Bulgarian Anti-Govt Protesters Turn to Banksy for 'Support'

A picture from the Bulgarian antigovernment rally on Tuesday, when violent clashes with riot police occurred, has been published on one of Facebook pages of popular graffiti artist Banksy.

The picture, made by photographer Anton Stankov, shows a riot policeman in heavy gear carrying a pack of toilet paper and a bunch of leek which he has obviously just confiscated.

The picture, accompanied by the comment: "Sofia, BULGARIA, 12.11.2013, Riots against the government. Heavy equipped police officer confiscated dangerous weapons from the criminals and rebbels on the streets," gained huge popularity, and has been shared over 1 000 times after it was published Tuesday.

The Banksy page in question, most likely, maintained by Bulgarian fans of the artist, the sites Darik News and Vesti.bg write, has over 17 000 followers and 200 of them have shared the picture.

There several more similar pages on the social network and the most popular one has 877 000 followers.

After the publication of Stankov's picture, an initiative was launched on Twitter where people sign a petition to Banksy, to ask him to include the word "resignation" in one of his next works.

Banksy is a pseudonymous United Kingdom-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.

His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.

Known for his contempt for the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.

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