London: LGBT History Month poster defaced with Swastika within 3 hours
A poster for LGBT History Month at University College London has been defaced with a Nazi symbol – just hours after it went up.
The poster was put up in the UCL Quad earlier this month, to advertise the range of events being held at the students’ union and LGBT group.
A statement from UCLU said: “We are sorry to report that within 3 hours of our LGBT+ History Month vinyl banners being put up on the front of the UCL Quad, one of them has been graffitied with an image of a swastika in permanent marker.
“The swastika as a symbol is indelibly tainted by its use by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust, an atrocity resulting in the murder of many millions of people, among them tens of thousands of LGBT+ people.
“Its use as graffiti constitutes a hate crime.
“We refuse to be intimidated. We will be continuing to promote LGBT+ History Month widely across campus and celebrating the presence of LGBTQ+ students, staff and visitors at UCL.
“The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and will be dealt with seriously.”
UCLU LGBT+ officer Tom Robinson told the Tab: “This incident serves as a reminder that people are still here who don’t like that we exist.
“We don’t know who did it, and Gower Street is a busy public road, so it may not have been a UCL student, but it’s obviously a studenty area.”
