Author: Chema

At a time of growing polarization, historical revisionism and identity-based violence in Europe, leading civil society actors, scholars and policymakers will gather in Sarajevo for Closing the Gaps: A Multi-Stakeholder Roundtable on Memory, Prevention and Social Cohesion in Europe, a two-day event co-organised by ICIP, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) and the War Childhood Museum. The event will take place on 24–25 March 2026 in a city deeply shaped by war, memory and sustained efforts toward reconciliation.

Since World War II, memory policies and practices have grown out of the need to confront atrocities, honor survivors, and prevent their repetition. From the Holocaust to Rwanda and Bosnia, these efforts sought not only to remember but also to challenge denial and embed lessons in public life. Yet today, those lessons appear to be slipping away: patterns of hatred and violence are re-emerging, and even societies that once championed “never again” often fail to recognize the same dangers when they appear elsewhere. From denial and revisionism in Latin America, to ongoing genocides in Gaza and Sudan, to renewed inter-ethnic tensions in the Balkans, the stakes of memory work could not be higher.

This is a moment to pause and to reflect critically: What is failing? What are the deeper, structural reasons behind these failures? What has worked? And what lessons can be carried forward?

From commemoration to prevention

Taking place at Europe House, the Closing the Gaps roundtable will critically examine why memory policies and practices often fail to translate remembrance into prevention, democratic resilience and social cohesion, and how these gaps can be closed. It will bring together survivors, practitioners, scholars and policymakers to foster collaboration, shared learning, and collective action that can shape policy and practice across Europe.

At a time when international law and human rights are under sustained attack, memory work must be reclaimed for its original purpose, not as a passive act of remembrance, but as an act of courage, resistance, and justice.

A meeting with international voices

The roundtable will feature a diverse group of speakers, including Hasan Hasanović, survivor of the Srebrenica genocide and Head of the Oral History Program at the Srebrenica Memorial Center; Alma Mustafić, survivor, researcher and lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences; Jaclyn Streitfeld-Hall, Deputy Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; and Emmanuel Achiri, Policy Advisor at the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Edina Bećirević, Associate Professor at the University of Sarajevo and author of Genocide on the Drina River; Nayat Karakose, Director of Programs at the Hrant Dink Foundation; William Blair, Director of Collections at National Museums Northern Ireland; and Nikola Kandić, Head of the Sarajevo office of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), among others.

Across keynote sessions, roundtables and small-group discussions, participants will address key questions such as how memory policies can better include marginalized histories without fueling polarization; how intersectional approaches to memory can foster cross-community dialogue; and how memory initiatives can inspire meaningful civic action to address the root causes and risk factors of violence.

Towards a European roadmap

The roundtable will conclude with the drafting of a Policy Roadmap outlining practical recommendations to strengthen the links between memory work, violence prevention, anti-discrimination efforts and democratic resilience. These outcomes are intended to inform future policy debates and strengthen cooperation between civil society and policymakers across Europe.

ICIP and Tigre de Paper are publishing Les cures. La fase superior del capitalisme (Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism), a book by historian and activist Premilla Nadasen. It will be available in bookshops from Monday, 19 January.

The book analyses the evolution of the care economy and how this sector has become a new space for profit within contemporary capitalism. It examines areas such as care homes, schools, hospitals, day centres, cleaning services, childcare facilities, support for dependent people, home-care platforms, and psychological care centres, outlining a structured, hierarchical sector that transforms the labour of many into profits for others.

Drawing on the care crisis made visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nadasen adopts a gendered and racial perspective to analyse social reproduction as a key element for understanding the nature and evolution of capitalism. The author traces this process from its origins, linked to slavery, when there was no clear division between production and social reproduction, to the present stage, in which the relationship between capital and care has become central.

The book also gives voice to the demands of migrant and racialised care workers and explores the transformative potential of radical care, understood as a tool for imagining and building alternative social models and more just collective futures.

Les cures. La fase superior del capitalisme is a co-edition by ICIP and Tigre de Paper, translated into Catalan by Núria Busquet Molist.

On 26 November, the Latin American Network of Women, Peace and Security (LAMPS), of which ICIP is a member, presented the report Caminos hay. Puentes pocos (There are Paths. Few bridges), a subcontinental assessment examining the state of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda 25 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The launch took place in a virtual public event.

