Ban Iran from Venice Biennale - Woman, Life, Freedom

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 28 - The Woman, Life, Freedom Europe and Woman, Life, Freedom Italy communities have launched a petition calling for Iran to be banned from the 2024 Venice Biennale.
    The petition has been signed by some important figures from the world of art and culture.
    The Woman, Life, Freedom movement was triggered by the death in custody in September 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman arrested for allegedly violating Iran's mandatory headscarf law.
    The appeal comes after thousands signed a similar petition calling for Israel to be excluded from the next Venice Art Biennale, scheduled to take place from 20 April to 24 November, over its alleged "genocide" in Gaza.
    Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano ruled this out on Tuesday.
    "The diktat of those who think they are the holders of the truth and, with arrogance and hatred, think they can threaten the freedom of thought and of creative expression in a democratic, free nation like Italy is unacceptable and shameful," said Sangiuliano.
    "Israel not only has the right to express its art, but it has the duty to bear witness of its people precisely at a time like this when it has been attacked in cold blood by merciless terrorists.
    "The Biennale will always be a space of freedom, encounter and dialogue, not a space of censorship and intolerance".
    The request for the Israeli ban is contained in a letter addressed to the Biennale Foundation that has already collected over 8,000 signatures.
    "While the art world prepares to visit the diorama of the nation-state at the (Biennale) Giardini," the appeal reads, "we affirm that it is unacceptable to host a state engaged in the ongoing atrocities against the Palestinians in Gaza. "No to the Genocide Pavilion at the Biennale" (ANSA).