A man has been charged after another statue of a figure from Australia’s colonial era was spray painted.
The 30-year-old man was arrested in the Perth CBD on June 13 after reports the statue of Captain James Stirling - the founder of the colony of Western Australia - outside Town Hall was being vandalised.
The man has been charged with criminal damage or destruction of property and is due to appear before the Perth Magistrates Court on June 26.
Historical monuments across the world have been toppled over the past two weeks as Black Lives Matter protesters marched through the streets to call out racism following the death of African American man George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
A statue of Captain James Cook was spray painted in Sydney, and busts of former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott were defaced in Ballarat.
Stirling proclaimed the foundation of a British colony on the Swan River in 1829, and administered the settlement from until August 1832.
In October 1834, Stirling led a posse of 25 police, soldiers and settlers to punish Aborigines of the Murray River tribe in retaliation for several murders.
It became known as the ‘Battle of Pinjarra’, with 14 Aborigines and one police superintendent killed, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Friends Read Free