Anti-racism protests in the United Kingdom have been hijacked by extremists, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday, decrying the recent defacing of a statue of Winston Churchill as "absurd and shameful."
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2020) Anti-racism protests in the United Kingdom have been hijacked by extremists, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday, decrying the recent defacing of a statue of Winston Churchill as "absurd and shameful."
For days, the UK has been gripped by protests staged by Black Lives Matter activists in the wake of the death of African American man George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Like in the US, some rallies have escalated into clashes with police and desecration of monuments. The protesters, in particular, defaced the Cenotaph war memorial and a statue of Sir Winston Churchill, branding the UK's wartime leader a "racist." London is bracing for further protests later on Friday and Saturday.
Johnson took to Twitter to say that the UK understands "the legitimate feelings of outrage at what happened in Minnesota," but is against violence that this shocking incident has generated.
"It is clear that the protests have been sadly hijacked by extremists intent on violence. The attacks on the police and indiscriminate acts of violence which we have witnessed over the last week are intolerable and they are abhorrent. The only responsible course of action is to stay away from these protests," Johnson said.
The prime minister also addressed the act of defacing the Churchill statue, saying that "it is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protestors."
"The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country - and the whole of Europe - from a fascist and racist tyranny," Johnson stated.
The politician added that, though Churchill "sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today," he was still a "hero," fully deserving his memorial. Johnson went on warn against attempts to "edit or censor our past."
"The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come," he said.
His warning comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan Mayor earlier in the week allowed a committee to review the capital's landmarks as part of a move to ensure greater diversity amid protests against racial inequality.
