GENEVA: Thousands of demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Switzerland on Saturday to denounce racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the United States.

Despite rules in place banning gatherings of more than 300 people to prevent the spread of Covid-19, several cities saw huge crowds come out to join a growing global movement denouncing racism and disproportionate police violence against black and brown people.

In the biggest demonstration, more than 10,000 people, most of them dressed in black, protested in Switzerland’s largest city Zurich, according to police.

The protesters marched through the city centre, holding up posters with slogans like “Black Lives Matter”, “Racism is a Pandemic Too”, and “I Can’t Breathe”, referring to Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25, after a white officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Police said the Zurich demonstration was largely peaceful, but that it had been marred in the late afternoon by a few hundred people headed by known members of the radical leftwing autonomous scene who threw rocks, bottles and other objects at police.

One officer was injured and a number of people arrested, Zurich police said.

Several thousand people also held an unauthorised but peaceful demonstration in front of the Swiss government and parliament buildings in the capital Bern Saturday, according to Swiss news agency ATS.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2020