A historic monument that marks Karl Marx’s grave has been vandalised for the second time in two weeks.
Photographs shared by Highgate Cemetery show the memorial sprayed with phrases such as “Architect of genocide, terror and oppression” in red paint.
The words “doctrine of hate” were also painted on the Grade I-listed monument memorial in north London.
The Highgate Cemetry twitter account shared the photos of the damage on Saturday.
The tweet read: “Red paint this time, plus the marble tablet smashed up. Senseless. Stupid. Ignorant. Whatever you think about Marx’s legacy, this is not the way to make the point.”
Last week gardeners found vandals had damaged the monument perhaps beyond repair.
The damage was done by someone “hitting it repeatedly with a metal instrument,” the chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, Ian Dungavell told HuffPost UK.
He added they would get specialists to repair the damage but said: “it will never be the same again.”
He said: “What’s upsetting is attempts to make vandalism part of the political process, but I’m heartened by the people who aren’t Marxists but know it’s not the way to treat the monument of such an important historical figure.
“If it is a far-right ideological attack, then people will know it’s wrong and we need to have political debate out in the open and not resort to crude vandalism.”
The vandals targeted an original gravestone which Marx himself had purchased, which was set in place after his burial in 1883.
The monument, which has become a site of pilgrimage for the admirers of his work, was constructed in 1954 and incorporated the gravestone.
The monument has been attacked previously, most notably during the 1970s, when according to Dungavell, vandals damaged the face of the bust and attempted to put a bomb inside it to destroy it.
No arrests have been made over the 4 February attack.