A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage after graffiti was sprayed on the statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square. Phrases daubed on the bronze statue in red paint include “Stop the Genocide” and “Free Palestine”; further graffiti reads “Zionist war criminal” and “Globalise the Intifada”. The sculpture is currently cordoned off while heritage wardens clean the work, according to the BBC.
The Dutch activist group Free the Filton 24 claimed responsibility in a post on Instagram on Friday morning. Olax Outis, a member of the group, said in the post: “I’m part of a group called Free the Filton 24 NL, and I’ve come to the United Kingdom to deface a statue of one of history’s most well-known war criminals, Winston Churchill.”
He adds that he targeted the statue “to draw attention to the horrible human rights violations happening in a country that’s run by colonisers who refuse to listen to their people”. He added: “The current British government should be dragged before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and as a representative of The Hague, I'm here to hold them accountable.”
Responding to the attack in a statement, a Home Office spokesperson said: "Sir Winston Churchill is a figure of great national pride. The vile vandals defacing this statue are a disgrace."
A Metropolitan Police statement says: “Shortly after 0400hrs on Friday 27 February a man was seen spraying graffiti on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. The first officers were on the scene within two minutes. The man, who is 38, was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage." The Jewish Leadership Council, a charity that represents the Jewish community in the UK, said meanwhile on social media that it was "disgusted" by the defacing of the statue.
The charge comes after two British police forces announced in December that those chanting “globalise the intifada”—intifada being the Arabic word for uprising, closely tied to Palestinian resistance—would face arrest. Arrests have so far led to charges for stirring up racial hatred and disturbing public order. The new policy comes in the wake of terror attacks at Bondi Beach in Australia in December, and Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester in October.
Churchill's statue is often targeted in London protests; in June 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the United States, it was covered in graffiti which accused the late prime minister of being a racist.
The Churchill monument, made by the artist Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the wartime prime minister's widow Clementine Churchill. According to the Art UK database, Roberts-Jones studied at Goldsmiths’ College School of Art (1932-34) and Royal Academy Schools in London (1934–38); his sculptural bust of the Welsh artist Kyffin Williams (1974) is in the collection of the Royal Academy.