'Racist fish' spray-painted on Denmark's Little Mermaid
The famed statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, one of Copenhagen’s biggest tourist draws, has been vandalised with the text “racist fish.”
The words were tagged on the stone on which the 1.65-metre (5.4-foot)-high bronze is sitting at the entrance of the Copenhagen harbour.
No one has taken responsibility for the act.
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The statue was created in tribute to the Danish storyteller Andersen. It has long been a popular target for vandals, who have blown her off her perch, beheaded her and painted her.
The bronze is based on a mythical sea king’s mermaid daughter who, according to the Hans Christian Andersen tale, falls in love with a prince and longs to become human.
Last month, a statue in Copenhagen of a Danish missionary who was key to the colonisation of Greenland, was doused with red paint and the words “decolonise.”
It was not known whether the two cases of vandalism were linked. Statues and monuments around the world are being reconsidered in light of racial justice demonstrations following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Various statues across the UK have been targetted. For instance, a sculpture of wealthy slave trader Edward Colston, was toppled in Bristol last month during a Black Lives Matter protest.
In central London, The Cenotaph and Churchill statue were defaced and spray-painted during a march.
Meanwhile, an Oxford University college has “expressed their wish” to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes, following a campaign for it to be taken down.
Rights activists on Thursday accused Danish officials of being unable to recognise racism after authorities said the killing of a biracial man by two white men was not racially motivated.