Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid statue vandalised with 'Racist Fish' graffiti

The Copenhagen statue of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid has recently been vandalised and daubed with the words “racist fish”. According to reports, unknown people have spray-painted the words ‘racist fish’ on the stone base of the 107-year-old statue in the Danish capital's harbour. The Little Mermaid statue has been regularly targeted over the years by pro-democracy protestors as well and anti-whaling campaigners.

Vandalised many times over the years

According to reports, the most recent account of vandalism of the statue before this incident occurred in January of this year when the words ‘free Hong Kong’ were scrawled on the statue. Over the years the Mermaid statue has been vandalized in different ways—from the Mermaid being entirely knocked off her rock to being beheaded and paint poured over her.

A spokesperson for the Copenhagen police in a statement has claimed that they are treating this incident as a case of vandalism and have begun their investigation.

The statue was designed by the sculptor Edvard Eriksen who modelled the Mermaid after his wife, Eline, and wished for it to be a tribute to the famous children’s fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen which is about a mermaid who meets and falls in love with a human and ultimately longs to be human.

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As per reports, Ane Grum-Schwensen, a researcher at the HC Andersen Centre has claimed that she has a very hard time imagining how people have connected the Little Mermaid to racism. The recent global movement against racism began with the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in the US, while in the custody of the police. The global movement has prompted protestors to topple and vandalise statues all over the world of figures and person they believe to be linked to racism and colonialism.

(Credit Twitter/@isaksenjhv16)

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