A Southampton #EndSARS protest is being held tomorrow

A peaceful protest is being held at the 02 Guildhall in Southampton on Saturday 24th October. The protest aims to stand in solidarity with the people in Nigeria who are protesting against SARS.

The protest will begin at 3pm until 6pm. There is also an earlier protest at midday. The protest is headed by @endsarssouthampton.

The #ENDSARS social media movement has come about following the police brutality in Nigeria. The movement calls for an end to the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS), a controversial unit of the Nigerian Police Force.

Over the years there have been numerous reports of allegations against SARS and earlier this year Amnesty International released a report which documented 82 cases of alleged torture, ill treatment and extra-judicial execution by SARS between January 2017 and May of this year.

The social media movement has been trending on Twitter in the last couple of weeks, with #EndSARS protests taking place around the world.

On 11th October the Nigerian government announced the disbanding of SARS, which is the fourth time an announcement of disbandment has happened. However, protestors feel this is not enough and it has emerged the officers of SARS would be redeployed to other areas of the police force.

There is no leader of the protests and it is mainly young people who are involved who feel they have been “unfairly profiled” by SARS.

There are five main demands the protestors want to achieve:

1. Immediate release of all arrested protestors.

2. Justice for all deceased victims of police brutality and appropriate compensation for their families.

3. Setting up an independent body to oversee the investigation and prosecution of all reports of Police misconduct (within 10 days).

4. In line with police act, psychological evaluation and retaining (to be confirmed by an independent body) of all disbanded SARS officers before they can be redeployed.

5. Increase Police salary so that they are adequately compensated for protecting lives and property of citizens.