March 17, 2001
CONTENTS:
- Law suit against Museum Security Website
(Former Ashville, NC, sues Website)
- 11th Session of the UNESCO Restitution Committee Is Held in Phnom Penh
- A Botticelli Wonder, Bypassing U.S. Museums
Former local sues over Web site claim she inherited art stolen during Holocaust
By Susan Dryman, STAFF WRITER
ASHEVILLE – A former Asheville attorney is suing a former Fairview contractor, an international Web site and the site’s corporate sponsor over a Web newsletter alleging Gestapo head Heinrich Himmler gave her art looted from Jews during the Holocaust. Her attorney says the suit could set a precedent on whether corporate sponsors of Web sites, like publishers of newspapers, are responsible for content. Ellen L. Batzel said she’s afraid she might end up dead because of the posting, which listed her former north Asheville address of West Kensington Road and went out to hundreds of art dealers, museums and dozens of universities worldwide. She’s since moved her law practice to Los Angeles. A member of the Asheville Art Museum Board of Trustees, Batzel says she fears the posting has ruined her good name in the art world. "I’m associated now with the most notorious Nazi," she said this week while visiting Asheville for depositions in the suit. "I’m going to wake up at night, and somebody’s going to be there with a gun at my head …" The Citizen-Times on Friday couldn’t reach the man named in the suit as having sent the e- mail, Robert I. Smith, who gave a Taylor Road address when he filed a lien on Batzel’s house after a dispute over work he’d done there. The Web site’s editor, Ton Cremers of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, told the Citizen-Times Friday that he admits copying the e-mail to his Web site, but he never knew Batzel and didn’t mean to hurt her. His volunteer attorney, Stephen Newman of Los Angeles, said the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a U.S. law, protects Internet sites so that well-intentioned people without much money can freely discuss important and controversial issues. Newman does free work for California Lawyers for the Arts. "Many Internet sites are small start-ups," he said. "The idea is that the Internet should protect the free flow of information. If you make Internet site operators skittish, then they won’t let anybody on when there’s the slightest hint of controversy." The Web site sponsor named in the suit, Mosler Inc. of Hamilton, Ohio, is a worldwide security firm that guards priceless objects, including the Declaration of Independence. Spokesman John Pearce says the company merely advertised on the site, www.museum-security.org, and its officials feel sure the suit against it will be dismissed. Laura Gasaway, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor, says laws are still being made on just how much responsibility Web sites have for what they disseminate. Printed publications like newspapers and magazines are clearly responsible, she said, but the Internet is still a gray area. Where to file suit – especially with an international Web site - is also confusing, Gasaway said. "There’s a whole lot of stuff that’s just not clear," she said. "If it were a newspaper, we know what the rules are. … But we don’t know what the Internet is yet. Is it a newspaper? Is it (more like) television? That’s part of the issue. We’re just not clear on what it is yet." Batzel’s lawsuit, which she filed in California, claims Smith sent Cremers the e-mail in September 1999. The suit says Smith thought he heard Batzel say she inherited the art from her grandfather, who he identified as Himmler. Batzel says the claims are outrageous. She has collected art, she said, but nothing priceless like the pieces stolen from Jews. Her grandfathers were definitely not Nazis, she said, and were actually born in Pennsylvania. And as far as she knows, they never left the country except to serve in the military during World War I. The suit says Cremers copied Smith’s e-mail and put it in the next issue of the Museum Security Network Newsletter. More than 1,000 museum security experts and others in the art world received the Web newsletter, the suit says. When others challenged whether the accusation was true, the suit says the Web site ran another posting saying it had contacted the e-mail’s author and the FBI. Batzel only got wind of the electronic newsletter when someone anonymously tipped her off last January, she says. Her attorney demanded a correction and was told one had been made, but says he’s yet to find proof it was issued. Then in March of 2000, someone tried to get Batzel disbarred. A letter was sent to the N.C. State Bar asking that her law license be pulled because of the allegation. The bar responded that the matter was "considerably outside" the bar’s jurisdiction. Thursday, the Asheville lawyer whose name is on the letter to the bar told the Citizen-Times the letter is clearly a fake. David E. Matney III said he never reported Batzel to the bar and didn’t write, sign or send the letter. He says his signature must have been lifted from unrelated court documents, scanned on a computer and copied to the fake letterhead. He also said he never represented the Robert Smith named in the suit. "I feel like I’ve been as defamed as (Batzel) has," he said. He hasn’t reported the fake letter to law officers mainly because he thought they’d already been told. He’s not sure the letter is actually mail fraud anyway. FBI agent Jim Russell, senior resident agent in the Asheville office, said unless the letter writer tried to get money with the letter, it’s not mail fraud. Russell said Friday that a Robert Smith wanted an investigation, but the FBI declined to open one. Russell declined to say why. Batzel is suing for defamation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress. She wants at least $30 million, court papers say.
