These arrests constitute a vicious, unnecessary and intimidating campaign designed to criminalise those who demanded police accountability, truth and justice in support of the Hassan family.
These actions are nothing more than an attempt to brutally crush and dissuade those that would seek to hold the police to account for the untimely death of Mohamud.
Thursday, 9th March 2021, saw a Justice 4 Mohamud Hassan public meeting with over 200 people in attendance. The meeting was a great success. Over £1000 was donated to the family's legal defence costs and commitments from right across the country for individuals pledging support for the family's fight for justice.
We also heard from a protester who was recently arrested who didn't want to be identified. He told the meeting, "The Cardiff police came for me at my home, and they handled me like I was Pablo Escobar. I'm a legitimate businessman. They arrested me for shining my iPhone light at an officer who claims he was blinded as a result."
The protester went on to say he would not be intimidated by the boy policing tactics and would continue to support the campaign. He called upon young people across the country to get involved and to help fight this injustice.
This naked campaign of flagrant political intimidation being conducted by South Wales Police must now attract the Welsh Assembly's urgent intervention. Their actions merely aggravate and alienate whole swathes of young people who have genuine concerns about what happened to Mohamud and whose only demands are accountability, transparency, and justice.
For them to be subject to this type of policing is an outrage in any modern democratic society. Cardiff is not Myanmar, and the police cannot merely unleash this criminalisation campaign, targeting those who are demanding justice. Such action smacks the kind of policing one can expect in Hong Kong or Moscow but certainly not within the United Kingdom.
In 2020 across the UK more 200 BLM protests have been targeted for arrests nationwide. The Metropolitan Police Service reported it had arrested 240 protestors by the 6th July 2020.
Our voices must be raised loud and strong in support of the protesters. We will be working with local organisations to fundamentally expose, reject and respond to this campaign of criminalisation and political intimidation.
