 I'm briefly checking the technique because I receive a sign that we are able to start though I see that the door is still open so I briefly want to check. Is it a really a goal or should we wait a bit more? Let's do that. Good evening everybody. My name is Elin Banken. I work as a dramaturg for the Belgian City Theatre in Beijing and together with my colleagues from IRPM I have been coordinating the Siri School of Resistance over the past few months. A project that began online that has now once more landed in the physical sphere and to deny that it is a shadow sphere in Beijing. Welcome everybody here in the audience but also online. I am very pleased as well to see that they are all tuning in from all around the world. In the next hour and a half I will be guiding you through a conversation that will look into the practices, several practices of art and justice and therefore the majority of the questions that I will address will situate somewhere between the border or the crossroads between art and activism. Questions are how can civil society resist criminal policies? How can it use the means of art and law to create new alternative spaces of solidarity? And how can we as human rights lawyers, as activists, as artists together create a politics and an aesthetics of justice? As you will discover in the next hour I have a very rich and a very diverse panel with me. That's why this conversation will be divided so to speak into three parts. We start with a very, very concretely with the situation of the refugees at the European borders and some legal responses towards it. In a second step we will debate how global injustices can be addressed with both legal and aesthetic means, whereas in the third part I would like to ask my panelists about the immense battery potential of art. So to open this discussion I would like to welcome my first two panelists that are sitting on the right side of me. Both were able to join me here on stage. Welcome, Omer Schatz. Welcome, Murtasa Faroukhi. Yeah, but first let me introduce them properly. Omer Schatz is an attorney whose current focus is the questioning of the European migration policy by means of strategic legal cases. On behalf of two asylum seekers, he filed a lawsuit against the EU border agency. And then Murtasa Faroukhi is a human rights activist from Afghanistan. Currently he is living in Munich as a refugee where he is working with the refugee council, very responsible for managing legal issues of asylum seekers who are entering the country. Thank you first of all for being here tonight with me. I would like to start this debate or this conversation really with a question for you, Murtasa. Because last week he gave a very strong speech in front of the Reichstag building. Together with the activist, not for whom we already saw, leave no one behind. And in that speech you testify that you are no longer interested in the big whole question, who should be held responsible for the political situation in Afghanistan. What you are worried about, who are the 20 phone calls you receive every day from your family members, from acquaintances that are still living in Afghanistan. Can I ask how are they holding up and how is it for you to receive these calls on a daily basis? First of all, thanks for you and welcome to everybody. Just to add among of you guys, of course that I had a speech last week in front of the Bundestag. And thanks for the organizer that they give me the opportunity that I talk over there and arise my wise. Yeah, it just happened in four days that it's happened that I just sleep at night and then we wake up in the morning and just a couple is just collapsed. It is a little bit weird and it is very fast for that. And the reason is of the question is that who I should say that it is not about that only our mistakes, it is the mistakes and the consequence in the result of the 20 years war that we face with that and after that they just give up the whole country in four days, in four hours and that's it. Of course I'm receiving pretty much phone calls first of all from my families and after that from my friends, all of those friends that they are working over there with me, with the national and international organizations that they have a very bad situation. They are witnessing different stories, different issues day by day. Last day that I was just receiving a message that they are coming during the night and they are taking the people without any issues, without any things just for this reason that they are being implied by the international organizations but still they are over there in Afghanistan. The question is that why? Because I cannot answer these things but I'm just publicly asked that why they are still leaving or left behind. One of my family member, because it is my personal story is that one of my family member, he or she worked for the German governments for the last of two or three years and till now he or she is still in Afghanistan. The question is that why? I just sent an email at 25th or 26th of August to a foreign ministry of Germany. I sent an email but still I didn't receive any response. For the specific office I sent an email but still I didn't have any answer for them. Still I don't know that what's going to happen on my family. What will be the next? What will be the future? The only one thing that I can answer they are called even if I'm during the work, even if I'm sleeping. The thing is that I'm helpless. I have no assist, no cooperation from my family. The only thing that I can answer they are called then I will say, yeah, next day will be the good day or future will be the good day but still I don't know that how long does it take. Regarding my friends or colleagues it is shameful for the German governments that they left all of those people that they work over there. They left international organizations or embassies or