Washington, U.S.A -  On Tuesday, May 22, 2012, Layalina Productions celebrated a decade of television diplomacy in the Middle East at its 10th Anniversary Gala, being held at the Newseum in Washington, DC. At the Gala, internationally acclaimed three times Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist Thomas L. Friedman and The Honorable Tara Sonenshine, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, provided remarks and highlight Layalina’s efforts to strengthen U.S.-Arab relations.

With its mission being to educate, inform, and inspire audiences across the Middle East and North Africa, with special emphasis on youth. The organization’s efforts focus on promoting greater cultural understanding through award winning television shows, publications and educational exchanges.

“Young people are our best hope to bridge the cultural gap that currently exists between the United States and the Arab world. Layalina is dedicated to fostering better understanding among cultures, and our hope is to substantially increase the prospects of long term peace in the Middle East,” Comments Ambassador Richard Fairbanks, Layalina’s Founder and Chairman.

Layalina’s dozen credits include the award-winning documentary Life After Death, which serves as an indictment against terrorism and the barbaric targeting of civilians, and the recently completed Back from the Brink, a documentary about the efforts of three dissimilar communities around the world to counter the spread of violent extremism.

On the Road in America, a hit series whose third season will soon air in primetime in the Middle East and North Africa region on MBC — the most watched Arab network — follows four Arab university students traveling across the United States.

The series focuses on Arab and American attitudes toward each other as seen through the eyes of the Arab visitors and the Americans whom they encounter on their journeys. Over the past two seasons, the show has more than doubled its viewing audience – from 4.5 million viewers to 9 million viewers per episode.  American Caravan, the reverse of On the Road, features six young Americans discovering the Arab world in the footsteps of the Arab Spring. American Caravan is currently in post-production.

The Layalina 10th anniversary celebration week included a luncheon on May 17th featuring Layalina Counselor Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

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San Francisco, U.S.A. - In 2010, the self-immolation of a produce vendor in Tunisia catalyzed a series of massive democratic revolutions and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

These events would come to be known as the Arab Spring. In some countries, strongmen who had held power for decades collapsed under the force of youthful popular movements. In others, despots violently and mercilessly clamped down on demonstrators.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope  is a collaboration between San Francisco–based publishers McSweeney’s and Byliner Inc. The substantial e-book collects the most important primary source documents from those historic uprisings, telling the story of the Arab Spring from the perspective of those who lived it—men and women, young and old, from all sectors of society: musicians, poets, writers, political activists, actors, labor unionists, journalists, workers, and professionals.

Voices from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria provide a comprehensive and captivating narrative of the momentous events of last year. From the harrowing accounts of tortured protesters to the hollow appeals of crumbling regimes and the triumphant songs of revolutionaries, these documents catalog the events of the Arab Spring in all its complexity and drama. They will remain fresh and urgent for a long time to come.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope is edited by Daniel Gumbiner, the associate director of the Zeitoun Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the continued rebuilding and social advancement of New Orleans and to the promotion of understanding between people of disparate faiths around the world.

The foreword is written by Diana Abouali, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, and the introduction is by Elliott Colla, coeditor of the e-magazine Jadaliyya and author of Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, and Egyptian Modernity.

Image Courtesy of   MOHPhoto / Shutterstock.com

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In 2004 Iranian woman Ameneh Bahrami´s face, scalp and body were burnt with acid by the man that she declined to marry. According to the “eye for an eye” Iranian law the man should pay the same punishment that he did to her. One week ago, her attacker Majid Movahedi was about to received his penalty when suddenly Bahrami forgave him.

When the doctor was about to put some acid drops in the attacker´s eyes, who was waiting on his knees, he asked Bahrami, whose face is still disfigured, what she wanted to do then.

“I forgave him, I forgave him,” she answered at the last minute.

As Bahrami explained to Iranian state television she didn´t want any revenge, and forgiven was more important for her that any other thing, “it is best to pardon when you are in a position of power,” Bahrami remarked.

Movahedi, said Bahrami was “very generous.”

“I couldn’t imagine being blinded by acid,” said Movahedi as he cried against a wall.

In Iran, victims are allowed to ask for the appliance of Islamic law. According to the law, if no agreement is reached “quisas” also known as the “eye-for-an eye” vengeance is compulsory.

In Bahrami’s attacker’s trial, held November 2008, the court verdict permitted the woman to have a doctor drop acid on one of his eyes as retribution.

After the sentencing, Bahrami told a Spanish radio station that she was satisfied with the ruling. “I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated,” she said in the March 2009 interview.

After the attack, the 34-year old woman lost one eye and 40 percent of her vision in the other. Despite attempts to recuperate the damaged eye with a special treatment in Barcelona, Spain, she finally lost all of her eyesight.

