On Oct. 25-27 and Nov. 1-3, the Human Rights Foundation protested Gustavo Dudamel in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California.

The HRF noted that Dudamel has received millions of dollars in off-the-books payments from the Maduro and Chavez dictatorships through “El Sistema,” a state-run music education program, which HRF alleges is an important tool for the Venezuelan regime’s propaganda efforts.

The organization also noted that the money he has received from the regime has kept Dudamel silent.

HRF also noted that to expose enablers of the Venezuelan tyranny, it was present, with advertising trucks asking Dudamel why he continues to serve as Maduro’s “puppet and henchman” and calling out Maduro for stealing the election from Edmundo González, the man Venezuelans overwhelmingly voted for as their next president.

In a letter to audience members, HRF said, Dudamel “gently criticizes the dictatorship in public while, in private, serving as an unofficial ambassador for Venezuela’s tyranny. He has been silent in the face of years and years of repression and violence in Venezuela. He refuses to condemn Maduro. Dudamel refuses to call out the human rights violations of the regime. Dudamel says nothing about the stolen election of July 28, 2024,”

It is not the first time that Dudamel has faced protests. Back in August, HRF condemned Gustavo Dudamel for conducting the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela on August 2, 2024, and pianist Gabriela Montero spoke out against Dudamel stating, “A regime that has destroyed our country and is stealing yet another election will send its most effective propaganda machine – children – to America’s most illustrious halls under Dudamel’s baton, and no fellow musician among my friends joins me to condemn it.”