Press Release

Kutub Hurra, a bridge of books between the Mediterranean, kicks off

The new project "Kutub Hurra. Books in Open Ports', the result of the collaboration between the NGO Un Ponte Per, the Guarantor of Prisoners of the Municipality of Livorno and Tuscan associations, begins. Books from Tunisia to Italian prisons to create spaces for dialogue and cultural exchange. The start is in Livorno with the objective of extending the initiative to the whole of Tuscany, one of the regions with the highest foreign prison population.

Livorno, 16 May 2022 - This morning, the first step of the project "Kutub Hurra. Books in Open Ports" project. A day in which an agreement was signed between the Director of the Livorno and Gorgona Island prisons, the Guarantor of persons deprived of their liberty of the Municipality of Livorno and the association/ong Un Ponte Per.

Through this agreement, the first important part of the project, i.e. the arrival of books in Arabic from Tunisia in Tuscan prisons, is launched. The books are donated by the Tunisian association in memory ofLina Ben Mhenni (Association Lina Ben Mhenni), the activist protagonist of the Jasmine Revolution who collected many books in Tunisia with the aim of bringing them to the country's prisons.

The collaboration between the Association Lina Ben Mhenni and Un Ponte Per has given these books a second life with a journey across the Mediterranean, a sea reduced today to a non-place of death. The project aims to rethink the Mediterranean space as a place of connection, cultural exchange and cooperation for the peace of peoples.

Thanks to this agreement - thanks to the collaboration between Un Ponte Per, ARCI Livorno, CESDI and the Prisoners' Guarantor - books will enter prisons and can finally be enjoyed by Arabic-speaking inmates, in deference to the rehabilitative function of punishment as set forth in Article 27 of the Italian Constitution. No rehabilitation is possible without culture, education, sharing. Deprivation of freedom cannot and must not coincide with deprivation of culture.

Arabic-speaking detainees in Italy represent the largest linguistic community - after the Italian-speaking one - in our prisons (data XVIIIth Antigone Report on detention conditions). Despite this, prisoners often only have access to the text of the Koran as a reading in their mother tongue. Bringing more books in Arabic means being able to do cultural activities, training and exchanges, giving the right also to those who do not speak Italian to have different reading opportunities and creating an inclusive prison climate.

The Mangwana association and the Controluce association (which already carries out activities in the Pisa prison) collaborate on the project, thanks to which there is hope of extending the books to the Pisa prison as well.

This morning, after signing the agreement, the project's partner associations met at the ARCI Livorno headquarters to define the specific programme of prison activities that will take place thanks to the books that have arrived.

Two other fundamental project partners are represented by the University of Florence Prison Pole (thanks to which the books will arrive in the Sollicciano prison in Florence and La Dogaia prison in Prato), and the patronage of the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the same university. A sponsorship that will allow university students to support the translation and linguistic/cultural mediation of activities with prisoners.