COPENHAGEN – Denmark woke up on Friday to the terms “racist fish” scrawled across the foundation of the “Little Mermaid”, the bronze statue honoring Hans Christian Andersen’s popular fairy tale that perches on a rock in the sea off a pier in Copenhagen.

Law enforcement mentioned it experienced not still determined the perpetrators. The 107-year-previous sculpture, which is frequented by 1 million tourists each and every year, has been vandalized right before, together with by anti-whaling campaigners and pro-democracy activists, twice struggling decapitation.

“We take into consideration it vandalism and have started off an investigation,” a spokesman for the Copenhagen law enforcement said.

Protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement all over the environment have in recent months rallied towards statues of historical figures who played a position in racist oppression, these as slave traders and colonialists.

The Little Mermaid has not been aspect of this debate but previous yr a Disney dwell-action remake of the 1989 animated film of the similar title was the topic of a controversy just after African American actress Halle Bailey was cast in the central function.

“I am having a challenging time looking at what is especially racist in the fairy tale “The Minor Mermaid,” Ane Grum-Schwensen, researcher at the H.C. Andersen Heart at College of Southern Denmark, told regional information wire Ritzau.