A barbarian act it is. Sad to say it is by far not the frist such act in history and I fear not the last as well. The word for it comes from Christian history: iconoclasm.
When the Christian missionaries came to what now is Germany, they were proud to cut down the holy oaks of the Saxons and to destroy their places of worship.

And let's not forget Book of Numbers, Chapter 33, verses 50-53:
And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it..

Wolfgang