LONDON (AP) — A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with a gavel has appeared outside a London court.
The mural depicts a protester lying on the ground holding a blood-splattered placard while a judge in a traditional wig and black gown beats him with a gavel. Banksy posted a photo of the work Monday on Instagram, his usual method of claiming a work as authentic. It was captioned “Royal Courts Of Justice. London.”
While the artwork does not refer to
a particular cause or incident, activists saw it as a reference to the U.K. government's ban on the group Palestine Action. On Saturday almost 900 people were arrested at a London protest challenging the ban.
Defend Our Juries, the group that organized the protest, said in a statement that the mural “powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed" by the government ban. “When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it,” the statement said.
Security officials outside the courthouse covered the mural Monday with sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers, and it was being guarded by two officers and a CCTV camera.
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.
Last summer, Banksy captured London’s attention with an animal-themed collection, which concluded with a mural of a gorilla appearing to hold up the entrance gate to London Zoo.
For nine days straight Banksy-created creatures -- from a mountain goat perched on a building buttress to piranhas circling a police guard post to a rhinoceros mounting a car — showed up in unlikely locations around the city.
