CAIRO -

A state of anger spread on social media in Egypt in conjunction with news of the investigation with the former director of the Louvre Museum in France, Jean-Luc Martinez, regarding Egyptian antiquities that disappeared after the January 2011 revolution, and were sold to the Louvre Abu Dhabi through a Lebanese intermediary.

Tweeters attacked the Egyptian authorities' failure to comment on the case, and some accused the Military Council, which ran the country after the 2011 revolution, of overlooking these facts, and even the possibility of being involved in them, according to some of them.

Martinez, the former president of the Louvre Museum in Paris (2013-2021), faces judicial charges of conspiring to conceal the origin of archaeological treasures that may have been extracted from Egypt during the Arab Spring uprisings, in a case that shocked the archaeological world, and brought back light to violations of the art market, auctions and antique dealers in the capital. French.

The French judiciary is trying Martinez, the former director of the Louvre Museum, on charges of conspiracy and concealment of antiquities that came out of Egypt illegally. France believes that Martinez has offended its cultural reputation and embarrassed foreign relations.


Cairo is officially silent and has not commented on the matter so far,


but we have to comment because we want to, sorry!

— MahaSeraj Mahasraj (@mahaserag) May 27, 2022

I do not follow up on the scandals of the Egyptian regime.


The former director of the Louvre Museum is under investigation for being involved in forgery and money laundering in a case related to the sale of Egyptian antiquities that were smuggled over the past ten years.

This scandal is disastrous on any and every scale.

Our history is being sold privately and publicly.

https://t.co/nNQdQ0cGtc

— hatim (@hatimny) May 27, 2022

meager statements

The official Egyptian statements about the case were not on the level of the event, and no statement was issued about it by the Ministry of Antiquities, with the exception of the General Supervisor of the Department of Recovered Antiquities in the Ministry, Shaaban Abdel Gawad, who said that the investigations are ongoing in Paris in cooperation with the French, American and Egyptian authorities.

Abdel-Gawad refused, in televised statements, to go into the details of the case, claiming that he was keen on the success of the investigations. He only confirmed that he had followed up all the details since the first day, and announced that Egypt had succeeded in recovering more than 29,300 artifacts, during the last 5 years, he said.

The famous Egyptian antiquities expert, Zahi Hawass, said in a telephone interview with the media, Amr Adib, on the Saudi-owned MBC Egypt channel, on Friday, that the Louvre Museum is famous for buying stolen antiquities, and that Egypt will find it difficult to recover the Tutankhamun painting, which was bought by a museum. Louvre Abu Dhabi, if it does not prove that it left Egypt illegally.

While the announcer only said, "The amount of people who profited and became rich from the theft of Egyptian antiquities is large, whether they were known or not," without any demand - from him or from Hawass - to investigate how these antiquities came out of Egypt.

Social media outrage

The poor interaction with the case did not manage to calm the angry, but rather increased their anger because of what they saw as a superficial handling of the matter, far from addressing the need to find those involved, and the details of the robbery and smuggling of antiquities, which, according to a previous statement by the Minister of Antiquities, amounted to 33,000 artifacts.

Some claimed that there was a smell of corruption in the case of stolen antiquities and the director of the Louvre Museum, with Egyptian officials denying the theft at first, before the non-Egyptian investigations proved that it was stolen and some of them were returned to Egypt, and that the smell of corruption is similar to the smell of human rights violations, it cannot be ended Except to remove corruption and violations.

Some sent messages to the Emirates to return the Egyptian antiquities in the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum voluntarily to Cairo, after confirming that they were stolen antiquities.

The subject of the stolen Egyptian antiquities and the director of the Louvre Museum, Egyptian officials denied the theft at first


, and after an investigation, it was not Egyptian, in fact it was stolen and some of them were returned to Egypt!


In the wind and loneliness in France and in the Emirates and Egypt.


