Documentary maker lauds women's role in the Arab Spring

Gini Reticker executive director of a documentary, “The Trials of Spring," told a National Press Club audience June 10 that the film shows three Egyptian women fighting for freedom and social justice during the Arab Spring.

In a discussion following the film's trailer and five accompanying digital films of North African, Arabian Gulf and Egyptian women, Reticker explained, “Women in the region are at the forefront of progressive change. They are tortured and targeted by violent extremists, but they are not invited to the table to talk about violent extremism.”

She cited a petition on her film’s website asking the Obama Administration to include “a meeting of women peace builders with high-level US defense and national security officials” at its September 2015 summit on violent extremism.

Lauren Feeney, the series’ digital director, and Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, co-founder and executive director of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)joined Reticker on the panel. Manal Omar, associate vice-president for the Middle East and Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace moderated the discussion.

The documentary accompanies a six-part series launched June 7 on The New York Times website. Six digital films tell the stories of nine women on the front lines of change in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. In the film, their courage challenges the prevailing narrative that women are dis-empowered in the Middle East and North Africa.

The series shows how they countered militancy and violent extremism. The project’s website, www.trialsofspring.com, calls this blend of documentary, digital films and related New York Times articles ‘a major cross media event’.

The Club's event began with the documentary’s trailer and presented five of the six digital films on The New York Times web site:

In Bahrain’s 2011 popular uprising, Dr. Nada Dhaif set up a medical tent for protestors. For this act, she was arrested, tortured and kept two months in solitary. Sentenced with 50 other medical practitioners to 15 years in prison, she and the others were acquitted after an international outcry.

In Libya’s first female political assassination, Salwa Bugaighis was stabbed and shot dead in her home by unknown militants on June 25, 2014. Her son, now in Jordan, and sister narrate her story of striving for peace and social justice.

Hend Nafi was dragged by her hair, stripped, and publicly humiliated after protesting Egypt’s military government in Tahrir Square in 2011. Barred from her trial and sentenced to life on February 4, 2015, she faced multiple charges. One accused of her of burning down the Scientific Center at a time when she was locked in a military hospital.

In “Keeping the Promise”, Ghazala Mhamdi was beaten for forming the Union for Unemployed in Gafsa, Tunisia. The real shock to her, she said, came after the Ben Ali regime fell. “Women’s rights went back 50 years!” She ran for Parliament with her independent party “Keep the Promise”. Although her party gained no seats, she said: “Whatever happens to me is unimportant. I’m here to amplify: the voices of the poor and unemployed.”

In “Brides of Peace”, Kinda and Lubna Zaour, sisters, dress as brides to symbolize their nonviolent message. “Syria is for all of us,” they chanted, walking to a covered market in Damascus. Arrested, imprisoned, tortured and released two months later, they were forced to leave the country to survive.

The documentary premiered Friday, June 12 at the 2015 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.