A new campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece has started in Cyprus.
Initiated by the law firm Michalakis Kyprianou and Co LLC, a legal battle begins to compel the UK government to return the archaeological treasures to Greece, calling on Cypriot citizens to support it under the slogan: “Hellenism at Home.”
This initiative holds particular significance as the said law firm from Cyprus was at the forefront and promoted the legal battle of the Republic of Cyprus in international legal forums for the return of the Kanakaria treasures.
Speaking to Phileleftheros, one of the partners of Michalakis Kyprianou and Co LLC and director of the Paphos offices of the company, Savvas Savvides, emphasized that beyond the efforts made at a political and societal level, it is time to take an initiative at the international legal level for the Parthenon Marbles to oblige Britain to return the stolen treasures, as was the case with the looting of the religious treasures of Cyprus from the occupied areas.
“Listening to the then British former Prime Minister Boris Johnson at an event in Washington at the Georgetown University Institute of Politics mentioning the defense reason for not returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece and keeping them in Britain and not stripping the metropolitan museums of Europe and the USA truly saddens me because as a former Prime Minister, he puts forward an unsubstantiated claim that truly makes me wonder what era we live in”, Savvides stressed.
“In our days, when the entire institutional framework of the European Union and beyond ensures the education of people about their rights as established by supreme European law, how can an entire country, especially a European country until recently, blatantly violate these fundamental rights?”
“Every such attempt”, he emphasizes, “constitutes theft of cultural heritage with all the legal consequences such an act entails. Even in our Cyprus, when the rare mosaics of the 4th century were stolen from the vandalized church in the village of Lythrankomi during the Turkish invasion, the court ordered their return”, Savvides observed.
“In today’s era where the issue of democracy is a sensitive issue that concerns us all and we are daily witnesses to the condemnation for any violation of human rights, Britain cannot turn a deaf ear to the polls saying that the Greek sculptures should return to Greece, Savvas Savvides states, recalling that when Boris Johnson was a student in 1986, after a meeting with the then Minister of Culture of Greece, Melina Mercouri”, he wrote an article in favor of returning the Parthenon sculptures.
“Apparently, he was then flooded with sincere feelings and was not blindly serving a political agenda”, he emphasizes. In 1986, not only did he believe that the sculptures should be exhibited “where they belong,” but he also condemned how they were detached from the imposing structure they once adorned.
