Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8316495, member: 128351&quot;]Of course ! In the rule of law, everybody is considered innocent until proven guilty, and everything not forbidden by law is authorized (while in dictatorships everything not forbidden by law is compulsory). This is the ideal.</p><p><br /></p><p>But these principles have evolved. Let&#039;s consider rapists. 50 years from now, most rapists could get away with it because, when accused by their victims, they just had to deny: it is almost impossible to prove a rape, especially if the complaint is filed years after the fact, even more if the victim was a child at the time. Same thing with money laundering: the defendant may always protest he won the money playing poker with people he did not know (there are no laws against playing poker with people we do not know), or he just found the money in an abandoned pouch in the wild while walking his dog. For the good of the community, justice had to adapt. In rape cases the burden of proof is now on the defendant. In money laundering cases, the defendant must prove the provenance of the money.</p><p><br /></p><p>Same thing for antiquities trafficking. We know that in some countries the destruction of archaeological sites has become a real industry because there is a flourishing international market for portable antiquities - and this includes coins. When a stone head arrives at the customs, the authorities have the duty of checking it, and not just be satisfied with the paperwork (exported by some Emirati company, artisanal work, from an old family collection made before 1950, etc.). An expert must examine the item. If it is - for example - the head of a Buddha in typical Gandhara style, the expert will state this object likely comes from Afghanistan or Pakistan and, unless its owner can prove it was actually already in his granddad&#039;s garden in 1950, this head will be considered recently looted from some archaeological site. Same thing for coins. They often come in lots. If the lot includes Hellenistic Seleucid coins, Roman tets and bronzes from Antioch, city-coins of North Syrian and Mesopotamian cities, Byzantine folles, Umayyad, Zengid bronze dirhams and so on, the expert will conclude this whole lot likely originates from North Syria, precisely where the looting of archaeological sites is the most active. The burden of proof is now on the dealer: he must prove these coins were actually already in a &quot;collection made before 1970&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>We just cannot give a hand to the destruction of historical heritage by tolerating and legalizing looting and trafficking, just because it is impossible to prove that coins and antiquities have just been looted from war-torn countries.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in