London, National Gallery steps dyed red for pro-indigenous protest

A group of activists from the Extinction Rebellion and Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation movements last Sunday covered, in protest, the steps of London ’s National Gallery with buckets of red paint. Activists then flooded, again with paint (red and green) the two fountains in Trafalgar Square, on which the museum stands. The action was carried out to protest the deaths of Brazil’s indigenous peoples and the environmental devastation of the Amazon: red represents the blood of natives, green that of plants affected by the ecological disaster. Other groups also took part in the protest, joining the two who conceived it. During the action three Extinction Rebellion activists were arrested on charges of damage.

The action, the two groups let it be known, is intended to make the public more aware of what Brazil is going through under Bolsonaro’s government: the focus is mainly on illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and the disastrous management of the Covid-19 pandemic, which puts the very survival of the natives at serious risk (the great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, who together with his wife Lélia Wanick launched an appeal to save the indigenous people, who “risk genocide,” had already spoken out on this issue last May).

“Covid-19,” Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation movement said in a note, “has arrived in indigenous territories in an overwhelming way. Indigenous lives are being lost at an increasing rate. We are facing an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy, and we must unite and act.”

“As of today’s date, 21,000 indigenous lives are threatened by the coronavirus in Brazil, 600 of which have already been lost,” Extinction Rebellion activists say instead. “This alarming situation continues to get more serious day by day, because in addition to the threat of the virus there are racism, illegal deforestation, criminal networks, mining companies, missionaries and large corporations that continue to advance more and more pervasively into the vulnerable territories of Brazil’s indigenous people.”

In the images below, some moments from the protest.

The protest at the National Gallery

The protest at the National Gallery

The protest at the National Gallery

London, National Gallery steps dyed red for pro-indigenous protest

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