Unite4Heritage is a campaign launched on March 28, 2015 by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Director-General, Irina Bokova, aiming to create a global movement "to protect and safeguard heritage in areas where it is threatened by extremists". The campaign was triggered by the programmatic destruction of cultural heritage conducted in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and Syria by the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL) since 2014, in particular after the circulation of videos of looting at

Mosul Museum The Mosul Museum ( ar, متحف الموصل) is the second largest museum in Iraq after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It was heavily looted during the 2003 Iraq War. Founded in 1952, the museum consisted of a small hall until a new bu ...

, destruction in the city of

Nimrud Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...

and the UNESCO World Heritage site of

Hatra Hatra ( ar, الحضر; syr, ‎ܚܛܪܐ) was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The city lies northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul. Hatra was a strongly fortified ...

. Irina Bokova called the destructions in Mosul a violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2199, and the destruction of Nimrud a war crime. Among the different initiatives to support Unite4Heritage, the campaign #faces4heritage can be mentioned, which invites people to change their profile on social networks to raise awareness about heritage destruction. Faces4heritage is presented on the homepage of Unite4Heritage and has become its most active supporting campaign on Twitter. #faces4heritage is run by the UNESCO chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites, at USI - Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland).

References

External links

@Unite4Heritage

faces4heritage website
Heritage organizations United Nations mass media University of Lugano {{UN-stub

See also

References

External links