Women’s Solidarity in Human Rights Activism: Storytelling from the Arab Peninsula
As a theme for International Women's Day (8th March 2022) and within the proceedings of the Alternative Human Rights Expo, this panel event discusses sisterhood among women human rights defenders in the Arabian Peninsula. More specifically, the panellists will be asked to share their path as women’s human rights defenders through storytelling, and their experience with fostering and maintaining solidarity among themselves as human rights defenders for women.
Organisers:
This event is hosted by the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR), based in Brussels, which is a European-level representation of a coalition of apolitical NGOs advocating for human rights in the Arab Gulf countries. The event is co-sponsored by The International Campaign for Freedom in the United Arab Emirates (ICFUAE), ALQST and The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR).
Date: 8th March 2022, 16.00-17.30 CET, on Zoom
- The event will be in Arabic and English, with interpretation provided-
❖ The guardianship system
❖ Sexual violence against women
❖ Online harassment
❖ Spyware & surveillance
Speakers include:
Hala Al-Dosari (Saudi Arabia):
She is a Saudi human rights activist, scholar, and writer who is best known for speaking out against the country’s deeply entrenched discrimination against women and girls, she is also a board member of a number of human rights NGOs including the GCHR. Her leadership on women’s rights issues in Saudi Arabia has pushed policymakers to address women’s right to drive; the country’s draconian male guardianship system and restrictive family laws; gender-based violence; and the right of activists – including women – to speak, protest, and write freely.
Jenan Almarzooqi (United Arab Emirates):
She is an Emirati activist and the daughter of Abdul Salam Darwish (full name Abd al-Salam Mohammad Darwish al-Marzouqi). Darwish was arrested and forcibly disappeared in July 2012 for his involvement in the 2011 petition urging the president of the UAE to allow direct elections and grant legislative powers to parliament. He was tried as part of the “UAE 94” case and sentenced to 10 years in prison and is currently being held in Al Razeen prison. His family, including Jenan, are currently exiled in the US, but continue their efforts to denounce ill-treatment and targeting of activists in the UAE. According to the Emirati Detainees Advocacy Center, Darwish has been targeted with reprisals in detention, including ill-treatment and refusal of communication with his family, because of the advocacy and activism of his family from outside the UAE.
Radya Al-Mutawakel (Yemen):
She is the President of the Mwatana Organisation for Human Rights, an independent Sana’a-based organisation that monitors and documents human rights violations in Yemen, and a board member of GCHR.
Habiba Al-Hina (Oman):
She is an Omani women’s rights activist, and Founder and Executive Director of the Omani Association for Human Rights (OAHR), and a board member of GCHR
MEP Alessandra Moretti:
Currently Member of the European Parliament and part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. She is substitute member in both the AFET Committee on Foreign Affairs and FEMM Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. She has previously collaborated with advocacy campaigns for Women human Rights in Saudi Arabia, in particular in 2020 she joined the campaign for the release of Women Human Rights Defenders Loujain al-Hathloul and Samar Badawi.
