Iran's Foreign Ministry has condemned America’s prevalent police violence against blacks, amid fresh furor in the US over the killing of a handcuffed black man who died after a white officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
George Floyd died on Monday after being pinned down by a white officer despite yelling: "I cannot breathe."
Floyd's killing has drawn comparisons to Eric Garner, an unarmed African American who died in 2014 after being placed in a chokehold by New York City police and pleading: "I can't breathe."
Iran's Foreign Ministry said in a Twitter message posted Wednesday that six years after the “I can't breathe” pleas of Garner, Floyd died after a “cruel, inhumane arrest.”
6 yrs after “I can't breathe” pleas of Eric Garner, #GeorgeFloyd, another black man, dies after a cruel, inhumane arrest. It seems that US #PoliceBrutality against blacks knows no boundaries. And as always, the response to calls for justice, is employing even more force. pic.twitter.com/T2QNsjrFBV
— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) May 27, 2020
The white Minneapolis police officer pinned him down with his knee in the US state of Minnesota, which led to his death, police have confirmed.
The officers initially found the suspect, aged in his 40s, in a car while responding to a call at 8 pm local time about a forgery in progress.
Meanwhile, protesters took to the streets where Floyd died, with some chanting and carrying banners that read "I can't breathe."
Nekima Levy-Armstrong, a prominent local activist, said watching the footage made her "sick to her stomach".
She told the Star Tribune in Minnesota: "Whatever the man may have done should not have ended in a death sentence.
Police-involved shootings and killings of unarmed black men in the hands of white police officers have led to mass protests across the country in recent years and the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement.