The US state of Oregon has filed a lawsuit to ban the deployment of paramilitary forces in the city of Portland. It cited the use of unmarked vehicles, plainclothes officers and warrantless arrests of protesters.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Killen
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The US state of Oregon's attorney general has filed a lawsuit in federal court to ban the deployment of paramilitary forces, following violent protests and the arrest of demonstrators by unidentified plainclothes officers in Portland, the state capital.
Unidentified federal agents have grabbed people off Portland's streets "without warning or explanation, without a warrant, and without providing any way to determine who is directing this action,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement.
"The federal administration has chosen Portland to use their scare tactics," the statement read. "Every American should be repulsed when they see this happening."
Rosenblum added that she was seeking a temporary restraining order to "immediately stop federal authorities from unlawfully detaining Oregonians.”
Local broadcasters reported this week that some agents had been driving around in unmarked vans and snatching protesters from streets, not near federal property, without identifying themselves.
"The current escalation of fear and violence in downtown Portland is being driven by federal law enforcement tactics that are entirely unnecessary," she said.
Invoking a right to protect a federal court in the area during the deployment, the Trump administration has deployed federal agents, including the US Marshals Special Operations Group and a US Customs and Border Protection team in Portland.
On Saturday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown told broadcaster MSNBC that "the situation is unacceptable" and said she had asked for the agents to be removed.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly decried the disorder, and Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf called the protesters "lawless anarchists" in a visit to the city.
Prior to the action taken by the federal government, Mayor Ted Wheeler and other local authorities spoke out against the unrest, saying that a small group of violent activists was overshadowing the message of peaceful protesters in the city.
However, Wheeler said that the subsequent federal intervention is now exacerbating an already-tense situation and has told the authorities to leave.
"This is clearly a coordinated strategy from the White House. It is irresponsible and it is escalating an already tense situation. Remove your heightened troop presence now," he tweeted Friday.
The deployment of paramilitary forces, who are not even clear on whose behalf they are acting and who are not wearing nametags, has only escalated the protests, he said.
Demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality have taken place on a daily basis in Portland since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man, on May 25.
Tensions in the Oregonian city were additionally heightened after an officer with the Marshals Service fired a less-lethal round at a protester's head and leaving him critically injured, on July 11.
Toppled monuments: A selection of controversial figures
Global anti-racism protests following the killing of George Floyd fuel the controversy over the interpretation of the colonial and Confederate eras. In Europe and the US, monuments are damaged, razed and removed.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/G. Spadafora
Edward Colston: slave trader and philanthropist
Controversy over the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was rife for years. On June 7, demonstrators removed the bronze from its pedestal and tossed it into the water. While Colston was working for the Royal African Society, an estimated 84,000 Africans were transported for enslavement; 19,000 of them died along the way. But he went down in history as a benefactor for his donations to charities.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/G. Spadafora
Robert Baden-Powell: initiator of the Boy Scouts
Activists accuse Robert Baden-Powell, the man who initiated the Boy Scout movement, of racism, homophobia and admiration for Adolf Hitler. His statue stood on Brownsea Island in southern England. Amid the current wave of monuments being toppled by protesters, local authorities have now removed Baden-Powell's statue as a precaution.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Matthews
Leopold II: Belgian colonial-era monarch
Belgium has quite a few statues of King Leopold II. The monarch ruled the country from 1865 to 1909 and established a brutal colonial regime in Congo that is in fact considered one of the most violent in history. Protesters smeared several statues of Leopold II with paint. Authorities removed the above statue from its pedestal in the Antwerp suburb of Ekeren and sent it to a museum depot.
Image: Reuters/ATV
Christopher Columbus: revered and scorned
In the US, too, disputes have flared over monuments dedicated to controversial historical figures. Among others, protesters have targeted Christopher Columbus. A statue in Boston was beheaded (photo). North American indigenous groups reject the worship of Columbus because his expeditions enabled the colonization of the continent and the genocide of its autochthonous population in the first place.
Image: Reuters/B. Snyder
Columbus in Latin America: a different point of view
Some people see Columbus as one of the most important figures in world history, but for many people in Latin America the explorer's name stands for the beginning of a painful era. From the perspective of the indigenous population, Spanish colonialism is a dark chapter in their history. In Latin America, too, statues of Columbus have been destroyed or damaged in the past.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Boensch
Jefferson Davis: Civil War president
Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States of America, one of the leaders in the country's mid 19th-century Civil War. Protesters toppled and spray-painted the Confederate president's statue in Richmond, Virginia. House speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the removal of Confederate statues from the US Capitol because they were monuments to men "who advocated cruelty and barbarism."
Image: Getty Images/C. Somodevilla
Robert E. Lee: a divisive figure
Another Confederate statue in Richmond, this one a monument to General Robert E. Lee, is to be removed in the next few days. Governor Ralph Northam has given orders to take down the monument. Many African Americans regards the statues of Confederate politicians and soldiers as symbols of oppression and slavery.
