- Supporters joined the family of Mouayed Bashir to demand justice one year after the police-related death.
- Mohannad Bashir revealed that the family have now seen the police body camera footage, saying “It wasn’t easy, it was difficult to watch.”
- At the protest young Black people from Pill, Newport, describe being racially profiled by Gwent Police, saying they are stopped and searched at random ‘more often than not.’
By SC Cook. Cover image: Mouayed Bashir’s brothers and parents face the crowd, copyright Tom Davies.
On the one year anniversary of the death of Mouayed Bashir, over 100 people marched through his home city of Newport to remember the 29 year old and demand justice.
Mouayed was at home on February 17th 2021 when officers from Gwent Police arrived in response to a 999 call his parents had made, seeking help for their son’s worsening mental health episode. Officers entered Mouayed’s bedroom and restrained him, whilst his parents and younger brother were forced to listen from the hallway. Mouayed fell silent shortly after but his family say an ambulance took over two hours to arrive. At the inquest opening last year, the family heard that Mouayed was pronounced dead at 11.41am at Grange Hospital, Newport.
Newport Coroners officer Paul Richardson said that “no precise cause of death has been given” and a full inquest into his death is due to begin the week commencing 11th July 2022.
“The police came in and restrained a young black man who suffered from mental health, who was having a mental health episode that morning actually,” Mouayed Basir’s brother had previously told voice.wales previously. “Restrained and handcuffed him, bound his legs and thighs. He had already sustained an injury on his side and was trying to recover from that.”
“We ain’t’ ever gonna stop”
On Saturday 12th February in Newport, led by Mouyed’s mother and father, his two brothers and friends, people marched from the train station up to the city’s civic offices, before heading to Newport Police Station for a two-minute silence in his memory.
Standing on the steps of the Civic Centre, Mohamed Bashir, the younger brother, said they would continue fighting for justice. “It’s been one year and we’re here today, again,” he said through a megaphone. “And we’ll be here next year and we’ll be here the years after that. We ain’t’ ever gonna stop and will never give up.”
A speaker from the United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC), a coalition of those affected by deaths in police custody, called for a people’s tribunal on police killings.
Andrew Ogun, from Black Lives Matter Gwent, raised the prospect of the spiralling cost of living, saying it would push more people into crisis and lead to more situations like those experienced by the Bashir family, as services including mental health were further cut back.
Hussein Said, from Black Lives Matter Cardiff, told the crowd that “Black people and other racialized groups, if they so much as steal from Asda, will get worse treatment than these police officers [involved in Mouayed’s death] will get right now.”
“He’s my big bro”
From the civic centre, people marched through Newport city centre to the police station, the home of Gwent Police where the officers who restrained Mouayed Bashir had been dispatched from a year earlier.
As the crowd walked down, with family and friends proudly standing behind a large banner reading ‘Justice for Mouayed Bashir’, pictures of the young man were held aloft for people to see. As his brother Mohannad said before the march, lots of people in the city still have no idea what happened.
Marching through the centre to the station, people chanted ‘no justice, no peace, no racist police’. Mouyaed’s younger brother, leading the chants, called out ‘He’s my big bro,’ to which the crowd would call back with him, ‘taught me everything I know.’
On the steps of the Cenotaph, with the station in the background, Mouayed’s two brothers, Mohannad and Mohamed, and his mother and father, stood in mourning. They consoled one another in front of the crowd, having taken the courageous decision to share their grief and anger with the wider community and their supporters.
“I would never wish this on anybody, it’s the most horrible experience to go through to lose a family member right before your eyes,” Mohannad Bashir said.
He revealed that the family, a year on, had finally seen the police body camera footage of Mouayed’s final moments. “It wasn’t easy, it was difficult to watch…But why does it take a year for the family members to see what happened? You’re left imagining things.”
People march through Newport, copyright Tom Davies
He said after seeing the footage the family had finally gotten an idea of what happened, saying “we’re at peace now.” But he said it wasn’t right that the officers involved had been granted the protection of anonymity.
He hit out against the police: “They’re killing us on the streets, they’re killing us in our bedrooms. I wanna say look over your shoulder because you might be next. Your brother might be next, your sister might be next, your mother might be next. No one is safe. But when communities get together that’s when we know we always got each other’s back.”
He went on to reference the killing of Sarah Everard, who was murdered by a serving cop, and criticised South Wales Police, who themselves have been accused of a cover-up by the family of a young Black man, Mohamud Hassan, who died shortly after being held in custody.
Mohamed Bashir led chants as people turned their focus to the police station behind them: Calls of ‘fuck the Gwent Police’, ‘what’s his name, Mouyaed Bashir’ and ‘help not kill’ all rang out from the square. Everyone then took the knee in silence for two minutes in memory of Mouayed as candles were lit and later placed at the base of the Cenotaph.
“I’ve never felt safe around a police officer because of what I’ve seen with my own eyes.”
Standing at the back was a group of mostly young Black men, who had known Mouayed and who lived in the Pill area where he was from.
One young man, called AJ, said that he wasn’t surprised that something like this had happened in Newport. He said that the police are regularly aggressive to young Black people like him and are ready to use excessive force.
“It’s the way the police treat us,” he explained. “Harassment, racial profiling, the way I look. I know if I was to step outside my house the first thing to expect is a police officer to stop me, just for the way I look.”
“All my life I’ve been living in this area,” AJ said. “I’ve never felt safe around a police officer because of what I’ve seen with my own eyes. I ain’t seen it on a video or on a YouTube clip or Facebook, I’ve seen it with my own two eyes how police have treated Black people, myself as well, I’ve been through it a hundred times.”
“The chances of me getting stopped once I’ve walked through my door is more likely than not, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, just because of the way I look and the way I dress.”
“It’s not just me, it’s the people around me,” he continued.
Another young man, called Adeil, said that he gets stopped by the police in Newport when he’s on his way to work.
“I’ve walked to work sometimes and I’m pulled over to have a normal search and I’m like ‘what for.’” he said.
“They go, ‘you’re walking down there, you’re acting dodgy.’ I’m literally walking to work and they literally stop you for nothing. They just think they got more power coz they’re in that green vest and they think they can just beat up anybody.”
“This is the problem, they say they want to do a random search on you, but why is it always a Black person? You see a white person walking past you, he’s literally running down the road.”
Their friend, who is white, recalled a story to back up their point. “Me and my friend was driving in the car,” he said. “We got pulled over by the police. My friend in the passenger side is Black. They pulled him out, put him in cuffs behind his back and they told me just to sit by the wall. So it’s blatant racism, you know what I mean?”
Photo Reel by Tom Davies
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