A man was
arrested on Saturday in connection with the removal of a street sign featuring
work by the artist Banksy, the Metropolitan Police of London said. The artwork,
a red stop sign with three military drones, had been widely interpreted as a
criticism of Israel’s bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip.
اضافة اعلان
Two men, one
carrying bolt cutters, took down the sign in Peckham, a district in southeast
London, shortly after Banksy unveiled it in a social media post-Friday.
Bystanders recorded video of the men before one took off running with the sign.
The motive
for the removal was not immediately clear.
The
Metropolitan Police said a man in his 20s had been arrested and taken into
custody Saturday on suspicion of theft and criminal damage in connection with
the incident.
“Our local
authority partners were informed at the time and have since replaced the road
sign to avoid endangering road users,” a representative for the Metropolitan
Police said Saturday.
While
Banksy’s artwork in Peckham did not include any explicit reference to the war
in Gaza — his stencils, wall paintings, and graffiti often have social and
political undertones. In 2015, Banksy visited Gaza, where he created murals on
rubble to highlight the destruction left by the Israeli Occupation.
He has also
opened the Walled Off Hotel, a nine-room guesthouse in the West Bank city of
Bethlehem whose windows overlook the barrier that separates the territory from
Israel. The hotel announced in October, after Hamas’ attack, that it would
close “for the time being.”
The London
episode was hardly the first time that street art by Banksy was removed. A
mural painted on the emergency exit door of the Bataclan Theater in Paris was
stolen in 2019.
Art by
Banksy, who has gained worldwide fame while remaining anonymous, has been
auctioned for thousands if not millions of dollars over the years, although he
has discouraged people from buying street art that was not meant for sale.
“It is a
shame it has been taken away because it belongs to all of us,” Jasmine Ali, a
city councilor in Southwark, the borough of London that includes Peckham, said
Friday on social media.
“We would
like it back so that everyone in the community can enjoy it,” Ali added.
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