A bronze statue of Queen Victoria in front of McGill’s Strathcona Music Building in downtown Montreal was covered in green paint Saturday night.
A group calling itself the Delhi-Dublin Anti-Colonial Solidarity Brigade has claimed responsibility for the action.
It’s not the first time the group has targeted the 119-year-old statue. Last year, the Brigade doused it in green paint on St. Patrick’s Day.
WATCH BELOW: Two landmark Montreal statues commemorating Queen Victoria were vandalized by a group claiming they represent racism and oppression (March 2018)
And the message hasn’t changed.
The group argues the reign of Queen Victoria is not something to be celebrated; that it has been “whitewashed in history books and popular media.”
“Collectively, her reign represents a criminal legacy of genocide, mass murder, torture, massacres, terror, forced famines, concentration camps, theft, cultural denigration, racism, and white supremacy,” the Brigade states in a news release.
Members of the Brigade say the statue is an “insult to the self-determination and resistance struggles of oppressed peoples worldwide.”
Various organizations in Montreal have taken aim at other monuments in city parks.
Earlier this week, a statue of John A. Macdonald was spray painted yet again.
READ MORE: Sir John A. Macdonald statue vandalized once again in downtown Montreal
It’s something the Delhi-Dublin Anti-Colonial Solidarity Brigade encourages.
“Our action is a simple expression of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist solidarity, and we encourage others to undertake similar actions against racist monuments and symbols that should be in museums, not taking up our shared public spaces,” said brigade member, Udham Connolly.
While the Brigade would prefer to see the pieces archived in museums, Séamus Singh said maybe this time could be the exception.
“As long as it remains vandalized with green paint, with Queen Victoria’s head in a hood, it can stay up,” he said.
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