Criminal responsibility is imposed in three new cases

New norms of criminal responsibility will be introduced into the criminal code of Uzbekistan to increase the effectiveness of measures to protect cultural heritage objects and prevent their illegal circulation.  In this regard, the draft law "On making additions to the Criminal and Criminal-Procedural Codes in connection with the strengthening of measures to combat the illegal circulation of cultural assets" is being drawn up.

The project introduces criminal responsibility for the following actions into the Criminal Code:

• illegal transportation of material and cultural resources through the customs border of the Republic of Uzbekistan;

• looting (regardless of the method) of objects and documents of special historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural significance;

• Not to return the objects of the artistic, historical and archaeological heritage of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the peoples of foreign countries to the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

According to the project overview, more than 2.5 million items and collections considered objects of material cultural heritage are kept in the museums of the republic, and only 5% of them are put on display.  According to the analysis, over 5,000 culturally valuable treasures have been lost from 14 state museums over the past 30 years.

Over the past year, several cases related to forgery, theft, and other looting of museum objects and collections have been revealed in museums.

In this regard, to increase the effectiveness of measures aimed at preventing crimes in this area, it is proposed to establish a special measure of responsibility for the robbery of objects of special value and to strengthen criminal responsibility for their commission.

Based on this, it is proposed to supplement Article 169-1 of the Criminal Code and set the age of the subject of this crime as 14 years.