Press Release

"Tables of Peace": convivial moments to support Ukrainian conscientious objectors
The initiative organised by the NGO Un Ponte Per to support the Ukrainian conscientious objectors to the war in Ukraine has kicked off: throughout Italy it will be possible to organise solidarity meals to experience a moment of conviviality and contribute to peace building.

Rome, 20 December 2022 - Dinners, lunches, aperitifs, convivial moments organised by anyone who wants to contribute to peace building in Ukraine: this is the initiative "Tables of Peace" launched by the NGO Un Ponte Per, active for over 30 years in conflict prevention, committed this year to supporting conscientious objectors in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

"Tavole di Pace" is a series of awareness-raising and fund-raising initiatives that will be carried out throughout Italy by volunteers, individuals and associations to support Un Ponte Per's campaign "Ukraine. Protect the objectors, support the peacemakers", launched on the occasion of Christmas.

By adhering to the initiative it will be possible to build a moment of conviviality and good food, getting to know better the activities of Un Ponte Per, and to support through fundraising those who are putting their lives at risk to defend peace in Ukraine.

Organising a "Peace Table" and becoming a Peace Builder is very simple: just write an email to tavoledipace@unponteper.it or fill in the form at this link: https://tavoledipace.unponteper.it/.

Un Ponte Per will provide all the necessary information, practical help in organising, and will report on the event on its social channels to support and promote participation.

Un Ponte Per has participated in numerous initiatives in solidarity with the Ukrainian population, and organised together with the Nonviolent Movement the last Caravan for Peace "Stop the War Now" in September 2022. For more information on the organisation's work in Ukraine: www.unponteper.it

Press Release

Russian conscientious objector leader Alexander Belik in Italy
Movimento Nonviolento and Un Ponte Per are hosting conscientious objector Alexander Belik, coordinator of the Russian Conscientious Objectors Movement. An appointment to meet the voice of the other Russia, the one that refuses to take up arms.

Rome, 15 December 2022 - Exactly 50 years after the approval of the Marcora law, which introduced the right to conscientious objection in Italy, a press conference was held yesterday by Alexander Belik, coordinator of the Russian Conscientious Objectors Movement. A movement born in Russia in 2014. The event was organised by the pacifist associations Movimento Nonviolento and Un Ponte Per, committed in recent months to supporting Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian objectors. Present were Mao Valpiana and Daniele Taurino from the Nonviolent Movement and Alfio Nicotra, co-president of Un Ponte Per.

During the conference Alexander Belik recounted his experience supporting the many young Russians who oppose the invasion of Ukraine and refuse to take up arms. He started with the numbers: 'around 20,000 people have been arrested in Russia for anti-war activism. Some end up in forced labour camps for objectors, in inhuman conditions, others remain in hiding for fear of arrest and persecution. Over time the 'prison camps' - according to the activist, present in the occupied Ukrainian territories, ed - have increased, despite the fact that they are illegal under Russian and international law'.

In recent months, the ranks of the Russian Objectionist Movement have grown tenfold, reaching around 15 thousand online contacts, "an extraordinary result, and who knows how many people remain silent, hidden, for fear of persecution," Belik commented. "The right to object to military conscription was recognised in Russia in 1993, but it is hardly admitted in practice and there is strong social pressure stigmatising this right."

Alexander Belik's movement mainly carries out legal, psychological and informational consultations for those who want to avoid compulsory conscription, 'we try to support those who do not want to answer the draft, because it is their right even if they are often unaware of it'. According to Belik, Putin continues to harass people in the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk even with the huge military mobilisation, 'all men of working age in these areas are called to arms'.

The Russian activist concluded the conference with an appeal: 'One of the things European civil society can do to support anti-war activists is to sign the "Object War" petition to recognise the right to conscientious objection in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, granting asylum to those fleeing compulsory conscription'.

You can sign the petition at www.unponteper.it and www.azionenonviolenta.it.

Press release

Iraq. AICS and UPP still standing by the people of Mosul

The fourth phase of the "Salamtak" (Your Health) programme, financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and implemented by the Italian NGO Un Ponte Per (UPP) and the French Solidarités International, has kicked off. The intervention aims to ensure access to quality health and hospital services for families in the Nineveh Plain.

