Around 600,000 Historical Objects Left Iran’s National Museum During Ahmadinejad Era

A former head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organization reports that 600,000 historical objects have disappeared from Iran’s National Museum during the time of Hamid Baqaei, which have been lost. He speaks of Baqaei’s efforts to auction off companies belonging to the Cultural Heritage Organization at low prices.

Rouhollah Ahmadzadeh Kermani served as head of the Cultural Heritage Organization during the tenth government under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, after approximately eight months leading the organization, he resigned from his position in mid-December 2011 for unknown reasons.

In an interview with the “Mashrgh” website, Ahmadzadeh has for the first time made revelations against Hamid Baqaei, the first deputy of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating that following the publication of an exposé article in Kayhan newspaper, overseen by Hossein Shariatmadari, he learned that 600,000 historical objects have been removed from Iran’s National Museum and likely sold at international auctions.

Ahmadzadeh, who had been fascinated by Ahmadinejad’s personality and “simple living” during his first term as president, was first appointed governor of Fars Province for two years by the tenth government, and was then appointed head of the Cultural Heritage Organization and Ahmadinejad’s deputy, taking over the organization from Hamid Baqaei.

Prior to that, the head of the Cultural Heritage Organization had been transferred from Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei to Hamid Baqaei in June 2009. Ahmadzadeh discovered the disappearance of 600,000 historical objects and their sale at a series of foreign auctions during his eight-month period of service.

At that time, Ahmadzadeh’s investigations into how these ancient artifacts left the country faced obstruction from Hamid Baqaei and particularly from the lack of cooperation from Ms. Azadeh Ordakani, head of the National Museum, who was one of Baqaei’s close colleagues and appointees. As a result of his investigations, one of the organization’s staff members finally informed Ahmadzadeh that Ms. Ordakani had access to the keys of the National Museum’s warehouse overnight until morning. This was despite the fact that even the head of the Cultural Heritage Organization’s entry into the warehouse had to be accompanied by two security personnel.

This former head of the Cultural Heritage Organization called a session of the board of trustees of museums and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, please explain to me, according to this report I have in hand, approximately 600,000 objects have been organized under the title of ‘Organization Plan for Movable Historical and Cultural Objects.’ Since the revolution, our museums have numbered 97 (under the Cultural Heritage Organization), and from 2005 until now we have built 100 museums and we have 197 museums. Imagine we have 200 museums across the country, if we divide 600,000 objects by 200 museums, that means how many objects should each museum have? Each museum should approximately have 3,000 objects. But these 200 museums are not all Iran’s national museums. The suspicion that arises for the head of the Cultural Heritage Organization is why should this number of historical objects be unsealed and removed from the warehouses of Iran’s National Museum? Where have these objects been transferred to?”

Surveillance Cameras Facing the Sky

Based on the Cultural Heritage Organization’s security report, at that time the number of cameras in the National Museum was over 100, of which approximately 30 to 40 percent were broken or were monitoring in the wrong direction and had been out of service for a year.

Ahmadzadeh says that based on this report, some of these cameras that were still working had their lenses pointing toward the sky and were filming the sky.

He adds: “Ultimately this was not a normal occurrence and certainly some factors played a role in this matter. Of the 100 cameras we had, some were positioned at deviant angles and some were out of service.”

According to Ahmadzadeh, while our museums currently do not have the capacity to house this number of historical objects, we now need to go and search for where these assets have gone and what has happened to them.

Effort to Sell Trillion-Toman Company for 125 Billion

The former head of the Cultural Heritage Organization points to Hamid Baqaei’s efforts to sell the “Tourism Development Company” and says that while the value of this company was 1,000 billion tomans, Baqaei intended to transfer it for 125 billion tomans to a person who paid only 25 billion tomans in cash.

On the other hand, Hamid Baqaei had issued an order to transfer the “Automobile and Tourism Club” to a subordinate of the Office of the President, which Ahmadzadeh prevented. He says that previously, this club could have been used to pocket unaccounted and large sums of money.

Ahmadzadeh Kermani says he has taken action to prevent both of these illegal measures.

Source: DW