New Arab: Out of sight: Iraq’s TV archive lost to the war. “When US forces invaded Iraq, looting and pillaging of political and cultural artefacts was rampant. Two decades later, Iraq’s TV archive remains lost despite efforts to retrieve the country’s stolen collections.”
WIRED: How an Iraqi Instagram Influencer Became a People Smuggler. “[Abdulrahman] Khalid Is Now Working As A Waiter In Western Turkey. He Makes Only Occasional Posts To His Instagram Account. He Claims Instagram Has Suspended The Account 10 Times, Including One Five-month Ban, And Worries More Posts About Atheism Would Prompt A Permanent Deletion. Deletion Would Matter Because Khalid Has Become More Than An Influencer. He’s A People Smuggler, Too.”
New York Times: For Sale on eBay: A Military Database of Fingerprints and Iris Scans. “The shoebox-shaped device, designed to capture fingerprints and perform iris scans, was listed on eBay for $149.95. A German security researcher, Matthias Marx, successfully offered $68, and when it arrived at his home in Hamburg in August, the rugged, hand-held machine contained more than what was promised in the listing. The device’s memory card held the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of 2,632 people.”
AFP: Iraqi conservators strive to preserve ancient manuscripts. “In a country that bears the scars of decades of conflict and has seen antiquities and cultural heritage regularly plundered, the House of Manuscripts’ collection has managed to survive. It was safely stashed away in the Baghdad suburbs, while the national museum was ransacked in the turmoil following the 2003 US-led invasion…. The collection, now ensconced in the national museum in the capital Baghdad, includes books, parchments and calligraphy boards, some of them damaged by humidity, pests and centuries of use.”
The National: How virtual reality is being used to recreate Iraq’s destroyed heritage. “The new Mosul Heritage Museum in Iraq is inviting people to experience its greatest historical sites — in virtual reality…. Through painstaking documentation, computer technology and virtual-reality artistry, Qaf Lab, an innovation hub in Mosul that supports Iraqi entrepreneurs, has reconstructed five heritage sites destroyed or damaged by ISIS during their three-year occupation of Mosul from 2014.”
Algonquin College: AC students developing resource database on the Yazidi genocide. “Learners in the at Algonquin College are developing an online resource cataloguing the genocide against the Yazidi people. In partnership with Yazidi Legal Network, the resource will serve as a database on crimes against Yazidis for human-rights lawyers and activists. Yazidis are Kurmanji-speaking peoples indigenous to Kurdistan. Canada has officially recognized the genocide of the Yazidi people by Daesh, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).”
University of Notre Dame: Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance Launches New Website. “The new website includes an archive of recorded events featuring transnational writers and scholars from Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Colombia, Chile and the United States whose work bears witness to truth and history and to the global struggle for freedom.”
Central European University: Digital Archive of Cultural Heritage a New Addition to Blinken OSA Catalog. “In 2019, the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA) and the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University, which runs the Cultural Heritage Studies Program, initiated a collaboration facilitating the research work conducted by students and faculty of the Cultural Heritage Studies Program to be preserved and made available to researchers at Blinken OSA. The new archival fonds are the result of this cooperation, and to date, three research collections of intangible cultural heritage have been processed.”
New York Times: Iraq Reclaims 17,000 Looted Artifacts, Its Biggest-Ever Repatriation. “When the Iraqi prime minister’s plane touched down in Baghdad last week after an official visit to the United States, its cargo included 17,000 archaeological artifacts returned by a prominent museum and an Ivy League university in the largest-ever repatriation of looted Iraqi antiquities.”
Department of Justice: Rare Cuneiform Tablet Bearing Portion of Epic of Gilgamesh Forfeited to United States. “Known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, it originated in the area of modern-day Iraq and entered the United States contrary to federal law. An international auction house (the Auction House) later sold the tablet to Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (Hobby Lobby), a prominent arts-and-crafts retailer based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for display at the Museum of the Bible (the Museum). Law enforcement agents seized the tablet from the Museum in September 2019.”
Alarabiya News: Kuwait receives eight tons of national archives from Iraq. “Kuwait received on Sunday eight tons of documents and other items taken during the 1990 Iraq invasion led by Saddam Hussein, officials said. It is the third shipment that Kuwait has received since 2019, according to officials from both countries.”
Google Blog: Mosul’s Art & Soul comes to life. “Some of us only know of the Iraqi city of Mosul as a place where many have suffered. But there is much more to the city than its recent history. Once a thriving trade centre, Mosul endured years of conflict but also renewal. Mosul, which is nestled in the ‘cradle of civilization,’ has a heritage that dates back to the 25th century BCE, and includes the breathtaking Great Mosque of Al-Nuri. To shed light on its art and history while supporting contemporary Mosulian artists, we’re launching The Art & Soul of Mosul on Google Arts & Culture, in partnership with Iraqi community radio station Al-Ghad Radio.”
Kurdistan 24: COVID-19: Iraq records 70 deaths and 3,821 infections in 24 hours. “The health ministry’s statement said that it had conducted 19,756 tests during that period, making for a total of 2,076,844 tests carried out since the beginning of the epidemic in Iraq. According to the health figures, the number of infections in Iraq has reached 322,856 confirmed cases, including 258,075 recoveries and 8,625 deaths.”
Arab News: Return of Saddam-era archive to Iraq opens debate, old wounds. “A trove of Saddam-era files secretly returned to Iraq has pried open the country’s painful past, prompting hopes some may learn the fate of long-lost relatives along with fears of new bloodshed. The 5 million pages of internal Baath Party documents were found in 2003, just months after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam, in the party’s partly flooded headquarters in tumultuous Baghdad.”
NPR: In Iraq, Authorities Continue To Fight Uphill Battle Against Antiquities Plunder. “Heritage experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of other objects were looted directly from Iraq’s archaeological sites after Saddam lost control of parts of the country in 1991, following the war to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. The looting and illegal trade of its antiquities in international markets continue to this day, Iraqi officials say. Conservationists say the coronavirus pandemic has only increased online sales of looted antiquities on social media sites such as Facebook and other online platforms.”
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