A/71/317 43. The Special Rapporteur recalls the grievous history of destruction of diverse forms of indigenous cultural heritage in many parts of the world as a systematic part of, inter alia, colonialism or nationalist policies in post -colonial States. She agrees with the determination in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 31 that such policies can amount to cultural genocide. That history has shaped international law itself, as the notion of cultural genocide was excluded from the Genocide Convention owing to opposition from a number of settler colonial and Western States vulnerable to the accusation that they had historically engaged in such practices vis-à-vis indigenous peoples. The totality of these policies have had long-lasting effects on the human rights of many indigenous peoples in diverse geographical contexts and have impoverished the heritage of humanity. 44. Physical violence need not be used to destroy cultural heritage, as attested, for example, by the systematic changing of place names in the northern part of Cyprus by Turkish Cypriot authorities. 32 The Special Rapporteur also notes allegations that in Israel, archaeological excavations, research and preservation are sometimes used to entrench Israeli sovereignty over disputed areas in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and have become an instrument for highlighting only one national historical narrative. 33 45. Acts such as iconoclasm and biblioclasm have a long history in all regions of the world, whether perpetrated during wars, revolutions or waves of repression. However, in the early twenty-first century, a new wave of deliberate destruction is being recorded and displayed for all the world to see, the impact magnified by widespread distribution of the images. Such acts are often openly proclaimed and justified by their perpetrators. This represents one form of cultural warfare against populations and humanity as a whole, and a form that the Special Rapporteur condemns in the strongest terms. She shares the view of UNESCO that the se acts of intentional destruction sometimes constitute “cultural cleansing”. They take the terrorization of a population to a heightened level through an attack on its very history and pose an urgent challenge to cultural rights, which requires rapid and thoughtful international response. 46. The preamble of the 2003 UNESCO Declaration stresses that cultural heritage is an important component of cultural identity and of social cohesion “so that its intentional destruction may have adverse consequences (for) human dignity and human rights”. In recent cases, as in those involving their historical antecedents, the objects in question have clearly been targeted not in spite of the prohibitions on attacking cultural heritage and notwithstanding the value of the objects in question, but precisely because of the existence of that value and those norms. __________________ 31 32 33 16-13742 See the summary of the final report of the Commission, entitled Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, 2015. Available at http://nctr.ca/reports.php. See preliminary conclusions and observations by the Special Rapporteur at the end of her visit to Cyprus, 24 May-2 June 2016 (www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx? NewsID=20048&LangID=E). Submission of Emek Shaveh. Note also that the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief reported in 2008 that “(i)n the Occupied Palestinian Territory, there have been … problems of safe access to religious sites revered by Jews” (A/HRC/10/8/Add.2, para. 35). 13/24