Press release

Iraq: feminist activist Sahar Salam touring Italy with Un Ponte Per
The "Voice of the Revolution" tour kicks off on 11 November, featuring the activist involved in the October Uprising across Iraq in 2019. Accompanying her will be the NGO Un Ponte Per, present in the country for over 30 years.

Rome, 9th October 2022 - The Iraqi feminist activist Sahar Salam, the protagonist of the "October Uprising" ( Tishreen in Arabic), the extraordinary popular and youth mobilisation that crossed Iraq between 2019 and 2020, will arrive in Italy for the first time and will stop in Florence, Pisa, Rome, Milan, Ancona and Bologna. Salam will be accompanied by the NGO Un Ponte Per, which has been active in Iraq for over 30 years.

In 2019, thousands of young Iraqis took to the streets in massive demonstrations demanding economic reforms, an end to political corruption and the right to a future. Among the largest in the country, the mobilisations suffered a heavy repression, but led to the resignation of the incumbent government led by Adel Abdul-Mahdi and new elections. Over 650 were the victims of that political season, which saw its propulsive heart in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, occupied for months by young activists.

Today, their testimonies have been collected in a volume entitled 'Iraq. The Voice of the Revolution', produced by Un Ponte Per thanks to the support of the 'Al Thawra Untha' (The Revolution is a Woman) project, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and carried out together with the Iraqi Information Centre for Research and Development (ICRD).

The project, which started in 2021 and will run until 2025, aims to support Iraqi women and activists who are still struggling against gender stereotypes and oppressive social norms. Created in the wake of the 2019 mobilisations, the intervention aims to provide formal and informal grassroots women's groups with the long-term tools to strengthen their political participation, through workshops, meetings, exchanges, trainings, and public campaigns.

Un Ponte Per will therefore accompany Sahar Salam in a series of meetings with activists, associations, movements and Italian institutions, so that she can testify to the public with her own voice the revolutionary season of activism of Iraqi women, so that the feminist heritage of those protests will not be forgotten. At the meetings, the volume 'Iraq. The Voice of the Revolution' will be available at the meetings.

Below is the calendar of meetings:

FLORENCE - 11 November, 11:30-14:00, Giardino dei ciliegi, via dell'Agnolo 5

FLORENCE - 12 November, 10:00-13:00, Palaffari, Piazza Adua 1

PISA - 13 November, 5:00 p.m., Casa della Donna, via Angelo Galli Tassi 8

ROME - 15 November, 7pm, Libreria Tuba, via del Pigneto 39/a

MILAN - 17 November, 7.30 p.m., LatoB, viale Pasubio 14

ANCONA - 18 November, 17:30, City Museum, Via Buoncompagno

BOLOGNA - 19 November, 18:00, "Il Casalone" Circle, via San donato 149

For interviews with Sahar Salam:

Un Ponte Per Press Office
stampa@unponteper.it
339.6641600