UN condemns racist violence in Virginia (Lead)

United Nations Aug 15 (IANS) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the weekend racist violence and bigotry in the US state of Virginia which left a woman dead.

"We believe that there must be no place in our societies for the violent racism anti-Semitism xenophobia and discrimination that we ve seen in Charlottesville Virginia " Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman as saying.

The UN chief expressed his condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to all those who were injured.

A 32-year-old woman Heather Heyer from Charlottesville was killed and nearly a score injured on Saturday when a car allegedly driven by a white supremacist hit a crowd.

The deceased was part of a group of people protesting violent demonstrations by neo-Nazis and white supremacists against the planned removal of a statue of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee now associated with racism.

The driver identified as 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr was being held without bail on murder charge.

US President Donald Trump came under considerable bipartisan criticism for not specifically denouncing the Ku Klux Klan sympathizers neo-Nazis anti-Semitics and xenophobes for touching off the violence.

He had denounced violence as "evil" and blamed "many sides" for the violence.

On Monday Kenneth Frazier chief executive of the major pharmaceutical company Merck quit a Presidential business council in protest to Trump failing to specifically call out the racists in Charlottesville.

Less than an hour later the New York Times reported the US President criticised Frazier.

Later according to a White House transcript Trump described the violence as "horrific" and said the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack.

--IANS
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