- In the UK, four protesters overturned a statue of a slave owner and sunk it in the local harbor basin.
- Now they have been acquitted of the charge of property damage in court.
- The three men and a woman had overturned the statue as part of the anti-racism protests a year ago, along with other demonstrators.
- They did not deny the act in court, but argued that it was not criminal. Rather, the statue itself is a case of hate crime.
During a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7, 2020, the demonstrators overturned the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston (1636-1721) and thrown it into the nearby harbor basin. Although a number of demonstrators were involved in the fall of the statue, only four ended up in court. A video showed them wrapping a rope around the statue.
The defendants did not deny their role in the events in court, but did not consider their actions to be criminal. Instead, they argued that the statue itself was a case of hate crime. Its defense lawyers alleged that thousands had previously petitioned the removal of the statue erected in 1895 and urged the court to “stand on the right side of history”.