countries but still they are in Afghanistan. I'm not leaving in other European countries but I'm leaving in the last of five years in Germany but what I just realized is that the ministries in Germany they are really shameful for Germany because the ministries in private should not act like this. Because sometimes I'm getting emotional I don't know that because sometimes a lot of things that's coming on my mind and I cannot say because it's very difficult it's very difficult that my family they are in the bad situations. Yeah. As you already said you came to Germany over five years ago. It's what I said in 2016. In the same speech that I referred to you also a refugee is like being an outsider being a social pariah. Could you explain or illustrate what that means and how you've been experiencing that yourself? What I think that for the politicians it's the first question is that they are not integrated pretty much good. What I know that I'm not saying about someone else but I'm saying about myself that I'm just integrated pretty much good. I just learned the language pretty much sufficient and then I just integrated I find a friend over there it means that I'm integrated in the community but in the meantime when I'm just looking for an apartment it's like three and a half years that I find an apartment inside of the Munich city. It's what I know that it is a little bit weird or it is very difficult. It means that I'm still a Ausländer or still I'm a foreigner. The second the most important question for all of those people that they have with the immigration background is the job market. Before with the panel we just hear that they need for the sixth generation that they have after the sixth generation they have the same income but still for the job market they have problems. I know that during last year or one and a half year I just I was looking for a job like I had just received like about 350 like upsage or negative answers for companies because of that maybe I have a background of that that I'm as an immigrant. It is sometimes it's difficult to different things the same way that I'm just giving the same rent the same takes like as a German. I know that I have like as a Aniakin Fluchling but it doesn't mean that I have just a whole rights that the German government or the German people or the other European Union people they have it but I don't have this kind of opportunities to make my life easy and to be integrated pretty much more in vitally. Yeah. Murtase already talked here about human rights not being respected that brings me to my other guest Omer you're an international human rights lawyer and are of course well aware of the human rights violations by the EU in the current migration policy. Of course I know it's a big it's a big question also to answer tonight and maybe you also don't know the full scale of the answer but what do you believe that need to ensure human rights for all? I think they will Good evening everyone. Yeah I think after hearing my friend here I think the first step would be to understand or acknowledge what we are witnessing or what we are experiencing even though my work is more focused on the external side on immigration to Europe the conditions inside I think the common trend is that there is this dissonance between what the law is and what the discourse also is and on the other hand what the practice is so and we are a bit confused we try to find the right language to describe it and the law is also a language that gives us the terminology and when we talk about human rights there are two parts to this notion one is human and one is right and I think until recently most of the civil society organizations and were framing the situation as a deprivation of rights as the right to walk the right to asylum the right to live any country. By the way this process that we are witnessing is not the right to live Afghanistan the right to seek asylum not only to receive asylum but not only to be granted a refugee status but in any event the focus was on the deprivation of rights and therefore the framework we try to remain not so legal was on human rights law and when we talk about human rights law or human rights in general lawyers what it means it means that it concerns what we term as responsibility so rights are deprived, rights are infringed so we go to courts in Europe typically it would be the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and we someone against Germany against Italy against but I think my understanding was after being 15 years that I'm lawyering this project of human rights law and state responsibility is failing and why is it so first and foremost there is no enforcement so if we talk about international refugee law this is what we call state-state mechanism so only states can I don't know through other states for infringing the refugee convention for example if we talk about human rights law then of course you go to Strasbourg as I said earlier and to the European Courts of Human Rights and you try to challenge a certain country for a certain measure that is 99% you fail but what I was my insight was that even in the 1% cases that you win actually the human rights law project the liberal ethos of the rights of men everything that Europe was developing and adopting after World War II is failing as well even when you win actually the rulings of human rights law courts are states instead of complying with these rulings it actually pushes them it incentivizes them to further externalize and further outsource and elsewhere and to others and actually most of the migration policies today are executed and implemented far away from Europe so this kind of what I call the failed success of human rights even if you prevail in court the paradigmatic example is the ruling the landmark ruling that everyone every student is studying is the Hirsi judgment from 2012 where the Sassbou court said that states cannot send back people even if they intercept them in international waters and what we see today is that the consequences of this ruling was that states said okay if we can't, if we rescue people in international waters and that means that we have to disembark and bring them back to Europe then we will stop rescuing them all together and we let them drown one or alternatively we will recruit others militias, mercenaries and so on that will do the job for us and therefore we will not be held accountable so my work and this is the topic is the tactics of art and law so what I see as my legal art is that to try to cultivate new forms of responsibility that are not what we call the leg slatter the existing law and it doesn't mean that I invent it or I create it out of nowhere but it prescribes in the laws and so on but to litigate it and to structure the argument to find the right case and so on means that we try in front legs in the organization that I am a member of and to capture and non-state forms of responsibility so one example is the ruling that I think you mentioned from the case I wish there was a ruling from 2019 where we captured individual responsibility the understanding that we must not go after the states but after the state agents the state officials because the evidence that we gathered showed us that we are no longer talking about simple human rights violation as a full more the right to life and so on but the policies that are today enforce are policies that constitute what we call international criminal individual criminal responsibility for international or atrocity crimes against humanity where the individuals are responsible for these policies the officials, the politicians, the bureaucrats the advisors and it's a huge complex apparatus of power that is typical for the commission of international crimes so this is one case the case that is now pending before the international criminal court in DHEC which we are working with the office of the prosecutor and we have a few dozens of suspects the other form of responsibility that was recently filed to the European Court of Justice to the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg captures for the first time as well the understanding was that what we see is not particular to Italy, Libya or or Spain, Morocco but we found a common everywhere you look at the major jurisdiction that you go to you see serious and systematic and widespread violations of fundamental rights and international protection obligations that is part of an EU policy the understanding that it's not about the member state of Germany, Italy they are not working in isolation but in concert and there is an overall agenda and campaign and this is why for the first time we succeeded in framing an organizational responsibility that is the supranational entity that is the EU and in this case the border agency of the EU for context and we just in May we filed a case on behalf of two case you mentioned of two asylum seekers and we are trying also there maybe one last word I see that my time is up something about again because it's something between law and art there is something that I must say about us about NGOs and activists and the civil society there is the moderator why there is no why now why until now it was not because it's not new we are all facing this in the past five since 2015, 14 more and I think there is in the civil society community and NGOs and so on and reluctance to challenge a misconception of what the law is and first and foremost there is this concept of fear from a bad precedent so we will go to court we will challenge a certain policy but all the jurisprudence all the previous rulings and showed us that something different and therefore we will lose and then the court will confirm the present policy the crimes and the violation and so on and this I'm coming from Israel and Palestine and I'm drawing on my experience in litigation there and I face the same the civil society there it was the same every time I filed the case I had like this many leftists on my shoulder saying you should not you should not it will only be worse and so I don't know there is this psychoanality psychoanality Donald Winick or the British one that I really like and at some point he said in some book in one of his books he said we are afraid only from things that already happened and this is about the bad precedent I mean now in Greece in the agency and the Lenny Kosgar throwing people into the water there was a case of asylum seekers not only abandoned in the middle of the sea but just they threw them into the water in Libya I'm sure everyone is aware there are atrocious camps where the ICC prosecutor is saying that there are countless crimes against humanity against migrants committed and so I mean what are we afraid of I'm talking about again the civil society the worst has already happened we cannot be afraid of something that already happened and this is one thing and the second thing is something about the the difficulty sometimes to I mean to understand that the political community that we inhabit that we live in that the people that we take the drink outside the theater and they vote the same party that we vote and they go to the same school and etc etc but they work in the European commission I mean the difficulty to understand that the EU as a non-o-taritarian as a liberal democracy is responsible for these kinds of policies and then to treat that according as I said as a criminal policy and not just a simple human rights violation thank you thank you thank you both of you for sharing this insight into your own personal legal practices this is also the point where I would like to introduce two more guests namely Milo Rau and Selin Cisena to help me address the question how we can use cultural institutions such as theater as a space to try out alternatives Milo Rau has managed to join me here on stage and Selin is joining us from our office in Lubumbashi but let me introduce him properly to you Selin Cisena is a human rights activist and lawyer and she works as an investigator on the project series the Congo Tribunal of the IAPM and that's since 2015 onward Milo Rau is an author and director and is also the artistic director of the IAPM and the Integent and since 2002 he has published over 50 plays books, films and many more let me start off with you Milo as I said in 2015 you created the Congo Tribunal which is a theater tribunal about the war that has been going on in the African Great Lakes for over 20 years for those who haven't heard about the project yet could you maybe briefly summarize what it was about yeah perhaps we have to have a very fast look and I'm sure that Selin will give more details about the situation at that very moment on the situation the reasons of this civil war and of course there are local reasons local political reasons but there are also economical reasons because it's the region in the world that is the richest in raw materials I mean you all heard from Coltain there is gold and it's mainly enterprises from for example Switzerland I'm Swiss from Canada who is exploiting this so and we were talking about appealing to courts for example when there is a legal case and the problem in global economy is that when a Swiss enterprise goes to eastern Congo and for example pushes people from their lands there is no court they can go because there is no court in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is functioning in a way that you could go there and there is no court there is no court in Switzerland where you could go to so the problem is that we have a global economical system but we have not a global legal system and we work together with a mixed team of prosecutors and lawyers for example Selin but also lawyers for example from the international tribunal of Dan Haig and when I was asking them why are you taking part in this theatrical tribunal because we can't bring this case to Dan Haig so we have to create what we call a symbolical institution and I think that's exactly to answer your question you can create a space you can bring reality to judge our reality of course you have to create somehow the law so the law we use is a mix of different laws of the constitution of the Congo then economical or human rights and all these mixed and the project consisted in the first tribunal that happened in 2015 we had sessions or auditions in eastern Congo and in Germany and we made a choice of so one contain mine from Switzerland one gold mine from Canada and we mixed two raw materials and we tried to make it as real you could say as possible by having real prosecutors what they call mixed so mixed of international lawyers from Dan Haig and lawyers from the Democratic Republic of Congo to bring these two laws together and then inviting witnesses and delivering judgments in the end of course there is no legal follow-up of these judgments but then what happened and is still happening now and that's the idea now we are in 2021 we will have the next auditions exactly in Colvesi close to the Bumbashe in December led by Celine and that these institutions become real are then accepted so to say by the Congolese government and become part of the legal system that is really existing that makes me wonder and for that question I am turning to you Celine it's really a pleasure to see that you managed to join us on the screen I am looking at you on the screen I don't know you probably won't see that I am looking at you and I am addressing you but as Milo said you have been working on the Congo Tribunal since 2015 onwards and what I am curious about is what the possibilities of artistic interventions like these what they can bring to your own judicial work and also what the specific outcome of projects such as these have for the Congolese citizens Thank you very much Hello everyone Thank you for inviting me and giving me the word here To paraphrase what Milo just said we could maybe begin by saying that the legal system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo even before we began with the Congo Tribunal in 2015 since it hasn't really changed there are several explanations for this unfortunately we have a large spectrum of instruments but the implementations is very difficult so the legal system is often dominated by political powers and influences so there is a serious problem because all decisions that can be taken in favor of the communities or of individuals that have juridical problems they can't be implemented in ways that have positive consequences for them and of course these kinds of interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo I'm in favor of these because they encourage a legal system that encourages a distributive justice a community justice that permits people to meet there are local communities that have began meeting due to this project as Milo has said we are not only dealing with situations of war at the east but at the level of kawazi there are concrete problems with those corporations that exploit the mines as Milo said Congo has a lot of resources but they hardly benefit to the community that lives there so for example when corporations do not manage human rights when I speak of human rights I mean for instance also the environmental situation the sanitary situation I mean the situation of work of using the working power of the people who live outside who live nearby we treat matters of work law of contracts that are terminated within our reason and when this occurs the people who are victims of these infractions they don't know as Milo said which court to address which Congolese court to address and there is this idea of influence that doesn't allow these people to present