YORK, UK
King Charles III and his wife Queen Consort Camilla narrowly avoided being hit with eggs thrown at them during a visit to northern England on Wednesday, British media footage showed.
The 73-year-old monarch and
Camilla, 75, appeared to be targeted with three eggs which landed near them
during a walkabout in York, before they were ushered away by minders.
A man was heard shouting
"this country was built on the blood of slaves" and "not my
king" before he was detained by several police officers as the incident
occurred, the footage showed.
The protester also booed the
royal couple before he appeared to lob the eggs at them, according to reporters
at the scene.
Other people in the crowds
that had gathered at the historic Micklegate Bar location for the visit started
chanting "God save the King" and "shame on you" at the
protester.
Charles and Camilla continued
with a traditional ceremony to officially welcome the sovereign to the city of
York by the lord mayor as police were pictured taking the suspected perpetrator
into custody.
UK media named him as
a former Green Party candidate and activist with the Extinction Rebellion
environmental protest group.
The royals were in the
historic city to attend the unveiling of a statue of Charles's mother Queen
Elizabeth II, the first to be installed since her death on September 8.
On Tuesday, Charles met
artists in nearby Leeds who had taken part in a project exploring Britain's
role in slavery -- and revealed he was open to discussions on the topic.
"He is ready to have
these conversations and see what work can be done," Fiona Compton, a St
Lucian artist and historian who knows the monarch and was involved in the
project, told reporters afterwards.
"He agrees, this is
British history, it should not be hidden.
"In the same way we are
speaking about the Holocaust, we should be open to speaking about Britain's
involvement in the slave trade," added Compton, whose father was prime
minister of St Lucia.
The issue has increasingly
confronted the royal family, as growing republican movements in Commonwealth
countries with the British monarch as head of state call on the Crown to
apologise for the slave trade and atone for colonisation.
During a tour of the Caribbean
by the king's eldest son Prince William earlier this year, he faced protests
about past royal links to slavery, demands for reparations and growing
republican sentiment.
Charles's youngest brother,
Prince Edward, experienced similar protests and cancelled a leg to Grenada
after pro-republican protests there.
Domestically, Charles is less
popular than his late mother, who maintained highly favourable ratings
throughout her record-breaking seven-decade reign.
The latest polling by YouGov
found 44 percent of adults had a positive opinion of him, compared to nearly
three-quarters for Queen Elizabeth II.
Despite promoting
environmental causes for decades, climate activists last month smeared
chocolate cake over a waxwork model Charles at London's Madame Tussauds Museum.
During the national period of
mourning for the queen in September, republican movements said anti-monarchist
views were drowned out.
There was criticism of police
handling of protesters who publicly questioned the hereditary principle of
Charles's accession. - AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment