Ancient Syrian Sites: A Different Story of Destruction

Hugh Eakin

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 ISSUE

#CultureUnderThreat: Recommendations for the US Government

a task force report by the Antiquities Coalition, the Asia Society, and the Middle East Institute

46 pp., April 2016; available at taskforce.theantiquitiescoalition.org

Syrian Army soldiers at the ruins of the Temple of Bel after retaking the destroyed ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State militants, April 2016

1.

Among the major turning points of the Syrian conflict, few have been laden with as much symbolism—or geopolitical posturing—as the recapture of the ancient city of Palmyra on March 27, 2016. After a weeks-long campaign by Russian bombers and Syrian regime soldiers, the withdrawal of ISIS forces from this extraordinary desert oasis was celebrated as bringing an end to an infamous reign of barbarism.

Connecting Rome and the civilizations of the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia and the empires of the East, Palmyra had been one of the great trading centers of antiquity; for centuries, its incomparable ruins had stood as monuments to Arab glory and Levantine cosmopolitanism. Over the previous ten months, however, the jihadists had reduced to rubble its most important shrine, a soaring, exquisitely decorated first-century-CEtemple dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Bel, who was central to Palmyra’s religious cult.

ISIS also blew up a second temple, dedicated to the other supreme Palmyrene deity, Baalshamin; it toppled the triumphal arch on the colonnaded main street, which may have commemorated a Roman victory over the Parthians in the late second century CE; demolished several of the city’s distinctive tower tombs; and sacked the archaeological museum at the site. Most chillingly, it executed the eighty-one-year-old Syrian archaeologist, Khaled al-Asaad, who had for decades been in charge of the site.

At the end of his moving new book, Palmyre: L’irremplaçable trésor, which is dedicated to al-Asaad, the French archaeologist Paul Veyne describes one of the extraordinary artworks on the Temple of Bel that was lost:

Last July…one could still have seen, in bas-relief, a procession of people coming to venerate the god Bel. At the front approached the men, but behind them, huddled together, as if immobilized by the artist, were a group of women veiled from head to foot in an arabesque of billowing fabric, a beguiling and astonishing cluster of wavy silhouettes blending into each other…. It’s an abstract composition…[in which] the artist has suddenly broken with the logic of his subject and with realism. This image has no equivalent that I know of in ancient art…. What seems likely is that the sculptor, faced with all the possible styles inspired by the West and the East, has decided to amuse himself by inventing his own.

The frieze was destroyed, along with nearly all of the temple itself, in August 2015.1

But after its victory this March, the Assad regime could assert that civilization had won. Even before ISIS had been chased out, Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities and museums in Damascus, was vowing that the temples would be “rebuilt” and that the ancient city would “rise again.” Almost immediately, world leaders and international officials clamored to take part. On the day of the recapture, Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the phone to Irina Bokova, director-general ofUNESCO, the UN’s cultural agency, offering to help in the “preservation and reconstruction of the cultural heritage of Syria.” Over the next few days, Germany’s Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation offered “every form of help” to the reconstruction effort, while a team of Polish archaeologists was flown in and given a few hours to “assess” the site; and a US State Department–funded monitoring project released a report on the damage sustained.

A few weeks later, in London’s Trafalgar Square, a group of experts from Oxford’s Institute of Digital Archaeology erected a replica of the destroyed triumphal arch—designed with the aid of a 3D computer model. And then on May 5, at Palmyra itself, in an act of cultural propaganda that seemed explicitly aimed at contrasting the jihadists’ brutality with the victors’ enlightenment, the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev led St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Orchestra in an open-air concert at Palmyra’s still-standing Roman amphitheater. To witness the performance, which included the Chaconne from Bach’s second unaccompanied violin partita and Prokofiev’s First Symphony, the Kremlin flew in one hundred Moscow-based international reporters—including for The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the BBC, and many other Western news organizations. (The journalists, under heavy military protection, were whisked in and out of the site as hostilities continued nearby; Gergiev said the musicians “heard explosions” as they were rehearsing.)

Conspicuously absent from these events were the residents of Palmyra themselves. In 2011, the modern city of Tadmor (also the original name of the ancient city), which is adjacent to the archaeological site, had a population of some 50,000 residents; in the first years of the war it swelled to as many as 60,000 or 70,000, as refugees from other areas sought protection there. As the Syrian government militarized the city and then abandoned it to ISIS, however, all but a few thousand of the population fled, seeking escape from fast-deteriorating living conditions and ISIS’s rule of terror. Now, with much of the city reduced to rubble, and provision of security, food, and water still far from certain, few have been able to return. “The city is empty. Most of the houses of modern Palmyrenes have been destroyed,” Cheikmous Ali, a Syrian archaeologist who lives in exile in France, told me in June.

For all the pageantry, the retaking of Palmyra has served as a powerful reminder of how detached from reality the international campaign to save Syria’s endangered cultural heritage has been. Chastened by the damage wrought in recent wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mali, Western leaders, cultural officials, UNESCO, and even the UN Security Council have for several years now devoted unprecedented attention to the threats to sites in Syria by ISIS and other extremist groups. Millions of dollars have been spent to document, with the best satellite technology available and other resources, the current condition of archaeological monuments in the areas of conflict; legal scholars have called for war crimes prosecutions against those who intentionally damage historic sites and monuments; while top officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and French President François Hollande, have long warned of the cost of Western inaction. Above all, a continuous series of initiatives have been aimed at cracking down on the international trade in looted Syrian antiquities, often described as a major revenue source for ISIS.

