Guest Speakers
Dr. Nicola Pedde
Dr. Luciana Borsatti
Dr. Shirin Zakeri
Date: October 20
Venue: Auriana Auditorium at The American University of Rome
Time: 7:00pm
An academic, a journalist, and a representative of a think tank will discuss the protests unfolding in Iran.
Last month Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini (a 22 years old Kurdish Iranian) because she didn’t wear the veil properly, revealing her hair. Masha Amini was sent to a reeducation camp and, several days later, died while in police custody. Masha Amini’s death set off the most widespread protests since 2009 (Green Movement). Iranian authorities responded by harshly cracking down on the protests and clamping down on Internet access.
Dr. Pedde, Director of the Institute for Global Studies (IGS)
Nicola Pedde is a political analyst with a specific interest in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. During the last fifteen years, he has carried out his professional activity as a civilian analyst in a European think tank and as a strategic analyst in the think tank of the Ministry of Defense.
Dr. Borsatti, Journalist and author.
Luciana Borsatti worked from 1990 to 2018 at the Ansa Agency (news agency); she has been a correspondent from Cairo and Tehran. She published two books on Iran: Iran at the Time of Trump (2018) and Iran at the Time of Biden (2021).
Dr. Zakeri, Adjunct professor at The American University of Rome and La Sapienza University.
Shirin Zakeri is specialized in the Middle East and North African region (MENA) and the Persian Gulf countries.
Before joining AUR, Shirin worked at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London as a Research Fellow, and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.