Police seek culprit behind Palestine sticker on Amy Winehouse statue

The tricolor was used to cover up a Star of David necklace on a life-size statue of the singer in London’s Camden Market

London’s Metropolitan Police are looking for evidence regarding a Palestinian flag sticker placed over the Star of David necklace on Camden Market’s life-size Amy Winehouse statue, after Jewish groups condemned the incident on Monday.

Authorities are making inquiries regarding CCTV footage and other potential evidence of the placement of the sticker, a Met Police spokesperson told reporters, adding that the force understood the incident “will have caused upset to many people.”

The statue of Winehouse, erected in the iconic North London neighborhood three years after her untimely death from alcohol poisoning in 2011, shows the singer in a skimpy dress with her trademark beehive hairdo, wearing a necklace featuring the six-pointed star that is often used as a symbol both by the Jewish faith and the state of Israel.

The sticker placed over the necklace was “removed immediately” after staff were made aware of it through an image posted to social media on Monday, Camden Market said in a statement, while the incident was reported to police.

Read more

“Camden Market remains first and foremost a place of diversity – a global destination that welcomes everyone,” it said, adding, “Any form of discrimination on our estate will not be tolerated.”

“Covering the Star of David, a well-known symbol of Judaism, on the statue of a British-Jewish singer, with a sticker of the Palestinian Authority flag, is antisemitic,” a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said in a statement responding to the incident. 

“Right now, 69% of British Jews say that they are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism,” the group also said. “When even a statue of a Jewish person can’t get away with it, is that any surprise?”

While Winehouse told interviewers she was “not religious,” she occasionally wore a Star of David necklace while performing and claimed to be proud of her Jewish cultural heritage.

Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have flooded the streets of London in the four months since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas militant group’s October 7 raid, which left 1,200 Israelis dead and 240 more taken captive. 

Israel has killed upwards of 28,000 Palestinians in the enclave since then, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, leading to allegations of genocide filed in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court.