Man arrested for vandalising sculpture of naked woman in Algeria

The Ain El Fouara statue has been vandalised in the past too for being 'un-Islamic'

A man has been arrested after he chiseled off the face and breasts of a 120-year-old French sculpture of naked woman in Algeria’s Setif town for being un-Islamic.

The Ain El Fouara (the fountain's source) is a symbolic statue in the town that has been vandalised at least two times in the past too by  religious fundamentalists.

Onlookers captured the whole episode on Monday and shared the videos on social media. A bearded man wearing a qamis (a long tunic) can be seen hitting the breast of the statue with his hammer and chisel.

According to media reports, the assailant termed it as a disgrace, and just a “fetish” for a woman stripped of her clothes, strictly forbidden in Islam.

Despite attempts to stop him at one point, when things were thrown at him and some actually hit him with sticks, the man did not leave the statue alone.



However, one man eventually managed to get up on the statue with a stick in his hand, forcing the man to protect himself, which allowed another man to wrestle his hammer off him.

Police officers later arrived at the scene and arrest him with the help of citizens.

The Ain El Fouara is a work by French sculptor Francis de Saint-Vidal. Unveiled in 1898, it became a symbolic monument in the town ever since and is popular among locals.

The statue was damaged by a homemade bomb in 1997 and also attacked by a man with a hammer in 2006.

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