London, England, September 27--Following a report that a rare carpet was recently stolen from the Carpet Museum of Iran, Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) Deputy Director Taha Hashemi said that the government must consider imposing heavier punishment on smugglers of rare historical artifacts, according to IranMania.com.
According to Mehr News Agency (MNA), Hashemi, the CHTO deputy director for international affairs, added that imposing heavy punishments is one of the serious steps the CHTO takes to prevent the smuggling of historical artifacts and that punishment must be heavier than the punishment for drug smuggling.
“There must be more cooperation with the judiciary system of the country, and the security systems of museums must be upgraded to avoid any recurrence of such events in the future,” he noted.
On the recently stolen carpet, he said that the rare carpet cannot be sold or used in any part of the world and will be returned to Iran soon.
Museum officials recently discovered that a rare carpet from the Pahlavi era was missing from the museum. It was stolen while being transferred to the museum’s storeroom.
Police believe that the carpet has not been taken out of the museum yet, although some experts are convinced that the carpet was stolen in a pre-planned operation and was taken out of the country within 10 hours of the theft.
