A new Banksy artwork at the Royal Courts of Justice depicts a judge in wig and gown beating an unarmed protester with a gavel. The piece shows a protester lying on the ground holding a blood-spattered placard while the judge looms over him wielding the judicial hammer.
The graffiti on an external wall of the Queen's Building has already been concealed by large sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers. Security officials now guard the artwork, which sits underneath a CCTV camera.
Banksy confirms creation
The elusive artist confirmed responsibility for the work through an Instagram post showing the graffiti before it was covered. Banksy captioned the pictures: "Royal Courts Of Justice. London."
The artwork appears following almost 900 arrests of demonstrators protesting against the banning of Palestine Action as a terror group in central London on Saturday. Several others have previously been charged with allegedly expressing support for the group, which was proscribed under anti-terror laws by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper earlier this year.
Campaign group responds
A spokesperson for campaign group Defend Our Juries, which organised Saturday's rally, said the piece "powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed by Yvette Cooper on protesters by proscribing Palestine Action". They said: "When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it."
The spokesperson added: "As Banksy's artwork shows, the state can try to strip away our civil liberties, but we are too many in number and our resolve to stand against injustice cannot be beaten - our movement against the ban is unstoppable and growing every day."
Judicial concerns raised
The work comes weeks after the Lady Chief Justice repeated concerns for judge safety, saying they had been subjected to "increasing and increasingly unacceptable sensationalist and inaccurate abuse". Labour peer Baroness Harriet Harman said she believed the work was "a protest about the law".
Speaking on Monday following the publication of her report into bullying and sexual harassment among barristers in England and Wales, Harman said: "Parliament makes the law, and the judges simply interpret the law. I don't think there's any evidence in terms of the right to protest that the judges have been clamping down on protests beyond what Parliament intended."
Baroness Carr said in July: "More needs to be done to deal with what are not only attacks on individual judges, but attacks on our democratic process. Without judges, acting independently and impartially, to interpret and give effect to the law … our democratic process, our Parliamentary process, would be as nought."
Previous Banksy works
Last summer, Banksy made headlines with his animal-themed collection in the capital, concluding with a gorilla appearing to lift up a shutter at London Zoo entrance. Other works included piranhas swimming on a police sentry box and a howling wolf on a satellite dish in Peckham, which was removed within an hour of being unveiled.
Sources used: "PA Media" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
