France

In June 2020, Diyabanza and several others entered the Quai Branly museum in Paris, which has around 70,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa.^[6] They took a 19th-century funeral post of the Bari people; police recovered the object and held Diyabanza in custody for three days. A judge fined him €1,000 for attempted theft.^[4][7] Diyabanza protested that his actions were "part of a protest rather than an attempted theft".^[8] The five activists he worked with faced up to ten years in prison and a fine of €150,000 each;^[9] four of them were eventually given fines of €250 to €1000 each but avoided prison.^[10]

A month later, in Marseille, Diyabanza tried to remove an ivory spear from the Museum of African, Oceanian and Native American Art [fr] (MAAOA). Charges were brought against him but he was acquitted in court.^[4][11] He was ordered to pay the Louvre €5,000 and a deferred prison term in Paris for removing an object from a display case in the museum.^[12][13] The museum claimed that Diyabanza had "tarnished its image because (his) action had an international and world-media echo".^[14]

The Netherlands

In September 2020 he removed a Congolese funerary statue from the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal. In January the following year, he was given a two-month suspended sentence and a €250 fine, including two years probation. Two women who filmed the event and two men who assisted Diyabanza in removing the object were each fined €100 and given one-month suspended prison sentences and two years probation, and all five were banned from entering the museum for three years.^[15] Diyabanza believes that when he was at the museum, he saw a bracelet belonging to his grandfather, but did not take it as it was protected by a glass case.^[3]