> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Trotsky’s house museum in Mexico City declares itself an ‘apartheid-free space’ - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/trotsky-house-museum-mexico-city-declares-itself-apartheid-free-space/ - Published: 2026-11-04T04:26:07.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-04T04:27:40.000Z - Description: Mexico’s Organization of American States ambassador addressed the ceremony by video. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Government and Cultural Heritage, #public-access The museum in the Mexico City house where Leon Trotsky was assassinated declared itself an “Apartheid Free Space” in solidarity with Palestinians, joining the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The Museo Casa de León Trotsky, in the Coyoacán borough, marked the declaration last month with a plaque at its front entrance. The ceremony drew a full auditorium, the [Movimiento Socialista del Poder Popular said](https://poderpopular.mx/museo-casa-de-leon-trotsky-se-declara-espacio-libre-de-apartheid/?ref=urgentmatter.press). The Mexican socialist group MSP belongs to the Fourth International Trotsky founded and took part in the ceremony. MSP also [published the speech](https://poderpopular.mx/declaracion-del-museo-de-trotsky-como-espacio-libre-de-apartheid-israeli/?ref=urgentmatter.press) given by the museum’s director, Gabriela Pérez Noriega. “For the Leon Trotsky Museum / Right of Asylum Institute, it is a point of pride to be the first museum in Mexico to declare itself an Apartheid Free Space. At the same time, this decision should not surprise anyone,” Pérez Noriega said. “Support for national liberation struggles in general, and for the Palestinian cause in particular, is a fundamental part of the heritage and the program of revolutionary Marxism and of Leon Trotsky,” she said. [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) MSP’s account called the museum the first in Latin America and the third in the world to join the campaign, which the BDS movement calls [Apartheid Free Zones](https://bdsmovement.net/apartheid-free-zones?ref=urgentmatter.press) in English. Quds News Network, a Palestinian news site, [also called it the third in the world](https://qudsnen.com/post?id=68561&slug=mexico-citys-leon-trotsky-house-museum-declares-itself-apartheid-free-space-in-solidarity-with-palestinians&ref=urgentmatter.press) in a Tuesday report but did not name the other two museums. Urgent Matter confirmed one museum that joined earlier. The African American Heritage Museum & Cultural Center in Seattle declared its site an Apartheid Free Zone at a May 18, 2021 vigil, the museum [said on its website](https://africanamericanheritagemuseumandculturalcenter.org/2021/05/21/the-african-american-heritage-museum-cultural-center-declares-it-is-an-apartheid-free-zone-in-solidarity-with-palestine-indigenous-peoples-everywhere/?ref=urgentmatter.press). The BDS movement’s national committee [listed it](https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/dozens-new-apartheid-free-zones-declared-around-world?ref=urgentmatter.press) among new zones that June. The Seattle museum’s post said it was then operating as an open-air museum. Urgent Matter could not identify a second museum that joined before the Trotsky museum. Kunsthal Gent, a contemporary art space in Belgium, says on [its website](https://kunsthal.gent/en/about/apartheidvrije-zone-en?ref=urgentmatter.press) that it has joined the campaign, without giving a date. Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez, Mexico’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States, sent a video message to the ceremony, MSP said. MSP said Rafael Barajas Durán, a cartoonist who signs his work El Fisgón, announced that Morena’s political training institute, which he heads, would follow the museum’s example. Morena is Mexico’s governing party. ## Sign up for Urgent Matter This article is provided free with the support of paying subscribers. Not ready for a paid subscription? Sign up for a free account today. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. The museum’s flyer also listed Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, the coordinator of advisers in President Claudia Sheinbaum’s office, among the participants. MSP’s accounts of the ceremony do not mention him, and Urgent Matter could not confirm whether he attended. Other participants included Gilberto Conde, a researcher at El Colegio de México’s Center for Asian and African Studies; [Silvana Rabinovich](https://www.siia.unam.mx/siia-publico/c/crear%5Fpdf.php?id=94921&ref=urgentmatter.press), a philosopher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Philological Research; La Jornada columnist Pedro Miguel; and Germán Romano, Latin America and Caribbean coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The museum announced the ceremony in a [September 28 Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/museocasadeleontrotsky/posts/pfbid027BJsY2LFW8BTCbkmeyVpGLfA5NegrSEUBF1BmN71Svp8qQkFTDM6gEEMMSrfhi3gl) of graphics, which Urgent Matter translated. “Being an Apartheid Free Space (ELA) implies a principled commitment to equal rights for all people, as well as promoting the creation of spaces of proactive international solidarity that are free of racism, discrimination, domination and oppression,” one graphic said. “It is not possible to ‘act as if nothing were happening’ and go on with life ‘as usual’ in the midst of genocide and apartheid,” the