CONGO ACTIVIST DIYABANZA FINED
CONGO ACTIVIST DIYABANZA FINED
He knew what could happen, but he did it anyway. On June 12, this year, 2020, Congolese activist Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza and two others dislodged and attempted to remove a piece of African art, a 19th century Chadian funerary object, from the Quai Branley Museum in Paris, France.
On Wednesday October 14, 2020, a French court convicted the activist (and his accomplices) of attempted theft and ordered them to pay a $2,320 fine. The penalty was much less than the prison sentence of ten years and a $176,000 fine they could have faced, a news report on artnetNews said.
Diyabanza and the two others acted "as part of a demand that France repatriate African heritage taken during the colonial era."
A report on the BBC website headlined "France fines Congo activist for seizing museum artefact" said: "An activist has been fined 901 pounds for removing an African artefact from a Paris museum in protest at France's colonial-era looting of art." The protest in June was live-streamed.
The judge at Emery's trial for aggravated robbery told him "You have other ways of drawing the attention of politicians and the public" to the issue of colonial cultural theft.
The BBC report continued: "France is not the only country facing protests over its colonial-era artefacts. In the UK, a 33-year-old man was found guilty in absentia last month of threatening behaviour during a protest at the Museum of London's slavery related gallery after he reportedly toppled a number of sculptures from their plinths."
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