Colombia’s new right-wing government has ordered one of the country’s top museums to remove dozens of works alluding to LGBTQ rights and the country’s peace process, sparking condemnation from visitors.
Workers were painting one of the empty walls minutes before the space was closed to the public by officials announcing that the government of President Abelardo de la Espriella had ordered a “renovation.”
Culture Minister Paola Holguin defended the decision, stating on X that the museum’s purpose “is NOT to serve as an instrument of political indoctrination.
“They can do whatever they want, they can censor anything they want but memory is never forgotten and will always resist,” said John Fredy Rodriguez, a 34-year-old professor who was accompanying a group of journalism students on a visit to the museum on Friday. Without directly referring to the museum, De la Espriella said on Thursday that the “State has the unavoidable moral and political duty to prevent cultural spaces from being captured by atheistic social communism, an enemy of values.
