The mayor of Seattle in the United States has called for a statue of Vladimir Lenin to be taken down following violent demonstrations last weekend in Charlottesville over a Confederate statue.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has proposed taking down a monument to Confederate soldiers and a statue of the Bolshevik leader in his city, describing the monuments as “symbols of hate, racism and violence,” the Seattle Times reports.
“Not only do these kinds of symbols represent historic injustices, their existence causes pain among those who themselves or whose family members have been impacted by these atrocities,” Murray was cited as saying.
“We should remove all these symbols, no matter what political affiliation may have been assigned to them in the decades since they were erected.”
The 8-ton statue of Lenin was brought to Seattle from Slovakia, the paper reported, after a local English teacher purchased and transported it to the United States following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The five-meter-tall Lenin stands on private property and is up for sale. But the object has stirred controversy, with protesters repeatedly dousing it in red paint.
A self-described “alt-right” group staged a protest at the Lenin statue on Wednesday, holding signs reading: “Lenin is Hitler,” and “Alt-Left Hate.”
The protest comes days after clashes between demonstrators and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the removal of Confederate monuments.
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