Athenian Society Seeks Legal Recourse Over Parthenon Marbles

A local cultural group, the Athenian Society, has decided this week to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Britain for its unwillingness to participate in mediation talks under the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation with regard to the Parthenon Marbles currently housed in the British Museum.

From their headquarters in Plaka, the board of the 120 year-old society, said that with its refusal to enter talks the UK is violating law which foresees, among others, the obligation to respect the cultural identity as a dimension of the right to privacy.

The Athenian Society was founded in 1895 and among its main goals is to   preserve and safeguard Greek history as well as its monuments, sites, art and culture.

For more than three decades, Greece has repeatedly called on the British Museum to return the 2,500-year-old marble sculptures that once adorned the Parthenon and have been the subject of dispute since they were illegally removed and taken out of the country by the Earl of Elgin in 1803.