themselves in front of the court and there is a big problem of corruption that is also beating a new record within the legal system so when you want to move forward against a corporation that infracts human rights this corporation can easily influence judges or lawyers who are treating this case because they have many much bigger means so the notion of respecting human rights is blurred in that way because the legal system doesn't manage to make these corporations respect them and there is another system because we would need to reinforce our own legal system even within Congo at the national level if we look at the number of violations of human rights law violations in Congo so if we go beyond the area of the exploitation of mine as Milo said we will be talking in December to all people involved politics, people who work for the corporations the community itself the civil society and everyone will have to and get to express their opinion to find out what are the actual problems and what possible solutions we can find for the communities that are the victim of this and to come back to the results or consequences of this particular project that you asked about for the population of Congo I think that we should play a bigger role in the global community to treat these real problems of human rights infractions we are right now we have tribunals, popular tribunals of course this is a fictive tribunal these are not tangible cases actual cases but this tribunal will spark in the head of several parties whether it's the institutions the community itself or individuals or other communities that are equally affected by this exploitation of the mines this could I think spark the idea that there are rights that should be respected even when we say that the Democratic Republic of Congo should respect certain rights and have obligations in the face of its own population the corporations also have obligations legal obligations vice versa the communities that are impacted by the exploitation and they are all negatively impacted by those exploitation because the work the local workforce is not used there is no electricity there is no environmental respect there is no water everything that they would need to survive every day is not respected so artistic possibilities as my colleague has said previously our our language as lawyers is our art so when we address a corporation that doesn't respect the human rights we can use this art by confronting it with a spectrum of legal instruments to make them respect for instance the code of mine exploitation in the Congo so legally speaking we can use these instruments in a rhetorical way in an artistic way or all the ways that we can use them as jurists and even regarding human rights all kinds of interventions theater music sketches are all possibilities that help us get the message across when Milo and the team came to Lomombashi we we have seen that there was music there was art that helped us get across the message that human rights are actually being violated here and this is a good possibility to get this message across and just as the Congo Tribunal did there are several possibilities regarding the protection of human rights and I also think that one of the most important elements and I think we will work on this in December is to claim social justice for everyone from an artistic point of view so claiming social justice for everyone from the point of view of the artists these artists can be musicians can be theater artists comedians and then at all levels the message will come across and this will later be considered and have an impact to answer your question my answer I hope was complimentary to that of Milo if we need further clarifications to the different problems that we have encountered especially in Koezi with the corporations that exploit the minds as you know those corporations that are here we have no possibility at all to engage a procedure against them legally we need to go in front of the European Court but who here who has no means who has no impact no influence can go before these courts and engage a procedure so it is all the more important that we can create local mechanisms here of social justice to claim this right in a different way it is true for many of these communities that many are ignorant of their true rights but the Congo Tribunal for instance has awoken their awareness of these rights for instance non-governmental organizations are now working on these questions of natural resources and watch how communities are impacted by the activity of corporations that exploit the minds and so we can include all parties that are involved in this process to enforce that the rights of these communities are being respected and when we reinforce the power of these communities themselves it helps them to at least have an awareness of what are their rights many are not aware many are at first satisfied to welcome these corporations that take their space that pollute their environment the water that they use to wash themselves, to cook, to drink who also pollute the air because as you know mind exploitation deteriorates extremely the air quality and this entails terrible health issues for many people so I tell you there are many things causalities who can't even be explained many people don't know how to claim their rights and they don't know that their human rights are being violated so when human rights activists and artists help us raise this awareness this can somehow compensate the lack of possibilities that we have at a legal level within the Republic of Congo vis-à-vis the European Union so when we want to have an impact at the national level as our legal system is entirely overpowered by our political system unfortunately the political politics have the hand on the legal system and these communities are sandwiched within a system of different influences and