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·搜一搜.cn/Dispute over Return of Stolen Buddha Statue Unsolved

Dispute over Return of Stolen Buddha Statue Unsolved


A Chinese Buddha statue with the mummified body of a Buddhist monk inside is on display at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, Hungary on March 3, 2015. According to the Chinese characters written on the pilow of the statue, the body inside the statue belonged to Chinese Buddhist monk Zhang Liuquan who lived around A.D. 1100. [File Photo: Xinhua]
Legal experts are starting to weigh-in on what's going to be required for a group of villagers to  reclaim a Buddha statue currently in the possession of a Dutch collector.

The villagers from rural Fujian claim the statue currently held by the Dutch collector was stolen from their village a number of years ago.

Negotiations have been underway to get the statue back.
However, they've since stalled, with the collector demanding 20-million US dollars  in compensation for giving it back.

Huo Zhengxin  with the China University of Political Science and Law,  says one key to determining compensation is whether the collector's story holds up.
"If he was an innocent purchaser, which means he fulfilled the obligations to investigate the source of the antique, according to Dutch laws, he can now legally possess the statue after obtaining it for three years. If so, the reasonable compensation will include three parts: first, the 40,000 Dutch guilders he paid when buying it; second, the cost to research and preserve it in past years; third, the expenditure to transport it back to China and related insurance expense."
Huo Zhengxin says if the Dutch collector is lying, and knew about the alleged history of the buddha, things will be different.
"If he was a malicious buyer, or in other words, he did not fulfill the obligations to investigate the source of the antique, or he knew or he should have known that the statue was a stolen piece, the compensation will be much smaller- the Chinese side does not need to pay the amount of money that he paid when purchasing it."
Lawyers representing the village in its quest to win the custody of the Buddha statue have said that they will submit an appeal to a Dutch court.
The Dutch buyer says he purchased the statue from a Hong Kong dealer in 1996.
If he maintains his hold on the statue into next year, the villagers who claim the statue is theirs will lose much of their legal avenues to appeal, as 20-years is a benchmark for property ownership in most disputes of this nature.

  2015-12-08 19:32:34  章公祖师 CRIENGLISH.com    
 Web Editor: Xu Leiying  Dispute over Return of Stolen Buddha Statue Unsolved
http://english.cri.cn/12394/2015/12/08/1821s907453.htm

China Exclusive: Fujian villagers sue after Dutch collector refuses to return stolen god

FUZHOU, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- A group of Chinese villagers has hired a team of top lawyers to sue a Dutch collector after he refused to return a mummified Buddha statue believed to have been stolen 20 years ago.
Representatives from Yangchun Village, Datian County in southeast China's Fujian Province, have signed an agreement with seven lawyers to bring the case to Dutch court.
The village has gone through official and private channels to negotiate with the Dutch collector for the return of the statue, which was worshipped as a god in the village temple for around 1,000 years, Lin Wenqing, Party chief of Yangchun village, said.
The collector first responded by saying he was willing to cede the relic "if it is proven to have belonged to a Buddhist community that still exists," but later changed positions and rejected negotiations.
The statue is of a Buddha named Zhanggong Zushi, a local man who became a monk in his 20s and won fame for helping people treat disease and spreading Buddhist belief.
When he died at the age of 37, his body was mummified and placed in the statue during China's Song Dynasty (960-1279). The statue was worshipped in the village temple ever since.
It was displayed at a "Mummy World" exhibition at the Hungarian Natural History Museum, which opened in October last year. It was originally scheduled to be on display until May 17, but was pulled from the exhibition following allegations it was stolen.
In the temple, local people still display the statue's hat and clothes left behind after it disappeared.
Leading the group of lawyers is Liu Yang, who earned a reputation for successfully leading a Chinese legal team in recovering relics looted from the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan), which was burned down by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War in 1860.
Liu said lawyers have finished collecting evidence on the case and will bring it to court by the end of this year.
He said he is optimistic as there are "no evident flaws or obstacles" in arguing the statue was stolen from the village temple. It is also important the court knows the village has a deep spiritual connection with the statue and a sense of urgency in reclaiming it.
The Dutch collector claims he obtained the item in 1996. According to Dutch law, the time frame for civil litigation is 20 years.
"The validity period for recovering the relic is going to expire next year. So we have pressure to complete the legal work quickly," Liu said.
He will fly to the Netherlands to work with a Dutch counterpart for the case in December.
Hundreds of residents from Datian County wrote a letter to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in March, pleading for return of the Buddha. The letter was handed to European-Chinese groups in the Netherlands, which delivered it via the Chinese embassy.
"We believe this is the Buddha we have been searching for over the past 20 years and we look forward to its return," the letter said in both Chinese and English.

Xinhua News Agency  on Nov 18, 2015 @ 2:24 AM
  China Exclusive: Fujian villagers sue after Dutch collector refuses to return stolen god
http://www.globalpost.com/article/6689684/2015/11/18/china-exclusive-fujian-villagers-sue-after-dutch-collector-refuses-return