The Chicago-based Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) – citing British Premier Rushi Sunak’s snubbing Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for raising the issue of the stolen Parthenon Marbles, has begun a petition for their return.
‘For far too long, the British Museum had refused to return precious pieces of Greek history that were illegally removed from the Parthenon and other buildings by Lord Elgin at the turn of the 19th Century,” said HALC chief Endy Zemenides.
The group put the petition drive online in an international call for support of their return although all other such efforts have been fruitless, including in the United Kingdom for those who said the marbles belong back in Greece.
We’re going to take the petition and deliver it to British diplomatic missions around the world, so make sure to add your name right now. We want to show that Hellenes and Philhellenes stand behind Prime Minister Mitsotakis’s call to bring the Parthenon Sculptures back home,” he said.
Sunak was irked that Mitsotakis, in an interview with the BBC while in London for an event seeking foreign investors, said that the British Museum keeping marble friezes was “like cutting the Mona Lisa in half.”
The British said that Greece promised not to again talk about the contentious issue while Mitsotakis was in London – denied by bis ruling New Democracy government – after Sunak created the row between the countries.
Scottish diplomat Lord Elgin ripped the Marbles off the Parthenon in the 19th Century and sold them to the museum in 1816 after getting into financial trouble, saying he had permission from the Ottoman Empire, which didn’t own them.
Read more at thenationalherald.com
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations, Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Tony Webster
