Louvre, activist arrested who wanted to remove a work to return it to its country of origin

Singular action at the Louvre, where a Congolese activist, Mwazulu Diyabanza, was arrested for trying to take a 19th-century Indonesian sculpture out of the Paris museum with the aim of returning it to its country of origin (the statue comes from the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia). Incidentally, it is not even a Louvre work, but an object that was on loan from the Musée du quai Branly. The incident happened last Thursday.Diyabanza is an ardent supporter of campaigns to return works to their countries of origin, initiated by many European museums, but evidently the man thought he would speed up the processes with his gesture.

In a video posted on social media (later deleted by order of the authorities), Diyabanza could be seen removing the sculpture from its base, before the intervention of the surveillance officer: the activist was obviously caught in the act, arrested and then transferred to a prison on the outskirts of the French capital, but was later released on Sunday. According to Diyabanza’s lawyer, the judge deemed the case “complex,” and set the trial for December 3: in the meantime, Diyabanza has been caught up with a court order banning him from entering any museum.

Diyabanza is no stranger to such actions: he had already tried in June, just at the Musée du quai Branly, and had managed to dodge the theft charge because his lawyers had defended him by claiming that his was not an attempted theft, but a political protest. The man therefore got off with a 1,000-euro fine. Diyabanza, who claims to be “an African politician and humanist committed to the dignity of human beings and the effective liberation of Africa from all forms of domination,” and who has a widely followed Facebook page, described the gesture made at the Louvre as a “peaceful action.”

Louvre, activist arrested who wanted to remove a work to return it to its country of origin

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