even if they know that their rights have been violated they don't know how to claim them and many stay passive and accept their suffering and our Congolese authorities some some hear the voice of these communities but others really give the impression to not know at all about the problems that these communities encounter yeah Celine I'm so sorry but I think I will have to interrupt you because of course time is running quickly and I want to thank you Milo for this insight that you gave into the Congo Tribunal the after effect it sparked and I also want to wish you all the luck with the hearings in December at this point I would like to go to yet another topic which I wanted to address tonight and that's a topic thank you thank you so much another topic that I want to address and that is the immense potential of art the question can art be a tool of survival and hope and we've invited two artists with me to give us an insight into their personal why and that is Paravana Amiri and S but again also for these two interesting guests who let me introduce them properly Paravana Amiri is an author and human rights activist as a refugee from Afghanistan she uses her writing from Lesbos to advocate for dignified living conditions for migrants and S is an Afghani community theater facilitator and in 2008 he has led hundreds of workshops and performances throughout Afghanistan including the most dangerous neighborhoods and communities all right as you might have heard in my introduction I am talking about a person S you will also not be able to see him or his moving image on the screen that's because of safety measures because S is currently in exile but even though despite all these hurdles and this specific difficult situation he was willing to join us in this conversation tonight so S very nice to hear that you managed to join us I don't know if you could hear us all right how are you doing? I am waiting for your question I am sorry I didn't I wanted to know how you are doing because we met yesterday where we spoke on your situation which is of course dire and I just wanted to hear how you are doing tonight still we are waiting for what happened to our situation so still it is not very clear our future situation yeah you have been as I said in my introduction you have been working I don't know if that's what it seems to be over you have been working as a community theater facilitator for which you have been following the tradition of Brazilian theater practitioner Augusto Boal his theater of the oppressed is a dialogue form of theater that wants to promote social and political change could you maybe tell us a bit about your own work that you have been doing in Afghanistan following the legacy of Boal hi everyone my name is Es a human rights defender a theater of the oppressed practitioner play back theater facilitator since 2008 I am a member of an ethnic minority and religious group and the father of Boal so the reason you may see that you are passing into a black screen I really wanted to invite you and get your attention to the Afghanistan unclear and dark people's life situation and secondly as you mentioned my colleagues, my family, my friends are still at risk and that's why I do not want to put their life in trouble by appearing and briefly looking at the technique as well to see because if I am not mistaken this was indeed a recording of yesterday yeah yeah okay alright that's very reassuring to hear so as I said you have been working as a theater practitioner you have been giving workshops you have been making performances of Augusto Boal who is the theater of the oppressed tries to seek a more dialogue form of theater that wants to spark social and political change I was wondering if you could give us an insight and some of the performances you did or some of the work that you did in the last couple of years in Afghanistan sorry as you may know my organization is a theater best organization that our main object our main activity was in three areas one was human rights the other one was gender equality or women women's rights and the third area was about transitional justice so as a theater of the oppressed the facility theater has been laid about hundreds of workshops and program theater program theater means public performance in 25 provinces out of 34 provinces of Afghanistan so really this methodology the best methodology which can create a safe space for the marginalized people for those people who are not able to read and write the text and really this methodology can motivate the people to struggle for a better life situation in the future so thank you very much another guest who has joined us in the zoom room and who had to wait a while before she could finally speak apologize for that is of course Parvana Amiri welcome also very nice to see that you managed to join us from Greece I believe what I want to start with is very recently you published your first poetry collection called my pen won't break but borders will I was wondering if you could give us some insight into your own artistic history when and maybe why as well was it that you started writing poetry Hello to all participants and audiences of tonight's event and webinar I feel really honored to be among such inspiring people that they are acting in many different ways in order to make change in this not so a smooth path that we are all you know that I am really new in this way I am Parvana Amiri from Afghanistan thank you very much for your introduction and your invitation I live with my family in Greece in Ricona refugee camp we arrived in 2019 in the worst refugee camp in Europe and however I experienced the worst days of my life in Moria but I could learn many things being in that condition and I am really happy that I experienced all those archives in order to understand the system the way that the system is acting on us when I was in