Denmark’s Little Mermaid vandalised

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, the city’s most famous monument, was vandalised yesterday but police and commentators were puzzled as to who might have done it and what their message really is. “We can confirm that The Little Mermaid has been vandalised some time before 9am this morning,” Copenhagen police said in a statement to AFP. “An unknown person has written the words ‘Racist Fish’ on it. We are investigating the case.” The Little Mermaid, inspired by a character in Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairytale of the same name, is a 175kg (385-pound) statue by sculptor Edvard Eriksen. The statue has been vandalised numerous times over the years, including when the mermaid’s head was stolen in 1964 and 1998.