Join Kate Nash, Bernadette McAliskey, Eamonn McCann & Dermie McClenaghan - Add you your name to the letter calling for all fines and charges against Black Lives Matter activists in Derry & Belfast to be dropped.

Sign petition here � http://chng.it/hYGcTMMT

'We call for the immediate withdrawal of threats of prosecution against the organisers of the Black Lives Matter solidarity demonstration in Guildhall Square in Derry and Custom House Square in Belfast on Saturday.

The socially-responsible nature of the gathering was a tribute to the young, mainly black Derry people who arranged the protest.

The PSNI, who showed no apparent interest in casual gatherings of scores of people on beaches and elsewhere during the recent good weather, were instantly into action, stopping and checking everybody who arrived at the Square, then moving in to confront protesters individually with notifications of fines and threats of court action.

These events were not entirely novel in Derry. They harked back half a century. This was a civil rights demonstration. Now, as then, the organisers were condemned in advance as irresponsible by a range of local interests, some of whom simultaneously proclaimed their support for the aims and objectives of the protest.

We have heard that one before - “We totally support your fight for justice, but wrong time, wrong place, not here, not now.”

Black people have been listening to stuff like this for far longer than any section of white citizens.

Nobody has a right to set a limit to the struggle of black people for freedom and equality.

If the PSNI or the prosecution authorities take this issue to court they should be and will be opposed every inch of the way.

The organisers of the protest and all who joined in solidarity should be saluted. They are a credit to Derry.

We, the undersigned, call for all threats to prosecute Black Lives Matter rally organisers and all fines distributed to those in attendence be rescinded immediately.'

Kate Nash, Bernadette McAliskey, Dermie McClenaghan, Eamonn McCann