Contact Dryman at 232-5953 or SDryman@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
http://www.citizen-times.com/
From: "wyxhsz" hsuzhong@public2.east.cn.net
Subject: 11th Session of the UNESCO Restitution Committee Is Held in Phnom Penh
The 11th Session of the UNESCO Restitution Committee Is Held in Phnom Penh
see images at: http://www.culturalheritagewatch.org/01/005.html
At the generous invitation of the Royal Government of Cambodia, the 11th session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation is held in Phnom Penh from 6 to 9 this month.
This Committee, which meets regularly once every two years, was established by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1978. It is presently composed of 22 Member States. The Committee acts at an intergovernmental level as a forum for negotiation, discussion, training and awareness raising in relation to the illicit traffic of cultural property. In particular, the Committee facilitates bilateral negotiations and promotes multilateral cooperation for the restitution or return of cultural property to its countries of origin. Additionally, the Committee guides the planning and implementation of UNESCO's programmes of activities with regard to the illicit traffic of cultural artifacts.
At this session, the Committee examines two cases of restitution. First, the Committee is promoting bilateral negotiations between Greece and the United Kingdom for the restitution of the Parthenon marbles, which are located at the British Museum in London. The second case pending before the Committee concerns the negotiations between Turkey and Germany for the restitution of the so-called Bogazkoy sphinx, currently in Berlin. The Committee also examines a report drafted by a group of experts on the settlement of disputes concerning cultural property displaced during the WWII. It is intended to establish a series of principles for inter-state settlement of these kinds of disputes.
At this session, the Committee appeals for contributions to a special fund to facilitate the return and restitution of cultural property to its countries of origin. The fund is designed to support the Member States in their efforts to fight the illicit traffic of their cultural property. The fund will be built up from voluntary contributions by Member States and others. UNESCO is responsible for administering this fund.
The Committee pursues its standard setting activities during this meeting. In accordance with previous recommendations of the Committee, UNESCO adopted a series of international standards: an International Code of Ethics for Dealers in Cultural Property and an international standard for recording minimal data on movable cultural property ¨C the 'Object ID¡±. The Committee, during this session, considers the most appropriate means for the dissemination of these instruments among art dealers, museum curators, and police and customs officials.
The official opening ceremony of this session is presided over by Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Royal Government. The Prime Minister believes the protecting cultural heritage is Cambodia's big challenge in the new millennium. He also points out:
' Moreover, during the last few years of this globalized world, cultural exchange is on the increase and sometimes has taken a negative connotation. For example, the massive influx of foreign culture and the imitation of developed countries' mode of live sometimes create cultural shocks in developing countries at the beginning of their openness. Meanwhile, in western countries people pay more attention to other nations and their cultures. On a positive note, non-western culture and works of arts are highly valued on the international arena. However, this is also the main reason why more and more chefs-d'oeuvre and irreplaceable cultural masterpieces of developed countries' ancestors have been stolen or traded illegally over time in the international markets of antiques. The problem is getting worse when developing countries lack a legal framework and appropriate means, including financial, material and human, capable of preventing the outflows of the works of arts and cultural assets from their own countries.'
'As a consequent, these trends result in developing countries facing the tragedy of loosing their own cultural assets and masterpieces. By contrast, a plethora of works of arts, chefs- oeuvre and antiques from all parts of the world are increasingly on sale in developed countries' big stores. In addition, a handful of people have become owners of cultural assets, which were the products of long time collective work, while the original nations- owners of these miraculous masterpieces, suffered from abject poverty, are loosing the opportunity to use or benefit from the cultural heritage left over to them by their ancestors.'
'The above topic is of significance and relevance to Cambodia, as we have lost considerable cultural heritage, due to thefts or inciting poor and ignorant people to trafficking of artifacts during the last few decades. In view of caring for the protection of our cultural heritage, I would like to appeal to all parties concerned, including organizations, institutions, conservation, museums, traders in artifacts, archeologists, countries involving in the trafficking of cultural masterpieces and artifacts and the civil society involved in the conservation to work closely and make concerted efforts to establish a legal framework governing rigorously the imports, exports and the markets of artifacts. Similar to the problems of drugs, attention should be given to both factors of the market: the supply from developing countries and the demand from the developed countries. In this regard, I would like to emphasize the market factor, since the demand for artifacts come from developed countries. It is the money of the rich, which create a network of traffickers and thieves in artifacts stolen from poor countries. So if one wants to get rid of small thieves, he or she should get rid of big thieves first. It means that without a buyer of artifacts, there will be no thief of artifacts. It is my conviction that developed countries can do it, because they have developed a sound legal framework, the rule of law and governance, which work much better than in poor countries.'