But there has been depressingly little to show for these efforts. ISIS documents recovered by US Special Forces in May 2015 suggested that the group has an organized system for imposing taxes on the trade in looted antiquities, and the plunder of sites continues to be a very serious concern. However, so far, few Syrian objects of significant value have been identified in the West, and the overall looting situation, in which many different groups, including the regime, appear to be involved, remains murky. (The US government recently estimated that ISIS has earned “several million dollars from antiquities sales”—making it a modest part of its overall income—rather than the tens or hundreds of millions that have often been mentioned in the press.)

Meanwhile, the US and its allies have seemed helpless to make a difference where it matters most: before the damage or destruction occurs. As long ago as December 2014, well before ISIS captured Palmyra, the United Nations released a report showing that nearly three hundred historic sites in Syria had been damaged since the beginning of the war, most of them by groups other than ISIS. Of these, twenty-four had been “totally destroyed” by different militias or by the Assad regime itself, including twenty-two in Aleppo alone. As of this year, all of the six sites in Syria that were supposedly protected by UNESCO World Heritage status have been damaged, including, along with Palmyra, the Krak des Chevaliers, Syria’s most important crusader castle, the remains of the Hellenistic city of Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates, and the Roman city of Bosra. A number of the destroyed monuments, like the Temple of Bel frieze at Palmyra or the majestic, eleventh-century minaret in Aleppo, toppled amid fierce fighting in early 2013, were unique works with no known parallels.

For many Syrians, the international response has been baffling. While speaking constantly of ISIS, whose destructive acts they can do little about, Western leaders and cultural officials have mostly overlooked the grave damage that is occurring in many other parts of Syria—often in areas where preventive steps can be taken. And for all the extraordinary expressions of concern for the fate of the country’s museums, monuments, and artwork, hardly anything has been said about the relation of these sites to the communities surrounding them, which are often deeply attached to them. (One of the few Western scholars who has is the historian Glen Bowersock, who observed last year in the NYR Daily that there is a “tradition of Palmyrene achievements that really means something to the Arab world.”2)

Even as UNESCO has begun speaking of the destruction of cultural sites and shrines as a “crime against humanity,” the human beings who live closest to them—particularly in opposition areas held by neither ISIS nor the Syrian government, where much of the conflict has played out—have largely been ignored. (Because it is required to work with the recognized sovereign government in Damascus, UNESCO is nearly powerless in the areas that most need its assistance.) This is a double tragedy, for not only have residents of the communities in question long been shown to be the first and most important line of defense in protecting sites and museums in times of conflict. In the case of Syria, many of these local preservationists have also been, and continue to be, in serious danger themselves—both from extremist groups and from the regime.

2.

In the account of Palmyra that has been told by the Syrian government and repeated in the international press, the devastation of the site began with the arrival of the jihadists in May 2015. Before the takeover, Syrian officials had managed to remove a large number of free-standing sculptures and antiquities, and Tadmor, despite the collapse of its tourist economy, was considered a safe haven. Then ISIS came and began blowing up monuments and staging mass executions in the site’s Roman amphitheater.

According to Syrians themselves, however, the story is more complicated. On May 20–21, 2015, when ISIS militants took over Tadmor—a predominantly Sunni town on a highly strategic road to the capital—they did not, as many world leaders and Western archaeologists expected, immediately attack the ancient site. Instead, their first major act—along with summary executions of soldiers and alleged collaborators—was to “liberate” and then destroy Tadmor Military Prison, an infamous detention facility used for decades by the Assad regime to torture and sometimes kill thousands of political prisoners and Islamists. (In 1980, Syrian forces conducted a notorious mass execution of hundreds of suspected Muslim Brothers at the prison.) Though this was hardly mentioned in the international press, it was widely reported in Arab social media, and carried powerful meaning for some Syrian dissidents and intellectuals.3

In fact, during the initial months of the uprising against Assad in 2011, the Syrian government had reopened the “prison of the desert” to punish several hundred military defectors and supporters of the opposition. And in early 2012, as the war became more violent, Syrian forces turned the ancient site and the town, which had considerable sympathy for the opposition, into a garrison. (One local rebel group called itself the “Grandchildren of Zenobia,” in honor of the third-century Palmyrene Queen Zenobia, who resisted both Roman and Persian imperial rule.) It was during this time that the ancient city was initially damaged—by the Syrian army itself.

In a report published by the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology, a watchdog group largely run by Syrian archaeologists, together with the American Schools of Oriental Research, Cheikmous Ali, the Syrian archaeologist who is now in France, reviewed what the Syrian army had done during its three-year occupation of the site. Drawing on local eyewitnesses and photographic evidence, the report describes the installation of tanks and rocket launchers near the medieval citadel and in the northern necropolis area; the building of roads through the archaeological park for tanks and military vehicles; the removal of ancient stone blocks and funerary towers “to protect tanks, rocket launchers, and other armored vehicles positioned in the archaeological area”; the “complete or partial” removal of the foundations of some tombs; looting and shell damage to several temples, including the Temple of Bel; and looting in the valley of the tombs. And while the regime claimed that hundreds of objects from the Palmyra museum were removed to safety—it remains unclear how many—the local inhabitants who worked at the site and the museum were left to fend for themselves.

