Tag Archives: Statue

Germany removes golden statue of Erdogan after protests

People stand near a statue of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during the art exhibition "Wiesbaden Biennale" in Wiesbaden, Germany, August 28, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

BERLIN (Reuters) – German firemen on Wednesday removed a golden statue of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on security grounds after it provoked an angry response from local people.

Organizers of an arts festival whose theme this year is “Bad News” had installed the four-meter statue of Erdogan, with one arm outstretched, on a plinth in the central Square of German Unity in the western town of Wiesbaden on Monday.

But the statue got daubed with graffiti, including the slogan “Turkish Hitler”, German media reported, and a few hundred residents had protested against it.

Police said they could no longer guarantee people’s safety so firemen used a large crane to take away the statue under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday.

Some three million people with Turkish roots live in Germany and Erdogan, who in June won re-election with expanded powers, is due to make a state visit to Berlin on September 28-29 as part of efforts to improve relations strained by years of disagreement on a range of issues.

Germany condemned Turkey’s arrest of some 50,000 people and the suspension or firing of 150,000 others including teachers, judges and soldiers, after a failed coup against Erdogan in 2016. Berlin says the crackdown was excessive and harmed basic freedoms. Ankara says it acted to safeguard national security.

“It is certainly appropriate to conceive of Erdogan as a controversial figure, and one that we are allowed to discuss freely here in this country,” the director of the biennial festival, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, told Reuters when the statue was erected on Monday.

“We can have a discussion about this statue and this man.”

While some residents liked the statue, others objected.

“This is a man who has hundreds of people on his conscience… because he has lied and bought his way to power. He’s a dictator,” said resident Werner Starotsta.

(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Gareth Jones)

North Carolina protesters pull down university’s Confederate statue

Students and protesters surround plinth where the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam once stood, on the University of North Carolina campus after a demonstration for its removal in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

By Jonathan Drake

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Reuters) – Protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier on the campus of University of North Carolina, the latest move to dismantle Civil War symbols amid debate about race and the legacy of slavery in the United States.

About 300 demonstrators gathered on Monday evening ahead of Tuesday’s first day of fall classes for a protest and march at the base of Silent Sam, a memorial erected in 1913 to the soldiers of the pro-slavery Confederacy killed during the Civil War. Protesters pulled the statue down with rope, cheering as it lay face down in the mud, its head and back covered in dirt.

University Chancellor Carol Folt acknowledged the protesters’ frustrations but criticized their conduct as vandalism.

Police and protesters surround the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam on the University of North Carolina campus after a demonstration for its removal in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Police and protesters surround the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam on the University of North Carolina campus after a demonstration for its removal in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

“The monument has been divisive for years,” she said in a statement. “However, last night’s actions were unlawful and dangerous and we are very fortunate that no one was injured.”

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, echoed the sentiment, saying in a statement he shared protesters “frustration” over statues but condemning the violent destruction of public property.

Campus police arrested at least one person at the protest for masking their face and resisting arrest, according to Audrey Smith, a university spokeswoman.

The efforts by civil rights groups and others to do away with Confederate monuments such as Silent Sam gained momentum three years ago after avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The shooting rampage ultimately led to the removal of a Confederate flag from the statehouse in Columbia.

Since then, more than 110 symbols of the Confederacy have been removed across the nation with more than 1,700 still standing, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group. Many of the monuments were erected in the early 20th century, decades after the Civil War’s end.

Many Americans see such statues as symbols of racism and glorification of the southern states’ defense of slavery in the Civil War. Others view them as important symbols of American history.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Bill Trott)

Kentucky town welcomes Confederate memorial moved from Louisville

Members from The Sons of Confederate Veterans stand before a dedication ceremony in Brandenburg, Kentucky, U.S. May 29, 2017 for a Civil War Confederate Soldier Memorial recently removed from the campus of the University of Louisville. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

By Bryan Woolston

BRANDENBURG, Kentucky (Reuters) – A small Kentucky town gave a formal welcome on Monday to a monument to the Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War, rededicating the controversial structure after the University of Louisville removed it as an unwelcome symbol of slavery.

About 400 people, some dressed in grey replica uniforms and many holding small Confederate battle flags, gathered for the Memorial Day ceremony on a bluff above the Ohio River in Brandenburg, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Louisville.

The town embraced the tower at a time when Confederate symbols are being removed across the South as reminders of a legacy of slavery and the racism that underpinned it.

“The way I look at it, it’s part of our history,” Brandenburg Mayor Ronnie Joyner said at the dedication, which included the firing of a Civil War-era cannon. “We need to preserve our history.”

Brandenburg says the riverfront park where it holds a biennial Civil War reenactment was an appropriate setting for what some see as a respectful homage to Kentucky’s fallen.

The monument’s new home is near the spot where a Confederate general in 1863 launched a raid on neighboring Indiana, and Brandenburg hopes the addition will bring more tourists to the town.

“The Civil War is not a popular part of people’s past, but you can’t wipe it out,” said Charles Harper of Louisville, who came to the dedication dressed in Confederate uniform. “Just because you wiped out a reference to the Civil War doesn’t mean you’ve wiped out slavery, doesn’t mean you wipe out racism.”

The 70-foot-tall concrete plinth features an oversized statue of a rebel soldier at its crown, representing one of thousands of Kentuckians who fought with breakaway Southern states in the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history.

Monday’s ceremony, watched by a crowd that was almost exclusively white, marked the end to a year-long saga that began in April 2016 when the University of Louisville announced it would dismantle the monument, erected in 1895.

Students and faculty had long criticized the memorial as a tacit tribute to Confederate cause during the 1861-65 conflict, fought primarily over the issue of slavery.

Last May, a state judge ruled against some Louisville residents and descendants of Confederate soldiers who sued to keep the monument from being moved.

Kentucky was neutral during the Civil War and never joined the Confederacy. But slavery was legal in the commonwealth and many Kentuckians sympathized with the rebel cause and fought on its side.

The drive to remove Confederate statues in the South and elsewhere accelerated after the 2015 murder of nine African-Americans by an avowed white supremacist at an historic South Carolina church. The murders stirred national soul-searching about racism and its symbols.

Soon after the killings, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.

Last week New Orleans dismantled the last of four Confederate statues that stood in the city for decades. The mayor of Baltimore said on Monday that her city was considering following the lead of New Orleans by removing its monuments.

(Additional reporting and writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Andrew Hay)