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·搜一搜.cn/Villagers seeking return of stolen statue from Dutch holder

A thousand-year old statue, now in the hands of a Dutch collector, was stolen from its temple home.
  Now, the villagers of Yangchun, in eastern China's Fujian Province, want the statue back. However, negotiations are proving tricky.
According to a lawyer helping the villagers, the Dutch owner suggests three conditions for returning their statue: first, that it be handed over to a large museum, rather than the temple where it was originally located. Second, that he receive assistance from China's cultural-relics department in visiting China to study stone engravings. And third, that he receive some in-kind compensation as yet not specified.
The statue is of a Buddha named Zhanggong Zushi, a local man who became a monk in his 20s and won fame for treating disease and spreading Buddhist belief.
When he died, his body was mummified and placed inside the statue, since when it was worshipped in the village temple.
After eight months of patient, indirect, and difficult contact with the Dutch collector, the villagers of Yangchun have hired a group of lawyers in hopes of recovering the statue they claim belongs to them.
For now, they still hope mediation - rather than litigation - will lead to custody of their time-honoured possession.

12-09-2015 00:17 BJT  CCTV.com   Villagers seeking return of stolen statue from Dutch holder
http://english.cntv.cn/2015/12/09/VIDE1449591364361575.shtml

Chinese villagers head to Dutch court to reclaim Buddha containing mummified monk
 November 22, 2015    

The Buddha and a scan showing the mummy. Photo: Drents Museum
A group of Chinese villagers has hired a team of top lawyers to sue a Dutch collector after he refused to return a mummified Buddha statue believed to have been stolen 20 years ago, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Representatives from the Yangchun village, in southeast China’s Fujian province, have signed an agreement with seven lawyers to bring the case to Dutch court, the news agency says.
The Buddha is currently in the hands of a Dutch collector who earlier pledged to return it if the statue’s original owner community can be traced. However, the villagers say he is now backtracking and they have to go to court to win back their statue.
Questions about the 1,000 year old Buddha’s ownership arose when it became the star item in a show at the Hungarian natural history museum in Budapest earlier this year.
Pictures of the Buddha were shown on a Chinese news programme, leading villagers in Yangchun to claim it had been stolen from their temple in 1995.

Collectors
The owner, whose identity has been kept secret, claims to have bought it for 40,000 guilders (around €18,000) in 1996 from another collector. He is said to have acquired it in late 1994 or early 1995 from a Chinese artist friend, the NRC said at the time.
The statue contains the mummified body of a monk, who the villagers claim is local man Zhanggong Zushi.
Chinese lawyer Liu Yang, who has successfully recovered relics in the past, says the legal action will start at the end of this year. ‘
The validity period for recovering the relic is going to expire next year. So we are under pressure to complete the legal work quickly,’ Liu said.

Related Stories
Buddha mummy owner will return it if rightful village owner is found: NRC
Read more at DutchNews.nl:
Chinese villagers head to Dutch court to reclaim Buddha containing mummified monk
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/11/chinese-villagers-head-to-dutch-court-to-reclaim-buddha-containing-mummified-monk/


Chinese villagers head to Dutch court to reclaim Buddha containing mummified monk
 November 22nd, 2015
Buddha mummy owner will return it if rightful village owner is found: NRC
March 27th, 2015
1,000-year-old Buddha statue reveal mummified remains of meditating monk
February 25th, 2015