News from Civsy, based on generative AI tools and retrieval-augumented real time data searchAs the world turns its eyes toward the Nobel Peace Prize Awards on 10th December and the announced presence in Oslo of Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña, reportedly among the leaders expected to attend at the invitation of Venezuelan laureate María Corina Machado, there is a rare opportunity to spotlight a quieter but deeply troubling development: the renewed pressure on artistic freedom in Paraguay.
An arts sector with right to dissent
Over the past few years, the country’s independent cultural scene has become a frontline for broader struggles over democracy, pluralism and the right to dissent, now illustrated by emblematic censorship cases that have drawn international attention from professional art bodies and human rights organisations. Artists, curators and cultural managers describe a climate where legal harassment, moral panic and institutional neglect increasingly shape what can safely be shown, performed or discussed. This trend does not always take the form of explicit bans; more often, it appears through vandalism, court cases, targeted inspections and the selective application of regulations, all of which send a powerful message about the costs of critical or non‑conforming expression.
Legacy of Authoritarianism and Moral Conservatism
To understand the present moment, it is necessary to recall Paraguay’s long authoritarian history and the slow, incomplete transition that followed the Stroessner dictatorship, which left a legacy of weak institutions, politicized justice and persistent impunity. Although the constitution formally protects freedom of expression, international monitors such as Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International continue to register concerns about pressure on journalists, human rights defenders and critical voices, signalling that practice often lags behind principle. A strongly conservative political and religious establishment presents itself as guardian of “morality” and “the family,” and this rhetoric frequently becomes a tool to discredit or constrain contemporary art seen as challenging gender norms, religious values or national identity, particularly when it touches on sexuality or LGBTQ+ lives. In this environment, art that addresses historical memory, corruption, land conflict or queer identities is easily portrayed as an attack on the nation rather than a contribution to democratic debate, and institutions tend to protect those calling for censorship rather than those targeted by it.
Censorship and Vandalism of Ruth Flores’s “Tentacles of Power”
One of the clearest recent examples is the case of visual artist Ruth Flores, whose work “Tentacles of Power” was attacked and effectively censored in Asunción on 30 November 2024. The work, installed in a public institutional space, was torn down and stomped on during the attack, which the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) describes as involving the participation of a state official, Vanessa Vázquez, thereby directly implicating public authority in the destruction of the piece. In its 15 January 2025 statement, AICA condemned both the vandalism and the institutional failure to protect the work as a serious violation of Flores’s artistic freedom and of Paraguay’s obligations under international human rights standards, framing the incident as a paradigmatic case of censorship through violence. For many in the cultural field, the Flores case shows how quickly moral panic and political discomfort can translate into the physical suppression of artworks when public discourse legitimizes the idea that certain forms of art are dangerous or illegitimate.
La Chispa and the Criminalization of a Cultural Centre
Equally emblematic is the ongoing legal persecution of La Chispa, an independent cultural centre in the historic centre of Asunción known as a bastion of art, diversity and community organising. In mid‑August 2025, a criminal court sentenced La Chispa’s coordinator, cultural manager Sebastián Coronel, to nine months of suspended prison on the basis of municipal regulations and criminal provisions linked to alleged noise and environmental offences, despite defence arguments that the key municipal ordinance invoked had been repealed. Coverage in Paraguayan daily ABC Color and regional outlet Agencia Presentes highlighted that Coronel’s lawyers denounced the use of an abrogated ordinance and that one of the judges on the panel issued a dissenting opinion, underscoring serious legal‑procedural concerns in the ruling. In a 26 August 2025 statement, AICA characterised the sentence as a form of criminalisation of cultural work and an attack on an independent space central to diversity and critical art in Asunción, warning that the case sets a dangerous precedent for cultural managers across the country.
LGBTQ+ Expression and the Bruno Almada Comas Precedent
Queer‑themed art remains one of the main lightning rods for censorship in Paraguay, intersecting with a wider regional backlash against gender and sexual diversity. From film festivals to drag performances and visual art, cultural expressions that centre LGBTQ+ experiences regularly attract hostility from conservative groups, who mobilise petitions, media campaigns and political pressure to block or delegitimise such events, often invoking the protection of children or public morals. The earlier case of queer artist and actor Bruno Almada Comas, documented by Amnesty International in a 2018 urgent action, shows this pattern clearly: Almada Comas faced the risk of prison over a performance in which religious symbols and queer identity intersected, prompting Amnesty to warn that the criminal proceedings amounted to a violation of artistic freedom and non‑discrimination obligations. This documented precedent reinforces the sense among LGBTQ+ artists that the law can be selectively deployed against them when their work challenges dominant religious or moral narratives, and it continues to shape the risks perceived by younger generations entering the field.
Why This Matters as President Peña Takes the Global Stage
President Peña, elected in 2023 on a platform of stability and economic modernisation, presides over a country where artists and cultural managers are facing vandalism, criminal convictions and legal uncertainty for the simple act of keeping spaces open to dissent and diversity. The dissonance between the language of democracy and innovation used in global forums and the reality experienced by artists like Ruth Flores and Sebastián Coronel is impossible to ignore. If Paraguay wishes to be recognised as a committed democratic actor in global cultural life, the minimum test will be whether it can guarantee that no artist sees their work destroyed with the involvement of state officials and no cultural manager is dragged through the courts on the basis of repealed ordinances for sustaining spaces of free expression.