graphic said. “As people of conscience, we want to guarantee that the spaces in which we participate do not contribute to the maintenance of a genocidal and apartheid regime nor benefit from grave human rights violations, which includes being influenced or conditioned by any of these,” another graphic said. Much of the wording on the graphics matches the BDS National Committee’s English-language [description of the campaign](https://bdsmovement.net/apartheid-free-zones?ref=urgentmatter.press) and its [organizing toolkit](https://bdsmovement.net/sites/default/files/TOOLKIT%5FBDS%5FPRINT.pdf?ref=urgentmatter.press). The graphics set the text over red-tinted portraits of Trotsky, a ribbon in the colors of the Palestinian flag and a photo of his grave in the museum garden, a stone slab carved with his name and a hammer and sickle beneath a red flag. One graphic quoted a short poem by Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul about birds and warplanes. The post and the director’s speech do not specify which suppliers, partners or practices the museum might change. An organization that joins the campaign “commits to refrain from providing any kind of support to Israel’s regime of oppression,” the BDS movement says on its website. Conde said the museum showed that people can take action from home, work or school, MSP said. “We must not buy products through which human rights violations are committed, such as the products of technology companies and companies of other kinds that collaborate in the colonization of Palestine,” he said. He named Google and Amazon, MSP said. In her speech, Pérez Noriega said Trotsky warned in the 1930s that Zionism, “because of its alliance with imperialism and racist policies against the local Arab population, was a death trap for refugees seeking a safe place in Palestine.” She said the Fourth International’s small Palestinian section, the Revolutionary Communist League, opposed the UN’s 1947 plan to partition Palestine and the establishment of Israel. “Today, the alliance between the most reactionary forces of imperialism, first of all the government of Donald Trump in the United States, and Zionism, embodied not only in Benjamin Netanyahu but in the entire Israeli political class, is increasingly repudiated around the world,” she said. Pérez Noriega said the declaration aligned with Mexican public opinion. She cited Pew Research Center polls showing more than two-thirds of Mexicans view Israel unfavorably and 29% favorably. Pew’s [most recent survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/06/04/most-people-across-36-countries-have-negative-views-of-israel-and-little-confidence-in-netanyahu/?ref=urgentmatter.press) in Mexico, conducted between February and May, found 59% of Mexican adults held an unfavorable view of Israel and 23% a favorable one. Tania Valadez, a physician in MSP’s leadership, spoke about what a museum can do when governments cite non-interference and decline to act, MSP said. “It can refuse to be complicit. It can declare that it does not belong to that system. It can tell the world, with a door, a wall and a declaration, that at least here Palestinian blood is not traded and Palestinian suffering is not silenced,” she said. Rabinovich questioned the “Mexican humanism” that the current government champions, MSP said. “Any government that prides itself on being truly sovereign, and especially if it is guided by Mexican humanism and respect for the self-determination of peoples, must sanction Israel and the rogue states that sustain it. Embargo now!” she said. Gaza’s [Health Ministry](https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza?ref=urgentmatter.press) said Tuesday that 74,615 Palestinians have been killed and 175,899 injured in the territory since October 7, 2023\. That includes 1,599 killed and 5,774 injured since a ceasefire took effect in October 2025, the ministry said. The Israel Defense Forces [alleged Monday](https://x.com/IDF/status/2117154787267346511?ref=urgentmatter.press) that recent airstrikes killed alleged Hamas operatives it accused of advancing attacks on its troops “in systematic violation of the ceasefire.” A spokesperson for the UN human rights office, Mayy El Sheikh, [said Friday](https://news.un.org/en/audio/2026/10/1168709?ref=urgentmatter.press) that Israeli forces apparently treat the so-called yellow line, which marks where they are deployed in Gaza, “as a kill zone where hundreds of Palestinians have already been shot.” The [office said](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/10/1168707?ref=urgentmatter.press) Israel has stated it aims to expand its military deployment to 70% of Gaza’s territory. Trotsky arrived in Mexico in 1937 after President Lázaro Cárdenas granted him asylum. He lived in the house with his wife, Natalia Sedova, from 1939 until August 1940, when Ramón Mercader, an agent of Joseph Stalin’s secret police, attacked him there with an ice axe. Diplomat Javier Wimer Zambrano founded the Right of Asylum Institute, which runs the museum, on August 21, 1990, a [plaque at the museum’s entrance](https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=106866&ref=urgentmatter.press) says. Mexico City’s tourism office [says](https://mexicocity.cdmx.gob.mx/venues/leon-trotsky-house-museum/?lang=es&ref=urgentmatter.press) the museum hosts about 50,000 young people each year. *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/mta-first-amendment-museum-of-sex-bus-ads/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*