This is the first study of its kind in the region, with information collected in 33 countries and 14 colonial enclaves, and incorporating 11 national and contextual investigations conducted in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, and within the Latin American diaspora.

An unprecedented regional perspective

The report offers an “expanded snapshot” of the region, identifying advances, tensions, and shared challenges in implementing the WPS Agenda. Among its key findings, it highlights that the Agenda is not an imported framework, but rather one rooted in the historic leadership of women’s movements and feminist activism from the Global South, especially in community-based and grassroots work.

The study also shows how the Agenda has been appropriated and reinterpreted across territories, generating diverse pathways. Still, also significant gaps between the actors involved: feminist movements, state institutions, military forces, international cooperation, and multilateral bodies. One of the central conclusions points to the lack of bridges between these actors, which hinders the development of comprehensive and sustained policies.

Urgent challenges for the region

The assessment also identifies critical issues requiring urgent attention: the expansion of organised crime, femicides, violence linked to electoral processes, territorial and environmental tensions, the situations in Haiti, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Paraguay and Honduras, and the risks faced by women human rights defenders and community leaders.

It also notes that the regional agenda has focused more on protection and justice, while essential elements such as dialogue, memory, and locally driven peacebuilding remain underdeveloped.

Recommendations for the next 25 years

The report puts forward a broad set of recommendations aimed at strengthening the WPS Agenda over the next quarter century, including:

• fostering stable, multi-actor dialogue spaces beyond mere consultation,
• strengthening historical memory and recognising the role of women in building peace,
• rethinking concepts of security through feminist and community-centred approaches,
• recognising and protecting women human rights defenders in contexts of escalating violence,
• addressing the intersections between organised crime, contemporary authoritarianism and gender inequality,
• ensuring a more active role for diaspora communities in peace and security policies,
• and connecting the WPS Agenda with the Climate, Peace and Security Agenda.

The role of ICIP within the LAMPS Network

ICIP is part of the LAMPS Network together with organisations from across the region, including CIASÉ (Colombia), SERAPAZ and JASS Mesoamérica (Mexico), CINEP/PPP (Colombia), ACI Participa (Honduras), SERPAJ (Paraguay), Humanas (Chile), Think Twice (Brazil), Rediálogo (Venezuela) and Mujer Diáspora (Spain/Barcelona).

The publication of this assessment marks an essential step in strengthening joint efforts to build peace from a feminist, regional and decolonial perspective.

ICIP has released a new issue of the magazine Peace in Progress, issue number 43, produced in collaboration with the international organisation Build Up and focused on exploring how digital technologies are transforming conflicts and peacebuilding processes.

Under the title “Peace in the Digital Age”, this new issue examines phenomena such as online disinformation, manipulation and hate speech; the risks of artificial intelligence; the impact of algorithms on polarization; mediation in digital environments; and cyberactivism in contexts of repression. It also includes an article on the digitisation of cultural heritage during war and in post-conflict settings.

This monograph is co-published by ICIP and Build Up as part of their collaboration to organise the Build Peace 2025 conference. Both the journal and the conference aim to foster a critical understanding of the risks and opportunities posed by digital technologies, and to offer tools and insights for steering them towards peacebuilding. The editorial coordination of the monograph was led by Eugènia Riera and Chema Sarri (ICIP).

The issue features an editorial by Helena Puig Larrauri, Strategy Director at Build Up, and six articles by Ahmad Qadi (7amleh), Evelyne Tauchnitz (University of Lucerne), Luke Thorburn (AI & Democracy Foundation), Sanjana Hattotuwa (ICT4Peace), Nerima Wako (Siasa Place) and Wahbi Abdalrahman (Sudan Memory). The monograph concludes with an interview with Stephanie Williams, former UN Special Adviser for Libya, who reflects on how disinformation and digital interference shaped the peace negotiations in the country.

Several contributors to the journal will also take part in the Build Peace 2025 conference, where they will expand on these topics through workshops, presentations and debates.

Peace in Progress is published in Catalan, Spanish and English, and is available both digitally and in print, reflecting ICIP’s commitment to accessibility and the dissemination of knowledge on peacebuilding.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (UNSCR 1325), ICIP and the Escola de Cultura de Pau (School for a Culture of Peace) held the event “Where Are Peace and Security? Feminist Proposals” on 12 November at Pati Manning. The session set out to analyse progress under this international framework and, above all, to reflect on its challenges in a global context shaped by war, rearmament, and authoritarian pushback.

