Banksy mural depicting judge beating protester will be removed from London court wall

A new mural by the elusive British street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with a gavel will be removed from a wall outside one of London's most iconic courts, authorities said Monday.

The mural appeared Monday and 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 on Instagram, his usual method of claiming a work as authentic. It was captioned "Royal Courts Of Justice. London."

Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork Monday with sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers, and it was being guarded by two officers and a security camera.

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.

"The Royal Courts of Justice is a listed building and HMCTS are obliged to maintain its original character," it said in a statement. Listed buildings are considered the country's most significant historic buildings and sites and are protected by law.

While the artwork doesn't explicitly 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.

Defend Our Juries, the group that organized the protest, said in a statement that the mural "powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed" by the government ban.

"When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it," the statement said.

The courts have weighed in on the Palestine Action case, with judges initially rejecting the organization's request to appeal its ban. A High Court court judge then allowed the appeal to go forward, although the government is now challenging that decision.

Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world's best-known artists. His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.

The artist's work often comments on political issues, with many of his pieces criticizing government policy on migration and war.

At the Glastonbury Festival last year, an inflatable raft holding dummies of migrants in life-jackets was unveiled during a band's 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.

The artist has also taken his message on migration to Europe. In 2019, The Migrant Child, depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life-jacket, was unveiled in Venice, Italy. And in 2018, a number of works including one near a former centre for migrants that depicted a child spray-painting wallpaper over a swastika were discovered in Paris.

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 Walled Off Hotel guesthouse in Bethlehem, which closed in October 2023.

Banksy's works have been removed before, but usually in an effort to preserve them. The part of the wall where the artist's fading migrant child depiction rests was chiselled from the building earlier this year, for example, with plans to restore it and display it in the future at cultural events.

A few of Banksy's animal-themed artworks, which popped up around London last summer, were also removed from their original spots for safekeeping.