"Cities Destroyed by Terrorism" exhibition is officially opened to the public in Riyadh, to be its first international station after Paris. The Saudi Ministry of Culture and the Arab World Institute collaboratively organized the exhibition.
The National Museum in Riyadh hosts the exhibition that was inaugurated last Wednesday, in the presence of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi. The exhibition particularly documents, in this course, a part of the Arab history that was destroyed in Mosul.
The Exhibition contents, in general,send humanitarian messages against terrorism, revealing its devastatingeffects. It also documents the terrorism-committed destruction of the culturaland human heritage and raises awareness and sense of its value as there's nothing can be done withoutawaking such awareness to keep our heritage away from saboteurs and extremists.
Minister of Culture, Badr bin Farhan pointed out that the aim of theKingdom's host of this exhibition is to raise the awareness of the public aboutthe cultural and human heritage and the importance of preserving it, especiallyin the ancient and archaeological sites listed in UNESCO's list of WorldHeritage Sites (like: Grand Lebda in Libya, Aleppo and Palmyra in Syria, andMosul in Iraq), which exists in areas of conflict and disputes betweenextremist groups.
"The societal perception of the importance of heritage is afundamental objective that we aspire to achieve through this exhibition,because the cultural and human heritage documents the human history thatinforms us about the worlds of previous civilizations that have been destroyedor neglected because of extremist and terrorist ideologies found in the hotbedsof conflict a suitable environment to threaten our human and cultural historyin the Middle East." Badr bin Farhan, Minister of Culture stated.
The Minister added that the exhibition, that had proved its successful inParis, is supported by the latest technologies, to take the visitors through avirtual journey and a unique experience and enable them to realize the scale of destruction reached such sitesdue to acts of vandalism and to know more about the historical cities that weredestroyed, looted, or neglected because of terrorism in the Middle East.
"As far as I am pleased with this visit,I am saddened by the images I have seen in this exhibition, especially as ithighlights the ancient archaeological cities listed in the UNESCO list of humanheritage such as Aleppo and Palmyra in Syria, Mosul in Iraq and Libya's GrandMosque. As these historical cities, their ancient buildings, and theirmonuments fell under theweight of extremist groups to suffer clashes and conflicts." Turki Al-Faisal, the chairman of King Faisal Foundation's Centerfor Research and Islamic Studies, who visited the exhibition on Saturday, said.
