«Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli, Victor Hugo, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Fredernyk Chopin, Richard Wagner, Marlene Dietrich, Freddie Mercury (also Iranian) were characters who distinguished themselves in art and science. And all political refugees, but the stereotype of political refugee in the collective imagination, unfortunately out of ignorance, is different. Many think they are illegal immigrants, without skills and miserable. The right to dignity is violated when it is judged on the basis of prejudices and is discriminated against ». To affirm it was Clementina hopejournalist and director, author of the documentary Stay there, During a meeting on cinema and human rights which took place at the end of May at the Swiss Embassy in Rome.
The documentary tells the odyssey experienced by Babak Monazzami, Iranian, Origjnario of Khorram Abad, forced to definitively abandon his country in 2007 After suffering mistreatment, prison, torture, persecution. He landed in Italy, where he obtained refugee status, in Milan Monazzami collaborated, among other things, with the Milan court. After receiving repeated threats, he moved to Germany, but there for a bureaucratic error he was not recognized as the refugee status obtained in Italy and found himself closed in a reception center. His life in Europe, in search of a refuge, a safe place where he can live in peace and in eagerness, in recent years has been very tormented, marked by painful episodes of discrimination and violation of his rights. «Babak is caught, speaks six languages, he is an artist and loves to wear the jacket. Prejudice is also violation of human rights. And the documentary also wants to deny stereotypes, “added the director.
The meeting on cinema and human rights took place within a series of meetings organized by the ambassador Roberto Balzaretti. In 2023 he stopped there he won the peace prize, which since 2021 was awarded by the Swiss Embassy in Italy within the Human Rights Film Festival of Naples to the author of the film which best interpreted the value of peace, the defense of rights and freedom.
Refugees and prejudices: the theme returns with strength and urgency, reaffirmed by the director and journalist and the Iranian dissident, on the eve of the World Refugee Day, which occurs every year on June 20 and was established by the United Nations To underline and enhance the courage, determination, resilience of millions of people forced to abandon their homes, their countries due to wars, violence, poverty, persecutions, human rights violations. In Germany Monazzami also risked life. In 2022, in Berlin, the activist was attacked and brutally beaten during a protest event against the Tehran regime. The authors of the attack have never been identified and arrested. «For its bad conditions, which also contemplated the fracture of some vertebrae, Babak is hospitalized in the hospital in Berlin. In Germany they refuse to operate it and is operated in Italy, in Bologna, “Clementina hope explained. «Babak has an invalidity and excruciating pain that cyclically celery with morphine in the hospital. Today the goal is to take Babak from Germany because for him, for many Iranians and activists, Germany is not a safe country ».
Maurizio del Bufalo, Director of the Human Rights Film Festival, he underlined: “Refugees do not only have the concern of finding a house and saving their lives once you arrive in the country that welcomes them, but there is a problem that is reported through the films by many authors: Although he is offered a roof, food, these people need to express themselves, continue to do their job, but all this is often prevented by the regulations of the hospitality of large countries Like Germany, Denmark, Holland … We get films that are complaints of these people and they tell us “we are unable to stay still”, and also the message of the film Stay there It’s this: you have to stand still, you don’t have to disturb, we already give you to live. A very sad way of dealing with the problem of hospitality ».
(In the photo, at the Centina Clementina hope during the meeting on cinema and human rights at the Swiss Embassy in Italy. In the video behind him Babak Monazzami)
