LONDON: A new mural by elusive 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 refer to a particular cause or incident, activists saw it as a reference to the UK 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, though 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.
Banksy’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. 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.
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.
Last summer, Banksy captured London’s attention with an animal-themed collection, which concluded with a mural of a gorilla appearing to hold up the entrance gate to London Zoo.
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 — showed up in unlikely locations around the city.
New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court
https://arab.news/9kuxk
New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court
Trump awards medals to the Kennedy Center honorees in an Oval Office ceremony
- Trump said they are a group of “incredible people” who represent the “very best in American arts and culture”
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Saturday presented the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees with their medals during a ceremony in the Oval Office, hailing the slate of artists he was deeply involved in choosing as “perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class” ever assembled.
This year’s recipients are actor Sylvester Stallone, singers Gloria Gaynor and George Strait, the rock band Kiss and actor-singer Michael Crawford.
Trump said they are a group of “incredible people” who represent the “very best in American arts and culture” and that, “I know most of them and I’ve been a fan of all of them.”
“This is a group of icons whose work and accomplishments have inspired, uplifted and unified millions and millions of Americans,” said a tuxedo-clad Trump. “This is perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class of Kennedy Center Honorees ever assembled.”
Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center
Trump ignored the Kennedy Center and its premier awards program during his first term as president. But the Republican has instituted a series of changes since returning to office in January, most notably ousting its board of trustees and replacing them with GOP supporters who voted him in as chairman of the board.
Trump also has criticized the center’s programming and its physical appearance, and has vowed to overhaul both.
The president placed around each honoree’s neck a new medal that was designed, created and donated by jeweler Tiffany & Co., according to the Kennedy Center and Trump.
It’s a gold disc etched on one side with the Kennedy Center’s image and rainbow colors. The honoree’s name appears on the reverse side with the date of the ceremony. The medallion hangs from a navy blue ribbon and replaces a large rainbow ribbon decorated with three gold plates that rested on the honoree’s shoulders and chest and had been used since the first honors program in 1978.
Trump honors the honorees
Strait, wearing a cowboy hat, was first to receive his medal. When the country singer started to take off the hat, Trump said, “If you want to leave it on, you can. I think we can get it through.” But Strait took it off.
The president said Crawford was a “great star of Broadway” for his lead role in the long-running “Phantom of the Opera.” Of Gaynor, he said, “We have the disco queen, and she was indeed, and nobody did it like Gloria Gaynor.”
Trump was effusive about his friend Stallone, calling him a “wonderful” and “spectacular” person and “one of the true, great movie stars” and “one of the great legends.”
Kiss is an “incredible rock band,” he said.
Songs by honorees Gaynor and Kiss played in the Rose Garden just outside the Oval Office as members of the White House press corps waited nearby for Trump to begin the ceremony.
The president president said in August that he was “about 98 percent involved” in choosing the 2025 honorees when he personally announced them at the Kennedy Center, the first slate chosen under his leadership. The honorees traditionally had been announced by press release.
It was unclear how they were chosen. Before Trump, it fell to a bipartisan selection committee.
“These are among the greatest artists, actors and performers of their generation. The greatest that we’ve seen,” Trump said. “We can hardly imagine the country music phenomena without its king of country, or American disco without its first lady, or Broadway without its phantom — and that was a phantom, let me tell you — or rock and roll without its hottest band in the world, and that’s what they are, or Hollywood without one of its greatest visionaries.”
“Each of you has made an indelible mark on American life and together you have defined entire genres and set new standards for the performing arts,” Trump said.
Trump also attended an annual State Department dinner for the honorees on Saturday. In years past, the honorees received their medallions there but Trump moved the ceremony to the White House.
Trump to host the Kennedy Center Honors
Meanwhile, the glitzy Kennedy Center Honors program and its series of tribute speeches and performances for each recipient is set to be taped on Sunday at the performing arts center for broadcast later in December on CBS and Paramount+. Trump is to attend the program for the first time as president, accompanied by his wife, first lady Melania Trump.
The president said in August that he had agreed to host the show, and he seemed to confirm on Saturday that he would do so, predicting that the broadcast would garner its highest ratings ever as a result. Presidents traditionally attend the program and sit with the honorees in the audience. None has ever served as host.
He said he looked forward to Sunday’s celebration.
“It’s going to be something that I believe, and I’m going to make a prediction: this will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s going to happen tomorrow night,” Trump said.
The president also swiped at late-night TV show host Jimmy Kimmel, whose program was briefly suspended earlier this year by ABC following criticism of his comments related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September.
Kimmel and Trump are sharp critics of each other, with the president regularly deriding Kimmel’s talent as a host. Kimmel has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Academy Award multiple times.
Trump said he should be able to outdo Kimmel.
“I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible,” Trump said. “If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”
