Australia: BLM and the pandemic
As with the United Kingdom, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which have swept across the United States have overflowed to Australian society. The tangle of BLM issues with the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered bitter debate and some social dislocation.
Professor Peter Riddell, Senior Research Fellow of the Australian
College of Theology
The weekend of 6–7 June was a particular focal point. BLM protest organisers announced plans for significant gatherings in Australia’s major cities to draw attention to the deaths in custody of Aboriginal Australians arrested for various reasons. There have been at least 432 indigenous deaths in custody since a Royal Commission examined the issue in 1991. This has been a simmering matter for decades, erupting into protest action at various points in time, and almost predictably piggybacking onto the worldwide BLM activism presently underway.
