The Metropolitan police have been accused of utilizing pointless power and handing a propaganda coup to Brazil’s far proper after a peaceable demonstrator was detained and handcuffed throughout a protest exterior the Brazilian ambassador’s London residence.
Ali Rocha, a 50-year-old Brazilian and British citizen, and her flatmate had been intercepted by officers on Sunday lunchtime as they joined a protest towards Brazil’s radical rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who was within the UK for the Queen’s funeral.
Rocha, who was carrying three placards denouncing Bolsonaro’s assault on the Amazon and a backpack containing a loudhailer, was not arrested or charged with any offence.
However she stated she was handcuffed for about 20 minutes earlier than being launched and escorted previous a gaggle of Bolsonaro supporters who had additionally gathered exterior the ambassador’s Mayfair residence.
“I used to be very shocked and shaken and now I’m simply indignant and disgusted,” stated Rocha, a Brazil-born producer and journalist who’s a British citizen.
Footage of the incident has been distorted and used to smear the left on social media by members of Brazil’s far proper.
Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo Bolsonaro shared photos of Rocha’s detention together with his greater than 6.5m followers on Twitter and Instagram, falsely claiming she had been arrested by police. “Lady in [leftwing] T-shirt was arrested whereas attempting to disrupt pro-Bolsonaro protest,” he wrote beneath the minute-long clip.
As Rocha is handcuffed, a narrator within the footage celebrates the police motion, saying: “They don’t like communists right here [in the UK] both. Look, they’re handcuffing her. She’s been handcuffed and he or she’s going to jail.”
A Metropolitan police spokesperson confirmed that shortly after 1.10pm on Sunday police stopped two ladies “who that they had motive to suspect might have been in possession of things to commit prison harm”.
“Each ladies had been searched. One of many ladies was initially positioned in handcuffs to soundly facilitate the search after she repeatedly ignored directions to not place her palms in her pockets. {The handcuffs} had been subsequently eliminated,” the spokesperson added.
“No objects of concern had been discovered on the 2 ladies who had been stopped they usually had been allowed to proceed on their method with none additional motion.”
The spokesperson declined to touch upon how footage of the incident was getting used as far-right propaganda, due to the political nature of the problem.
The incident comes after civil liberties campaigners voiced alarm over the police response to anti-monarchy protesters within the lead-up to the Queen’s funeral.
Rocha, the co-founder of a marketing campaign group referred to as Brazil Issues, stated she had wished to protest Bolsonaro’s “absurd and disrespectful” try to use the Queen’s funeral for political functions.
Brazil is 2 weeks away from a presidential election during which Bolsonaro appears more likely to lose energy. Stories within the Brazilian media instructed he thought rubbing shoulders with world leaders in London may increase his flagging marketing campaign.
“We didn’t need him to come back to London unchallenged,” Rocha stated.
“We wished to protest about his insurance policies of demise, his destruction of the Amazon, the genocide of black and Indigenous peoples and the final disrespect to human rights.”
Rocha, who was a good friend of Dom Phillips, the British journalist murdered within the Amazon in June with Indigenous skilled Bruno Pereira, stated she was approached by police shortly after reaching the road on which Bolsonaro was staying.
“They got here straight at me … [One male officer] grabbed me by the arm and simply began taking me to this nook and whereas he was speaking to me he was holding each my wrists actually sturdy. He was hurting my wrists. I used to be asking him: ‘Why are you holding me? Let me go.’”
“He saved saying: ‘We’ve obtained some intel that somebody in a purple T-shirt was going to commit prison harm … so I’m going to look you and you’re detained,” added Rocha, who was sporting a purple T-shirt on the time.
Quickly after the officer “bought {the handcuffs} out and turned me round and handcuffed me with my palms behind my again”.
“I used to be in a state of shock … we knew the police had been on excessive alert due to the funeral and all of the state leaders that had been right here however we by no means anticipated something like that.”
Footage of the incident seen by the Guardian exhibits a male officer looking out Rocha’s pockets earlier than handcuffing her and saying: “I informed you, ‘Don’t go reaching in direction of your pockets once more – and also you reached’ … It’s not my fault you selected to not hear.”
“I felt very disrespected. I’ve by no means been handcuffed earlier than. I’ve by no means been detained earlier than,” stated Rocha. “Why was I handled this fashion? So violently, so aggressively.”
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