insurrection and racial justice protests in 2020, according court order released Friday.

FBI officials said the thousands of violations, which also include improper searches of donors to a congressional campaign, predated a series of corrective measures that started in the summer of 2021 and continued last year. But the problems could nonetheless complicate FBI and justice department efforts to receive congressional reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program that law enforcement officials say is needed to counter terrorism, espionage and international cybercrime.

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Trinity College Dublin to ‘dename’ George Berkeley library over slavery links

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University said 18th-century philosopher and bishop bought enslaved people to work on his Rhode Island estate

Trinity College Dublin is to remove George Berkeley’s name from its biggest library because of the Irish philosopher’s links with slavery in the 18th century.

The university said on Wednesday it would “dename” the Berkeley library and review an academic award that carries his name, as well as portraits of the scholar.

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US army sergeant found guilty of murdering BLM protester in Austin

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Texas governor moves to pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted of shooting Garrett Foster during rally in 2020

A US army sergeant and ride-share service driver has been found guilty of the murder of a protester during a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020 in Austin, Texas.

After an eight-day trial and two days of verdict deliberations, a jury in Travis county, Texas, found 33-year-old Daniel Perry guilty of murdering air force veteran Garrett Foster, 28. Perry is white, as was Foster.

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Adidas asks US to bar Black Lives Matter from using three stripes in trademark

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The sportswear company claims the BLM Global Network Foundation’s yellow-stripe design would be confused with its three-stripe logo

Sneaker giant Adidas AG has asked the US trademark office to reject an application for a Black Lives Matter trademark featuring three parallel stripes, arguing it could mislead the public.

Adidas told the office in a Monday filing that Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc’s yellow-stripe design would create confusion with its own famous three-stripe mark. It sought to block the group’s application to use the design on goods that the German sportswear maker also sells, such as shirts, hats and bags.

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C of E’s historic slavery fund – worth £100m but how far will it stretch across communities?

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Clerical leaders hope for ‘lasting legacy’ to serve places affected by past slavery trade, but fund may spread thinly across all of west Africa and Caribbean

The Church of England’s decision to set up a £100m fund for communities adversely affected by historic slavery is the latest – and biggest – step it has taken over the past few years to “address past wrongs” relating to its links to the slave trade.

The report on the origins of the C of E’s healthy £9bn-plus endowment fund correctly describes the 17th century slave trade as “abhorrent” and a source of misery and injustice.

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Black Lives Matter grassroots chapters sue global foundation over funds

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Coalition sues foundation, alleging mismanagement: ‘The assets that we built are under control of consultants’

A coalition of Black Lives Matter chapters has filed a lawsuit against the BLM Global Network Foundation, a non-profit organization that grew out of the protest movement, accusing the foundation of defrauding the local activist groups.

The complaint was filed on Thursday by BLM Grassroots, an entity made up of 26 BLM chapters in the US, UK and Canada.

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Police prosecutor claimed case over Black Lives Matter rally was ‘fatally flawed’, Melbourne court told

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Officer who allegedly flagged the dropping of charges was not authorised to make that decision, Victoria police tell court

A Victoria police prosecutor had told lawyers for two women charged over a 2020 Black Lives Matter rally held in Melbourne that the case against them was “fatally flawed” and said charges would be withdrawn immediately, the organisers’ lawyer has told a court.

Crystal McKinnon, 41, and Meriki Onus, 34 were charged with breaching directions of Victoria’s chief health officer by planning the protest against Indigenous deaths in custody during a Covid lockdown.

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British history should not be treated as a ‘soft play area’, says David Olusoga

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Writer and broadcaster says teaching about the past must not be a way of making people feel good about themselves

Britain’s relationship with history is “not fit for purpose”, according to a leading historian who said too many pupils are still taught a “dishonest version” of the nation’s past that left out uncomfortable truths.

David Olusoga, the writer and broadcaster, told school leaders that Britain often saw its history as “recreational … a place that we go for comfort, a place to make us feel good about ourselves”, leading to ignorance about the history of its empire, and to immigration scandals such as Windrush.

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Sasha Johnson: £20,000 reward offered to break ‘wall of silence’ over shooting

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Black rights campaigner was shot in head at close range in May 2021 and now requires constant medical care

A reward of up to £20,000 is being offered for information about who shot a prominent black rights campaigner as a charity tries to smash a “wall of silence” that has frustrated investigators for the past year.

Crimestoppers will pay the money to anyone who anonymously shares information leading to the conviction of those responsible for Sasha Johnson’s shooting.

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Infamous Captain Cook statue in controversial pose removed from Queensland street

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Eight-metre-tall statue in pose some liken to a Nazi salute will be moved from Cairns to the Atherton Tablelands

A statue of a Captain James Cook with an arm raised in a position that some liken to a Nazi salute has been removed from a main street in Cairns.

Demolition contractor Martin Anton hopes to be the unlikely saviour of the controversial statue, which had been used to advertise a topless bar, after reportedly buying the statue for a token $1.

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Workplace inclusion drives have almost trebled since BLM protests, survey shows

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About half of ethnic minority workers said their employer had taken action to tackle racism in last 12 months

The number of employers implementing new diversity and inclusion drives has almost trebled since the end of the Black Lives Matter protests, new research shows.

A total of 27% of ethnic minority workers said their employers had introduced new initiatives during the last 12 months in response to the global movement, according to an Opinium survey of 2,000 adults. This was an increase from 10% in 2020, the year in which protests began after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in the US state of Minnesota.

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Colston Four acquittal to be referred to court of appeal

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Unusual move to seek legal clarification, which cannot reverse verdict, amounts to the ‘politicisation of jury trials’, says defence lawyer

The attorney general has referred the case of four protesters cleared of the toppling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston to the court of appeal for legal direction.

In a rare move, which cannot reverse the not guilty verdicts, Suella Braverman is to ask appeal judges for clarification on whether defendants can cite their human rights as a defence in a case of criminal damage.

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Booker winner Ben Okri rewrites published novel to drive home message on slavery

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The author tells why he spent five years on a new draft of his 2008 novel Starbook to give more emphasis to one of its key themes

Self-criticism, perhaps even regret, is common among writers looking back at old work, but the novelist Ben Okri has now gone so far as to rewrite a whole published novel. And it is a book he already liked quite a lot.

The Booker-prize-winning Nigerian author has spent much of the last five years re-crafting his 2008 story Starbook, a mystical romance set in his homeland. A new version, complete with a new title and cover, is to be published this summer as The Last Gift of the Master Artists, and Okri believes that he has given more emphasis to transatlantic slavery, and will now offer his readers a “more considered” narrative.

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