When cultural sites are defaced, destroyed, or disrespected

Peruvian authorities say that a group of tourists hid and illegally stayed the night at the restricted Temple of the Sun segment of Machu Picchu. According to investigators, one of the tourists had defecated among the ruins.

Five of the group of six were set to be deported. Authorities said that one man from Argentina would face charges of "destroying Peru's cultural heritage," after admitting to trying to remove a stone and causing damage. This could carry a prison sentence of four years. In one past case at the site, two Chileans paid $100,000 for early release on receiving a six-month sentence.

The UNESCO World Heritage site dating back to around 1450 in southern Peru, near Cusco, has been struggling with a boom in tourism in recent years. Even the foot traffic of the thousands of visitors to the site each day is doing irreparable damage to the stone structure in the mountains. The Peru Telegraph has reported that visitor numbers went from below 80,000 in 1991 to 1.5 million by 2018.

The sculpture of author Hans Christian Andersen's character, The Little Mermaid, has been painted more than once over the years. In 2017, it was rendered blood red, along with a message criticizing whaling off the Faroe Islands. Copenhagen police are investigating the latest case, earlier this week, when people spray painted "Free Hong Kong" in red on the rock on which the Little Mermaid sits.

The statue has been a repeated target since its unveiling in 1913. In 1964, the politically-oriented artists of the Situationist movement sawed off and stole her head. It was never recovered, but was replaced. Four years later it was cut off again. The culprits were never found, but the head was returned anonymously. In 2003, the statue was blown off its base and later found in the water.

Paris' Arc de Triomphe faced the ire of the Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) movement in December 2018. Here, cleanup crews are removing graffiti from the capital's most-visited landmark. The large black lettering says "The Yellow Vests will Triumph." The site was closed for repairs in the aftermath, although it still pulled in more than 1.6 million visitors in 2019.

Some protesters targeted exhibits at the museum within the Arc, even damaging a statue of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic. The damages coincided with one of the worst days of Yellow Vests protests, with more than 100 people injured and over 400 arrested. It prompted President Emmanuel Macron to comment from the G20 summit he was attending in Argentina.

At the Middle East's Arc du Triomphe, in the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, "Islamic State" militants caused considerable damage when in control of the territory. AFP photographer Joseph Eid later retraced his steps carrying photos taken in 2014, just before Palmyra fell into IS hands, demonstrating the extent of the destruction.

The ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali also suffered at the hand of Islamist occupiers recently. Despite damage to the ancient city, some of its most precious relics in the Great Library of Timbuktu were saved. A local scholar and community leader, Abdel Kader Haidara, orchestrated a secret smuggling mission to save thousands of ancient books and manuscripts; many are now being restored in Hamburg.

The massive hole in this cliff face, which is situated on the old Silk Road linking China with Central Asia and beyond, once housed a giant 6th century statue of Buddha. Two such statues were blown up by the Taliban in 2001, just months before the regime was toppled by a US-led coalition in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The Auschwitz Museum in March last year urged visitors to remember they were at a site where more than 1 million people were killed. It highlighted one particular trend, balancing on the train tracks for social media photos. "There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolizes the deportation of hundreds of thousands to their death," the museum wrote.

Berlin's Holocaust memorial has also faced vandalism. The monument is a large collection of 2,711 gray concrete slabs (or stelae) in a grid pattern. Inaugurated in 2005, swastikas were removed from some of the stelae that same year, and again in 2009. Police boosted security in 2014 after New Year's Eve videos emerged of people launching fireworks from stelae and urinating on the site.

An ode to veteran Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic was erected and unveiled in Malmo, his first club, in October last year. But in hindsight, the timing could have been better...

A month later, in November, Ibrahimovic became a part owner of Stockholm club Hammarby IF, a major rival to Malmo FF, saying he wanted to help make the side "the biggest in Scandinavia." Hardcore fans were incensed. After repeated acts of vandalism, the statue was removed. Sawing at its ankles in the early hours of January 5 delivered the decisive blow.