The International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, has launched their new website. The IOCARPM is one of two committees in Australia, whose sole aim is to campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Push to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece
Updated March 15, 2012 09:10:50

There has been a renewed call from a committee of Greek Australians for the British government to return the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

The marbles are Greek sculptures that were part of the Parthenon, but have been held in London’s British Museum for nearly 200 years.

The 2,500-year-old sculptures were prised off the Acropolis walls in the early 1800s for Britain’s diplomat Lord Elgin and he sold them to the British Museum where they remain.

At a dinner in Sydney last night, the International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles launched a new website, aimed at reinvigorating its longstanding campaign.

Sydney’s Greek Consul General Vassilios Tolios says the return of the statues is very important, with Greece badly needing a spiritual boost in the current financial crisis.

“I think it is not only very important for the whole of Greece, but it’s a common monument of the whole mankind,” he said.

The committee’s Dennis Tritaris says the new Acropolis museum was opened two years, ready to display the statues.

“It has one space specifically to host the marbles,” he said.

He says Greece is in crisis and needs the statues now more than ever.

“The Parthenon Marbles, when they are returned to Greece, it’s going to be a very big boost to this morale,” he said.

A meeting of the Australian, American and British committees will be held in London this June, to renew pressure on the British government.