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'Sacrilege' - Robert Redford joins opposition to French Hopi masks auction

US film star Robert Redford on Thursday slammed an auction of Hopi masks in Paris ahead of a court decision due Friday on whether the sale can go ahead.

Antoine Mercier/Dan Graphiste
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The French court was due to decide on Friday whether or not to ban the auction of sacred tribal masks from Arizona in the United States.

Advocacy group Survival International has made a request to the court to stop Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou auction house in Paris from selling 70 masks originally owned by Hopi native American tribes from Arizona.

Redford dubbed the proposed sale “sacrilege” in a letter of support and warned of “grave moral consequences” if it goes ahead.

Representatives of the Hopi tribe, who number about 18,000, regard the artefacts as sacred.

Two museums in Arizona and members of the Hopi have joined demands for the sale to be called off and US ambassador to France Charles Rivkin has said he is "very concerned" about the sale.

Lawyer Pierre Servan-Schreiber said Thursday that he was fighting the sale on the bases of a Frecnh law that protects "the principal of loyalty and strict observance of respect for the dead".

The sale of sacred Indian artefacts has been outlawed in the United States since 1990 but legislation currently does not extend to sales overseas.

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