The opening remarks were delivered by María Villellas (Escola de Cultura de Pau) and Kristian Herbolzheimer (ICIP), who situated the discussion in a political moment that is especially hostile to women’s rights and to the defence of multilateralism.

The programme featured a keynote lecture by Sarah Taylor, an expert on gender, peace and security policies, followed by a feminist conversation with Carmen Magallón, Nour Salameh and Patricia Simón, moderated by Pamela Urrutia.

Successes, limits and a “captured” agenda

In her keynote, Taylor reminded the audience that Resolution 1325 is the result of decades of activism by women in conflict contexts and that it has helped generate more inclusive international frameworks and peace processes.

Yet she sounded the alarm about a structural problem: the political capture of the agenda. As Taylor explained, once institutionalised in bodies such as the UN Security Council, the 1325 agenda became conditioned by the interests of states, especially permanent members, who prioritise their geopolitical and military objectives. This shift weakened its antimilitarist core: the original spirit of questioning militarism and the logic of war has progressively faded because it clashes directly with the priorities of the most powerful states in the international system.

This capture is also reflected in the lack of accountability in conflicts such as Gaza, Sudan or Myanmar; in the shrinking funding for feminist organisations; in the persistent confusion between “women” and “gender”; and in the limited attention given to LGBTQIA+ communities.

According to Taylor, reversing this trend requires putting grassroots peacebuilders and community organisations back at the centre, with consistent political and financial support, in order to recover the transformative potential of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

A feminist conversation to defend life and democracy

The roundtable, featuring Carmen Magallón, Nour Salameh and Patricia Simón and moderated by Pamela Urrutia, delved into the current implications of militarism and violence.

Carmen Magallón, Honorary President of WILPF Spain, described the present moment as “very hard and very dark times”. She stressed the need to protect Resolution 1325 as part of international law and to reclaim the basic concepts now under attack, starting with the notion of humanity. Both Magallón and Simón also warned of the importance of countering far-right narratives that target and attract segments of young men, and of promoting proposals that uphold equality, coexistence and democracy.

Researcher and ICIP Board member Nour Salameh brought the discussion to Syria. She argued that feminist peace is grounded in the living memory of women who have resisted decades of war and authoritarianism. She criticised how the WPS Agenda has often been instrumentalised — inviting women to negotiation tables without transforming the patriarchal and militarised structures that shape those processes.

Journalist and ecofeminist Patricia Simón denounced what she described as a “declared war” against those who produce critical thought (feminists, pacifists, journalists), in an attempt to erode democracy and impose an order based on hatred. She highlighted the strength of the global solidarity movement with Palestine and the active participation of young people. And she reminded the audience that while international humanitarian law is being openly violated, it is precisely the “utopian radicals” who are defending norms and the rule of law

An agenda that must continue to be defended

The session made it clear that, despite the political instrumentalisation that Resolution 1325 has suffered, the transformative power of the WPS Agenda remains alive in feminist solidarity, in the demilitarisation of public narratives, and in the active resistance of grassroots movements and communities working for peace.

Far from giving it up, the speakers agreed that this is precisely the moment to deepen the agenda and to reclaim its original anti-militarist spirit.

From 26 to 29 October, San Cristóbal de Las Casas (Chiapas) hosted the fourth meeting of the Platform for Peacebuilding in Mexico. This space brings together thirty Mexican and international organisations, including ICIP, committed to advancing collective responses to the escalating violence in the country.

The annual meeting offered an opportunity to share analysis, local experiences and proposals for action at a particularly complex moment for Chiapas, a state marked by rising violence, the presence of criminal groups and persistent impunity.

A local, national and international perspective

Throughout the meeting, participating organisations combined local perspectives from Chiapas with national and international analyses of the human rights and security situation. In a context still shaken by the killing, one year ago, of human rights defender and priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez, participants reiterated the need to advance justice measures capable of breaking the patterns of impunity.

The international analysis highlighted the weakening of human rights frameworks in the face of authoritarian governments, as well as the growing risks faced by human rights defenders, Indigenous communities and women’s collectives. In response, the organisations in the Platform reaffirmed the importance of building alliances grounded in truth, justice, reparation and the active participation of communities.

