How do you express solidarity, give visibility to an ongoing revolution on which international diplomacies are doing very little?
"I try not to look the other way, I'll be my age, but my indignation is so strong that I just couldn't keep quiet" thus Marisa Laurito tells ANSA about her commitment on the front line for Iran.
From the actress devoted to comedy, from the director of the Trianon theater in Naples, from the artist famous for her ironic verve, perhaps you wouldn't expect a front-line barricade... "But yes, today no one can say, as past generations did on the 'Holocaust: I did not know.
Today, however, we know everything because videos of what is happening in the squares and what the police do to repress the protests are relaunched on social networks every day", he replies. So Laurito, 71, on Christmas Eve chose to do something: a heartfelt video appeal and a collection of signatures on Change.Org and the result in a few days is close to 90,000 signatures." We are with the young Iranian men and women who fight for freedom, when you strike one of them you strike all of humanity.
We demand: 'An end to executions and the release of arrested protesters', says the title of the petition addressed to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, underlining the violation of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
a man that even the Islamic republic had signed up to at the time". In this appeal, he adds, "we ask Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to take a decisive position towards the Iranian Regime;
to the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to summon the Iranian ambassador, declaring him "persona non grata" and to recall our ambassador in Iran for consultations". Did you expect all these adhesions? "When I started, I actually thought I would not go so far, but I can be relatively surprised: what is happening is so great and my indignation so strong at the ongoing repression and general silence that I think I get along with quite a few people.
I had already signed the press appeal,
but I thought I'd do something of my own.
There should be many more demonstrations in support". Is this your first mobilization in person? "It is my first collection of signatures, I have given my face to many causes, I am very interested in social issues, sometimes I make it public, some less.
However, I believe that a famous person has it as a duty to make himself available for just causes".
Had she ever been so indignant about anything?
"It's not the first time in my life but it's the first time that an extermination has taken place in front of everyone's eyes, 18,000 and over hundreds of victims arrested, most of them very young. In Iran there is a real revolution and repression it's fierce."
The next step?
"I'm not alone, there is a group of people who support this project such as Luciano Stella, Tosca, Edoardo Bennato, Gianni Pinto. Meanwhile, a first initiative is in Naples on January 7 at the Trianon with pieces, songs and symbolic readings in a heartfelt solidarity flash mob directed by Davide Iodice, the speeches among many by Marina Confalone, Patrizio Rispo, Pegah Moshir Pour, Valeria Parrella, also present Vincenzo De Luca, president of the Campania region and again the president of the Federation of the Press, Giuseppe Giulietti with the support of Amnesty International Italy.
The artist Laika has granted us one of her drawings on Donna Vita Libertà.
The initiative will start from the Trianon Viviani Theater on Saturday 7 January at 12, to then twin with other Italian cities, such as on 21 January, when the protest at 17 will move to Rome, at the Pasolini Workshop in viale Antonino San Giuliano 187. We want to make the first solidarity flash mob of the Italian entertainment world for the Iranian people". (ANSA).
