Unions set up Initiative for Social and Democratic Peace

Unions set up Initiative for Social and Democratic Peace
ANF - Istanbul 
A group of artists, intellectuals, writers and leaders of DISK, Petrol-İş, Deri-İş, ÖDP, Halkevi and Alewi Cultural Association have established an Initiative for Social and Democratic Peace.



The components of the Initiative announced the establishment at a press conference in Istanbul.

Speaking here on behalf of the Initiative, Secretary General of Istanbul Medical Chamber, Ali Çerkezoğlu, said that they came together with an aim to take responsibility for the democratic unity and brotherhood of all peoples in Turkey.

Çerkezoğlu promised struggle in order to pave the way for social peace across the country, underlining that they will not allow any Turkish or Kurdish child to die in a conflict environment and that they will stand against all kinds of racist, nationalist, chauvinist, discriminative and insulting words and acts on any side.

“We see it as a basic duty of ours to strengthen the unity of Turkish, Kurdish and all other peoples in Turkey on a democratic ground”, Çerkezoğlu said and added that they will not allow the AKP government to exploit the people's longings for peace and brotherhood for its own political objectives.
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Human Rights Film Festival in Barcelona
ANF - Barcelona 
The Human Rights Film Festival of Barcelona will celebrate its tenth edition this year. The festival, which opened last Thursday, will run until the 26th of May. A new feature to the program this year will be training workshops which will be held in different locations at the Pati Llimona Civic Centre lead by renowned international film directors competing in the festival.

The seminars, varying in duration and format are aimed at both students and professionals in the film industry who want to bring new perspectives to the filmmaking process, above all, the influence film can have in awakening the conscience and the rise in genres focusing on social and political causes. These parallel activities will complement the screening of films and conferences which normally take place at the festival. Almost all of the workshops will consist of a small part theory and discussion before putting the participants filming skills, knowledge and personal projects into practice.

On Saturday the documentary “No darse por vencido” (Don’t Give Up) by Susana Arbizu, Henri Belin and Daniel Serrano was screened.

The directors are working on the recovering democratic memory in Spain. "We would like to dedicate this screening to Daniel Serrano, - the directors said - the main character of our documentary, to his struggle, to his fight which to this day have been in vain, and to all the associations and families who keep fighting to recover the memory of their family".

The directors underlined that "Our encounter with Daniel was one of the deciding factors in creating this film, not just because of the strength and energy that at 93 years of age this man was able to channel towards us in order to continue with this project, but also his fighting spirit, which pushed us to look for a narrative thread, far from questions of victimhood that we see all too often".

They added: "We wanted to paint the scene of a story of true resistance, without creating a romantic or nostalgic evocation of the republican past that Daniel talks to us about. We preferred to talk about the present and to insist, above all, that the Transition to Democracy is the turning point for society to begin to forget and thereby draw a watermark of contemporary Spain".