Bangladesh pulls down Supreme Court’s ‘un-Islamic’ statue of Lady Justice

Bangladesh on Friday removed from outside the country’s highest court a statue depicting a Greek-style goddess of justice, which religious radicals claimed was “un-Islamic”.

Work to take down the statue, which is less than six months old, in front of the Supreme Court in Dhaka was supervised by its sculptor, Mrinal Haque.

“This is a slap in the face of progressive people in this country,” Haque said. Dozens of young secular activists staged a protest in solidarity with Haque as the statue was removed amid heavy security.

The modernist statue of “Lady Justice”, fashioned from wire rods, has ruffled feathers in the Muslim-majority nation, with hardliners staging massive protests in recent months against what they say is a Greek goddess unbefitting of Bangladesh.

Protesters wanted the statue of the robe-clad and blindfolded woman holding scales destroyed and replaced with a Koran, despite Bangladesh’s secular constitution.

But the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who leads the secular Awami League party, apparently backed the Islamists by expressing her dislike for the statue.