A large memorial to former British monarch Queen Victoria has been vandalised with slogans including “Black Lives Matter”, “murderer”, and “slag”.
The vandalism — merely the latest in a sudden and intense trend to have swept the United Kingdom in just a few days — was visited upon a statue and pedestal in Leeds, England, which portrayed the 19th-century female monarch, and was built with allegorical statues depicting peace and industry.
Messages on the statue include “slave owner”, “murderer”, “rapist”, whore”, “slag”, “racist”, among other accusations, reports Leeds Live. At the base of the memorial, “Black Lives Matters” and “!!!educate” have been scrawled. The hands, faces, and genitals of one of the remaining allegorical statues were also coloured in. Queen Victoria did not own slaves, and lives during a time where slavery had already been banned by the British government.