Donald Trump has threatened anyone who desecrates statues in the US with 10 years in prison after a number of prominent monuments were defaced and pulled down amid ongoing civil rights protests.
The president added that any charges could be applied “retroactively” to those who had caused damage to such sites in recent weeks – doubling down on a similar call for prison time for those who vandalise monuments on Monday evening.
It comes after statues – particularly those of figures linked to the confederacy, colonialism and slavery – were defaced by protesters aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement as part of an ongoing drive to challenge structural racism following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis last month.
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“I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the US with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.”, the president wrote on Twitter.
“This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!”
The day before his tweet, protesters had attempted to remove a statue of president Andrew Jackson – a slave owner who displaced native Americans to use their land for plantations – from Lafayette Park, opposite the White House.
Mr Trump has previously identified the 7th man to hold the position as his favourite predecessor.
Shortly after the incident US interior secretary David Bernhardt issued a statement, saying: “Let me be clear: We will not bow to anarchists. Law and order will prevail, and justice will be served.”
It follows on from action that has continued across the nation and the world as activists attempt to shine a light on systemic racism while calling into question those who are deemed worthy of veneration.
In the UK a statue of slaver Edward Colston was dragged to the ground and thrown into the river Avon earlier this month, while other monuments – including a likeness of Winston Churchill outside parliament – were defaced.
And at the weekend protestors in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park toppled a statue of Francis Scott Key, the composer of the National Anthem and a slave owner, as well as a statue of Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, a Roman Catholic priest who forcibly converted and brutalized Native American people. A statue of Ulysses S Grant, the Union general responsible for the defeat of the Confederacy who himself owned a slave, was also torn down.
