MB MP Ossama Gado calls for government to prosecute antiquities smuggling

MP Ossama Gado, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Parliamentary bloc, called on the Ministry of Culture to disclose a network involved in the smuggling of Egyptian antiquities abroad valued at $200 trillion. He stressed that procedures must be taken to restore and preserve what remains of the antiques from abroad.

 

In an urgent inquiry addressed to the Minister of Culture, he revealed that the legislator has ascertained that the dispute that occurred between the Ministry of Culture and Paris’ Louvre Museum was due to the betrayal of France to Egypt’s culture Minister Farouk Hosny who was vying for UNESCO’s top post. He pointed out that there are several Egyptian antiquities currently displayed in the European museums such as the Rosetta stone in London’s British Museum and Queen Nefertiti’s head in the Berlin Museum. He urged the government to restore the antiques just as it had restored similar antiques from the Paris’ Louvre.

 

 

Egypt is presently hoping to restore rare artifacts from various world museums including the bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin, the Rosetta Stone in London’s British Museum, The Zodiac of Dendera (Upper Egypt) now in Paris’s Louvre, the bust of one of the Great pyramids of Giza’s architects at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, America, and Hemiunu, architect of Khufu’s pyramid in the German museum. In addition to this, there are a large number of monuments stolen during the French and English invasions of Egypt.