Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Observing the World Human Rights Day through displaying films about human rights world-wide is a new and interesting way of observing the occasion that the international community around the world observed on December 10.

Sonita, a film about a 17 year old Afghan refugee girl Sonita Alizadeh living in Iran was displayed at the Embassy of Switzerland in Islamabad as part of the United Nations Information Centre to raise awareness about the human rights through cinematography.

Sonita is a refugee girl who wishes to become a rapper but has to face many hurdles, including poverty, family restrictions and harsh traditions that are destined to kill her dream of becoming the first Afghan female rapper. Vittorio Cammarota, Director United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Islamabad is the key figure behind the project. He took the initiative in 2015 with a tiny budget and only six weeks to display a number of films at different embassies for the first edition of the festival themed “Human Rights through Cinematography” with the help of the International Film Festival Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) Geneva, Switzerland.

“They provided us support to choose the movies and to get those films through their producers. The European Union (EU) and the Swiss Confederation helped us in organizing the event,” Vittorio informed this scribe. This year, Vittorio says, they increased the number of movies as 23 documentaries were showed at embassies and universities in six cities of Pakistan. “We displayed the films in Gujarat, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad with support from the Embassy of Argentina, The Australian High Commission, The Canadian High Commission, The EU and funding from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherland and the Kingdom of Spain,” the Director UNIC added.

“It is remarkable that we showed films on forces marriages at the University of Peshawar and University of Quetta. The number of students participated in our screening has remarkably increased and it is encouraging as our target is the young people who should be aware of what human rights are and how can they protect themselves against human rights violations,” Vittorio Cammarota said.

One of the aims of the festival, Vittorio said was to disseminate the universal declaration of Human Rights. “The other important thing is that we have debates at the end of each screening. It is a healthy habit to exchange views, whether we agree or disagree. It helps us in looking at different ideas in different ways,” Vittorio argued.

Like other screenings across the country, the event at the Swiss Embassy also attracted a number of professionals and students of various universities.

The Ambassador of Switzerland Marc P. George welcomed the guests that included Ambassador of Combodia, Representative of the Embassy of Islamic Republic of Iran, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) head of Pakistan Indrika Ratwatte, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative Hassan Mohtashami, International Organization for Migration (IOM) country representative David Terzi and Isabelle Gattiker, director FIFDH.

During the panel discussion, David Terzi said that when a family or persons migrate from one place to another, they just don’t take their suitcases with them, they take their culture and traditions along with them which brings about positive and negative changes in a society.

Indrika Ratwatte talked about the issues faced by the refugees as they moved to a host country and the challenges that the host countries were to face with high numbers of refugees. “Countries like Pakistan and Iran have been hosting millions of Afghan refugees for decades and it has had a great impact on both the countries economically as well as culturally,” he said.

Indika added that currently the number of worldwide refugees was about 65 million, which was highest in the recorded history. “Increase in the manmade and natural calamities was forcing more and more humans to migrate from one place to another and this was having an impact on the global economic system,” he added.

Talking about Sonita Alizadeh, Isabelle Gattiker said that Sonita was currently pursuing her education at an institute in the United States, which offered her full scholarship after she became a Youtube sensation. “Sonita is a very shy girl.

She has seen a lot of troubles in her tender age and hardly speaks as she did in the film. This is a brilliant film to watch together,” she said. Isabelle stressed on the need of promotion of films on Human Rights as it helped a lot to create awareness among people and educated them about what needs to be done for the improving Human Rights situation in any country.