Rome, 5 December 2022 - Phase IV of "Salamtak" (Your Health), a multi-year mental, reproductive and maternal and child health programme funded by theItalian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and implemented by the Italian NGO Un Ponte Per (UPP) and French Solidarités International, was launched today in Iraq. The programme, launched in 2018, was created to respond to the needs of the Iraqi population returned to the Nineveh Plain after the ousting of Isis and in particular to the city of Mosul, the former Iraqi capital of the self-proclaimed Caliphate.

New in this 4th phase, whose actions will involve 3 public hospitals, 2 primary health centres and a health centre, is the introduction of an additional focus on proper management of medical waste and ensuring access to safe water. The aim of the project is to improve the living conditions of vulnerable communities in the Nineveh Governorate also with a view to preventing communicable and non-communicable diseases. The services to ensure sexual, reproductive and maternal and child health will be concentrated in the Bashiqa Health Centre and in the primary health centres of Hermat (west Mosul) and Hammam Al Alil (south Mosul) , where a new 24/7 maternal and child health unit will be set up with four doctors and four midwives and an ambulance service that is always operational for obstetric and neonatal emergencies.

Mental health and psychological support services will be offered in the Bashiqa Centre and the Hermat Primary Health Centre, with psychologists employed to conduct individual and group sessions with local people. In the Al Hurok hospital (west Mosul), on the other hand , two emergency rooms (one for women and one for men) will be set up dedicated to burns, another plague afflicting the local population due to the numerous unexploded ordnance and mines.

In order to contribute to the prevention of communicable diseases, particularly related to maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, Un Ponte Per and Solidarités International will conduct awareness-raising sessions in schools in the communities around the health facilities concerned.

More than 8,000 people will benefit from the health services, while 83 medical and paramedical staff members will be directly involved in training and capacity building activities.

Finally, the Batol and Al Jumhori hospitals, both in West Mosul, will see a rehabilitation of their water facilities to reduce the risks of wastewater disposal, and a new system of proper chemical and medical waste management will be inaugurated.

"Salamtak IV" is part of a broader framework of interventions and specialised services that UPP, thanks to the valuable support of AICS, has been carrying out in Iraq, and in particular in the Nineveh Plain and Mosul, since the beginning of the humanitarian emergency in 2014.

Press release

Un Ponte Per: protect the objectors, support the peacemakers in Ukraine
The fundraising campaign launched by the Italian NGO Un Ponte Per is kicking off this Christmas. The aim is to defend those who build peace in Ukraine every day, even by refusing to fight.

Rome, 28 November 2022 - "Protect the objectors, support the builders of peace": this is the appeal spread through the fundraising campaign launched by the Italian NGO Un Ponte Per, to support the legal expenses of conscientious objectors in Ukraine, and to provide those who every day engage in civil and non-violent resistance with the tools they need to make their work more effective and safe.

While the international community's attention is focused exclusively on sending armaments and humanitarian aid, Un Ponte Per - which for over 30 years has been engaged in the prevention of armed conflicts, particularly in the Middle East - has chosen to support the Ukrainian civil society that is attempting to oppose the war by peaceful means, building a lasting peace from below.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dominant narrative keeps repeating that there is no alternative to arms. Yet in Ukraine and Russia there are thousands of people, whom no one talks about, who refuse to bear arms, kill or be killed and call for conscientious objection.

To date, according to estimates of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, there are 971 people indicted in Ukraine for choosing not to enlist and fight, on the basis of Article 336 of the Criminal Code regulating military conscription. They include Vitaliy Vasyliovych Alekseienko, sentenced last September to one year in prison; pacifist Andrii Kucher, sentenced to four years by the Mukachevo City Court in May. Or the objector Dmytro Kucherov, sentenced to 3 years in prison by the Oleksandria City Court in June. In Russia, too, there are an estimated 100,000 young people fleeing the country to avoid being forced to fight.

It is all of them who form the invisible army of peace builders in need of support.

