ANTI-Fascists gathered outside the United
States embassy in Grosvenor Square in London on Monday to show solidarity with
the anti-fascists in Charlottesville, Virginia, after an American neo-Nazi
drove a car into a group of protesting anti-fascists, killing one, Heather
Heyer, and injuring 19 others.
The event was
organised by United Against Fascism (UAF) and Black Lives Matter (BLM).
The incident was
made all the more more appalling by the subsequent remarks from President
Donald Trump, who condemned the violence from “both sides” and held the
anti-fascists equally to blame with the violent, swastika toting, torch
wielding neo-Nazis.
The neo-Nazis, who
included former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader David Duke, praised Trump for his
support for their cause. The praise for the Republican leader drew concern and
condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from senior figures
within his own party.
Trump's presidential
campaign last year enjoyed broad far-right backing, and the Trump
administration includes several figures linked to far-right and neo-Nazi
groups.
Trump was later
pressured into making a stronger condemnation of the neo-Nazis but back-tracked
by voicing sympathy for their cause. They had been protesting at the removal of
a statue of Robert E Lee – a leading general in the pro-slavery Confederate
army in the United States civil war.
By Wednesday Trump
again criticised "both sides" including anti-fascist protesters, whom
he described as the "alt-left", a term popularised by the far-right.
Many of those
gathered in Grosvenor Square on Friday evening were Americans living in London,
declaring that Trump was making them “ashamed to be American”.
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