"Symbolically lowered"

 

A Grade II listed statue was illegally pulled down earlier this year by a far-left mob, then dragged through the streets and chucked into the Bristol Channel. 

The local, democratically-elected council, despite years of debate, had never voted for it to be removed and opinion polls had shown majority public support for its retention.

Well, that's one way of putting it. This BBC News website report, however, puts it rather differently: 

Campaigners spent decades calling for the statue to be removed and protesters at the Black Lives Matter rally took matters into their own hands and pulled it down in June. They symbolically lowered the statue into Bristol harbour.

It certainly sounds to me, from the language used there, that the BBC journalist who wrote this piece sympathised with that illegal act. 

I'm guessing he/she/whatever is one of those BBC activist types we've heard so much about.