Don’t put words in my mouth please, Ram.
I haven’t ‘justified’ any ‘riots’...I said I have ‘some sympathy’ where the toppling of the Bristol statue was concerned. I also said ‘I’m not certain it was the best way to go about things’.
I dare say you might have applauded the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in 2003...or Lenin’s, in Budapest, fifty(ish) years earlier.
It’s fine lines of course, but I wonder if Colston was any less tyrannical as far as the black inhabitants of his slave ships were concerned?
Context, yes. I am totally behind the PROTESTORS who take to the streets to protest unfair treatment. As long as they remain peaceful, the police should monitor from a distance, just in case. Once any rioting, looting, pillaging etc starts then move in with the riot police and sweep the rioters up. But only the rioters. Those still in protest mode sould be left alone.
At a meeting in Sheffield last weekend ridiculing the CV-19 situation police tried to arrest a man. The man was immediately surrounded by other protestors so the police couldn't get to him. He had simply been standing there listening but is a known issuer of online tirades against the lockdown, on the (lack of) effect of the virus currently, against mask wearing etc.
Later, they arrested Piers Corbyn for not wearing a mask in a shop he entered to use the toilets, organising an illegal meeting (carries a £10K fine like the one he plead guilty to in London as he HAD organised that one. He didn't organise Sheffield) and a 3rd charge of resisting arrest or similar. It seems he is targeted whenever he appears anywhere near a protest meeting.
The media biased? Surely not. The British Bias Corporation strive to be impartial at all times. Anne Marie Waters, Tommy Robinson, etc. are treated with the utmost respect and they are given a fair amount of air time. The contents of the Quran are regularly examined and discussed by 'Imams'. Trump...treated unfairly? Get away with you.