Of all the terrible attacks on cultural heritage by ISIS, none has shaken the world more than the beheading, on August 18, 2015, of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who had been the director of Palmyra for forty years, from 1963 to 2003.4 Yet the fate of nearly a dozen other Syrians who worked at the site and its museum, and who also were under threat for their lives, has been almost entirely overlooked. Among them was a woman who managed the database of the Palmyra museum, as well as a man who worked at the entrance of the archaeological park and another who had been a docent at one of the temples destroyed by ISIS. Salam Al Kuntar, an archaeologist and former employee of Syria’s state antiquities administration now at the University of Pennsylvania, told me the harrowing story of their escapes.

The docent, who was on a wanted list for his close connections to Khaled al-Asaad, was the first to flee, managing to reach Turkey shortly after the ISIS takeover. Then, during the summer of 2015, as ISIS consolidated its control, the other staff went into hiding in the town and neighboring villages. One by one, they began to leave, often going first to Deir Ezzor—a much larger town at the time even further into ISISterritory—to avoid attracting attention. From there, they eventually made their way north to the Turkish border. Now five of them are stuck in Gaziantep, Turkey, unable to work. They were supported by a modest monthly stipend raised by Brian Daniels, a colleague of Al Kuntar’s who is director of research at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center.

The exiled Palmyra staff brought with them not only direct knowledge of the site, but also considerable documentation concerning the Palmyra Museum, Al Kuntar told me, including its fate during the initial weeks of ISIS control. Because they feared retribution by the Syrian government—which has arrested a number of Tadmor residents for collaboration with ISIS—they have been unable to return to Tadmor; nor have they until now been included in international meetings about Syria’s heritage. According to Al Kuntar and Daniels, it was impossible to find US universities or museums willing to sponsor US work visas for them. “They are stuck in Gaziantep, like any other refugees,” Al Kuntar told me.

3.

In the eighteen months since ISIS circulated a horrific video showing militants smashing statues at the Mosul Museum, and then, four months later, took over Palmyra itself, a powerful view of cultural heritage destruction in Syria and Iraq has taken shape: that it is a deliberate strategy, perfected by ISIS, aimed above all at assaulting Western values and terrorizing local populations. According to the April report “#CultureUnderThreat: Recommendations for the U.S. Government,” sponsored by the Middle East Institute, the Asia Society, and the Antiquities Coalition:

Daesh [ISIS], the Al-Nusra Front, and Al-Qaeda have now institutionalized cultural crimes as an instrument of war, using them to erase the collective memory, culture, and accomplishments of a people and replace it with their own ideology.

As the report continues, “The fight to protect the peoples of the [Middle East and North Africa] region and their heritage cannot be separated.”

And yet the report mainly confines itself to addressing damage that has already taken place: it calls for a further crackdown on the antiquities trade in Western markets, and improved legal remedies for what it calls “cultural crimes.” In doing so, it follows closely the general international response so far. Thus, in February 2015, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution banning all trade in Syrian antiquities, while the US Senate passed a similar bill in April 2016. At the same time, legal scholars and some cultural property specialists, citing the unprecedented documentation we now have of such acts of destruction, have pushed for expanded powers to prosecute them as war crimes when the Syrian conflict is over.

But as Robert Bevan, the architecture critic for the London Evening Standard, observes in a revised edition of his groundbreaking study of cultural heritage in zones of conflict,The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, current laws are ill-equipped to do that. (A documentary film based on Bevan’s book was released this summer.) In late August, the International Criminal Court in The Hague obtained a landmark guilty plea from a Malian jihadist for the destruction of shrines of Muslim saints in Timbuktu in 2012 and 2013. Yet neither Syria nor Iraq is party to the ICC, putting the prospect of similar prosecutions for acts in those countries in doubt.

Meanwhile, the few preventive measures that have been widely discussed have proven impracticable. In November 2015, French President François Hollande announced that France was ready to provide a “refuge” for threatened Syrian antiquities, seemingly unaware of the apparent implication that his country might be more interested in protecting antiquities from Syria than actual Syrians, who were finding it increasingly difficult to gain asylum in France and Europe generally. The April task force report, “#CultureUnderThreat,” in one of its few recommendations aimed at preventing damage, calls for “military air strikes…against targets threatening known heritage sites,” a controversial option that the US and its allies are extremely reluctant to pursue.

What these responses have almost entirely missed are the Syrian and Iraqi populations who are closest to the destruction, and who are often best positioned to prevent, or at least limit, the damage before it happens. In almost every major modern conflict in which efforts to save art and historical monuments have had substantial success, they have depended on the actions of local curators, art historians, and activists rather than international laws or foreign interventions.

