In the wake of 'Black Lives Matter' march in London, authorities have 'boarded up' the statue of Winston Churchill so that the protestors cannot get their hands on it.
And Prime Minister Boris Johnson feels it is "shameful and absurd" that Churchill's statue has to be boarded up over fears of vandalism.
Last weekend, Churchill's statue was daubed "was a racist" during the BLM protests.
"We cannot try to edit or censor our past," said Johnson.
In a series of tweets, Johnson urged people to "stay away" from these protests amid the coronavirus pandemic, and that such monuments were put up by previous generations.
Churchill's statue in London's Parliament square has been boarded to protect it from the protestors ahead of the BLM march in Hyde park. Other monuments have also been removed ahead of protests that are planned over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan assured "key statues" including Nelson Mandela's would be protected.
Earlier this week, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the river in Bristol during a BLM protest.
For the unversed, protests have taken place across the U.S. after George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in police custody after he was accused of attempting to use a counterfeit 20 USD bill at a Minneapolis deli.
Floyd was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by police, with one officer, Derek Chauvin, holding his knee to the man's neck for more than seven minutes, even as he complained that he couldn't breathe and pleaded for help, and after he became unresponsive. Paramedics were called and performed chest compressions and transported the man to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The video of the arrest went viral which prompted protests and riots in Minneapolis and other cities across the country. The four police involved in the incident were fired, and on Friday, Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
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