An important monument in memory of the navigators who built the Portuguese colonial empire has been vandalized in Lisbon by an inscription denouncing the bloody nature of the Great Discoveries of the 16th century, police announced on Tuesday (August 10th).
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According to several local media, this act was committed by a French, art student.
The judicial police refused to confirm this information and stuck to a statement referring to a suspect of "
foreign
" nationality who "had
already committed similar acts elsewhere
" and who in the meantime "
left
Portuguese
territory
".
"Mankind is drowning in a scarlet sea"
The base of the fifty-meter-high monument, erected on the edge of the Tagus estuary, was tagged in blue and red ink with a phrase in English: "
By sailing blindly for money, l 'humanity is drowning in a scarlet sea
'.
Erected in 1960 by the fascist and colonialist regime of dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, the building brings together statues of historical figures who participated in Portuguese colonial expansion.
"
The best response to those who vandalize heritage is immediate cleaning
," Lisbon mayor Fernando Medina reacted on Monday on his Twitter account, captioning photos showing a municipal team erasing the inscription on the monument.
A past subject to regular controversy
Last year, a controversial statue of a 17th-century Portuguese Catholic missionary, who helped convert natives of Brazil during colonial times, was vandalized in Lisbon before being quickly cleaned up.
The incident occurred after symbols of the colonial past were attacked in several countries, including Britain, the United States and Belgium.
Portugal's colonial past, which fought several wars to conserve its territories in Africa until the Carnation Revolution of 1974, is regularly the subject of controversy.