see images at: http://www.culturalheritagewatch.org/01/005.html
A Botticelli Wonder, Bypassing U.S. Museums
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
Had it not been for a lawsuit brought in California against the Vatican Library in Rome, a much-coveted exhibition of 92 drawings by the Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli illustrating Dante's "Divine Comedy," seven of which belong to the Vatican, would be ending a three-month tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But because of the Vatican's fear of exposing its drawings to legal claims the exhibition never came to New York. Instead, it went to London, where it opens today at the Royal Academy. "The arrival of this show in London is a triumph of curatorial diplomacy for which British art lovers should be grateful," trumpeted a preview in The Times of London this week. "Thank the lord," said Norman Rosenthal, exhibitions secretary at the Royal Academy, who for decades had been in pursuit of an exhibition of the Botticelli cycle, which he described as "one of the divine meetings in the history of Western culture." Not that the British are gloating, but the Americans are certainly chagrined. "As an institution, we are very disappointed," said Harold Holzer, spokesman for the Metropolitan Museum. "This was something that was extraordinary, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." The show, which originated last year at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and moved later to Rome, unites the 92 extant drawings from Botticelli's Dante cycle for the first time in 500 years. Until 1993 the 85 drawings now at the Kupferstichkabinett were divided among museums in East and West Berlin. Because of their sensitivity to light, they are rarely exhibited, and the current tour is strictly limited. The illustrations — of which four are in color and the rest are drawn in a faint golden brown ink — offer "a breathtakingly intimate glimpse of Botticelli's creative process," according to a December 1998 description of the proposed show written by the Met's staff. But in the spring of 1999 lawyers for the Met were told that the Vatican was not willing to make loans to the United States for fear that the drawings could get ensnared in the lawsuit pending in Federal District Court in central California. As it turned out and as the Metropolitan said it learned only this week, the lawsuit against the Vatican Apostolic Library was resolved last August, said the library's Los Angeles lawyer, John McNicholas. "The lawsuit is over," Mr. McNicholas said. "I thought this Botticelli exhibition had long been forgotten but at this point, I can see no reason why the Vatican could not participate from a legal point of view." The lawsuit centered on a controversial contract signed by the Vatican's chief librarian and Elaine Peconi, a California businesswoman and onetime holder of a master license for the sale of reproductions from the library's collections. Among other things, the contract provided that all disputes would be resolved by courts in California, which was the point on which Mr. McNicholas said he thought the Vatican loan might be vulnerable. New York lawyers, however, argue that artworks on loan to museums in New York are protected from forfeiture under a 1968 law signed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. But Mr. McNicholas said he was not convinced. `'I was cautious, maybe too cautious, maybe not," he said. He said his advice was not influenced by the well-publicized seizure of two paintings by Egon Schiele from the Museum of Modern Art in 1998 on a subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morganthau. Those works were seized pending an investigation into claims by heirs of the works' original owners, whose art collections had been seized by the Nazis. The paintings had come to New York on a loan from the Leopold Foundation in Vienna; one, "Dead City," was returned to Vienna after the New York State Court of Appeals quashed Mr. Morganthau's subpoena in 1999. The other Schiele painting, "Portrait of Wally," is still in storage at the Museum of Modern Art, pending the outcome of a subsequent federal case brought by Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who has argued that the painting is stolen property. That case was dismissed by Judge Michael B. Mukasey of Federal District Court last July, but in December he gave the federal prosecutors another chance to amend their arguments. A final decision is expected this year. The case has been closely watched by American museum officials, who worry that foreign lenders will be wary of making loans to the United States. So far, cases like the one involving the Botticelli drawings are rare. Several museums, including the Metropolitan, have filed "friend of the court" briefs in support of the Museum of Modern Art. They hold that museums are not the proper place to resolve ownership disputes. "It is critically important to reassure lenders that their art is safe in every respect in American museums," said Stephen Clark, associate general counsel of the Museum of Modern Art. "It is a fundamental right that they should be able to get their art back." When will the Metropolitan get another chance to lure the Botticelli exhibition here? "I suspect it will be some years," said Mr. Rosenthal of the Royal Academy. "Then it might be possible, after the drawings have rested for a suitable period." "Would we like to be able to do the show now, if all things were equal or possible?" said Mr. Holzer. "Yes, of course, but there are so many intangibles — the ability of the works to withstand another venue, the gallery schedule at the Metropolitan — which make it wishful thinking." He added, "it is hard to fathom another opportunity presenting itself."
http://www.nytimes.com/