PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris court ruled on Friday that an auction of ancient masks revered as sacred by a Native American tribe would go ahead despite growing protests and requests to halt the sale, including one from the U.S. ambassador to France.
The Hopi tribe of northeastern Arizona and supporters such as actor Robert Redford had urged the Paris auction house to suspend the sale due to the masks' cultural and religious significance.
But the court rejected a motion from the tribe and Survival International, a non-government group representing its interests, arguing that it could only intervene to protect human remains or living beings.
"This decision is very disappointing," said Pierre Servan-Schreiber, a lawyer for Survival International. "Not everything is necessarily up for sale or purchase, and we need to be careful."
The Neret-Minet, Tessier and Sarrou auctioneers plan to go ahead at 1200 GMT with an auction of dozens of masks, some of which are elaborately stitched from colored fabric, at prices ranging between $2,000 and $32,000 apiece.
According to a Neret-Minet catalogue, the collection was assembled by "an amateur with assured taste" who lived in the United States for three decades. A spokeswoman for the auctioneers was not immediately available for comment.
A growing chorus of opponents have weighed in on the dispute, arguing the Paris auction house should provide legal justification for selling the masks.
"To auction these would be in my opinion a sacrilege, a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions," Robert Redford wrote in an open letter.
The U.S. ambassador to France Charles Rivkin had urged a delay until the legal status and provenance of the masks can be determined.
"I call on the auction house to consider the importance of these sacred objects to the Hopi Nation," Rivkin said in a statement. "A delay would allow the creators of these sacred objects the chance to determine their possible rights."
Rivkin said that the auction house had yet to provide the Hopi Tribe with essential information about the objects. A spokesman for the ambassador declined to comment on the ruling.
The tribe's legal advocates had sued the auctioneers at the Drouot-Richelieu auction house in central Paris on grounds that auctioning the masks would cause the Hopi "profound hurt and distress".
(Reporting by Nicholas Vinocur, Chine Labbe, Lucien Libert and Tara Oakes; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)