Our world is far from being at peace. There is suffering on a huge scale going on, right now, in many countries. Some of these may be termed displacement crises, others humanitarian catastrophes, or civil wars, or uprisings or invasions. Those living through these awful events are directly impacted, whether being forced to flee, hide from drones, escape from famine, or fight for their survival or homeland. The threat is entirely real and omnipresent.

Targeting the cultural heritage of a nation and its people seems to be becoming an ever more common strategy. The intentional destruction of museums, cultural artefacts, historical monuments and structures – all are attempts to erase the cultural heritage of the place under target. Beyond even this, there have been attacks on libraries, bookshops, publishers and book warehouses – effectively attacks on freedom of speech and expression, as well as on education and literacy.

ISBN is the world’s key identifier supporting the discovery and distribution of publications throughout national and international supply chains. As such, we condemn all attempts to impact and disrupt the book supply chain. The IIA is particularly distressed by how warfare often targets cultural heritage through the destruction of libraries and books in general.

The following post was made recently by the International Publishers Association (IPA) about attacks on publishing in one such affected country. The IPA has an ex officio seat on the IIA Board.

https://internationalpublishers.org/ipa-condemns-devastating-attacks-on-ukrainian-publishing/