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LIFE AFTER BLASTS

Rally also condemns state-terrorism

Inam Ahmed, From London
The Brazilian flag reads: How can you sleep, Mr Blair? And a poster says: Police killing is no better than al-Qaeda. Yesterday, a few hundred people gathered in the park at Westminister as Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man who was mistakenly gunned down by police at Stockwell tube station, was laid to rest in his home country.
There were more white people than the Brazilians, and other community members, many of them old time communists and socialists wearing anti-war T-shirts.
"I have come to protest stateterrorism at home and abroad," said an old man with scraggy hair who would identify himself as only Les. "To fight al-Qaeda, they cannot have licence to kill. They are now judge, jury and executioner."
On July 22, Jean, 27, stumbled in the underground when running away
from plainclothes police. The police, thinking he was a suicide bomber, shot him eight times, killing him. His death sparked a nation wide protest and debate over the British government's shoot-to-kill policy.
The incident has also created panic among the Asian and Muslim communities, who feel that police will shoot with a prejudice and that anyone looking like an Asian or Muslim is now vulnerable. Jean's death has in fact given a new spin to the London bombings, with the issue of human rights protection coming to the front.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been investigating the killing and called for witness accounts yesterday.
Jean's cousin, Allesandro Pereira, was at the protest rally and wanted
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to speak, but he was just overwhelmed with grief.
Later, protestors walked through the city in a long queue to the Westminister Cathedral to hold a funeral simultaneously with the one held in Brazil. A 30-foot Christ hung against a red cross, as the huge prayer room slowly filled up. The Church organ began playing and a strong smell of incense filled the air.
Bianca Jagger, wife of rock star Mic Jagger and also a world renowned advocate for human rights and now Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight against the Death Penalty, first spoke: "The death of Jean has many similarities to the death of Christ: both were innocent victims and died publicly. His death is not acceptable in a civilised society, and the policy to kill should be debated. We can't accept arrogant resort. The shoot-to-kill policy should not be implemented any longer," she said.
Professor Tariq Ramadan, an international Islamic thinker, then rose and said: "Police thought he (Jean) was a Muslim, a guilty Muslim. He was neither a Muslim, nor guilty. It's time to think who to blame for this. His loss is our loss in a free society."
Ramadan then recited from the Koran and said: "This is an Islamic message we are all brothers and sisters in humanity. We are born innocent. When an innocent is killed, it is the killing of humanity. Let's pray for our broader humanity."
As the church organ hummed again, somebody handed a Brazilian flag to the chief celebrant of the funeral, who held it up and waved it in the air as the hall burst into claps.
Right in front of the sanctuary a black and white photograph of Jean smiled, overexposed on a sunny London light, looking ethereal.