Salvador: Nayib Bukele announces purge at the Ministry of Culture

The President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele announced Thursday the dismissal of more than 300 officials from the Ministry of Culture who he accuses of promoting projects “incompatible” with the “vision” of his government, a measure which according to his detractors targets the people with liberal views on gender issues.

Culture Minister Raul Castillo, appointed a week ago, “will proceed to dismiss more than 300 employees of the ministry, who promote programs incompatible with the vision of this government,” Nayib Bukele announced.

“In addition, we will save public funds,” he wrote on the social network X. The Salvadoran president, who began his second term in early June after a triumphant re-election in February, did not specify which “programs” or “vision” he was talking about.

“Inappropriate content”

But El Salvador’s ambassador to the United States, Milena Mayorga, responded by saying on X that the government “has a mandate to protect life, faith and family” and that “the anti-values ​​agenda has hit a big wall.”

And Bukele camp MP Alexia Rivas said that “El Salvador is pro-life, pro-traditional family, and the 2030 Agenda has no place” in the country, referring to a United Nations development program that advocates gender equality and the fight against discrimination.

At the beginning of June, the Ministry of Culture canceled, after a single performance at the National Theater, a play by the LGBTQI+ project Inari, deemed “immoral” because it featured “content unsuitable for Salvadoran families”.

“One more attack”

Salvadoran actor Marvin Pleitez, alias LadyDrag, subsequently denounced on social networks the dismissal of around thirty civil servants accused of having initially authorized the play to be performed at the National Theater.

The purge in the ministry is “one more attack” on the rights of the LGBTQ community, denounced Aranza Santos, of the Alejandria LGBTQI+ Collective. According to her, Nayib Bukele “is doing this to please the ultraconservatives who are putting pressure on him.”

In February, the Salvadoran Ministry of Education ordered the removal of all mentions relating to gender from school textbooks, a decision welcomed by conservative groups.

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