UN Chief Urges Peaceful Ferguson Protests, Rights Protection

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere in the United States to refrain from violence and called on law enforcement to protect the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully.

A grand jury on Monday cleared a white police officer in the fatal August shooting of an unarmed black teenager in suburban Ferguson, sparking a night of violent and racially charged rioting.

"(The Secretary-General) appeals to all those in Ferguson and throughout the United States who felt disappointment at the grand jury's decision to make their voices heard peacefully and to refrain from any violence," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

"He also calls on law enforcement authorities, whether at federal, state, or at the local level, to protect the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully and to express their opinions peacefully," Dujarric said.

Protests also were staged on Monday night in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C., over a case that has highlighted long-standing racial tensions not just in predominantly black Ferguson but across the United States.