The Chicago-based Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), citing British Prime Minister Rushi Sunak’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ snobbery for raising the issue of the stolen Parthenon Marbles, has launched a petition for their return.
“For too long the British Museum has refused to return valuable 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 the head of the HALC, Endy Zemenides.
The group posted the petition online as part of an international call for support for their return, although all other such efforts have been unsuccessful, including in the UK for those who said the marbles belonged to Greece.
We will take the petition and pass it on to UK diplomatic missions around the world, so be sure to add your name now. We want to show that Hellenes and Philhellenes support Prime Minister Mitsotakis’ call to bring the Parthenon sculptures home,” he said.
Sunak was upset that Mitsotakis, in a BBC interview while in London for an event seeking foreign investors, said the British Museum retaining marble friezes was ‘like cutting the Mona Lisa in half’ .
The British said Greece had promised not to talk about the controversial issue again while Mitsotakis was in London – something the ruling New Democracy government had refused – after Sunak created conflict between the countries.
Scottish diplomat Lord Elgin tore the marbles from the Parthenon in the 19th century and sold them to the museum in 1816 after falling into financial difficulties, claiming he had permission from the Ottoman Empire, which did not own them.
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Photo source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Tony Webster