Moria and I noticed that there is less voices coming out of the camps there are people that they are silent and tonight we have also to not to meet but also to hear about Mr. S Mr. S is one of those that he was not able tonight to express himself by being in this screen but you know on that time many of the refugees even that we were in the margin of Europe we were not able to speak we were not able to express about our problems we were not even able to raise our ways it was something that we were feeling being threatened and we were feeling because we were afraid all refugees are afraid of speaking and if you are getting less voices coming out of the camps if you are getting less voices from refugees it doesn't matter that the condition is satisfactory for them but we as refugees are really afraid of expressing revealing the realities of our life and in the beginning it was the same for me so I started writing about the condition because writing was a safe way in order to not be threatened and not to risk the asylum apply of my family in in danger it is a reality because on that time when I was doing it with writing many people were not even able to express themselves you know using literature I used literature because on that time it was a safe way but I was publishing my work anonymously and when we got transferred after being assisted as a vulnerable family and it's not when I noticed the condition and especially during the pandemic the you know the unfair system and the way that refugees are getting threatened in an unequal way it was really suffocating for me and I was not able to and I decided to step further and to and more resistant and not only by writing, by art, by using literature but also by activists and acting and you know being really direct by the and you know in the screen and without and reducing all those fears and all the things that I was in challenge even being in a refugee camp, being a girl among different communities that almost all of them they had the same perspective and the same background of thinking about the activism of a girl. When I started writing in Moria by writing the first collection of my letters from Moria to the world it really made it really you know gave me the idea that people really don't know about the condition the people outside they really need to have more information about the real life of refugees the way that they are living media was talking about refugees but it was not enough and still we don't have enough space in the media to have our ways to really to tell about the condition and all the challenges that we are facing in the refugee camps. One of the important points many of people may think that I connected my art to my activists but no I connected my activists into my art because activists in my blood I really I wanted to do the same things back in my country but in Afghanistan it was bound for the girls to it was not really easy in this society that I was living to act and to and also even to write in an activist way and to reveal the realities of the society and now that I am doing that without being really afraid is that I want to challenge the democracy that in the margin of view people are talking about it is it really existed or not I am talking and I am writing about conditions in different ways using literature in a poetic way through the text because I want to challenge the basic structures of the community and the society the basic structures of the society that we are living in and to show that how you know equal is our life I want to do it because I believe that communication and being connected with the local community is a strong weapon and strong way of making change borders of being far from each other by not having communications I believe that we can do something if you may have any question I don't know if you get that but the audience here in Germany was applauding so they are very much into what you just said, thank you for that maybe I briefly want to give them also an idea of what it is that you write about so touched when I read it yesterday when preparing the conversation so I quote a piece we travel through stony deserts on motorcycles, crowded pickups and trucks, we pass endless expenses, tackle mountains and rivers we scale fences and cross oceans we encounter policemen soldiers, human smugglers and thieves we are children, young people we travel with our families with our grandmothers and grandfathers or sick relatives people with a thousand different stories as can be derived from this beautiful fragment I just read you use your poetry to voice about thousands of people you see around you you already mentioned the block you started in 2019 when you entered Moria when we hear your poetry we hear a very strong yet also hopeful voice so that makes me wonder in your opinion can art be a tool of survival and also of hope for me art was not a tool for surviving and a tool for hope it was a weapon for me to repress to you know reduce all the pressures that I was suffering on that time it was the only way in order to you know really to only reflect the situation in my writing you will not find any expressing your you know judgment about the conditions or even judgment about the stories of people I'm just reflecting the stories of people I'm reflecting the conditions that we are living in without changing and without making any change the way that I'm doing it is that I don't want to represent the community that I'm living in I don't want to represent the stories of people and I don't want to represent anyone who is trusting me who is putting their trust in order for me to write their stories and something that we are really needing in the time that we are living in we need to have our voice when we are able to when we are able to express our problems why we should be always represented by others and so it is not really true the