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.