Censoring Banksy

Art, Censorship and the Power of Public Advocacy

Banksy mural emerged on 8th September 2025 outside the Royal Courts of Justice

On September 8, 2025, Banksy once again compelled the public to confront the uncomfortable intersections between justice, power, and protest. Overnight, a mural appeared on the walls of London’s Royal Courts of Justice. The image was stark and unsettling: a judge, wielding a gavel, striking a protester who lay on the ground. To one side, a security camera looked away, complicit in its silence.

The mural’s timing and placement could not have been more deliberate. It came amid escalating tensions between the state and protest movements, particularly following the arrest of nearly 900 pro-Palestine activists in the UK. For many, this wave of arrests signalled an increasingly aggressive approach to dissent - one that blurred the line between public safety and state control. Banksy’s mural crystallised this anxiety in a single frame, holding a mirror up to the system and asking: who is justice really serving?

Immediate impact

The reaction was swift. Within hours, authorities moved to cover the mural. Metal barriers and security personnel were placed around the wall where it had been painted. Online, images of the covered-up artwork spread just as quickly as the artwork itself. Elon Musk captured the mood with a succinct observation: “The more they try to cover it up, the more it will appear.”

This act of censorship paradoxically amplified the mural’s message. What was meant to silence dissent only highlighted it. The attempt to suppress Banksy’s critique confirmed the very charge at the heart of the artwork: that voices challenging power are too often silenced rather than heard. The cover-up became part of the art.

Art as advocacy

Banksy’s career has been built on interventions like this. His work is never just visual; it is political theatre, designed to provoke, unsettle, and spark debate. The placement of this mural at the Royal Courts of Justice was no accident. It was a direct commentary on the judiciary’s role in shaping - and sometimes suppressing - protest rights in the United Kingdom.

In doing so, Banksy reminds us that art has always been a powerful tool of advocacy. Where traditional forms of protest can be controlled, arrested, or kettled, art often slips through the cracks, forcing its way into public consciousness. A mural on a central London landmark can’t be ignored in the same way a leaflet might be discarded. Its very existence demands attention.

Art also has a unique capacity to distil complexity into something immediate and visceral. Legal debates about protest rights, judicial overreach, and censorship are often cloaked in jargon. Banksy’s mural cut through that noise, telling the story of state power and public resistance in a way that was both simple and searing.

Censorship and its consequences

What happened next only strengthened this message. By choosing to cover the mural almost instantly, authorities inadvertently created a second layer of meaning. The empty wall, now shielded behind barriers, became a symbol of silence - a blank space where public debate had been scrubbed out.

This raises an uncomfortable question: why is our instinct to cover up rather than confront? If the mural had been left alone, it would have stood as one artist’s perspective - controversial, yes, but part of the democratic tapestry of free expression. Instead, the act of erasure turned it into a metaphor for censorship itself.

Banksy’s piece became less about the image of the judge and the protester and more about the reaction to it. It forced us to ask not just what the justice system is doing, but what it fears.

Public advocacy through art

The controversy surrounding the mural is a reminder of how public art can be a form of collective advocacy. It bypasses traditional channels - courts, parliaments, newspapers - and speaks directly to people on the street and on their screens. It empowers citizens to see themselves as part of the conversation, not just passive observers of policy.

For campaigners, the lesson is clear: advocacy doesn’t only happen in meetings, reports, or parliamentary debates. It also happens in the cultural sphere, where symbols and images can ignite movements. Art can transform frustration into momentum, despair into dialogue. Banksy’s mural may be gone from the wall, but it continues to live online and in the public imagination. That is the paradox of censorship: in trying to erase the message, you often end up spreading it further.

A lasting impact

In many ways, this episode encapsulates the tensions of our time. We live in a society that claims to value free speech but often struggles to tolerate dissent when it becomes too visible, too raw, or too confrontational. We speak of justice as impartial, yet power structures determine whose voices are heard and whose are silenced.

Banksy’s mural, fleeting as it was, carved these contradictions into the stone of the Royal Courts. For a brief moment, it exposed the cracks in our justice system and forced us to look. Even hidden, even erased, it left its mark.

And perhaps that is the ultimate lesson. Art cannot be legislated away or entirely suppressed. It has a way of seeping through, of finding new canvases, of speaking truths that others try to silence. Banksy knew this. The authorities proved it. And the rest of us are left with the uncomfortable but necessary task of reckoning with it.