A panel was removed from the base of the statue of the campaigner at Belfast City Council.

The statue was erected on Sunday to mark the 44th anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death.

He died on May 5th during the 1981 hunger strike, when he was aged 27.

Responding to the furore over the sculpture, Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council insisted social media can ‘amplify’ negative viewpoints.

The 16.5 meter statue will be installed at the second-biggest shopping mall in the US, American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey