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Facebook’s Black Market in Antiquities
Facebook’s “Groups” feature, which allows users to create and control a contained network of individuals with “shared interests,” has become a facilitator for the expansion of antiquities trafficking networks. The Groups provide a seamless environment for digital interactions and cross-border networking between users interested in buying and selling antiquities, allowing them to communicate efficiently and discretely. The ATHAR Project’s report covers nearly two-years of investigative research.
Terrorist Financing, Cultural Looting and The Role of Social Media
The NATO Strategic Direction-South Hub welcomes Dr. Amr Al Azm to The Southern Talks where we will be discussing how the looting and selling of antiquities and other cultural property during conflicts can finances terrorist groups, with a close look at the pivotal role of social media in facilitating this illegal trade. This Southern Talks is of an hour with a section dedicated to Q&A.
Terrorism Lawsuits Against Social Media Companies
Terrorism Lawsuits Against Social Media Companies
CTED, UNICRI host Expert Group Meeting on cultural heritage smuggling and its nexus with terrorism
While cultural heritage smuggling is not a new phenomenon, the rise of Da’esh and Al Qaeda affiliates has raised the alarm internationally on the looting of cultural property for terrorism financing. Since the early 1980s, terrorist and insurgent groups have been exploiting the lucrative illegal market of cultural artifacts to fund their activities. Addressing this, the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Instit
The 2nd Doha Workshop on Countering the Trafficking of Cultural Property with a Focus on Documentary Heritage
The phenomenon of illegal trafficking in cultural heritage has grown in the Arab region and the Middle East over the last decade, mainly due to civil unrest, armed conflicts, and natural disasters in the region. Special awareness, attention, and global coordination is paramount to combatting artifact smuggling and transit in the region and beyond.
Alliance for the Education of Women ‘Removing Barriers’
The Alliance’s working group on heritage protection includes Dr Amr Al Azm from Qatar University and the Athar Project. As part of the meeting, delegates toured the library’s heritage collection, gaining insights into the significance of Afghan cultural property within the broader context of global heritage.
Post-Conflict Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East and North Africa
The Georgian National Museum, in collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Culture in Crisis Programme, the Centre for Study and Promotion of Natural and Cultural Heritage of Georgia, the Rathgen Research Laboratory with the National Museums Berlin and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, are preparing for a major international conference to be held from 26 – 29 April 2023, in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Social Change and Transformation in the Gulf Region
Social change is an integral part of human social behavior and a phenomenon that is continuously happening around us. We constantly challenge existing social structures and institutions and transform them by contesting the cultural norms and values upon which they are founded. While such disruption may seem at the superficial level a negative form of disorder, in reality, it represents the way in which societies develop and evolve over time. Social change involves a cultural transformation often
Antiquities Trafficking in the Age of Social Media: How Big Tech Facilitates and Profits from the Digital Black Market
Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in our monthly series on January 26, 2023, at 6:00pm EST, featuring Katie A. Paul and moderated by Prof. Eric Cline. From the invasion of Ukraine to conflict in Syria, tech platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok have democratized global engagement in black markets.
DAWN MENA - Opinion: Can the Taliban and Syria’s al-Qaida Offshoot Actually Protect Cultural Heritage?
In Afghanistan, where they notoriously blew up the treasured Bamiyan Buddhas when they were last in power in 2001, the Taliban are now claiming that protecting the country’s vast cultural heritage “is our national priority.”
The Gates 3: Ancient Studies, Heritage and War – #EOTalks panel
As a way to show support and mobilize more conversation and actions from colleagues and students, we are hosting a special virtual panel featuring a stellar, international and interdisciplinary panel of scholars from/working on Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Ukraine. Themes to be discussed include students’ dislocation; heritage and trauma; refugee scholars; what can be done to help; looting and heritage/history destruction; the illicit trade.