WASHINGTON, June 11. /TASS/. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol in the wake of the death of African American George Floyd.

"The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation," Pelosi said in a letter to the Congress Joint Committee on the Library. "Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals," she added.

Pelosi first called for the removal of the statues in 2017. The statues include a figure of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, which existed between 1861 and 1865 and fought against the United States during the American Civil War.

Widespread unrest has engulfed many US states over the death of George Floyd, who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck and choked him to death during his arrest. On May 26, all officers involved in the deadly arrest were fired. On May 29, the policeman in question, Derek Chauvin, was arrested on third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges. However, on June 3, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison upped the charge against Chauvin to second-degree murder. The three other officers involved in the fatal incident were arrested as well and are facing charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.