A bronze statue honouring Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid fairytale has been scrawled with the words "racist fish".
The tribute which perches on a rock in the sea off a pier in Copenhagen, Denmark, was daubed with the words in black spray paint.
The 107-year-old sculpture, which is visited by one million tourists each year, has been vandalised before, including by anti-whaling campaigners and pro-democracy activists, twice suffering decapitation.
Local police say they had not yet identified the perpetrators. "We consider it vandalism and have started an investigation," a spokesman for the Copenhagen police said.
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