With its campaign, Un Ponte Per intends to support the legal costs of those who refuse to fight; to provide psychological support to those who are suffering the trauma of war; to work together with psychologists and teachers in schools to prevent the spread of social rifts in the future by working in the field of peace education .

Un Ponte Per has been supporting activists and civil movements for over 30 years, particularly in Syria and Iraq, helping them to create greater impact by building strong and lasting relationships. In Ukraine, after a number of exploratory and humanitarian missions, Un Ponte Per coordinated together with the Nonviolent Movement the "Stop the War Now" peace caravan in September, through which it forged links and relationships with pacifist and nonviolent realities active in the country. Finally, it launched a peacebuilding intervention - 'Peace Support Ukraine' - thanks to the support of 8x1000 funds from the Italian Buddhist Institute 'Soka Gakkai'.

Among the initiatives organised as part of the campaign "Protect the objectors, support the peace builders" are the "Tavole di Pace", a series of convivial awareness-raising meetings to be organised by volunteers and associations throughout Italy to support the work of Un Ponte Per in Ukraine and to learn more about the commitment of peace builders and peace-makers. More information at this link: https://tavoledipace.unponteper.it/.

Press Release

KOBANE. UN PONTE PER: "WE ASK THE EU AND MELONI TO INTERVENE ON ANKARA TO STOP AGGRESSION".

Rome, 20 November 2022 - "We call on the Italian and EU governments to intervene immediately on Turkey, a NATO country, to stop the bombing of the city of Kobane, other cities in north-east Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. It is unacceptable that a city martyred in the fight against ISIS should be attacked with impunity and in the silence of Western chancelleries, by a country that during the long siege by ISIS, did not move a finger to stop the militiamen of the black caliphate who instead enjoyed complicity and support." This was stated in a statement by the two co-presidents of Un Ponte Per Angelica Romano and Alfio Nicotra.

"The bombardments," Nicotra and Romano continue, "are already producing several victims and many wounded, and we fear that this accounting will have to be dramatically updated in the coming hours. Our fear is that in a humanitarian situation that is already critical due to the harsh winter and the spread of cholera, the Turkish aggression could generate new refugees and new suffering for the population."

"By making instrumental use of the attack in Istanbul," the UPP Presidency note continues, "an aggression is being unleashed that has been planned for some time by the Ankara government and which enjoys the complicity of Russia given that Moscow has allowed the Syrian airspace, banned since 2019, to be opened to the Turkish air force. The war in Ukraine and the failure to act to stop it is having a domino effect in the Middle East and it is again the peoples who are paying the price. Action must be taken to stop this domino effect and for an immediate ceasefire'.

Un Ponte Per is present in North East Syria in cooperation with our partner the Kurdish Red Crescent, and is active in projects to provide health and protection services to the civilian population in the region.

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

Pisa. The first donation of Arabic books from Tunisia arrives at the "Don Bosco" prison
Delivered this morning, the first load of Arabic language books destined for the inmates of the Tuscan prison, and donated by the "Lina Ben Mhenni" association. The initiative was realised by the NGO Un Ponte Per in collaboration with Tuscan associations and institutions.

Pisa, 27 October 2022 - The first load of Arabic-language books arrived from Tunisia was delivered this morning at the "Don Bosco" Prison in Pisa. The texts were collected and donated by the Tunisian Association "Lina Ben Mhenni", set up in memory of the Tunisian activist and journalist who died prematurely, protagonist of the "Jasmine Revolution" of 2011, and who had collected a large number of books in her country with the aim of donating them to prisoners.

The books were delivered to the Pisa prison library by the Italian NGO "Un Ponte Per", which in Tunisia collaborates with Lina Ben Mhenni in the framework of the "Kutub Hurra" (Open Ports Books) project, and by the Tuscan voluntary association "Controluce", together with other Tuscan associations and institutions.

Thanks to this donation, Arabic-speaking inmates in the 'Don Bosco' prison will finally be able to benefit from texts written in their mother tongue. The motivation for this intervention is - in the spirit of Article 27 of the Constitution - to provide cultural tools useful for the rehabilitative function of the sentence also to those detained persons who do not have easy access to books in Italian.

