International Criminal Court Orders Reparations For Attack On Religious Buildings In Mali

In a press release, the International Criminal Court summarized its 61-page opinion in Prosecutor v. Al Madhi, (ICC, Aug. 17, 2017) imposing reparations on  Al Faqi Al Mahdi who had previously been convicted of war crimes for his part in attacking ten mausoleums that were part of the cultural heritage in Timbuktu, Mali:

Today, 17 August 2017, Trial Chamber VIII of the International Criminal Court ... issued a Reparations Order in the case of The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, concluding that Mr Al Mahdi is liable for 2.7 million euros in expenses for individual and collective reparations for the community of Timbuktu for intentionally directing attacks against religious and historic buildings in that city. Noting that Mr Al Mahdi is indigent, the Chamber encourages the Trust Funds for Victims ("TFV") to complement the reparations award and directed the TFV to submit a draft implementation plan for 16 February 2018.

Foundation Buys Native American Items At Auction To Return Them To Tribes

As previously reported, last week a French court refused to stop a Paris auction house from selling 25 sacred Native American objects, despite objections from the American Embassy.  It was known that one of the sacred masks was purchased by the Hopi's French lawyer who intends to return it to the tribe. Now it turns out that the other items will also go back to the tribes who claim them. In a press release this week, the Annenberg Foundation announced that it purchased the remaining 24 sacred artifacts at the auction for a total of $530,000 "for the sole purpose of returning them to their rightful owners. Twenty-one of these items will be returned to the Hopi Nation in Arizona, and three artifacts belonging to the San Carlos Apache will be returned to the Apache tribe." KUOW News has more on the story.

Controversy Over U.S. Commitment To Return Collection of Jewish Documents To Iraq

Religion News Service reported yesterday on the growing controversy over what the United States should do with a trove of Jewish documents, books and scrolls found in 2003 by U.S. troops in Iraq.  The items (now known as the Iraqi Jewish Archive) were discovered in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad intelligence headquarters.  They were rescued and taken back to the United States for preservation and restoration pursuant to an August 2003 Agreement (full text) between the Coalition Provisional Authority and the National Archives. That Agreement called for the return of physical custody of the documents to the Coalition Provisional Authority or its designee once preservation work was completed and a public exhibition of the collection was held. (Art. I, Par. 4).  A 2011 agreement between the State Department and the National Archives (full text) indicates that the Coalition Provisional Authority designated the Iraqi Ministry of Culture as the agency responsible for the documents.

The State Department says these agreements call for the U.S. to return the collection (some of which are now on display in the National Archives Building in Washington) to Iraq in the Summer of 2014.  Groups in the Jewish community and members of Congress are questioning the State Department's plans.  A website set up by groups representing Middle Eastern and North African Jews argues:

There is no justification, nor logic, in sending these Jewish archives back to Iraq, a place that has virtually no Jews, no interest in Jewish heritage and no accessibility to Jewish scholars or the descendants of those who once possessed them.

A bi-partisan letter to Secretary of State Kerry (full text) signed by 47 members of Congress last month argues that the collection should be returned to the descendants of the Iraqi Jewish community outside of Iraq.  It is estimated that there are only 5 Jews left in Iraq today.

Arizona Indian Tribes Seeking To Block Paris Auction Of Sacred Items

According to AFP, in France on Friday a Paris court dismissed a lawsuit attempting to stop today's auction of 25 sacred objects from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache tribes in Arizona. The judge wrote:  "while the sale of these cultural objects can constitute an affront to the dignity of the Hopi tribe, this moral and philosophical consideration does not in itself give the judge the right to suspend the sale of these masks which is not forbidden in France."  On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Paris issued a press release stating that it had delivered a letter to the EVE auction house on behalf of the two Indian tribes requesting a delay in the auction scheduled for Dec. 9-10 so that the tribes "might 
have 
the opportunity 
to 
identify 
the 
objects,
 investigate 
their 
provenance 
and
 determine
whether
 they
 have 
a 
claim
 to 
recover 
the 
items 
under
 the
 1970 
UNESCO
Convention
 on
 the
 Export 
and 
Transfer 
of
 Ownership
 of
 Cultural 
Property, 
to 
which 
France 
is 
a
 signatory,
 or 
under
 other 
laws."

UPDATE: AP reports that the EVE auction house went ahead with the sale of the objects, saying that their action is legal under French law. One of the masks being auctioned was purchased by the Hopi's French lawyer who intends to return it to the tribe.