During the civil war in Beirut (1975–1990), when the National Museum of Beirut was on the front lines of the conflict, it was the museum’s own curator, Emir Maurice Chehab, who saved much of the collection, including Phoenician sarcophagi and monumental statuary, by encasing them in concrete in the basement. In Afghanistan, the Bamiyan Buddhas were lost, despite huge international outcry; but the National Museum’s Bactrian Hoard—more than 20,000 extraordinary gold, silver, and ivory objects from a Bronze Age burial site—was quietly saved, thanks to the courage and ingenuity of a group of Afghan curators who kept them hidden for years in a vault under the Central Bank in Kabul. And in Timbuktu, when jihadists overran the city in 2012, intent on wiping out the city’s extraordinary medieval Islamic heritage, it was local librarians who spirited away to safety thousands of rare manuscripts—by truck and canoe.

The DayAfter Heritage Protection Initiative. TDA-HPI.
The mosaic museum in Ma’arrat al-Numan, northwestern Syria, following an airstrike by the Syrian government in May 2016; mosaics at left were protected by a wall of sandbags

Though little noted, local preservationists have already proven crucial in the Syrian conflict itself. One of the most striking cases is the Ma’arra Mosaic Museum in a region of Idlib Province in northwestern Syria that has been bitterly fought between various rebel groups and the regime. The museum, which occupies a historic Ottoman Caravansarai, was hit twice by the regime in a barrel-bomb attack in June 2015 and in a second air strike in May of this year. But its collection of large-scale Roman and Byzantine mosaics—including an extraordinary series depicting the life of Hercules—has largely survived because of the efforts of a group of local activists, who had encased the works in protective glue and sheeting, covered by sandbags, a few months before the first attack, and sandbagged before the second one. A similar project is now being pursued a bit further south, at the mosaic museum attached to the important Hellenistic site of Apamea.

In both cases, the activists are part of a heritage initiative run by the Day After, a Syrian NGO that aims to support a democratic transition in Syria; they have received training and modest support from Western sources but are entirely Syrian-run. According to Amr al-Azam, a US-based Syrian archaeologist who has helped coordinate the efforts, the initial Ma’arra project cost $15,000 and the subsequent intervention another $2,800—tiny investments compared to what has been spent by foreign governments on satellite imagery to monitor archaeological sites. Yet it took a year to secure the $6,500 funding needed to protect the Apamea Museum. “It’s a very, very important collection,” al-Azam said. “Getting in there before any damage is done is crucial.”

Sometimes activists have successfully confronted extremist groups themselves. When the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra took over the town of Idlib in northwestern Syria in March 2015, a local archaeologist and activist named Ayman Nabu confronted the city’s Nusra-appointed mayor and told him that if anything happened to the Idlib Museum, they would have to kill Nabu as well. “Ayman may be the bravest person I know,” said Brian Daniels, whose program had given Nabu training in Turkey in 2014 for managing heritage in conflict. “As of now the Idlib Museum is intact.”

Astonishingly, hardly anything has been said about this local activism; the task force report aimed at the US government in April makes no mention of it. By contrast, many archaeologists have been dismayed by the intense international interest in “rebuilding” Palmyra amid a continuing war. In April, a group of Western and Syrian archaeologists wrote a petition to UNESCO opposing “any hasty reconstruction initiated by UNESCOand carried out by parties directly involved in the Syrian tragedy”—a thinly veiled reference to the Russian military and the Assad regime.

Responding to such criticism this spring, Maamoun Abdulkarim, the director of Syria’s antiquities administration, sought to distance the Syrian regime from the more extravagant reconstruction plans—though he also said that the government was determined to press ahead with restoration as quickly as possible. Meanwhile,UNESCO officials have begun to collaborate with groups working in non-regime-held areas of the country, including at an international conference it convened in Berlin in early June. But Syrians I spoke to on the margins of the conference are skeptical that the huge international bureaucracy of UNESCO, established in the cold war and beholden to traditional sovereign states, can contribute meaningfully to the rescue of monuments in Syria.

Even as the Berlin conference was taking place, some of the same powers that had “rescued” Palmyra were causing significant new damage of their own. During the retaking of Palmyra in March, Russian bombs hit the medieval citadel overlooking the site; and in May, shortly after the Russian orchestra performance, reports surfaced in the Western press that a temporary Russian military base had been installed inside the archaeological park. On May 12 and again on June 16, the fifth-century Byzantine church of Saint Simeon Stylites, northwest of Aleppo, was heavily damaged by Russian air strikes. UNESCO, which depends on Russian support, remained silent. “Unfortunately, the international institutions are held hostage by politics,” Cheikmous Ali, the Syrian archaeologist, told me. He said that there are many sites that are threatened and urgently in need of protection—and Syrians, some of them deep in ISISareas, are struggling to do what they can. “But the international institutions aren’t supporting them.”

1. For more on what was destroyed in 2015 together with a selection of historic photographs of Palmyra, see Ingrid Rowland’s “Breakfast in the Ruins,” NYR Daily, September 17, 2016. 
2. See Glen Bowersock, “The Venice of the Sands in Peril,” NYR Daily, May 25, 2015. 
3. For an account of the prison and its prominence in Syria dissident literature, see R. Shareah Taleghani, “Breaking the Silence of Tadmor Military Prison,” Middle East Report, Spring 2016. 
4. According to numerous press accounts, al-Asaad was executed for refusing to reveal the location of hidden Palmyrene “treasures.” But Syrian archaeologists told me that al-Asaad, who came from a powerful family with ties to the regime, was initially detained and tried by an ISIS court in June 2015 on seven charges—including collaboration with the regime and with Iran—unrelated to the alleged treasure. At the time, he was pardoned and released, but insisted on staying in Palmyra, where he was subsequently denounced and executed, on the preposterous charge of hiding “gold” (though the seven initial charges were also reinvoked). 

