Tech Startups – by Daniel Levi
Today, hundreds of angry British protesters in London crowded around a car and blocked the road leading to Downing Street chanting “Arrest Bill Gates.”
Gates was welcomed by chants of “Arrest Bill Gates” and “Murderer” before his dinner with Boris Johnson on Downing Street. The crowd gathered as former Microsoft CEO arrived in London to attend a global Britain meeting with Boris Johnson and other major political figures.
Footage on Twitter and other social media platforms shows protesters bashing into an incoming car, trying to look through its tinted windows as police fought off the crowd. The protesters crowded around a car and blocked the road leading to Downing Street, the location of the British prime minister’s residence, on Monday evening.
More than a dozen of the protesters were seen shouting “arrest Bill Gates” and holding anti-vaccination placards. The protest began late Monday afternoon and grew later into the evening.
Former Microsoft CEO s was in the U.K. capital to dine with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who invited 20 of the most influential business figures in the world to the event to help promote British interests internationally. To protect Gates’ safety, police later escorted the vehicle to another entrance to Downing Street.
About 6 p.m. local time, the crowd appeared to get rowdier, chanting loudly. Many of the protesters were seen calling for Gates to be arrested. Some of the protesters even went as far as calling the Microsoft founder a “murderer” and holding up anti-COVID-19 vaccination signs, the Daily Express reported.
In recent months, Gate has been under fire after an unearthed 2010 video showing Gates talking about using vaccines to control population growth.
Before the even pandemic began, Microsoft, the company Gates co-founded, was also accused of seeking to destroy its software competitors. In 1998, the Justice Department charged Microsoft in a landmark antitrust lawsuit saying “Microsoft Corp. crushed the competition and stifled innovation in the software industry and must be forced to accept extraordinary changes in its business practices,” WSJ reported.
Below is the Twitter video.
Bill Gates welcomed by chants of "Arrest Bill Gates" and "Murderer" before his dinner with Boris Johnson on Downing Street. pic.twitter.com/soanhBvrYj
— Francesco (@Frances40996115) October 18, 2021