Trump wants legislation to jail protesters who burn American flag

US President Donald Trump has said he wants Congress to pass legislation mandating a jail sentence of at least one year for protesters who burn the American flag.

“We ought to come up with legislation that if you burn the American flag you go to jail for one year,” Trump said Saturday at a sparsely-crowded campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma - his first rally in three months.

The Republican president renewed his call to make acts of desecrating the flag a punishable offence while pointing at two GOP senators, Jim Inhofe and James Lankford, in the crowd.

“We ought to do it. We talk about freedom of speech… but that’s desecration,” he doubled down.

Over the past few weeks, some demonstrators have set American flags on fire and toppled a number of Confederate statues at nationwide protests over racism and police brutality.

The death of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man who died in police custody late last month, has triggered massive protests across the country.

Burning the flag is not unlawful in the United States.

SS