According to data collected in the XVIIIth Report of the 'Antigone' association, in Italian prisons, Arabic-speaking prisoners represent the largest linguistic community after the Italian-speaking one. Nevertheless, prisoners often only have access to the Koran as a reading in their mother tongue. Bringing more books in Arabic means creating cultural activities, training and exchanges, with a view to greater inclusiveness in treatment programmes.

The 'Kutub Hurra' project(https://www.unponteper.it/it/projects/kutub-hurra/) had seen a first load of books in Arabic arrive in Livorno in May 2022, destined for the library of the 'Le Sughere' prison, thanks to an agreement signed between the prison management, Un Ponte Per, local associations and the Guarantor of persons deprived of their liberty of the Municipality of Livorno. The Pisa initiative thus represents the second stage of a path that Un Ponte Per hopes to extend to other Italian prisons. The hope is to succeed in creating cultural and mediation activities through the use of these texts.

Five years. This is the operational period of the Italy-Libya Memorandum, the agreement with which the countries on the two shores of the Mediterranean officially commit themselves to 'processes of cooperation, combating illegal immigration and strengthening border security'. However, what is envisaged contrasts with reality. The effects on the lives of migrant men, women, girls and children are in fact among the most dramatic consequences of a pact that is clearly illegitimate. From 2017 to 11 October 2022, almost one hundred thousand* children, women and men were intercepted at sea by Libyan coastguards, and brought back to a country that cannot be considered safe. Being a migrant in Libya means in fact being constantly at risk: of being arrested, detained, abused, beaten, exploited. It means being stripped of all rights and receiving no protection.

The Memorandum does not merely outline generic cooperation and projects. In fact, the agreement envisages support to the so-called Libyan Coast Guard, through funds, means and training: continuing to support it means not only contributing directly and materially to the repatriation of men, women and children, but also supporting the detention centres - officially defined as reception centres - where people are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, are abused and killed.

All this is part of a particularly unstable political framework, where violence against the population grows year by year, as do the number of displaced people, and where countless testimonies and reports from international bodies confirm the intermingling of the Libyan authorities with militias, and their involvement in the systemic arbitrary detention, exploitation, abuse and torture of migrants and asylum seekers. Against this backdrop, it is increasingly difficult to track the funds and means sent through the Memorandum, which increases the risk of them being used in the internal conflict. It is also almost impossible to provide meaningful protection to vulnerable people. Safe and legal options to leave the country are limited in both access and numbers, so many people decide to undertake a return journey by land - particularly seasonal workers from neighbouring countries - running similar risks to those already faced in reaching Libya. Many others, instead, try to cross the Mediterranean, paying money put aside with work often carried out in inhuman conditions, and facing dangerous journeys, in which the probability of drowning is as high as that of being intercepted and rejected by Libyan coastguards.

In spite of all this,Italy and the European Union continue to deploy more and more public resources in Libya and to consider Libya a country with which they can enter into agreements, within a complex system based on border externalization policies, which delegates the management of migratory flows to the countries of origin and transit, with the economic support and collaboration of the European Union and member states. Since 2017, Libyan coastguards have received over 100 million in training and equipment (57.2 million from the Africa Trust Fund and 45 million through the dedicated Italian military mission alone ). Public money and resources intended for cooperation and development, used instead for border reinforcement, without any human rights safeguards or any monitoring and review mechanism required by EU financial rules.

Press Release

Ukraine, Un Ponte Per: 'Take to the streets now, together with anyone who stands against the madness of war'

The Italian association, returning from a peace caravan in Ukraine, calls for more than just a demonstration by pacifists, but for a people's process involving the whole of society. After the caravans in Ukraine, it is time to do them in Italy as well. "We ask the world of culture and sport to join us and become part of the crew of hope".

Milan, 10 October 2022 - The National Assembly of Un Ponte Per welcomes any proposal to mobilise for peace wherever it comes from.

War in the atomic age (that of mutually assured destruction) has definitively left the sphere of rationality if it ever belonged there. It is no longer the continuation of politics by other means, but the premise and cause of the end of the human species and the biosphere itself. And the whole of humanity, to save itself, should unite in a conscious pact of 'species solidarity'. But to do this, it is necessary to alphabetise consciences today anaesthetised by indifference or disheartened by the impermeability of power to the reasons of civilised societies. This literacy starts in the territories, in the places of study and work, and must immerse itself in society.

