A 38-year-old man was arrested after spraying pro-Palestinian slogans on the Winston Churchill statue in London, with police treating it as racially aggravated criminal damage.
LONDON: A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage after allegedly spraying pro-Palestinian graffiti on the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square.
The Metropolitan Police said the iconic monument was “graffitied with red paint” overnight, with officers arriving within two minutes of being alerted shortly after 4am.
Workers cleaned off the graffiti early Friday, which included phrases calling the former wartime prime minister a “zionist war criminal”.
The words “free Palestine” and “stop the genocide” were also sprayed on the statue, alongside the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office condemned the “completely abhorrent” damage, stating it was “glad” police had made an arrest.
“This government will always stand up for our values and the perpetrator must be held to account,” a Downing Street spokesman said.
A Dutch activist called Olax Outis claimed responsibility for the stunt in a pre-recorded message shared on social media by campaign group Prisoners for Palestine.
“If you see this message that peaceful protest has begun and it’s a reasonable assumption that I’m currently in a jail, somewhere in London,” the message said.
In December, police said people chanting the phrase “globalise the intifada” would be arrested as part of efforts to counter alleged antisemitism and incitement to violence.
This stance followed a deadly October attack on a synagogue in Manchester and a December shooting at a Jewish festival in Sydney.
The Greater London Authority condemned the “vandalism”, adding that work was underway to remove the graffiti “as quickly as possible”.
The 3.6 metre Churchill statue has been vandalised several times in recent years, including during Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in 2020.