Fact Check-English councillors did not choose a memorial for George Floyd over one for Lee Rigby

English councillors did not commission a memorial for George Floyd instead of one for Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby, contrary to claims on social media.

In 2013, 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby was killed by Islamist extremists in London (here).

In May last year, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed by a white police officer, and his death triggered a wave of anti-racism protests around the world (here).

A week after Floyd’s death, street artist Akse painted a mural of Floyd in Manchester’s Stevenson Square (here).

An image of the artwork has been shared on social media alongside a claim that Labour councillors commissioned the mural of Floyd rather than one for Rigby (here , here).

“Manchester Labour councillors sanctioned a George Floyd memorial in preference to a memorial for Lee Rigby”, the posts read.

“it’s [sic] OK to pay respects to a career criminal, but not a British soldier who was brutally murdered by a terrorist. Welcome to the Labour Party!”

In an email, a spokesperson for Manchester City Council told Reuters that the council “did not have any input” to the decision to paint a mural of George Floyd.

The only involvement the council had was when the mural was vandalised with racist graffiti (here , here).

The council said anti-social behaviour did come under its remit but it did not have the authority to commission artworks.

The mural site is managed by Out House MCR, a project that curates street art in allocated locations in the Northern Quarter, an area in the centre of Manchester (here).

Reuters was told by both Out House MCR and Akse that when the mural was painted there was no choice to be made between Floyd or Rigby.

“I painted the George Floyd mural in Manchester on 2nd June 2020 as a way to protest against what happened to him and show my support to the Black Lives Matter movement; therefore there has never been a choice to make between Lee Rigby and George Floyd as this mural was specifically linked to Floyd’s death,” Akse told Reuters in a Twitter message.

In 2015, a memorial for Rigby was unveiled in his hometown of Middleton, Greater Manchester (here).

Lee Rigby’s mother has previously asked that his “image and memory” is not used in divisive social media posts that fuel arguments against the Black Lives Matter movement, as he was a “lover of all humanity” (here).

VERDICT  

False. The council did not have any involvement in the creation of the mural. Those who were involved said that there was never a choice between the two in the first place, as the mural was painted shortly after Floyd’s death.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work  here.