By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer
Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton has urged countries around the world to remove “racist symbols” after the toppling of the statue of a slave trader in Bristol.
The world champion saluted anti-racism protesters for tearing down a monument to the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston at a demonstration on Sunday.
Hamilton said governments around the world should “implement the peaceful removal of these racist symbols”.
He has made a series of statements amid global anti-racism protests.
These have occurred in a number of countries following the death of George Floyd in the US last month.
Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died in police custody in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.
Hamilton said last week that he was “completely overcome with rage” at events following Floyd’s death.
And on Monday he said the Colston statue should not be recovered after demonstrators threw it into a river.
“If those people hadn’t taken down that statue, honouring a racist slave trader, it would never have been removed,” he said on Instagram.
“There’s talks of it going into a museum. That man’s statue should stay in the river just like the 20,000 African souls who died on the journey here and thrown into the sea, with no burial or memorial. He stole them from their families, country and he must not be celebrated!”
In a post on Twitter shortly afterwards, Hamilton made a pointed reference to US President Donald Trump’s response to the protests that have swept America.
The 35-year-old posted a picture of the slogan “Black Lives Matter” painted on the road leading to the White House and wrote: “And don’t you forget it.”