‘Brutality unleashed’: New Banksy on court wall depicts judge attacking protester

1 week ago 4

By Lydia Doye

September 9, 2025 — 8.53am

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.

The mural appeared on Monday, London time, 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.

A new Banksy artwork portrays a judge beating a protester with a gavel at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

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 on Monday covered the artwork 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 the building’s historical significance, according to the HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

“The Royal Courts of Justice is a listed building and HMCTS are obliged to maintain its original character,” the service 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 organised 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 group’s statement said.

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

A security officer tries to block the artwork from view as police photographers arrive.

Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, 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 criticising 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 symbolise 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, which depicted a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life jacket, was unveiled in Venice. 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.

Last year, 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 – including a mountain goat perched on a building buttress, piranhas circling a police guard post, and a rhinoceros mounting a car – showed up in unlikely locations around the city.

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