Four years of collective work for peace

The Platform was created in 2020 to provide a coordinated response to widespread violence in Mexico and its social and humanitarian consequences. Since then, Chiapas has become a priority area of concern, leading to the first in-person meeting in 2022 and continuing to shape the Platform’s monitoring and advocacy work.

This year’s meeting highlighted the persistence of serious issues affecting the social fabric, including:

• a rise in disappearances, including those of children and adolescents,
• forced displacement due to the presence of armed groups,
• fear of reporting crimes due to the risk of reprisals,
• and an “official peace” narrative that contrasts with the demands for justice expressed by communities, families and victims’ groups.

A commitment to rights-based peace

The organisations in the Platform agree that peace cannot be reduced to the absence of armed clashes, nor to narratives of normality that obscure the structural causes of violence. For this reason, they reaffirmed the need to advance towards a peace rooted in rights, dignity and community participation —not in containment or silence.

The fourth meeting concluded with a renewed commitment to strengthening collective coordination, making community demands visible, and contributing, from different fields, to building a peace that is not imposed but woven collectively through memory, organisation and community life.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her tireless efforts to promote the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

The ICIP welcomes the fact that the award highlights explicit support for democracy in the face of authoritarianism—in this case, that of Venezuela—and the value of dialogue as a tool for conflict resolution.

The ICIP president, Xavier Masllorens, emphasised that Machado “is a figure of consensus within the highly fragmented Venezuelan opposition, a symbol of resistance, and a defender of civil rights and citizen participation.”

With a long history of defending human rights, María Corina Machado also represents perseverance and a steadfast commitment to peace —an “urgent necessity” in today’s context of rising authoritarianism.

On September 29, ICIP took part in the 29th session of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, held in Geneva. The annual meeting brought together representatives from 21 States and 44 civil society organisations from around the world.

The session aimed to share experiences, set priorities, and strengthen international cooperation to ensure the effective implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Discussions addressed issues related to the prevention, investigation, and reparation of enforced disappearances, as well as current challenges in the fields of human rights and international justice.

Representing the institution, Sílvia Plana, Head of Strategic Alliances at ICIP, highlighted the organisation’s commitment to victims of violence and war, particularly to women searchers, whom she recognised as peacebuilders. Plana emphasised the need to give greater visibility to their work and announced ICIP’s intention to promote a new international gathering of women searchers in Barcelona in 2026 or 2027.

ICIP’s participation built on the work initiated at the First World Congress on Enforced Disappearances, held in Geneva in January 2025, in which ICIP was a collaborating organisation. That event reaffirmed the importance of placing victims and their demands at the centre of international action and of promoting a joint agenda to advance truth, justice, and reparation.

Through this participation, ICIP strengthens its collaboration with international human rights protection mechanisms and reaffirms its commitment to truth, justice, and reparation for the victims of enforced disappearances.

This Thursday, September 18, at 6 p.m., the Parliament of Catalonia will host the ceremony of the ICIP Peace in Progress Award 2025, granted to the Syrian organisation Women Now for Development.

The event will feature speeches by the President of the Parliament, Josep Rull i Andreu, and the President of ICIP, Xavier Masllorens i Escubós. It will also include a tribute reading by Palestinian writer and translator Mohamad Bitari and a musical performance by the Syrian duo Athrodeel.

The award will be accepted on behalf of the organisation by Lubna Kanawati and Roulah Al Rekbie.

You can follow the ceremony live on this page.

The Governing Board of the ICIP has awarded the 2025 ICIP Peace in Progress Award to the Syrian organisation Women Now for Development for its work in “supporting, protecting, and empowering Syrian women, both inside and outside the country, as a symbol of feminist resistance and solidarity in the face of violence.”

The award recognises Women Now for Development’s outstanding contribution to peace, justice, and dignity in Syria—a country deeply affected by repression, armed conflict, and forced exile. The organisation was selected from among twenty international nominations for its transformative and resilient work over the past decade.

Founded in 2012 by Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek, Women Now for Development was established as a grassroots initiative to support women and girls during the early stages of the Syrian uprising. Its initial goal was to create safe spaces where women could gather, share knowledge and experiences, and collectively explore ways to support their communities. Since then, it has evolved into a leading feminist organisation working in both war zones and conflict-affected contexts, inside and outside Syria.

