Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Colombia’s National Museum on Saturday to protest an order by the country’s new right-wing president to remove works related to feminism, the LGBTQ community, the country’s peace process and other topics.
Dozens of pieces were taken down from the walls this week after President Abelardo de la Espriella’s government said the museum should not “serve as an instrument of political indoctrination”.
Geography professor Paola Castaneda handed out stickers with images of the censored works and honor the museum’s longstanding efforts to preserve the country’s historical, artistic and cultural memory.
“Decisions are being made to rewrite that memory, that history, according to the narrative the government wants to promote,” the 35-year-old told AFP.
The day’s protests were peaceful, with music, songs and chants, including “we are artists, we are not terrorists”.
But they turned violent at night, when riot police broke up the protest with stun grenades, tear gas and a water cannon.
On Thursday, De la Espriella said the state “has the unavoidable moral and political duty to prevent cultural spaces from being captured by atheist social-communism, an enemy of values”.
The new president, who was elected to office without past experience in politics, has also warned against so-called “woke” culture, which he described as “one of the great cancers threatening national unity.”
In a statement, Bogota’s Museum of Modern Art and five other institutions signed a statement expressing “deep concern” over the changes at the National Museum, calling on the culture minister to “guarantee the autonomy of museums.”
“No government should decide what we are allowed to see of our history according to its political affinities, nor impose a version that erases all others,” the statement said.
Leti Munos, a 59-year-old retiree carrying a feminist flag, decried the move.
“I feel a great sense of hopelessness, because a work of art is a work of art. It is not a threat,” Munos said.
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