Prominent UK museums refuse to participate in Saudi cultural agreement

Originally posted to The Middle East Monitor website, 11 March 2022

A number of prominent museums in the UK are boycotting a cultural agreement struck between the British and Saudi governments, as organisations around the world continue to express concern over the Kingdom’s human rights record.

The memorandum of understanding was signed near the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last month by UK Secretary of State for Culture, Nadine Dorries, and her Saudi counterpart, Prince Badr bin Abdullah, with the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) stating the initiative “involves focusing on collaborations in the film, museum and heritage sectors”.

The initiative, according to the Saudi newspaper the Arab News, will serve in “developing cooperation to preserve Saudi heritage … enhancing participation in cultural festivals and artist residency programmes between government and private institutions, holding capacity building programmes and joint cultural seminars”.

Those institutions include museums, in particular, with the DCMS having announced that “All 1,800 UK museums can participate. It also involves a trade mission in its early stages.”

Several British museums have refused to participate in the initiative, however, including the Tate, National Gallery and British Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum has also refused to be part of it, according to one of its spokeswomen, confirming that it “is not participating in activity as part of the cultural agreement between the UK and Saudi Arabia”.

The museums have reportedly not revealed their reasons for their refusal, but it is predicted to likely be due to Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record, as concern has increased in recent years over certain controversies such as the killing of exiled journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018 and other attempted assassinations since then.

Prominent UK museums refuse to participate in Saudi cultural agreement