Ararat centre in Rome risks eviction

The ‘house’ of Kurds in the Italian capital targeted by the former government of the city of Rome.

Ask for Ararat in the Testaccio borough of Rome and everyone will tell you where the Kurdish cultural centre is.

Since 1999 when it was opened, over 23 thousand Kurdish asylum seekers have passed through the Ararat Kurdish Cultural Centre. A shelter, a meeting place, where Kurds - and not only - have the possibility to share their experiences, stories, culture.

Now, like other 800 associations, Ararat is at risk of being evicted: the local government is asking an incredible amount of money to the squatted place with which previous administrations had made a deal acknowledging the incredible cultural and political work they have been carried out all those years.

The Ararat Cultural Centre was born in 1999, initiated by the thousands of Kurds who had gathered in Rome when their leader, Abdullah Ocalan landed in the Italian capital, on 12 November 1998. The Kurds settled in a Roman square immediately renamed “Kurdistan Square”, asking freedom for their leader who had come to Europe precisely to highlight the plight of the Kurdish people.

After Ocalan capture in Kenya (on 15 February 1999), as a result of an international conspiracy, many Kurds stayed in Italy and occupied some buildings, with the help of Italian groups and organisations.

The Ararat Cultural Centre is in the former slaughterhouse of the city, next to the People’s School of Music Giovanna Marini (which also risks eviction). The name chosen for the centre reminds of the mythical Mount Ararat (where Noah’s Ark is said to have shored) but also the name of the first ship full of Kurdish asylum seekers to reach the Italian coasts in the late ‘90s.

No doubt throughout the years the Ararat Centre has helped to spread and bring the Kurdish people, their history, struggle and culture among Italians. The centre has been and is hosting conferences, events, debates, solidarity campaigns. Here every year Kurds celebrate Newroz, together with Italians and other people.

The former slaughterhouse building has been reformed by Kurds who have worked hard to make the building safe and livable. Indeed the reformation has cost more than twice the amount of money the Council now asks the centre to pay.

In 2006 the Campidoglio (Rome’s city council) has officially recognised the social and cultural value of Ararat and subsequently has issued a formal lease contract to the Centre which is regularly paying rent. Ararat has been a bit like a Kurdistan consulate for the thousands of Kurdish refugees who fled from the sieged cities of North Kurdistan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Sur… and from Rojava, from Kobane. And it is here in the Ararat centre which was initiated a campaign for the city liberated by its brave people militias, the YPG and the YPJ. Here has been initiated the funds collection for the Women House of Kobane and the hospital of the city freed from DAESH in January 2015.