This is why, while we welcome the various proposals for a national peace rally, it is crucial that its construction does not follow worn-out rituals, but allows for a mobilisation that translates into a constant commitment and a programmatic platform that overturns the current single-mindedness of war. We do not need a demonstration of pacifists who are already convinced of the repudiation of war and weapons, but a demonstration of the people that moves society as a whole, representing a cultural and political break with the current line chosen by a large part of European and national institutions of entrusting the solution to the conflict in Ukraine to the military option.

Seven months on from the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, contrary to what has been claimed on the unified networks, the choice of arms is not only silencing any possibility of negotiation, but is also stiffening the parties, and there is no longer any hesitation in threatening the use of nuclear weapons. This continuing escalation is close to the point of no return: a cease-fire and the start of an international conference on a common security system for all the peoples of our continent, bar none.

The situation is so serious and deteriorated that to delude oneself into thinking that under these conditions an agreement along the lines of the one imposed at Dayton on Bosnia Herzegovina, with the ethnic division of territories and the separation of peoples, risks being vain. What is needed is a new Helsinki that excludes new iron curtains and new cold wars and rebuilds forms of mutual guarantees that are no longer based on the muscles of armies and weapons. Peace must be made worthwhile and no people must feel threatened any more.

To the networks of which UPP is a part, to all the forces willing to mobilise to stop the war, to the trade union and association forces, we say that the time has come to put aside organisational differences and jealousies and make themselves available for a participatory and inclusive path.

We would like to extend the experience of the 'STOP THE WAR NOW' network peace caravans to Italy as well. Why not hold one or more peace caravans in Italy in the coming weeks, from north to south, from east to west and vice versa, with an itinerary that includes stops in as many countries and squares as possible, so that, on the way to the national event (for which a date must be set immediately), the wind of peace will swell and leave committees in the places it passes through, places of unity, in which the commitment to peace can be continued every day? We ask scientists, artists, mayors, men and women from sport and entertainment to be part of this crew of peace and hope. Everyone must do something, walking together in diversity is possible and necessary. The time to do this is now.

For information and interviews:

Un Ponte Per Press Office

stampa@unponteper.it

351 6198419

Equipment and spaces were handed over by the NGO Un Ponte Per (Upp) to the management of the Local Health Committee

ROME, 28 September 2022 - Eighty fully-equipped beds for girls and boys on two floors and a radiology department: equipment and spaces available to patients at the Al Hilal children's hospital in Raqqa, in the Kurdish-majority north-east of Syria, have just been handed over by the NGO Un Ponte Per (Upp) to the management of the Local Health Committee. The facility had been completely destroyed by militiamen of the Islamic State group.

The handover took place as part of the health intervention programme called Darna ('Our Home'), which was realised thanks to the support of the Italian Cooperation and implemented as of 2018 by Upp together with its long-standing local partner, the Kurdish Red Crescent (Krc).

The actions carried out with "Darna" made it possible, in a first phase, to create a maternal and child ward from the rubble and later to set up three "safe spaces" outside the hospital, dedicated to women, adolescents and minors who had survived or were at risk of gender-based violence.

A further stage of the project began in June 2021, which focused on rehabilitation and the construction of a paediatric ward, while continuing to ensure continuity in maternal and midwifery care. The context of this stage of the initiative is the spread of Covid-19, the cause of increased levels of poverty and unemployment, psycho-social distress, domestic violence and serious risks to children's growth. Also weighing heavily are the medium- and long-term consequences of the civil conflict that has flared up in Syria since 2011, which has left 13.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

The work, carried out by Upp and the Kurdish Red Crescent, ended this month as planned.

The hospital, which is equipped and specialised in paediatric surgery, thus comes under the management and responsibility of the local Health Committee.

In addition to the beds and the radiology department, there will be 30 incubators, a nursery with ten cots, paediatric analysis laboratories, two paediatric medical surgeries and an ambulance and first aid service available to the population.

(DIRE news agency)