Don't Sign Cultural Property Deals with Turkey and Tunisia

Five Reasons NOT to Sign Cultural Property Deals with Turkey and Tunisia: Destroying sites, denying minority and religious rights; overbroad restrictions impacting centuries of commercial trade, and failure to enforce laws all factor. This must be stopped by all right-thinking Americans.

Turkey: Centuries of Multicultural History and Trade Denied

Temple at Ain Dara, after bombing by Turkish forces, Syrian Human Rights Observatory.

Turkey Claims all Art and Artifacts: Centuries of Multicultural History and Trade Denied.

We ask that the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Property Advisory Committee follow the criteria under U.S. law, and reject the request from the Republic of Turkey for unnecessary, over-reaching, and legally unjustified import restrictions. The legal criteria are not met. The factual basis for the Turkish request is absent. So is any practical argument for an MOU having any positive effect. What we do know is that an Agreement with Turkey Will Help President Recip Erdogan’s Campaign of Religious Extremism and Xenophobia. Religious minority communities both in Turkey and in the United States will suffer from the gratuitous granting of import restrictions to a repressive and abusive regime that already claims rights over minority heritage beyond what are allowed under Turkish law.

Nothing Changes

Gold earring with glass head pendant, 3rd–1st century B.C in the Met Museum.

It looks modern but it is Phoenician or Carthaginian.

Striking back

Qasem Soleimani commander of the Quds Force (Iran's external security agency) has been killed in US drone strikes at Baghdad airport. This man had the blood of many brave US military personnel on his hands, and was directly responsible for 100s of American deaths. He engineered attacks in Iraq, often with sophisticated IEDs, that killed hundreds of US service-members and wounded thousands more. All Americans were at risk, as long as this man remained alive. The critics of Our President who say he did the wrong thing are still living in an Obama apology we're so sorry world. Now the world knows who's in charge. Go America!

European Archeologists Miss "Find of the Century"

In Pirna, East Germany, an amateur metal detectorist found an absolutely unique Celtic treasure, missed by archeologists. There were three beautiful broaches, two bead and one bronze chain necklace, all around 2500 years old, found on a discarded heap of earth from the reconnaissance excavations, prior to construction works in the area (Jurgen Helfricht, "Hobby-Archäologe entdeckt 2500 Jahre alten Kelten-Schatz" October 24, 2019).

Scars of looting, destruction all that remain at Mosul museum

More evidence, if any were needed that it is not good sense to keep all of our global heritage in one place (Livingston Contributor, "Scars of looting,destruction all that remain at Mosul museum " Livingston Ledger December 15, 2019 )

After two and a half years under Islamic State control, all that is left in Mosul‘s museum are the traces of looting and destruction. Inside the rubble-strewn building, where militants filmed themselves destroying ancient artifacts, the large stone wing of a statue of lamassu — an Assyrian winged bull deity — lies on the dusty floor among other broken remnants of the past. A block engraved with Arabic Islamic calligraphy lies close by, and some Islamic manuscripts have been left undamaged. But almost everything else has gone. [...]  Dozens of Assyrian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian and Roman artifacts that the ransacked museum held have all been stolen or damaged. [...]  Islamic State militants filmed themselves smashing some of the building‘s contents including priceless statues with sledgehammers in 2015, as part of their highly publicised campaign to erase any cultural history that contravenes their extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam.

Left-wing activists demand the repatriation of priceless artefacts from British museums

So-called 'anti-imperialist‘ activists demand artefacts are returned from British museums… even if some countries don‘t actually want them back (Denton Staff Contributor, 'Left-wing activists demand the repatriation of priceless artefacts from British museums' Denton Daily, December 15, 2019):

Have they lost their marbles? [...] They are priceless artefacts from across the globe that have long been carefully preserved at Britain’s great museums. But now there is a growing campaign by Left-wing activists for items of ‘stolen loot’ to be returned to their original homes – despite the fact that some countries do not want the relics back [...] even in the countries from which artefacts have been taken, there are those who say the treasures are best left in Britain.[...] Last week the mayor of Easter Island said the British Museum is a better home for the disputed statue because his people are struggling to preserve the hundreds of others they have there. And in Nigeria, Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, the curator of the Lagos Centre for Contemporary Art, said: ‘Nigeria is not ready to receive anything. We have rundown, leaking museums and insect-infested storage facilities.’

Nevertheless, the campaign continues to grow.