UNESCO: Religious heritage’s role in keeping the peace

Saving culture is essential for building peace, writes Irina Bokova, Director General for UNESCO, on the Huffington Post website.

Qadisiyah, Baghdad, Iraq – Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Saving culture is part of the answer. We need to protect our past to build a better future. This is why UNESCO is helping Iraqi authorities to safeguard sites and protect cultural diversity, training conservation experts, monitoring damage and ringing alarm bells about illicit trafficking. This is why we meet regularly with heritage experts, government bodies, customs authorities, law enforcement agencies, museums and auction houses, and why we are mobilizing civil society and the media. Indeed, on Wednesday this week, we gathered the international community at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to take stock of the situation and look at what we can do together to halt the destruction, in both Iraq and Syria.

Read the full piece here.