According to Iran’s ISNA news agency, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said Movahedi would remain in jail until a court decides on an alternative punishment. In addition, her aggressor will have to pay financial compensation. In the past, Bahrami asked for up to $200,000 in compensation.

This type of aggression is not the last one to happen in Iran. Last week, a young woman died after a man dropped acid on her face when she declined to marry him.

Amnesty International criticized the Iranian law for allowing this kind of cruel torture to the attackers under medical supervision.  As a consequence to these kinds of sentences, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement that, “the Iranian authorities should review the penal code as a matter of urgency to ensure those who cause intentional serious physical harm, like acid attacks, receive an appropriate punishment; but that must never be a penalty which in itself constitutes torture.”

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On a 15 meter-long boat landed on the island of Lampedusa, southern Italy, the Italian coastguards found 25 bodies of dead migrants coming from Libya.

According to Reuters news agency on board were 296 people, including 36 women and 21 children. They are all refugees fleeing from Sub Saharan Africa.

The 25 bodies were found in the engine room of the boat during a rescue operation a mile away from Lampedusa. The victims were all men except of one woman, and most of them were young. They

During last night, when the boat was around 35 miles off Lampedusa, the coastguards got a call from the mobile phone of one of the migrants on board. The bodies were no mentioned in the call and the rescuers couldn’t imagine what was to be discovered in the hold. From the first reconstructions of the events the 25 victims seem to be dead of asphyxiation by the engine fumes.

The only access for the engine room was a 50 centimeters wide trapdoor. The space was insufficient for all those passengers, and the gas from the engine made the hold’s air unbreathable.

The corpses were already in state of decomposition, for this reason investigators believe that the migrants died in international waters.

Doctor Pietro Bartolo said to reporters “Given the state in which the corpses were found, they could have been dead for at least 48 hours”.

A survivor told also that another man was dropped overboard, some sources reported he was already dead, others that he was still alive.

Italian police keeps on questioning the survivors and the corpses will be subjected to postmortem examination to understand  the real causes of death. The boat is under sequestration and an inquiry has been set up.

Another tragedy in the way of the hope to Lampedusa Island, the gate of Europe for the North African refugees.

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Lampedusa is a small Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea with a population of roughly 4.000 people. Their local economy is mainly based on tourism and fishing industry and from a general European perspective, the island is just like any other peaceful holiday retreat. From the coast of North Africa however – it is the gateway to a better life. Jette Elbaek Maressa reported to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-posten about the surge in illegal immigration from political hotspots in the Middle East.

The road through Lampedusa has become one of the popular options for refugees to illegally enter Europe. On a daily basis, the Island’s inhabitants witness the motley fishing boats reach their port while heavily armed Italian police guards are waiting to greet the new arrivals. After severe protests on behalf of the Islanders, the Italian government has stepped up its effort to protect the vulnerable outpost who’s tourist industry has taken a hit since the refugee boats started to arrive.

Thousands of young Tunisians have already ventured the sea in their pursuit for jobs and prosperity. The dream takes little more than a boat and a gallon of gas and the chance that many more will follow has got the Italian government raising alarm in the EU. They believe the political unrest in the Middle East, combined with the high unemployment rate among the younger population, will inspire a mass immigration through the risky sea channel. And for the Island community on Lampedusa, it could cripple their livelihood.

The question is: Why is the youth of North Africa leaving? The scarcity of jobs is quoted as a major reason with youth-unemployment rates currently around 25% in Egypt and 30% in Tunisia. The recent populist revolt in some parts of the Middle East against decades of dictatorship was sparked by a young man who represented the situation for many in his country, 26-year-old Muhamed Bouazizi, when he set himself on fire. However, the change of government has not in the short term produces more job opportunities. It takes a lot of patience and time before either Tunisia, Egypt or any other Middle Eastern country is ready to create even half of the 5 million jobs needed for all people in the Arabic world to be employed, according to a youth advisor from the Arab League. He explains that the journey to Europe is not an attempt to cut ties with their home of origin – rather, these young people want to earn a living abroad and return more prosperous.

The irony from a European perspective is that they too are faced with an alarming situation in their national job markets. In comparison, the south of Italy is experiencing 30% youth-unemployment, Britain has 20% while young people in Spain are dealing with 40%. While Italy whines over the around 5.000 illegal immigrant from Lampedusa and asks the rest of the EU for help, Frontex informs that 90% of all illegal immigration is done at the borders of Turkey and Greece. Others use the route through Spain via the Canary Islands and Morocco. Sweden has even been vocal in this debate, explaining that they have 32.000 asylum cases every year – for a country of only 9 million people.

Back in Lampedusa, the coast guards continue to inspect the sea towards the African coast. They know what some of the young refugees don’t: That Europe is no paradise and that the only people who really benefit from the boat trips are the traffickers who organize the dangerous journey. It is just too late to tell them when they arrive.

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