Ban 'racist' Tintin book, says The Commission for Racial Equality

The comic book character Tintin was at the centre of a race row last night after Britain's equality watchdog accused one of the books of making black people "look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles".

The Commission for Racial Equality claimed Tintin In The Congo depicted "hideous racial prejudice" and that it should be removed from sale.

Last night, the Borders chain of bookshops agreed to move it to the adult graphic novels area of its shops, but the official Tintin shop vowed to keep selling it, as did Waterstone's and WH Smith.



Tintin In The Congo was the second comic book, written and drawn by the Belgian author Hergé, to feature the boy reporter. It was first published in 1931 but was redrawn in 1946, when Hergé removed several references to Congo being a Belgian colony.

But the book still contained images such as a black woman bowing to Tintin and saying: "White man very great… White mister is big juju man!"

A spokesman for the CRE said: "This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles."