City councilors in Charlottesville, Virginia, voted unanimously on Tuesday to cover two statues of Confederate war heroes in black fabric after ejecting spectators from a chaotic council meeting as residents demanded answers over how a recent white nationalist rally turned deadly.
Many activists and local residents crowded into the meeting, which began late Monday and spilled into the wee hours of Tuesday. It was the first council meeting since the Aug. 12 rally, when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman.
Many at the meeting shouted at the councilors and Mayor Mike Signer, forcing them at one point to leave the chamber.
Videos posted on social media showed some in the crowd yelling “shame” and “shut it down” and calling for Signer’s resignation. A photo online showed two people holding a sign that read “Blood On Your Hands” behind the council seats.
When council members returned to the chamber after spectators were removed, they voted to cover the statues of General Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, said a city spokeswoman, Paige Rice.
“Council voted unanimously at their meeting to shroud the statues to reflect the city’s mourning,” Rice said.
The planned removal of a statue of Lee in a downtown Charlottesville park had galvanized white nationalists to rally there on Aug. 12 in protest. Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia.
The rally highlights a persistent debate in the US South over the display of the Confederate battle flag and other symbols of the rebel side in the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.
In the wake of the Charlottesville rally, other cities have acted to remove monuments to the Confederacy.
On Tuesday night, several hundred people rallied at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill for the removal of “Silent Sam,” a Confederate soldier statue on the campus.
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These racist statues got to go!” chanted a crowd that was kept away from the statue by two rings of barricades and a heavy police presence.
There was no sign of professed white nationalists at the Chapel Hill rally.
In Charlottesville, the council voted to cover the Lee and Jackson statues with black fabric for now because of a pending lawsuit challenging the city’s authority to remove the statue of Lee.
During the council meeting, activists and residents questioned the police response to the Aug. 12 unrest and criticized city leaders for not heeding warnings in advance of the rally, Rice said. She said that three people were removed from the room.
Charlottesville police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Times reported that the three people ejected from the meeting were issued citations for disorderly conduct.
Signer called last week for a special session of Virginia’s legislature to let localities decide the fate of Confederate monuments such as the Lee statue.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said that would be redundant because the statue’s fate is already subject to litigation, though he said he hoped the court will rule in the city’s favor.
The night before the Aug. 12 rally, scores of white supremacists descended on Charlottesville and marched with tiki torches through the campus of the University of Virginia in a display that critics called reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan rally.
In response to the Charlottesville violence, actor George Clooney and his humanitarian lawyer wife, Amal Clooney, have donated $1 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a US non-profit that tracks extremist groups.
Charlottesville to cover Confederate statues after chaotic meeting
Charlottesville to cover Confederate statues after chaotic meeting
Grief, trauma weigh on survivors of catastrophic Hong Kong fire
HONG KONG: Hong Kong fire survivor Yip Ka-kui has turned happy holiday photos into a heartfelt tribute to his beloved wife a month after she died in the huge blaze that destroyed their home.
Yip, 68, is among thousands grieving the 161 killed at the Wang Fuk Court housing complex, a disaster few could imagine happening in one of Asia’s safest and most developed cities.
Even as the Hong Kong government forges ahead with investigations and relief efforts, experts caution that the psychological scars will be hard to heal for survivors, bereaved families and onlookers alike.
In dozens of shots compiled into a memorial video, Yip’s wife of four decades, Pak Shui-lin, 66, gently smiles at the camera at the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower.
“I blame myself. I always feel I was late to warn her, so she couldn’t escape in time,” said retired engineer Yip, recalling how the couple tried to flee the burning building on November 26.
Flames quickly engulfed seven out of eight residential towers, which were undergoing renovations and wrapped in substandard netting that may have contributed to the fire’s spread.
Yip got out first. When the fire alarms failed to sound, his wife knocked on neighbors’ doors to warn them, according to one person she saved.
Yip said he did not think Pak was trying to “exchange one life for another,” only that she was “doing what needed to be done.”
“The difference of a few minutes between us means that I will never see her again. That’s what I can’t accept.”
Like fighting a war ‘every day’
Not long after the fire started, counselling psychologist Isaac Yu helped organize dozens of others in his field to support displaced residents.
“The scale, immediacy and level of shock of this (incident) were beyond” anything they had trained for, Yu said.
Those who lost everything might have appeared calm at first, he recalled, but the fear was that they would break down during quiet moments and develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
NGOs such as the Samaritan Befrienders have contacted bereaved families to offer free mental-health services, with additional support available in transitional housing and schools, authorities said.
Many of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents obsessively followed live updates of the fire, which could have caused them mental strain, Yu added.
“For those who don’t actively seek help, I’m worried about missing the chance to intervene, which may lead to more serious mental health problems and tragedies,” he said.
Johnson Wong, a 51-year-old business manager, told AFP that his family struggled to process their grief while two of their relatives remained unaccounted for.
While most of the bodies have been identified, some remains have turned to ash and time-consuming DNA tests are needed, police said, adding the death toll could rise further.
Wong’s wife, a nurse, had hoped that her mother and sister would survive. But her worst fears were all but confirmed when she was shown pictures of two charred bodies found inside their flat.
“If the (DNA test) is a match, that marks an ending. But if not, what can we do?” Wong said, adding that the fire had likely deprived his niece, a university student, of her only remaining parent.
“Every day we have been fighting a war... It will take a long time to calm the family.”
‘Incomprehensible’
As Hong Kong marks the festive season, more than 4,600 people displaced by the fire still rely on temporary accommodation including hotels, according to Hong Kong’s government.
Some elderly people who were shunted into unfamiliar districts have had trouble adapting, according to local media.
Having moved in with his sons, Yip said his “unrealistic” wish was for his home to be rebuilt the way it was.
The government has yet to commit to renovating or knocking down the ruined estate, and industry figures say resettlement will take years.
On Tuesday, a judge-led committee visited the site as part of an investigation that is expected to yield a report in nine months.
Police said in early December that 21 people linked to various construction and contractor firms had been arrested, most for manslaughter and some for fraud. Those numbers have not been updated since.
Yip said he hoped the authorities would find the truth in the many “incomprehensible” aspects of the tragedy, but Wong was less sanguine.
“Getting an answer is better than none, but can it restore what we lost?” Wong said.
“What we need most are our family members. Two of them are gone.”