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Raymond M. Brown Moderates Special Congressional Briefing Hosted by Bi-Partisan Senate Human Rights Caucus

Raymond M. Brown, a partner in the firm’s Litigation Department and a leading participant in the ongoing global discussion of human rights concerns, served as the moderator of a Congressional Briefing on September 22, 2016, hosted by the Senate Human Rights Caucus and co-hosted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.  “Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Conflict: Promoting Accountability and the Rule of Law” brought together a panel of thought leaders to examine how the international community can ensure accountability for human rights crimes, promote the rule of law to protect cultural heritage in conflict, and discuss the role that the U.S. government can play in these efforts.

The special briefing, which was held at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington DC, featured remarks by Patty Gerstenblith, professor of law at DePaul University and director of its Center for Art, Museum & Cultural Heritage Law; Helen Malko, postdoctoral fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University; Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition; and Anne-Marie Carstens, researcher at Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Brown, co-founder of the International Justice Project and Chair of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Corporate & International Human Rights Compliance Practice Groups, served as moderator.

The destruction of cultural heritage in conflict is an increasingly pressing concern for governments and civil society around the world. In Iraq and Syria, ISIS has targeted and destroyed, in visible and dramatic fashion, structures associated with minority sects of Islam, Christianity, and ancient and traditional cultures. In Mali, a rebel group affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked and destroyed religious sites in the famed city of Timbuktu – and one of the perpetrators of these crimes has pled guilty to the war crime of cultural heritage destruction at the International Criminal Court.

Cultural heritage is a crucial part of the history of a people, and enriches all of humanity. When it is destroyed, it is lost forever. Intentional destruction of cultural heritage is an attempt to undermine the identity and dignity of humanity.  To learn more about these issues, please email Mr. Brown at rbrown@greenbaumlaw.com.

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VIDEO. Cultural sites, prime target for jihadists

According to experts of “The Antiquities coalition”, over 230 sites have been destroyed or damaged since 2011.

Un jihadiste malien a été condamné à neuf ans de prison par la Cour pénale internationale, mardi 27 septembre, pour la destruction des mausolées de Tombouctou (Mali). L’attaque avait été menée en 2012 par le groupe Ansar Dine, lié à Al-Qaïda. C’est la première fois que la destruction de biens culturels est considérée comme un crime de guerre.

Sept cas en 2011 contre 89 en 2014

Les jihadistes veulent anéantir ce qui ne correspond pas à leur vision extrémiste de l’islam. Selon The Antiquities coalition, une ONG basée à Washington qui se définit comme une organisation à but non lucratif dédiée à la préservation de l’héritage culturel, plus de 230 sites ont été détruits ou endommagés pour ces motifs depuis 2011. Une pratique qui se généralise : pour sept cas recensés en 2011, on en comptait 89 en 2014 et 79 en 2015. L’augmentation des saccages correspond à la montée en puissance du groupe Etat islamique.

En 2015, à Mossoul (Irak), des combattants de l’organisation jihadiste ont détruit un musée qui abritait des pièces de l’époque pré-islamique. La cité antique de Palmyre, en Syrie, a été dévastée la même année. Deux temples et l’Arc de le triomphe, construit il y a 2 000 ans, ont été réduits en poussière. Dans le même temps, le groupe Etat islamique se livre au trafic d’antiquités. Une activité qui lui aurait rapporté plusieurs millions de dollars.

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Les sites culturels, cible privilégiée des jihadistes

Un jihadiste malien a été condamné à neuf ans de prison par la Cour pénale internationale, mardi 27 septembre, pour la destruction des mausolées de Tombouctou (Mali). L’attaque avait été menée en 2012 par le groupe Ansar Dine, lié à Al-Qaïda. C’est la première fois que la destruction de biens culturels est considérée comme un crime de guerre. Sept cas en 2011 contre 89 en 2014 Les jihadistes veulent anéantir ce qui ne correspond pas à leur vision extrémiste de l’islam. Selon The Antiquities coalition, une ONG basée à Washington qui se définit comme une organisation à but non lucratif dédiée à la préservation de l’héritage culturel, plus de 230 sites ont été détruits ou endommagés pour ces motifs depuis 2011. Une pratique qui se généralise : pour sept cas recensés en 2011, on en comptait 89 en 2014 et 79 en 2015. L’augmentation des saccages correspond à la montée en puissance du groupe Etat islamique. En 2015, à Mossoul (Irak), des combattants de l’organisation jihadiste ont détruit un musée qui abritait des pièces de l’époque pré-islamique. La cité antique de Palmyre, en Syrie, a été dévastée la même année. Deux temples et l’Arc de le triomphe, construit il y a 2 000 ans, ont été réduits en poussière. Dans le même temps, le groupe Etat islamique se livre au trafic d’antiquités. Une activité qui lui aurait rapporté plusieurs millions de dollars.

