Parliament building and police station burned down during protests in Solomon Islands
s://.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/24/parliament-building-and-police-station-burned-down-during-protests-in-solomon-islands

Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters demanding the prime minister step down, amid reports of looting

Police in Solomon Islands have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters, who allegedly burned down a building in the parliament precinct, a police station and a store in the nation’s capital of Honiara, amid reports of looting.

The protesters marched on the parliamentary precinct in the east of Honiara, where they allegedly set fire to a leaf hut next to Parliament House where MPs and staffers go to smoke and eat lunch.

“It was quite traumatising for us,” a staff member working at the national parliament said. He said luckily for them the police were able to control the situation, enabling them to leave.

A police station and another building, owned by a Chinese national, were also burned down during the protests.

“We did not expect the crowd to come here,” said a female police officer on duty at the station.

“We were all in our offices when we heard the crowd. We came out to look but they began raining our building with stones. So I shouted to my colleague for us to hide in a room in the station. We were in the room when we started to choke by the smoke of fire. It was then that we realised that they torched the building.”

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The protesters were demanding the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare step down. Many of the protesters come from Malaita province, the most populous province in the country whose provincial government has had tense relations with the central government for years.

The tensions between the provincial and national government intensified in 2019 when Sogavare announced that Solomon Islands would switch its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, to the chagrin of Malaita premier Daniel Suidani.