Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
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TAMPA, FL - The American Indian Movement of Florida today sent a complaint to the United States Department of Justice and United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida alleging that the Ebay online retail company is trafficking in funerary objects and objects of cultural patrimony (sacred articles) that were even advertised as having been obtained by grave robbers plundering American Indian cemeteries. Additional complaints will be filed with the Florida Attorney General’s Office and the Polk County State Attorney.

        Numerous American Indian activists, concerned consumers and people of goodwill have emailed Ebay in recent weeks with concerns over the repeated sale of objects unearthed from ancient American Indian cemeteries. Ebay has not directly responded, nor has it slowed its sale of American Indian religious objects and others obtained clearly from American Indian cemeteries.

        The focus of Florida AIM’s complaint was an object placed for sale on April 21st, 2000 at 7:05 PM PDT by a Lakeland, FL man who advertised a clay effigy noted as “This clay doll was dug up from a burial mound.” The digging of Indigenous burial mounds is a felony in the state of Florida under Florida State Statute 872.05. Further the trafficking of items obtained from American Indian cemeteries is illegal under federal laws. As Ebay is knowingly and willfully continuing in its profiting from the trafficking in Indigenous funerary and sacred objects.

        Florida AIM will also be asking that Ebay be charged under state and federal hate crimes legislation should action be taken as Ebay, to our knowledge, has not trafficked in burial goods from African, Anglo or Hispanic peoples cemeteries, nor have they advertised for or encouraged the same. Therefore their actions appear to be directed at the funerary objects and sacred articles in grave sites of American Indian peoples only.

        Florida AIM asks all human beings of conscience to also contact the United States Attorney’s Office near them to inquire if any action(s) will be taken to prevent this continued immoral, ghoulish and racist sale of the funerary related objects and sacred objects of American Indian people and the encouragement of the ransacking of Indian cemeteries by this online company of Pirates.