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UN honors Al Arabiya General Manager, along with 6 global figures

Sunday, 25 September 2016

The United Nations hosted a ceremony in which it honored the frontrunners of the international campaign to combat extremism on Sept. 22 at its headquarters in New York.

“Hero Awards” was presented to a wide range of women and men who were role models in leading the fight against violent extremism across the world.

Al Arabiya News Channel’s General Manager Turki Aldakhil was one of the honored alongside other international personalities due to his promotion of education and his history of promoting tolerance and fostering interfaith dialogue across the Arab region.

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23.09.2016 – ODG

Highlighting Role Models in the Global Campaign against Violent Extremism

On September 22, in the context of the 71st session of UNGA, a tribute was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the initiative of a coalition of academics, private sector, journalists, and civil society actors to highlight role models in the global campaign against violent extremism. The event was moderated by CNN journalist, Wolf Blitzer.

The event opened with a moving tribute to the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel, a “giant of peace”, in the presence of Marion Wiesel, led by Ambassador Ronald Lauder.

O‎ther speakers included Daniel Weiss, President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock; MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle; New York’s cultural icon Emily Rafferty and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, as well as Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC.

A special moment recognizing interfaith leadership for peace and understanding occurred for Cardinal Pletro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, as represented by The Most Reverand Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, Dr. Waleed El-Ansary, special envoy of Dr. Ali Goma’a, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Egypt, on his behalf; and Rabbi Arthur Schneier, President and Founder of the Appeal of Conscience.

Rabbi Schneier said “all are entitled to freedom — we have to take a stand united against terror.”

‎The Permanent Observer of the Holy See spoke of the importance of cooperation and dialogue between all women and men.

Dr Waleed El-Ansary underlined the importance of “dialogue to dispel mistrust based on misunderstanding.”

Ms Nadia Murad, Goodwill Ambassador of UNODC for human trafficking, drew on her own tragic experience as a Yazidi survivor escaping from conflict and captivity in Iraq, making a poignant appeal for action “to give freedom to all women and children, to all oppressed, so we all stand ‎together, for the sake of all humanity.”

This was echoed‎ by Ms Hasfat Mohammed, who shared her story and commitment as a teacher in Nigeria building the defence of children to counter Boko Haram’s propaganda. “Fighting for peace must be a collective effort to fight for peace — for motherhood, for children — don’t stop.”

“This is a fight for human rights and dignity and the humanity we all share. To lead this fight, we need champions,” said Irina Bokova. “We need women and men, who are fearless, who stand up, speak out, write, help others, who inspire others to act, in newspapers, schools, camps, boardrooms, civil society, and places of worship.”

“These role models come from across the world, united by the vision they hold of humanity as one family, sharing rights and equal dignity,” said Irina Bokova.

The Director-General spoke along Sara Bloomfield, Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Ambassador Esther Coopersmith; Meera Gandhi, Founder and CEO, The Giving Back Foundation; Francine Lefrak, Harvard Women’s Leadership Board; Deborah Lehr, Chair of the Antiquities Coalition; and Catherine Reynolds, Founder and CEO of Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.

The event also highlighted the leadership of the following role models — Abdihafid Yussef Abdi (Kenya); Nicholas Kristof (USA);‎ Turki Al-Dakhil (Saudi Arabia);‎ A team of students at the Rochester Institute of Technology;‎ Serge and Beate Klarsfeld (France and Germany);‎ Emanuel Jal (South Sudan); Li Yongjun (China).

“This fight must go to the roots,” said Irina Bokova. “This is the message of the UNESCO Constitution. We face a new global battle for hearts and minds today, starting with young hearts and minds. We must promote skills for critical thinking, opportunities for civic engagement, competences for intercultural dialogue. We must teach human rights, tolerance and solidarity.”

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World Leaders, Cultural Icons and NGOs Gather to Honor Heroes of the Global Campaign against Violent Extremism

September 22, 2016 06:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A Tribute Ceremony to honor ten individuals and groups for their extraordinary contributions to the global campaign against violent extremism will be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the evening of Thursday, September 22nd at 8:00 P.M.

The event, which will be emceed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, is co-hosted by a group of seven women leaders, including Sara Bloomfield, Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Irina Bokova, Director General of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Ambassador Esther Coopersmith, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; Meera Ghandi, Founder and CEO, The Giving Back Foundation; Francine LeFrak of the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board; Deborah Lehr, Chairman and Co-founder of The Antiquities Coalition, and Catherine Reynolds, Founder and CEO of the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.

The event will include a posthumous tribute to Elie Wiesel by Ambassador Ronald Lauder in the presence of Marion Wiesel. Other speakers and dignitaries present include President Plevneliev of Bulgaria; President Nishani of Albania; Daniel H. Weiss, President of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and his predecessor, Emily Rafferty, President Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan; and jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

The important contribution of religious leaders to peace and intercultural harmony will be recognized in a tribute to three outstanding leaders: Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Founder and President of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation; Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See (in recognition of Pope Francis’ spiritual leadership for global peace and understanding); and Dr. Ali Goma’a, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Egypt, whose special envoy Dr. Waleed El-Ansary will address the gathering on his behalf.

