Black Lives Matter protest: Mahatma Gandhi's statue targeted with anti-racist messages in London
London/IBNS: Protesters on Sunday taped placards with anti-racism messages across India's 'Father of the Nation' Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in London's Parliament Square, which emerged as one of the major sites of demonstrations in the UK against the death of African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis region of the United States.
Protesters also wrote the word 'racist' near the plinth of the statue.
While Gandhi was revered worldwide for his non-violence, civil disobedience movement and fight against untouchability in India after combating apartheid in South Africa, in recent years he was criticised by the black community in Africa for his early writings when he had called the Whites "the predominating race " and was not too charitable towards the black people's lifestyle.
However, Gandhiji later was against racism and any kind of social discrimination as he emerged as the icon of the Indian freedom movement. But in his most recent evaluation, his ideas before the 1920s were picked up to target him as a racist and one of his statues was removed from a university campus in Ghana.
The Parliament Square is home to twelve statues of British, Commonwealth and foreign political figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.
Winston Churchill’s statue, which was one of the first to be installed, was also targeted during the Black Lives Matter protest.
George Floyd, who was a Houston native in the US and had worked as a nightclub security guard, was arrested after being accused of trying to pass counterfeit money at a corner store last month.
Video footage of May 25 showed a Minneapolis cop named Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes before he uttered "I can't breathe" and died.
Following this, massive protests have rocked several cities in the US and other parts of the world.
It also triggered Black Lives Matter movement.
In the UK's south-west town of Bristol, the movement provided an extra spark as the place has been historically marked with the slave trade.
While there were initially peaceful protests in London on Sunday, a small number of protesters clashed with police outside Downing Street, the official residence of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In response to the same, Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: “People have a right to protest peacefully & while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery – and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve”.
People have a right to protest peacefully & while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery - and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve. Those responsible will be held to account.
— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) June 7, 2020
A large number of protesters also demonstrated outside the US embassy in London on Sunday.
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