Over the past thirteen years, the organisation has developed a model rooted in feminist values and community solidarity. Women Now for Development has strengthened the role of women in both public and private spheres by providing tools, resources, and knowledge. In doing so, the organisation has helped shape a generation of women who continue to resist violence and build hope in the face of destruction.

A Survivor-Centred Approach

Through its presence in Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey, Women Now for Development has accompanied communities facing severe human rights violations such as sieges, forced displacement, and chemical attacks. The organisation’s work is defined by its survivor-centred approach, emphasis on protection, participation, empowerment, and strong belief in community organising. It also leads international advocacy efforts to amplify the voices of Syrian women, often marginalized in mainstream political discourse, and to push for justice and accountability.

Guided by feminist principles and staffed by activists deeply rooted in their communities, Women Now for Development continues to imagine and work toward a more just and inclusive future for Syria.

Upon receiving the award, the organisation’s Executive Director, Lubna Alkanawati, shared a powerful memory: “In 2014, during one of the harshest periods of siege imposed by the Assad regime on Eastern Ghouta, we were deprived of almost everything. My 65-year-old neighbour Mariam, the head of a twenty-member household living in unimaginable conditions, always made sure to share a small portion of her food with me. That single bite—offered with care and solidarity—helped me hold on to my humanity when war showed me its ugliest face. It reminded me what it means to remain human in inhumane times.”

Alkanawati dedicated the award “to Mariam, to the team at Women Now for Development, who continue to show the world how women can lead change with determination, will, and passion; and to all Syrian women who, through care, resilience, compassion, and courage, continue to resist destruction and create hope.” She also stated that receiving the ICIP Award “is a powerful acknowledgment of the unwavering commitment of Syrian women, who have resisted violence, built alternatives, and imagined justice even in the darkest of times. It is also a tribute to feminist solidarity, which crosses borders and strengthens us.”

Women Now for Development has consistently worked to ensure that women’s voices are central to all peacebuilding, justice, and accountability processes. The organisation believes that there can be no sustainable peace without justice—and no justice or peace without women.

Rooted in community-based efforts, its work has led to key milestones: the formation of the Adala Network in 2016; participation in local civilian negotiations through the Civil Block in Eastern Ghouta in 2018; and most recently, support for survivor-led movements advocating for the creation of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic (IIMP).

The ICIP Peace in Progress Award

Since 2011, the ICIP Peace in Progress Award has been granted annually to publicly recognise individuals, organisations, or institutions that have made an outstanding and long-standing contribution to promoting peace.

The award includes public recognition, a sculpture entitled “Porta del Sol” (Gateway to the Sun), created by Nobel Peace Prize laureate, artist, and activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and a monetary prize of € 6,000. The award ceremony will take place in September 2025 at the Parliament of Catalonia, coinciding with the International Day of Peace.

On May 25 and 26, the ICIP hosted two events featuring geographer and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, one of the most prominent voices in contemporary abolitionist thought. Throughout her talks in Barcelona, Gilmore addressed the structural limitations of the penal system and advocated for abolition as a collective practice focused on repairing harm and building more just, supportive, and violence-free societies.

Sunday, May 25 – Literal Fair
Under the title “Abolishing the Punishment Industry: Challenges and Political Practices for Emancipation,” the first session took place at the Literal Fair and was facilitated by researcher Ainhoa Nadia Douhaibi. Gilmore presented some of the core ideas of her work, such as the notion of abolition as “emancipation in rehearsal”—a constant process of creating spaces of freedom and transformative relationships.

She also analysed what she calls the “prison industrial complex,” highlighting how the penal system efficiently organises state resources (land, labour, capital, and authority) to contain populations and reproduce inequality. This model prioritises repression and punishment over essential services, especially in contexts marked by austerity and budget cuts.

For Gilmore, freedom is a place built collectively, and abolitionist work is not only about eliminating prisons but about creating real, sustainable alternatives rooted in care, community accountability, and restorative justice.

