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Diaries of Siege in Douma in 2013
February 02, 20177:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
Casa Árabe and Ediciones del Oriente y el Mediterráneo present the book by Samira Khalil.
The event will include participation by Santiago Alba Rico, a philosopher and essayist; Naomí Ramírez Díaz, the book’s translator, and Yassin Swehat, a Spanish-Syrian journalist. During the presentation, those attending will get the chance to hear a message recorded by Yassin el Haj Saleh, a Syrian intellectual who edited and compiled the notes by Samira Khalid.
The event will be presented by Karim Hauser, who is responsible for the Governance Area at Casa Árabe.
“She went out for bread and returned with a bag, but the fragments of shrapnel burned her little body. She didn’t eat from the bread she brought back. She embraced the bread with her little hands, kneaded with her blood.” (Excerpt from page 22 of Samira Khalil’s diary). A moving story about everyday life in a city under siege and her reflections while suffering from violence, fear, hunger, destruction...
Samira Khalil
A Syrian dissident from the region of Homs. Detained for four years (1987-1991) for her opposition to the government of Hafez al-Assad, after she was released she started up a publishing firm until deciding to devote herself to working with the families of detainees and writing about it. In 2013, two years after the beginning of the revolution in Syria, she left for Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, where her work revolved around the empowerment of women and documenting rights violations against the people by the regime and armed factions. In 2014, she was awarded with the Petra Kelly Prize from the Heinrich Böll Foundation for that work. She was kidnapped along with activists Razan Zaituneh, Wael Hammada and Nazem Hamadi on December 9, 2013 in Al-Gutha. They are still missing today.
The event will be presented by Karim Hauser, who is responsible for the Governance Area at Casa Árabe.
“She went out for bread and returned with a bag, but the fragments of shrapnel burned her little body. She didn’t eat from the bread she brought back. She embraced the bread with her little hands, kneaded with her blood.” (Excerpt from page 22 of Samira Khalil’s diary). A moving story about everyday life in a city under siege and her reflections while suffering from violence, fear, hunger, destruction...
Samira Khalil
A Syrian dissident from the region of Homs. Detained for four years (1987-1991) for her opposition to the government of Hafez al-Assad, after she was released she started up a publishing firm until deciding to devote herself to working with the families of detainees and writing about it. In 2013, two years after the beginning of the revolution in Syria, she left for Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, where her work revolved around the empowerment of women and documenting rights violations against the people by the regime and armed factions. In 2014, she was awarded with the Petra Kelly Prize from the Heinrich Böll Foundation for that work. She was kidnapped along with activists Razan Zaituneh, Wael Hammada and Nazem Hamadi on December 9, 2013 in Al-Gutha. They are still missing today.