The smell of corruption is like the smell of human rights violations, and it can only be ended by removing corruption and violations

— Gamal Eid (@gamaleid) May 28, 2022

During the rule of the military council that ran the country after the January revolution, 33,000 antiquities


were disappeared,


let alone the amount of smuggled antiquities during the 8-year rule of Sisi


, the former director of the Louvre Museum is


under investigation for accusing him of involvement in fraud and money laundering


in a case related to the sale of Egyptian antiquities that


were smuggled over 10 years. Past https://t.co/Jjf88kmoxu

— Elsayed Salem 1️⃣ (@Elsayed83289605) May 28, 2022

Dear


Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates , the former director of the Louvre Museum in France, was accused of

stealing Egyptian

antiquities


and selling them to the Louvre Abu Dhabi


.



— magdy hemdan (@magdy_mousaa) May 28, 2022

The people who ask me, will the Tutankhamun painting in the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which was proven to have been illegally removed and sold from Egypt and bought from the director of the Louvre Museum in Paris, return or not? and the 1972 UNESCO Convention pic.twitter.com/TPL0KQuNg5

— Monica Hanna (@monznomad) May 27, 2022

Egyptian antiquities steal a sentence and give a legal certificate from the director of the Louvre Museum in Paris and then transported to the United Arab Emirates and New York. Of course, the Egyptian government did not know!

— Mahmoud Wahba from New York (@MahmoudNYC) May 28, 2022

The Minister of Antiquities: I requested an inventory of the warehouses, and discovered the disappearance of 33,000 artifacts – the seventh day https://t.co/vksES54tFk

— Monica Hanna (@monznomad) May 27, 2022

Emirati Ambassador

The case brought to mind the talk, which took place at the end of last year, about the possible involvement of the former UAE ambassador to Cairo, Hamad Saeed Al Shamsi, in smuggling antiquities.

The name of the Emirati ambassador came after his former Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Morsi, posted on his Facebook page that the decision to deport Al Shamsi came “after investigations revealed his involvement in smuggling Egyptian antiquities with Emirati diplomatic bags,” before Morsi later deleted the post.

And then the Emirati politician and academic Abdul Khaleq Abdullah - who posted on Twitter - followed him that one of the country's ambassadors made mistakes during his work as an ambassador, pointing out that he was under investigation, before he deleted the tweet at a later time, without apologizing for it, as the Egyptian diplomat did.

Abdullah did not talk about the smuggling incident or the expulsion of the ambassador directly, but he said that "he was summoned urgently and quickly replaced, and he is currently under investigation and a fair trial, and the results and details of the case will be announced transparently on time, and that it is something that may happen anywhere and anytime and for any ambassador who exceeds his diplomatic powers. No one is above the law: ambassador, sentry, director or emir.

With the Egyptian ambassador Mohamed Morsi retracting out of fear and greed from what he wrote about expelling the UAE ambassador in Cairo, accusing him of being involved in smuggling antiquities, within the case in which the businessman Hassan Ratib is accused, Abdel-Khaleq Abdullah admits to withdrawing an ambassador to his country, and submitting to investigations, on a promise to announce the truth. .

In the apricot, God willing!

pic.twitter.com/FrTTWvHvVx

— Selim Azzouz (@selimazouz1) December 21, 2021

French newspapers said that Martinez, 58, was suspected of "turning a blind eye" to forged certificates of artifacts, including a piece that was smuggled during the early years of the last decade, and represents a huge pink granite stele stamped with the royal seal of Tutankhamun, the pharaoh of Egypt between the years 1334 and 1325 BC, who was famous for his tomb and gold treasures.

Last year, Martinez, who has been linked to smuggling antiquities from the Middle East for years, resigned as head of the Louvre, while still serving as an ambassador for international cooperation in the field of heritage.

This case causes embarrassment to the French ministries of culture and foreign affairs, according to the British newspaper, The Guardian.

The anti-trafficking police heard Martinez and two of his colleagues, who were later released, Vincent Rondo, current director of the Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Louvre, and Olivier Perdue, an Egyptologist.

The case was opened in July 2018, two years after the Louvre Abu Dhabi purchased a rare piece of pink granite, depicting the pharaoh Tutankhamun, and four other ancient artifacts for 8 million euros (£ 6.8 million).