10 arrested after Black Lives Matter protesters block road to Heathrow Airport

Activists linked to the US-based group Black Lives Matter blocked a road Friday leading to London’s Heathrow Airport and held protests in other British cities, the Global News reported.

London’s Metropolitan Police said officers arrested 10 people blocking the road leading from a main highway to Heathrow on Friday morning. Photos showed police moving a group of people attached together lying across the road.

Organizer Joshua Virasami told the BBC that the movement – founded to protest the killings of black people by American police – was needed “in Britain and all over the world.”

Police said one lane of the road was open but traffic was backed up getting into one of the world’s busiest airports. Heathrow said it was not aware of passengers missing flights because of the protest.

Activists say black men in Britain are unfairly targeted by law enforcement and disproportionately represented among prison inmates. According to official figures, 26 percent of inmates in England and Wales are non-white, compared to 12 percent of the overall population there. 

Source : MENA