way that we are we have been represented and it is not only about literature that can be used as a weapon as a tool in order to in the activists it can be done in many ways tonight we have the lawyers and I add the I add the honor to have their speech and to listen to them also the activists and artists these are all main tools that we can use in order to make change and one of the important and very highlightable points that was mentioned by one of our liars was that many are making misconceptions of what is law I think you know it is the same I have been talking about law and legislations that are put on refuges without making a real understanding of why uprooted people not refuges but uprooted people came from your country there are laws and legislations that are put on as by the legislators by the politicians I think it is a very great power on the hand of liars that they can not only you know make and give awareness to people and to refuges and to give them legal information but I hope there will be steps on making change on the laws and current legislations I have been in contact and I add conversation with the politicians when I am talking with the politicians the politicians are telling me that the community is not ready in order to accept this new wave of refuges or more people to come but when I am talking with the community and that they are really they really want to give this way to refuges in order to talk and to be in the society and to live but when I am talking with the community the community are telling me they are putting their pressure on the politicians but the politicians are not ready to accept and they are making upstakers in order to not accept and to change the laws so yeah but so it has been always confusing to understand the reasons that all these you know this mess you know this border this bridge is working as we working like this thank you very much Parvana thank you very much Es for giving us an insight into your artistic practices before I end this conversation I would like to give the words to one more guest who couldn't be here tonight either life on state or nor on screen and that's Murad Al-Qadani who is the representative of the Belgian Saint-Papier it's a group of thousands of refugees that have been in Belgium for several years that have been sustaining the Belgian society but are not allowed to partake in it a couple of months ago hundreds of them decided to go on a hunger strike which lasted for over two months because they saw no way out and despite the enormous stakes the outcome has been minimal as Belgian politicians haven't given any sign so far to respond to the situation as I mentioned in the beginning I am from a Belgian city theatre so the case lies close to our heart we all know that this is a fight for humanity, solidarity and democracy and to say it in Dutch these Saint-Papiers they are Belgian too but let us listen to Murad who prepared an audio file for us which we will hear normally right now The situation of the Saint-Papiers in Belgium now is Saint-Papiers in Belgium as in many other parts of the world are humans deprived of their humanity you are exploited at every turn you can work but you do not enjoy the rights of workers without papers you don't even have the legal rights of the money you've worked for you are forced to live a life on the outside outside the law and outside society itself you have no records to the law when you are cheated or abused you have no saying how you are governed no rights to education, to healthcare to the rights other workers enjoy you must live without a bank account or a registered address you must live without a future you cannot plan to buy a car, a house or even to see your family the physical and mental health suffers as do your relationships the hunger strike was a fight first of all about dignity Belgium had accepted our labour for many years but had failed to acknowledge our humanity the Saint-Papiers in the hunger strike were an essential part of Belgium's economic and social development over the last 20 years the strike was a demand that Belgium acknowledged our contribution it was a demand to be seen and treated and to be fulfilled Saint-Papiers in Belgium and elsewhere need to be acknowledged by the society they live in for Saint-Papiers to speak out for their rights is an enormous risk only with solidarity from the wider community only when our friends and neighbours with papers stop looking through us and start seeing us will the exploitation and abuse of migrant workers end Saint-Papiers are silenced by fear of losing work accommodation or liberty the silence of people with papers over the suffering of those without papers is complicity in the oppression and exploitation of Saint-Papiers thank you very much I want to thank also the audience for being with us for this conversation for those who are live with me don't go home yet but join us for a solidarity kitchen and a concert in the foyer that will happen within half an hour so please don't forget about the fundraising campaign Wave of League election that was introduced in the beginning of the evening information about debt can be found on the website of either RLPM or of the website of Leave No One Behind and remember that by donating you'll help the work of lawyers such as Omer Schatz for instance the only thing that I still have to do right now is to thank all my panellists those that are sitting here with me, also the people online Omer Schatz, Murtaza Faruki Milorau, Serine Cicena Parvana Amiri and Es thank you for these honest and inspiring thoughts what I want to remember of tonight's conversation is that we as artists, lawyers and activists are not powerless but that if we are courageous enough to question the current mode of being that we could spark some utopian alternatives our reality is not fixed so let's change it thank you very much