The Heroes whose contribution to the global campaign to prevent and overcome violent extremism are being celebrated at this event are:

Abdihafid Yussef Abdi (Kenya), for his courageous and innovative work as a co-founder of Teachers Against Violent Extremism, a network of educators fighting radicalization in Kenya.

Nicholas Kristof (USA), New York Times columnist, for his steady focus on the root causes and cultural and political ramifications of violent extremism.

Turki Al-Dakhil (Saudi Arabia), Director General of Al-Arabiya TV, for his outspoken advocacy of tolerance, freedom of the press, the rights of minorities and women in the Gulf region.

A team of students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), who won the Peer-to-Peer Challenging Extremism Initiative award organized by the State Department, for their innovative approach to countering hate speech on the internet.

Nadia Murad (Iraq), a Yazidi woman who survived the massacre of her family and sexual enslavement by ISIS, for her valorous exposure of atrocities committed by terrorists against her people.

Hafsat Mohammed (Nigeria), a former radio journalist turned civil society activist, for her resilient campaign against religious intolerance in Nigerian schools and for leading a grass root multi-faith effort to denounce Boko Haram.

Serge and Beate Klarsfeld (France and Germany), for their lifetime dedication to expose and bring to justice Nazi war criminals, and their tireless efforts to use the lessons of history to denounce racism and bigotry.

Emanuel Jal (South Sudan), musician, actor, former child soldier, and political activist, for his engagement to bring peace and reconciliation to his people through music and art.

Li Yongjun (China), for his innovative leadership in preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage in China and around the world.

This event has been made possible in part through the generous support of the French telecom company Orange and the consumer products company Tylt.

To request photos of the event, please email heroes@makovsky.com.

Contacts

Makovsky

Andy Beck, 212-508-9626

abeck@makovsky.com

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UN honors Al Arabiya General Manager Turki Aldakhil

Al Arabiya News Channel’s General Manager Turki Aldakhil receiving the award. (Al Arabiya)

The United Nations hosted a ceremony in which it  honored the frontrunners of the international campaign to combat extremism on Sept. 22 at its headquarters in New York.

“Hero Awards” was presented to a wide range of women and men who were role models in leading the fight against violent extremism across the world.

Al Arabiya News Channel’s General Manager Turki Aldakhil was one of the honored alongside other international personalities due to his promotion of education and his history of promoting tolerance and fostering interfaith dialogue across the Arab region.

Arabian Business magazine named Aldakhil among its list of the most influential Arab figures in 2007, 2010 and 2011 and ranked him 29th of the world’s 100 most powerful Saudis in November 2012.

In 2014, he received the America Abroad Media annual award for his role in supporting civil society, human rights and advancing the role of women in Gulf societies.

Other award winners include Iraqi Yazidi Nadia Murad, American journalist at the New York Times and author Nicolas Kristof, founder of “Teachers Against Terrorist” Network in Kenya, Abdulhafiz Yousef Abdi and Hafsa Mohammad for her role in combatting extremism in schools in Nigeria.

The event took place on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly and was organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) working in tandem with six international institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum for Arts in New York.

The event included as well to other parts including the celebration of “True Hero Awards” which was led by nine champions for human rights, dialogue and peace, including the UNESCO Director-General, with Sarah Bloomfield, Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Tina Brown, Women in the World, Ambassador Esther Coopersmith, Meera Gandhi, Founder and CEO, The Giving Back Foundation, Arianna Huffington, Francine Lefrak, Harvard Women’s Leadership Board, Deborah Lehr, Chair of the Antiquities Coalition and Catherine Reynolds, Founder and CEO of Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.

The “Lead by Example” Award will be presented to President Macky Sall of Senegal and Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor, First Lady of Malaysia.

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22.09.2016

Countering destruction and trafficking of cultural property – an Imperative for Humanity

NEW YORK- On 22 September, UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, participated in a High-Level Meeting on Protecting Cultural Heritage: An Imperative for Humanity, organized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Paolo Gentiloni, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan, Nasser Judeh, in the context of the 71st United Nations General Assembly, along with the Executive Director of UNODC, Yury Fedotov‎, was a partner, and Ms. Andriani, INTERPOL.

Irina Bokova made a first statement on behalf of the UN Secretary-General.

‎”Today I call on the international community to intensify the global response to attacks on cultural heritage,” said the Secretary General, calling on all to unite4heritage.

The Jordanian Foreign Minister underlined the “power of culture as a source of strength, as a resource for resilience and hope for the future.”

“We have to criminalize all those on all sides of the equation to stop illicit trafficking,” said the Jordanian Foreign Minister, noting here the Declaration of Amman on culture property under threat adopted on 8 September as a regional achievement‎.

“‎Cultural heritage is a non-renewable energy in the region, and it is our common responsibility to defend,” said Nasser Judeh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Paolo Gentiloni, said “the loss of cultural heritage is a tremendous damage to our roots — it is also a threat to pluralism.”

“Terrorists want to wipe out the past and exacerbate tensions between local communities and the very idea of coexistence,” he said.

The Italian Foreign Minister referred to the agreement with UNESCO and called on all to unite for heritage. 

“Cultural heritage has moved to the frontline of conflicts, in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, in Mali,” said the Director-General. 

