![\"Security](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IUA3YPHPEJGYCCRZDRT44ZRERI.jpg\")
Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork. Joanna Chan\/Associated Press<\/p>\nSecurity officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork. Joanna Chan\/Associated Press<\/p>\n
Because the Victorian gothic revival style building is 143 years old, the mural will be removed with consideration for its historical significance, according to HM Courts and Tribunals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Royal Courts of Justice is a listed building and HMCTS are obliged to maintain its original character,\u201d it said in a statement. Listed buildings are considered the country\u2019s most significant historic buildings and sites and are protected by law.<\/p>\n
While the artwork doesn\u2019t refer to a particular cause or incident, activists saw it as a reference to the U.K. government\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\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
The courts have weighed in on the Palestine Action case, with judges initially rejecting the organization\u2019s request to appeal its ban. A High Court court judge then allowed the appeal to go forward, though the government is now challenging that decision.<\/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
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 English 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, Italy. In 2018, 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 designed the \u201cWalled Off Hotel\u201d guesthouse in Bethlehem, which closed in October 2023.<\/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":"Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork. Joanna Chan\/Associated Press Because the Victorian gothic revival style building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,30,393,77,4179,5212,4884,40,388,257,13216,16,15,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-408515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-government-policy","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-lifestyle","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115170312593263588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408515","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=408515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}