The statue depicts the mythical figure Khru Kai Kaeo, a winged demon with fangs and crimson talons who is said to be the teacher of Jayavarman VII, a former king of the Khmer empire. Some also regard Khru Kai Kaeo as a god of wealth.

The statue, which was erected in August, drew criticism because some locals found it to be “un-Buddhist and scary,” according to the Nation Thailand. Aside from startling passersby, it spurred online group discussions of devotion to Khru Kai Kaeo.

In response, a group called the Council of Artists Supporting Thai Buddhism urged the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to remove the statue. They claimed that the statue’s worshippers were engaging in practices such as animal sacrifice.

On Thursday, the statue was removed from its place in front of the hotel, the Nation Thailand reported. Instead, it will now be sited at the back of the hotel.

For violating the Building Control Act, the hotel’s operator, Suan Lum Night Bazaar Ratchadaphisek, has also been ordered to pay a fine of 1.3 million baht (approximately $37,793).

In a statement, Hungary’s culture ministry accused Laszlo L. Simon, who became director of the museum in 2021 and was appointed for a for a five-year term, of non-compliance with national law that bans the display of LGBTQ+ content to people under the age of 18, according to the AP.

The contested imagery was exhibited at the museum as part of World Press Photo exhibition, a showcase of photojournalism put on by a Netherlands-based non-profit, that this year drew an estimated 50,000 visitors—many of them students. Images displayed in the exhibition range from depictions of violence from the war in Ukraine to the Afghan subjects affected by the U.S.’s abrupt withdrawal from country in February 2020.

The country’s controversial anti-LGBTQ+ law went into effect in June 2021, when Hungary’s parliament, controlled by the right-wing political group Fidesz, made it illegal to circulate written and visual media via television, films and advertisements that “promotes or portrays” homosexuality and “sex change” or “divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth” in educational venues.

Late last month, Hungary’s government, led by nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán, moved to censor views of the photography exhibition at the Budapest institution, over a group of five images included in a documentary project by Filipina photographer Hannah Reyes Morales. Images from the project, titled “Golden Gays of Manila” depict elderly members of a queer collective and shelter in the Philippines. In some of the images Morales’s subjects can be seen dressed in drag and wearing makeup.

In a statement on his Facebook page on Monday, Simon, a politician associated with Hungary’s Fidesz party who formerly served as secretary of state with the cultural ministry, denied the accusation that the museum’s leadership had violated Hungary’s 2021 law. The museum published an online notice on its website and at the entrance to the World Press Photo exhibition that the showcase was restricted to visitors over 18.

While Hungary’s government officials have argued the restrictive morality law’s purpose is to protect children from sexualized imagery under the Child Protection Act, the European Parliament and European Commission have leveled a lawsuit against it in Europe’s highest courts. 15 European countries have joined in legal action against the 2021 law, which the EU has alleged is discriminatory and violates international trade law.

A representative for Hungary’s cultural ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The exhibition, titled Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III, is the third installment of the “Spectrosynthesis” exhibition series on LGBTQ+ Asian art, which was put together by the Sunpride Foundation, an organization founded by Hong Kong real estate developer Patrick Sun to support queer Asian art in 2014.

The work removed was a video from Taiwanese-American artist Shu Lea Cheang’s “3x3x6” series, a mixed media installation showing the stories of ten jailed sexual and gender non-conformists. In the show, it was replaced by a document of rejection for explicit sexual content. The piece debuted in the Palazzo delle Prigioni—the site of a former prison—at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Cheang has been pushing the bounds of internet–based art with her exploration of queer cinema since the 1980s. In the digital, her work highlights topics of sexual politics and institutional oppression—those which are not possible IRL among mainstream Chinese culture.

Another piece by a participating Indian artist was reportedly also altered ahead of the exhibition.

Sun told the Art Newspaper, however, that despite the recent censorship the show has received “tremendous community support.”

When “Spectrosynthesis” debuted in 2017 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, it was the first major LGBTQ+ survey in a mainstream institution in Asia.

However, the removal at the most recent edition comes as censorship escalates in the Chinese administrative region, according to reports in the Guardian and Bloomberg, as well as the Washington D.C.–based nonprofit Freedom House and the New York–based think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

Though there are gay art scenes in China, many artists still remain closeted, as it is not widely accepted throughout the country. Shanghai’s Pride festival stopped in 2020, for example, following official harassment. More broadly, across Asia, Singapore recently decriminalized gay sex, but continued its ban on gay marriage.