International Association

Matthew Taylor, Treasurer of the International Association and a member of the Marbles Reuited Campaign, attennded a student organised protest in London on behalf of the International Association.

You can also watch a video of the protest here.

PRESS RELEASE

The slogan “Bring them Back” echoed all over the British Museum!

London, 25 October 2010

The afternoon of Saturday October 23rd outside the British Museum, was strikingly different to any other. The flashes of the visitors were immortalising not any of the Museums’ stolen exhibits, but rather, the demonstrators standing in the front yard of the Museum, who wearing black t-shirts, holding banners and placards, were conveying the demand of the Hellenes anywhere in the world: “Bring Them Back”.

The demonstration for the return and restoration of the Parthenon Sculptures, organised by the ‘METOPO Cypriot Student Movement UK’ and the non-governmental organisation ‘Artclick’, under the campaign “Bring Them Back”, was an ultimate absolute success, as the people embraced it and dynamically became part of it.

The visitors of the Museum, informed as they were by the students of METOPO who were distributing leaflets regarding the Parthenon sculptures and the “Bring Them Back” campaign outside the Museum, were now facing, along with the demonstrators, reality: the Hellenic civilisation is the Hellenic Pride and the protests of the Hellenes for their stolen dignity are completely just.

The President of METOPO, Marios Nicolaou, delivered a resolution to the competent authorities of the Museum, demanding the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Greece, as well as analyzing and crushing their cheap and untrue arguments regarding the so-called protection of the marbles. Of course, the sculptures were not returned. However, we are under no circumstance willing to stop here. The demonstration that took place last Saturday was only the beginning. We understand that our struggle for the reinstatement of the Parthenon Sculptures will be long and difficult, but we feel that it is our duty to be part of this campaign, for as long as these Hellenic cultural treasures is held unlawfully in the country where our movement is based.

From now on, the restoration and return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece has become an aim and purpose to us. We reserve and promise, that each and every time, the British authorities will hear an even louder “Bring Them Back”, from the autonomous students of METOPO. This campaign will be over and we will complacent, only when we are able to flaunt the sculptures, reunited after almost 200 years, inside the new Acropolis Museum.

Press Office

METOPO Cypriot Student Movement UK

press@metopo.org.uk

www.metopo.org.uk

Read the original article here.

The Elginism website was set up in 2005 by the International Association's current treasurer, Matthew Taylor, with the aim of ccollating as many current articles relating to the Parthenon Sculptures & the campaign for their reunification in one single location.

This week, the website celebrates its fifth birthday. It now holds over 1500 articles about the issue, along with other related restitution cases.

You can read more about this story here.

International Association treasurer, Matthew Taylor, has appeared on a programme on the Iranian run Press TV network about the return of looted artefacts to their countries of origin.

You can view the program online on Press TV's website.

The Elginism website, which is run by Matthew Taylor (who is also treasurer of the Marbles Reunited campaign & of the International Association) is now available as a Facebook page.

Becoming a fan of the page enables you to eaily see the lates news about the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures in your news feed.

You can follow Elginism on Facebook here.

More coverage of the International Association for the Parthenon Sculptures's meeting in Athens.

Transcript

This is a transcript from Correspondents Report. The program is broadcast around Australia on Sundays at 08:00 on ABC Radio National.

Greek marbles could now have Athenian home

Correspondents Report – Sunday, 21 June , 2009

Reporter: Helena Smith

ELIZABETH JACKSON: After years of delays, the New Acropolis Museum opens in Athens this weekend, with prime ministers and heads of state flying in from around the world to attend the inauguration of the building.

Activists, including David Hill, the former managing director of the ABC who heads the Sydney-based Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, hope the new museum will reinvigorate the campaign to bring back the Elgin marbles – the artworks that have been displayed in the British Museum since Lord Elgin removed them from the Acropolis over 200 years ago.

Helena Smith reports from Athens.

HELENA SMITH: More than 180 years after the declaration of Greek independence and three decades after plans were first put forward, the New Museum of the Acropolis will finally open its doors.

For Greeks at large the $AU220-million museum is a dream come true, and already thousands have rushed to snap up tickets to a building many thought would never get off the ground.

But while the striking glass and cement behemoth is situated at the foot of the Acropolis, is architecturally stupendous and will contain the world’s finest collection of antique Greek sculpture, Greeks say without the classical carvings that adorned the Parthenon – until Lord Elgin removed them – it will remain woefully incomplete.To this end, the museum’s top floor facing the Acropolis has been has been purpose-built to display the masterpieces.

For a long time the British Museum argued that Athens had nowhere decent enough to exhibit its Golden Age wonders. But with that argument now crushed by the new museum, the fight to win back the marbles is about to be revived as never before.

And the Greeks are not short of supporters world-wide. In the past five years an international Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures has almost doubled in size, with members in 17 countries joining the Sydney based body.

Speaking exclusively to the ABC, the organisation’s president David Hill said he was sure the new museum would play a central role in reviving Greece’s push to retrieve the sculptures from the British Museum.

Singling out Australia for the support it has given Greece on the issue, the Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said he had been heartened that political opponents like Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Frazer had put their differences aside to sign up to the body.

“It is,” he told the ABC, “indicative of the strength of feeling the marbles have aroused. So many people around the world, and even in Britain, now believe that they should now be back in Greece.”If the Greeks had wanted to make a point that something is missing from their museum, they could not have done it better.

With more than 60 per cent of the ancient sculptor Phidias’ monumental frieze on display in London, thanks to Lord Elgin, Athens has had to make do with giant plaster-cast copies, acquired from the British Museum in the 19th century, to narrate the full tale that the carvings depicted of the great Panathenaic Procession.

The whiter-than-white plaster casts stand out like eyesores and have caused controversy before the museum has even opened.

This is Helena Smith in Athens reporting for Correspondents Report.

Read the original article on the ABC website.