A Congolese student has launched legal action in Belgium to have a controversial comic book declared racist and banned from book stores. Mbutu Mondondo Bienvenu, who lives in Brussels, claims Tintin in the Congo portrays Africans as stereotypical black characters and is seeking ‘symbolic’ damages from Moulinsart, the firm which owns the rights to the comic book. “I want to put an end to sales of this cartoon book in shops, both for children and for adults,” he said. “It’s racist and it is filled with colonial-era propaganda.” An earlier attempt to ban the edition from bookstores was made by the Commission for Racial Equality. One chain moved it from the children’s section to adult graphic novels, with the publicity prompting a jump in sales.