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International Peace Bureau to Award 2012 Sean MacBride Peace Prize to Nawal El-Sadaawi (Egypt) and Lina Ben Mhenni (Tunisia)
an article by International Peace Bureau, Action from Ireland and From War to Peace
The International Peace Bureau is delighted to
announce its decision to award the 2012 Sean
MacBride Peace Prize to two Arab women: Lina Ben
Mhenni from Tunisia and Nawal El-Sadaawi from
Egypt. They have both shown great courage and made
substantial contributions to what is known as the
Arab Spring.
Nawal El-Saadawi
click on photo to enlarge
The award ceremony will be held on the eve of
IPB’s annual conference, which this year doubles
as Afri’s Hedge School. The prize ceremony will be
held on Friday 16th November . . . This will be
the first ever IPB Council meeting in Ireland in
its over 100 year history during which it will be
hosted by Afri, a member organisation of the
International Peace Bureau.
Nawal El-Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an
Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and
psychiatrist. She has written many books on the
subject of women in Islam, paying particular
attention to the practice of female genital
cutting in her society. She is founder and
president of the Arab Women's Solidarity
Association and co-founder of the Arab Association
for Human Rights.
In 1972 she published Al-Mar'a wa Al-Jins (Woman
and Sex), confronting aggressions perpetrated
against women's bodies, including female
circumcision, which became a foundational text of
second-wave feminism. As a consequence of the book
as well as her political activities, Saadawi was
dismissed from her position at the Egyptian
Ministry of Health.
Long viewed as controversial and dangerous by the
Egyptian government, in 1981 Saadawi helped
publish a feminist magazine, CONFRONTATION, and as
a result was imprisoned in September by President
Anwar al-Sadat. She was released later that year,
one month after Sadat's assassination. Of her
experience she wrote: "Danger has been a part of
my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote.
Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world
that lies."
Saadawi was one of the women held at Qanatir Women's
Prison. Her incarceration formed the basis for her
memoir, Memoirs from the Women's Prison, 1983.
Her's is a life spent in brave and constant pursuit
of freedom, truth and equality.
Lina Ben Mhenni is an extraordinary 27 year old
Tunisian human rights activist. Her book Tunisian
Girl: A Blogger for an Arab Spring is a collection
of entries from her trilingual blog - French, Arabic
and English - "A Tunisian Girl".
Her writing was one of a handful of firsthand
sources of the uprising coming from inside the
country at a time when foreign journalists were
banned from entering and the national media was a
tool of the government. At the outset of the Arab
Spring she travelled to Sidi Bouzid, and was the
only blogger in Regueb and Kasserine when the
security forces massacred people there. Her
accounts and photographs of the dead and injured
inspired the world, and ensured that other
Tunisian activists and international media knew
what was happening in the centre of the country
during the most violent days of the uprising.
Ms. Ben Mhenni is one of the few Tunisian cyber-
activists who blogged and tweeted under her real
name while former President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali was still in power. She is an agent for change
and hope in our world.
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