In 1923, in his speech at the Hong Kong university, sun yat-sen said, ‘thirty years ago, when I was studying in Hong Kong, I spent my spare time strolling through the city streets and saw the streets were in order, buildings were beautiful, the work was in progress, which left a deep impression on my mind.’
Recently, the granite ladder which sun yat-sen ever strolled through in his spare time, was smeared with black spray paint and the stain was hard to remove. It is understood that this section of stone ladder was Sun Yat-sen's daily way to school, which belongs to the protection of Sun Yat-sen's historical sites.
Every time we see the news of the destruction of cultural relics and historic sites, we not only feel angry, the more we feel is sighing and heartrending. In recent years, there are numerous news about the destruction of historic sites and historical relics. Recent case as the Paris Notre Dame cathedral fire in April, earlier case as our national treasure terracotta thumb being stolen, big case as a whole piece of ancient village of Shanxi Zezhou was pulled down in order to dig 3 million tons of coal, small case as the ‘here to visit’ that was engraved on the Great Wall, these are all the painful evidences of the historical treasures being undermined and destroyed.
Cultural relics and historical sites are the carriers of history and civilization, the priceless wealth left by predecessors, the historical imprints left by China's 5,000 years of history and the precious resources that cannot be recycled by human society. The protection of historic sites and cultural relics is imperative and urgent.
The case of 2013 Jinhao Ding’s visit to Luxor Temple in Egypt which made us shame is still vivid, but in fact, ‘here to visit’ is still happening every moment. Do you know? This kind of behavior may face the punishment of detention! According to Law on punishment for public security administration, the behavior of cutting, smearing or deliberately damaging by other means cultural relics, scenic spots or historic sites protected by the state, and conducting such activities as blasting or excavation in the vicinity of the unit of cultural relics under protection which threatens the safety of cultural relics are illegal. These behaviors may be punished with warnings, fines or even administrative detention, so refuse to ‘leave a name everywhere’, starting from me!
Not just some destroying cultural relics and historic sites personal acts, such as news about in Shanxi Zezhou, a whole ancient village was pushed over in order to dig 3 million tons of coal , and in Xinzheng, Henan province, where ancient buildings were demolished to build new communities, but for some units also destroyed traditional cultural relics and historic sites for the reason of ‘development’. Cultural relics protection law stipulates that such behaviors like conducting construction project or such operations as blasting, drilling and digging within the area of protection for a historical and cultural site without authorization, removing or dismantling irremovable cultural relics without authorization, a construction unit without qualification certificate for projects designed to protect cultural relics, repairing, removing or reconstructing cultural relic, which is not serious enough to constitute a crime, shall be ordered by the competent administrative department for cultural relics under the peoples government at or above the county level to put it right; if serious consequences are caused, it shall be fined not less than 50,000 yuan but not more than 500,000 yuan; and if the circumstances are serious, the authority that originally issued the qualification certificate shall revoke the certificate.
As for some behaviors that cause serious damages to cultural relics and historic sites, we need to bear not only administrative responsibility, but also face criminal responsibility.
Article 324 of the Criminal Law expressly stipulates the crime of intentional destruction of cultural relics and sites, which refers to the behaviors of intentionally destroying precious cultural relics protected by the state or identifying them as key cultural relics protection units in the country or cultural relics protection units at the provincial level. The crime requires the perpetrator to destroy intentionally, that is to say, he knows that the cultural relics or places of interest protected by the state still destroyed it. The ‘damage’ is in a variety of forms, such as smashing, demolition, excavation, burning and other ways are not allowed. In 2018 in Xian, a man named Xi, who was illegally digging sand in his contracted site found and reported by the local archaeological team, after the police warned him that the site was within the scope of the ancient bridge site on the Weihe River, Xi still dug sand there and resulting in the destruction of the site. At last, Xi was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for intentional damage to historical sites. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 yuan.
For the precious cultural relics protected by the state or those designated as national key cultural relics protection units or provincial cultural relics protection units, even if they are seriously damaged due to careless negligence, they will also be sentenced to less than three years fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention for the crime of negligent destruction of cultural relics.
Some friends may wonder, in the above charges, how to know that if the cultural relics or monuments meet the national key protection, provincial protection of cultural relics objects?
We don’t need to think about this for the Supreme Court and the supreme jointly issued a judicial interpretation in 2016 jointly, there is a clause said: This question need not be doubted, because in 2016 the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate issued a judicial interpretation, which contains a clause that says: the core scenic spots of scenic spots and those immovable cultural relics noumena which 1) have not been identified as national key cultural relics protection units; 2) provincial cultural relics protection units, like the ancient cultural sites, ancient tombs, ancient buildings, grotto temples, stone carvings, murals, important modern historic sites and representative buildings, etc., should be recognized as ‘national protected monuments’ as stipulated in the second paragraph of article 324 of the Criminal Law. Yes, our cultural relics protection is so careful! My understanding of this interpretation is that, anyway, those looks like cultural relics and historical sites are probably protected by our country, ‘Do be careful’, watch no tough!
According to statistics, more than 40,000 immovable cultural relics have disappeared in China in the past 30 years, which those are the carriers of history and civilization. The development of tourism and the process of urbanization are important, but even the mountains of gold and silver couldn’t buy cultural heritages! Every individual of our society should actively and automatically join the ranks of cultural relics and monuments protection, retain the ancient historical marks, and inherit excellent cultural heritages!
