LONDON \u2014 A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with a gavel has appeared outside a London court.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cRoyal Courts Of Justice. London.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Defend Our Juries, the group that organized the protest, said in a statement that the mural \u201cpowerfully depicts the brutality unleashed\u201d by the government ban. \u201cWhen the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world\u2019s best-known artists. His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.<\/p>\n
Banksy\u2019s work often comments on political issues, with many of his pieces criticizing government policy on migration and war.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Security officials stand in front of large sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers which conceal street artist Banksy’s latest artwork, 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, outside at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. Credit: AP\/Joanna Chan<\/p>\n
At the Glastonbury Festival last year, an inflatable raft holding dummies of migrants in life jackets was unveiled during a band\u2019s headline set. Banksy appeared to claim the stunt, which was thought to symbolize small boat crossings of migrants in the Channel, in a post on Instagram.<\/p>\n
The artist has also taken his message on migration to Europe.<\/p>\n
In 2019, \u201cThe Migrant Child,\u201d depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life jacket, was unveiled in Venice. A year prior, a number of works including one near a former center for migrants that depicted a child spray-painting wallpaper over a swastika were discovered in Paris.<\/p>\n
Banksy has also created numerous artworks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the years, including one depicting a girl conducting a body search on an Israeli soldier, another showing a dove wearing a flak jacket, and a masked protester hurling a bouquet of flowers. He also designed the \u201cWalled Off Hotel\u201d guesthouse in Bethlehem, which closed in October 2023.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Banksy’s latest artwork appears outside at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, which shows a judge using his gavel to strike a protester who is lying on the ground holding a placard has been covered up, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. Credit: AP\/Joanna Chan<\/p>\n
Last summer, Banksy captured London\u2019s attention with an animal-themed collection, which concluded with a mural of a gorilla appearing to hold up the entrance gate to London Zoo.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 showed up in unlikely locations around the city. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[140575,748,393,4884,257,16,15,34242],"class_list":{"0":"post-408173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-ap-a-wire","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115169522394106855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}