“In new conflicts, security issues, cultural issues, humanitarian issues, are deeply intertwined. None can be treated in isolation – sustainable action must come from joint action, from partnership. This is the spirit of this initiative.”

A global initiative “Protecting Cultural Heritage—An Imperative for Humanity” was launched by the Permanent Delegations of Jordan and Italy, with strong support of UNESCO, INTERPOL and UNODC during the last year’s General Assembly session, to enhance the protection of cultural heritage targeted by terrorists and illicit traffickers and to follow up on resolutions and decisions adopted by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and other international organisations.

This open-ended partnership has brought a number of recommendations, led a series of expert meetings and, above all, created a political platform to bridge the divide between protection of cultural heritage and diversity and protection of human life and human rights.

The side event saw interventions by Mr HE Daniel Mitov, Bulgaria Foreign Minister, ‎HE Ioannis Kasoulides, Foreign Minister Cyprus, HE Istvan Mikola, Hungarian Minister of State for Security Policy, HE Mikheil Janelidze, Georgian Foreign Minister, HE Sultan AlShamsi, UAE Assistant Under-Secretary for International Cooperation, as well as Deputy Foreign Minister of Honduras Maria Andrea Matamoros Castillo, and Evan Ryan, US Assistant Secretary of State. Participants included also ‎Jean-Paul Laborde, Director UN CTED and Karen Mosoti of the International Criminal Court.

Cooperation is deepening between UNESCO, INTERPOL and UNODOC. A network of professionals to respond to illicit trafficking has been launched, ties with the art market have been enhanced and the awareness that deliberate destruction of cultural heritage is a war crime that should be punished has been raised. ‘Blood antiquities’ have been seized in Finland, Jordan, Turkey, the United States, in the United Kingdom, Israel.

Up to now, more than 36 Member States have taken measures to strengthen legislation, harmonize services and improve cooperation with customs, law enforcement and cultural experts.

Advocating for strengthened legislation, the UNESCO Director-General appealed for “greater information sharing to fully implement UN Security Council Resolutions 2199 and 2253.”

The meeting resulted in renewed commitment of the international community to sharing responsibility and scaling up response to counter attacks against culture by combining the full range of “soft power” – heritage protection, education for human rights, safety of journalists in fight against radicalization.

UNESCO is working across the board to these ends. With the support of the European Union and the people of Mali, UNESCO has recovered hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts and rebuilt 14 mausoleums in Timbuktu, destroyed in 2012.

UNESCO is supporting the International Criminal Court to end impunity for such crimes, starting in Mali.

In closing, Irina Bokova reiterated her core message: “Culture is at the heart of new conflicts, so it must be at the heart of our strategy for peace”—a message that is deeply woven into UNESCO’s #Unite4heritage campaign.

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Art forum in NY

19TH SEPTEMBER 2016

Terrorists are using culture as a weapon of war, financing themselves through cultural racketeering, a “Culture Under Threat” forum has heard. Organized by the Antiquities Coalition, Asia Society, and the Middle East Institute, it ran at the Asia Society in New York on the margins of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Josette Sheeran, President and CEO of Asia Society, in her welcoming remarks said: “We’re here today to make sure that one issue, in all the issues being tackled during the UN General Assembly, is not overlooked and gets the attention it needs and deserves. That issue is protecting our shared heritage, the monuments and relics of our past, which are being destroyed, looted and trafficked. Make no mistake, these are hardcore and dangerous crimes as the proceeds are often being used to finance terrorism and further destruction.”

The Forum brought together intergovernmental bodies, governments, law enforcement agencies, the armed forces, and business. A discussion moderated by ABC News’ Jon Williams focused on how these varied sectors can work together to combat the growing use of historical and cultural artifacts as a terrorist financing tool. The event also explored what has been learned in the past year about this illicit trade in “blood antiquities” — including the US government’s revelation that ISIS has made antiquities transactions totaling $1.25 million over just three months.

Speakers included Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim, Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations; Brigadier General (Retired) Russell Howard, Founding Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point; Deborah Lehr, Chair and Founder of the Antiquities Coalition; Luigi Marini, Legal Advisor at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations; Emmanuel Roux, Special Representative of INTERPOL to the United Nations; Larry Schwartz, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Press and Public Diplomacy; and Mark Taplin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Roux said at the event: “We need, at the same time, a comprehensive and a very specialized approach to this kind of crime. [INTERPOL] found recently, a year ago, a container. In this container, we found 135 cultural objects, 233 weapons, firearms, together with 30 kilos of heroin, three kilos of cocaine, and 23 elephant tusks. All those markets, that you think are specialized, at some point they gather.”

On September 8, 17 Arab League nations convened in Amman for a ministerial-level summit hosted by the Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with support from the Antiquities Coalition and the Middle East Institute. The participating nations held the inaugural meeting of the Middle East and North African Task Force Against Cultural Racketeering, and launched an aggressive plan to combat looting and trafficking.

In April 2016, the forum organizers released the #CultureUnderThreat Task Force Report: Recommendations for the US Government, which put forward 31 concrete steps that could be taken by the US Administration, Congress, the United Nations, and the art market.

For an app that shows 330 cultural crimes committed by Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) and other extremist groups in the Middle East and North African region, visit http://taskforce.theantiquitiescoalition.org/.

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