Campaigns to remove confederate statues ignite violence in Virginia

Campaigns to remove Confederate statues and symbols from government grounds in the United States have sparked clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters in recent months.

These fresh clashes in Virginia are coming just two years after a young Caucasian man killed nine African Americans in a church in South Carolina, and four years after a heritage group called Virginia Flaggers promised to hoist a Confederate flag up a 50-foot pole along a major interstate highway.

Ever since the fatal incident in 2015, many southern American states have been ramping up efforts to demolish buildings that are symbolic of the Confederacy.

But these efforts all seem to be backfiring as official figures show there are nearly 900 hate groups as of 2015, including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Kan, an increase of 50 percent compared with that in 2000.

A slew of measures have been taken to limit the number of immigrants to the US, including US president Donald Trump's Muslim ban this year. But opponents are concerned that these moves could only make the situation worse.

(CGTN)