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US deploys special units to guard monuments

The United States government has assembled special units to guard monuments. The Ministry of Homeland Security fears that protesters will destroy the monuments this weekend, the weekend of 4th of July, the national holiday of the United States.

Exactly how the teams will protect the monuments has not been announced. It is also unclear how many people are deployed, what the costs are of the protection and whether the guards work conspicuously or unobtrusively. Moreover, the ministry has not disclosed which monuments are protected or whether there are specific threats against certain monuments.

Statues have been brought down or defaced in various parts of the world in recent weeks, including protests against racism and police brutality. For example, dozens of activists in the American city Minneapolis a statue of explorer Columbus from its pedestal.

President Trump has regularly announced that the monuments must remain in his view. He also threatened long prison terms for people who had daubed images.

Richmond: all statues of Confederacy gone

Fearing disturbances surrounding statues, the mayor of Richmond, the state capital of Virginia, has already decided to remove all Confederate statues from his city. Protests against racism and police brutality have been going on in the city for weeks.

According to Mayor Stoney, it is necessary to hurry, because demonstrators have already knocked down several statues. He fears that people will be injured if more statues follow. This happened in Portsmouth, also in Virginia, where a demonstrator was injured when a statue was knocked down.

There is much to do about the Confederation statues. The Confederacy was made up of the southern states that fought against the north from 1861 to 1865 and strongly opposed the abolition of slavery. The images are seen by demonstrators as symbols of racism and colonial rule. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Boston takes away Lincoln statue

In Boston, an art and culture committee yesterday agreed to remove a statue of President Abraham Lincoln standing over a black kneeling man. The memorial was created to celebrate the liberation of enslaved people in the US. Opponents believe that the statue does not show that freedom, because the slave kneels in front of Lincoln.

More than 12,000 people had signed a petition to remove the statue, which has been in the city since 1879. According to the local authorities, the statue is temporarily stored in a depot. It is the intention that the image, whether or not in an adapted way, will be visible to the public at a later time.

This is a statue in Boston:

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