By Diana Arévalo, Freemuse’s Latin America researcher.
In early 2026, Freemuse published its annual report on the State of Artistic Freedom documenting attacks on artistic freedom worldwide throughout 2025. This update examines developments in the Latin America region in the first half of 2026.
Between January and June 2026, Freemuse and the Bulla platform of Cartel Urbano documented at least 75 violations of artistic freedom across Latin America. The period confirms two patterns already flagged in Freemuse’s State of Artistic Freedom 2026 report: legal and administrative tools are increasingly used to restrict artistic content, and musicians continue to face lethal violence linked to organised crime.
These developments unfold against a broader erosion of civic space in the Americas. The CIVICUS Monitor, a civil society human rights monitoring research tool, rates civic space as closed in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and repressed or obstructed in 13 other countries in the region. The Inter-American Commission’s Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE) has established a three-part test for evaluating restrictions on expression under Article 13 of the American Convention. Several cases below rely on vague administrative criteria or undisclosed justifications that appear difficult to reconcile with that standard.
Across the 75 cases recorded, music was the art form most affected (25 cases), followed by visual arts (23) and performing arts (11). State authorities were directly responsible in 25 cases, while perpetrators remained unknown in 23, mostly killings and threats against musicians attributed to organised crime.
Censorship Through Law and Administrative Order
Censorship and cancellation were the most frequent recorded violations, accounting for 27 of the cases, often through administrative and executive decisions, and new legislation.
Peru: The Ministry of Culture ordered the removal of a satirical sculpture by graduate artist Salvatore Laguna Zelada from a public exhibition minutes before its March opening, arguing it “went against the election period” ahead of the 7 June presidential runoff.
On 13 June, Peru’s Congress published Law No. 32645, creating a Professional Guild of Artists, requiring a formal degree for membership and granting disciplinary powers over its members. Amazonian artistic collectives opposed it, citing data showing 82 per cent of registered artists, trained through ancestral or self-taught paths would be excluded.
Brazil: The Museum of the Portuguese Language in São Paulo closed the exhibition Funk: Um Grito de Ousadia e Liberdade on 31 May, three months early, after a state deputy accused it of normalising organised crime. While the museum cited scheduling reasons, the curator described the decision as censorship rooted in racial bias because of the exhibition’s focus on Black artists.
Argentina: Direct interventions in public cultural space have continued under President Javier Milei. In March, the Casa Rosada removed a reproduction of Helmut Ditsch’s painting El triunfo de la naturaleza (The Triumph of Nature) on display in the presidential palace’s antechamber since 2012, under disputed circumstances. In June, workers at state broadcaster Radio Nacional, represented by press union FATPREN, denounced directives banning the airing of songs by some artists, including singer Lali Espósito a vocal critic of President Milei since 2023 whom he has repeatedly attacked in public; Radio Nacional’s management denied any formal ban, describing its programming choices as “editorial policy.”
Brazil: Legislators and prosecutors continued to target music associated with organised crime narratives, a trend recorded in Brazil since 2025. On 26 April in Fortaleza, funk singer MC Black da Penha was arrested after a performance for lyrics prosecutors said glorified a criminal organisation.
Mexico: In May, Mexico City’s Congress voted unanimously (44 to 0) to reform entertainment and child-protection laws, banning content at concerts and public events that glorifies crime, a measure aimed chiefly at narcocorridos. Its sponsor cited estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 minors have been recruited by criminal groups nationally, while another lawmaker described the measure as preventive.
The reform defines targeted content only as material that “exalts, justifies or normalises” criminal activity without further specification, and had not been published in the city’s official gazette by the end of June.
Protecting children from content that recruits them into organised crime is a legitimate aim, but the RELE’s three-part test requires restrictions to be precisely defined; broad terms like “exalt” or “normalise,” like the “apología” standard used against MC Black da Penha, leave officials wide discretion over which songs or events to sanction.
Contested Walls: Murals and Public Space
Urban art has long served as a form of resistance in Latin America, turning city streets into spaces of critique and satire. That visibility increasingly makes murals a target. Officials, private figures and political actors have removed or painted works, sometimes invoking administrative grounds.
Mexico: In Ciudad Juárez, municipal police detained street artists Miguel “Mick” Martínez and Chuchito Psyon 11 April, hours after they painted a satirical mural of mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar with pig-like features on a private home whose residents had authorised it. Officers later painted over the mural. Authorities said the detentions were for public drinking, not the mural’s content, but opposition leaders called it political censorship.
Later in April, Pachuca’s city government confirmed it had painted over muralist Eduardo Zamora’s work Mi baile de rosa (My dance in pink) without notice, covering it in the ruling party’s colour as part of a “walls rehabilitation” initiative. After public criticism, officials said they would reinstate the work.
