Although it is not lost on me, that this is on one level is a serious issue.

That is the difference here I think, I went the satirical route, while you maintain the serious tone, which is fine.

That they toppled the statue was not funny, but how they attacked it was. They were kicking a bronze statue. Not symbolically, they were really kicking an inanimate object with all their emotions and hostility.

A statue having "rights", is absurd. But is that anymore absurd than what we saw, which is a mob literally attacking a bronze statue on lying on the ground, with real kung fu kicks.

So yeah, if they are going to kick the crap out of a statue, then it is a human rights violation of the statue. I'm sorry, can't help it but to crack jokes at that.

Actually, a similar situation happened in a Canadian city last month.

Indigenous people, were upset over a statue of Edward Cornwallis (whoever he was), in the city of Halifax.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/halifax-covers-controversial-cornwallis-statue-in-respose-to-protests/article35701179/

A debate over the contributions or criminality of a historical figure, about 300 years ago. That's 300 hundred years.

One would expect them to have a discussion about the merits of the historical figure, in context of the past and today, then reach some sort of conclusion of what to do with the statue in the park.

An academic discussion about a historical figure, what it represented, and in the context of the values of today. That does not sound like anything anyone would get too excited about.