Imprisonments and executions in China for tomb robberies

The Independent reports that China has sentenced to death four robbers who used explosives and heavy machinery to plunder tombs almost 2,500 years old. The state Xinhua News Agency says a 27-member gang looted a dozen tombs in the central province of Hunan in 2008 and 2009. The remaining 23 were jailed. More than 200 stolen artifacts were under China's highest level of protection. One tomb dates from the Warring States period that began in 475 BC. All the relics were recovered. Nevertheless foreign collectors who buy no questions asked artefacts without ascertaining that they had not "surfaced" on the market from underground as a result of by criminal activity are complicent in the crimes. they are the ones that provide the temptation in the form of financing it. They of course escape punishment. Collectors' rights movements like the ACCG will no doubt immediately mount an international campaign asking the Chinese government for leniency for these 27 people. Coiney internationalists make light of other people's heritage and respect for ancient sites such as ancestral cemeteries, and stress their own "rights" to collect objects looted from them, they forget that others too take the ancient heritage of their land extremely seriously.