Brazil: In Goiânia, businessman Luciano Hang, owner of the Havana retail chain, publicly accused graffiti artist Smith Art Tattoo of vandalism after repainting, with mayor Sandro Mabel, a viaduct wall that had carried the work of internationally recognised artists; Smith said he and his family received threats after Hang’s post.
Colombia: Victims’ relatives, human rights defenders and artists painted a mural near former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s residence in Rionegro reading “7,837 almas que no te dejarán dormir” (“7,837 souls that won’t let you sleep”), describing civilian murders – referencing civilian killings staged as combat deaths by state forces — known as “false positives” and documented by the country’s transitional justice tribunal, the JEP as extra judicial killings. Uribe personally painted over the mural and accused congressman-elect Hernán Muriel, who had helped organise it, of a “terrorist attitude“. Weeks later Colombia’s Constitutional Court took the opposite stance ordering protection for the Medellin mural Las cuchas tienen razón (The Mothers Are Right)linked to victims of the armed conflict and to women searching for missing relatives, ruling it a legitimate artistic expression protected under the country’s 2024 historical memory law.
Violence Against Musicians and Cultural Workers Continues
Killings accounted for 10 cases in the first half of 2026, most of them musicians, concentrated in Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
Peru: Salsa singer Fabio Alejandro was killed outside a nightclub in Lima on 25 January as he arrived to perform. In May, Sergio Joel Ojeda Córdova, technical staff for the cumbia group Los Hermanos Chapoñay, was shot dead by motorcyclists in Piura. Both killings occurred amid extortion with up to 65 Peruvian orchestras paying criminal groups, some as much as 30 per cent of concert earnings.
Mexico: Arturo Rivera, vocalist of Grupo Reacción, was killed mid-performance in Tijuana in March. In May, reggaeton artist Mario Alberto Barreto Domínguez (Degezeta) was killed in Culiacán alongside a team member hours after recording his new album.
Colombia: Alberth Piñeros, founder of the independent cultural space LaK-Zona in Bogotá, was killed outside a venue in the city centre; the case remains unresolved, prompting concern over insecurity facing community and cultural leaders.
In June, musician and cultural manager Alex Jair Yance Castillo, of Galapa’s Casa de la Cultura, was killed by unidentified individuals in Soledad, Atlántico. Authorities have identified no suspects in most cases, reflecting impunity Freemuse and Cartel Urbano have recorded regionally.
Ahead of Colombia’s 21 June presidential runoff, playwright Karen Lizardi and arts student Andrea Rosas, both linked to Bucaramanga’s Municipal School of Arts and Trades, received threats on 10 June – including a death threat against their teachers – after Lizardi declined to publicly back right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who went on to win the vote. After his victory, comedian Camilo Díaz (Culotauro), ended his satirical podcast and left the country following threats.
Cuba: A Closed Space for Independent Art
Cuba’s five cases in this period illustrate a different dynamic: the direct use of state institutions to detain and prosecute independent artists. In February, State Security detained content creators Kamil Zayas and Ernesto Rodríguez Medina over social media posts critical of the government; both were later placed in pre-trial detention.
In March, visual artist and musician Leonard Richard González Alfonso was sentenced to seven years for propaganda against the constitutional order. In June, rapper Andrés Matos Alcántara (Matos MC K-Libre), and cameraman Christian Rodríguez Riverón, a contributor to the satirical YouTube channel “Despingovery Channel,” were both held after responding to police summonses described to them as routine.
Signs of Pushback
Argentina: On 21 January, Argentine courts rejected an attempt to block the release of Gordon, a Netflix series on Aníbal Gordon, a Triple A (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina) death-squad leader later convicted of crimes against humanity. The court stated that blocking the series would amount to disproportionate censorship.
Uruguay: On 23 January, the child protection body INAU reversed a restrictive rating on the carnival troupe (Murgas, a Montevideo carnival tradition dating to 1909, have long used political satire and social critique as their defining feature) Doña Bastarda, after the group explained the satirical intent behind the contested lyrics.
Brazil: On 23 February, a Brazilian appeals court acquitted comedian Léo Lins of discrimination charges tied to a 2022 stand-up show. In May, Palmas’ municipal government repealed a law that had barred public funding for artists whose work was deemed to glorify organised crime, following a prosecutor’s recommendation and pressure from Black and urban art collectives denounced it as prior censorship.
In June, Vitória’s mayor vetoed a bill that would have barred children and adolescents from parades and events related to sexual orientation and the promotion of abortion.
These cases show courts and legislators remain a meaningful check on censorship, even as authorities elsewhere expand administrative and financial tools against artists.
Latin America silenced its artists in the first half of 2026 through administrative discretion, vague legislation and unresolved violence against musicians and cultural workers. These cases form part of a broader erosion of democratic space across the region. Freemuse and Cartel Urbano will keep tracking how state power and criminal violence shape what artists can say, and where.