Monday, May 26 – La Model
The second gathering took place in the auditorium of La Model, a venue with deep symbolic significance. Under the title “Security and Justice: Alternative Models to Punitive Systems,” the session was facilitated by Afrofeminist activist Basha Changue and featured contributions from Áurea Martín (Tanquem els CIE), Iñaki Rivera (University of Barcelona), and criminal lawyer Laia Serra. ICIP director Kristian Herbolzheimer and the Ombudswoman of Catalonia, Esther Giménez-Salinas, officially opened the event.

Gilmore emphasized that abolition is a model—not a distant horizon—and advocated for a grassroots internationalism that connects diverse struggles and fosters solidarity among people and collectives resisting across the world. She outlined three imperatives for abolition: it must be green (sustainable), red (against racial capitalism), and internationalist (connected and plural).

Throughout the dialogue, participants also reflected on the challenges and contradictions of using legal tools strategically within abolitionist movements, highlighting that collective responses to violence must go beyond punishment and promote community-based approaches to conflict resolution and healing.

A vision rooted in community and transformation

With a trajectory that bridges academia and activism, Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a co-founder of collectives such as Critical Resistance and INCITE!, and the author of works like Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography.

Her visit to Barcelona, organised by the ICIP’s Alternatives for Security programme, offered a unique opportunity to open spaces for collective reflection on how to rethink security, justice, and freedom from a transformative, non-punitive, and community-rooted perspective. This approach aligns with the ICIP’s work in promoting security models rooted in peacebuilding, the protection of rights, and the eradication of all forms of structural violence.

Fourteen years after the outbreak of the popular uprising, Syria remains engulfed in a deep political, social, and humanitarian crisis. Yet, amidst the ruins of the conflict, a resilient civil society continues to nurture the desire for change. This was the central theme at the session “Syria, 14 Years Later: Resistance, Hope and Perspectives for Peace“, organized by the ICIP. It featured Syrian activist and historian Nour Salameh and journalist Oriol Andrés Gallart, moderated by professor and Arab world expert Lurdes Vidal.

The event, held on April 8 at the Hub Social in Barcelona, offered a reflection on the country’s current situation following the fall of the Assad regime last December and the massacres committed last March.

A Civil Society That Endures, Despite Everything

Despite years of repression, war, and exile, Salameh argued that Syrian civil society has never stopped fighting and has not only survived but has also transformed and diversified, primarily through the diaspora. “What remains of this civil society—of those who have fought for fourteen years against dictatorship and justice—is a lot, and it has even multiplied,” she stated. According to Salameh, various initiatives have emerged to preserve the memory of the victims, support the families of the disappeared, and promote women’s empowerment.

While material reconstruction is one of the country’s significant challenges today, so is the rebuilding of its social fabric. “The main challenge for civil society today is to create spaces for dialogue among the different factions in the country,” she noted. This task is made difficult by territorial and social divisions, the result of decades of sectarian policies and the open wounds of the conflict.

Both Salameh and Andrés agreed on the diagnosis of a fragmented country. Cities like Homs are telling examples: entire neighborhoods destroyed by the regime’s repression, while others aligned with the regime remain untouched. There are also tensions between Syrians who fled the country and those who stayed behind.

Justice, Memory, and the Fight Against Impunity

According to the speakers, achieving justice for victims remains a pending issue in Syria. The existence of organizations that document disappearances and denounce war crimes reflects a strong commitment to memory, but also exposes the limits of this struggle. Andrés highlighted how widespread victimization and the lack of a shared narrative make reconciliation difficult. “There is a competition to see who is more of a victim,” he warned.

Despite official declarations, little progress has been made in investigating crimes committed by the Assad regime, and individuals implicated in serious human rights violations have even been appointed to public positions. Without a true transitional justice process, breaking the cycle of impunity is extremely difficult.

The event concluded with a shared message of confidence in Syrian civil society: “The people will not allow another authoritarian regime and will continue to fight as they have for the past 14 years,” Salameh and Andrés agreed. And a final note of hope: “Despite everything, there is a civil society, there are capable and motivated people working to build a new Syria. We must support them and trust in their efforts,” Vidal emphasized.

The event also featured a reading—both in Arabic and Catalan—of the poem “I Shall Not Cry” by Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, performed by Noor Ogly and FundiPau president Carme Suñé. The poem served as a symbolic bridge between the experiences of the Syrian and Palestinian peoples, connecting two realities shaped by struggle and resilience.

Watch the recording of the event below (in Catalan).