The emergency facing cultural heritage

The world’s cultural heritage faces an acute and growing threat from war, terrorism and crime. Centres of ancient civilisation such as Syria, Iraq, Mali and Afghanistan have become zones of conflict and anarchy where terrorists and religious zealots flaunt their wanton destruction of ancient monuments and theft of antiquities.

Today more than ever, world heritage is threatened by war, terrorism and crime. Groups like Islamic State are determined to eliminate all traces of past cultures including rival forms of Islam. The sale of looted antiquities is a vital source of funding for arms for terrorism. Trafficking of cultural goods is said to be the third-largest form of illegal trade after weapons and drugs.

Walk of Truth

Walk of Truth has been registered as a not-for-profit foundation in the Netherlands since 2011. It draws on a broad network of high-level contacts in the worlds of government, museums, cultural agencies including UNESCO and Interpol. It has co-organised debates on responses to cultural crime in the Peace Palace in The Hague and the House of Lords in London. Its founder Tasoula Hadjitofi has 30 years of experience in tracking down and repatriating antiquities looted from Cyprus and sold worldwide. To find out more about her work, read her exciting autobiography to be published in April by Pegasus Books. For more information and to pre-order, click here.
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