Protests break out in Manchester for SECOND NIGHT with police station egged and barricaded
Protests broke out across Greater Manchester last night
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Protests have broken out across Greater Manchester for a second night in a row with eggs thrown at a police station.
Tram lines were blocked in the city centre last night by people furious at the incident which has led to a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer being suspended.
Footage posted on social media showed eggs thrown at Rochdale Police Station with the entrance doors barricaded by protesters.
Last night a few hundred protesters gathered outside the office of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as part of a Stand Up To Racism demonstration, chanting slogans such as “No justice, no peace, no racist police”.
Protests broke out across Greater Manchester last night
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Protests broke out in central Manchester
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Protests in central Manchester
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Protesters held up signs saying 'Black Lives Matter'
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Placards included "black lives matter", "serve and protect means GMB will stamp on our heads" and GMP is "racist." They then marched through the city blocking roads and tram lines.
Protester Nahella Ashraf, co-chairwoman of Greater Manchester Stand up to Racism, said she was "horrified by the level of police brutality" and called for all the police officers involved to be suspended. Fellow protester Shah Rahman, from Oldham, claimed communities were "very scared when police have no limits."
Mayor Burnham earlier called for calm after the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer involved in the incident at Manchester Airport was suspended. The Labour mayor warned protesters not to exploit the row for “political purposes”
The footage, filmed at Manchester Airport’s terminal two on Tuesday, appeared to show an officer kick and stamp on the head of a man who was lying face down on the floor, with a woman kneeling beside him. The video also appeared to show the officer strike a second man.
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A Stand Up To Racism demonstration was held in Manchester
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Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has called for calm
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Police said three of their officers had been assaulted, including a female police constable who suffered a broken nose, and four men were arrested..
Among those protesting in Manchester city centre were family and friends of the man involved in the incident who has been named today as Muhammed Fahir. Muhammad Aziz, 47,who referred to himself as the man's uncle, said his son went to the same school as Muhammed Fahir in Rochdale, reports Manchester Evening News
He told the protest: "What’s happened to one of my nephews is absolutely shocking, it is absolutely disgusting. A lad who went to pick up his mum who had come back from holiday was abused brutally."
Another family friend said she had spoken to Muhammed Fahir’s family’s two hours before the protest and said ‘they could not stop crying."
A Stand Up To Racism demonstration in Manchester
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Mayor Burnham, who met with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to discuss the incident, also asked for calm, saying the “right and proper steps” had been taken.
Speaking to media outside Rochdale police station, the family’s solicitor Akhmed Yakoob said: “The family are OK but they are traumatised.”
He said the condition of one of the men had worsened and said a CT scan revealed a “cyst on his brain”.
The regional director of police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), Catherine Bates, promised a “thorough and robust” independent investigation.