ACAA awards a yearly grant to Numydia Radio 11/08/2009
 S unecreḥ i tera Tiddukla tadelsant tamaziɣt deg Marikan ad tefk tallalt n $1000 i useggas i Radyu Numydia n Columbus Ohio. Radyu Numydia d radyu n tmaziɣt tamezwarut di Marikan. Tessenker-itt-id Sunya Laǧaǧ d imdukal-is. Tiddukla tesnemmir-iten aṭas ɣef usemlili agi d-semlalayen imaziɣen yellan d iɣriben yellan di yal tama di Marikan d umaḍal s lekmal-is. Tiddukla ACAA taɛreḍ imaziɣen yellan di Marikan a d-fken tameẓẓuɣt i Numydia ama akken a d-slen i isallen, ama d aẓawan (tizlatin) neɣ d tidewwiniyin... Ddut ɣer usmel n Numydia teslem i yedles nnwen! English As an active advocate of the Amazigh culture, Numydia Radio (Columbus, Ohio) has been offering a great platform for communication and public service by keeping all Imazighen connected throughout the world with their Amazigh cultural heritage by bringing them the latests news and songs, organizing interviews and promoting the Amazigh culture through Internet radio. The board of directors of ACAA is happy to present Numydia Radio with a yearly grant of $1000. This modest monetary contribution is a token of ACAA's appreciation for all the great services Sonia and her staff at Radionumydia have been providing to our community. ACAA is committed to helping RadioNumydia and other social/cultural initiatives geared towards the same goals of providing a public service to our people through the promotion of the Amazigh culture.  Tiẓrigin Acab suffeɣent-ed yiwen n wedlis isem-is "La Ruche de Kabylie" i d-tura Bahya Amellal. Adlis-a yettawi-d ɣef umezruy n tmurt n Leqbayl di tallit n yemrabḍen irumyen d-yessbedden iɣerbazen imezwura di tmurt. Tekkit ɣef tewlaft agi afella akken ad teɣrem awzil d-yuran deg uzagur n wedlis. English Version The Achab Editions just released this new book. Please click on the picture above to read the back cover summary. Prefaced by Karima Direche, the book discusses a part of the history of Kabylia that saw the establishment of the Peres Blancs* schools. * Jesuit missionaries. Achab Editions - Tiẓrigin Achab 09/13/2009
 English Version Follows Tiẓrigin Acab, tiẓrigin timaynutin i d-yeldi Dr Remḍan Acab, ameɣnas n tmaziɣt, amusnaw n tusnakt d tensilsit, ssufeɣent-ed sin yedlisen yakan. Tifutuyin n usebtar amezwaru seg yedlisen-a ttbanent-ed ɣer tama tazelmaṭ d swadda. Yiwen wedlis sɣur Abdelaziz Berkai, wagi d amawal n tesnilsit (neɣ tasnawalt akken s-qqaren kra) tamaziɣt-tafrensist-taglizzit, ma d wayeḍ d sɣur Nabile Fares d tadyant n win ulemẓi aqbayli d-ikkren di lgirra ger Lezzayer d Fransa. Attan ihi tamaziɣt ad taf amḍiq wayeḍ deg i tezmer ad tedder u ad teǧǧuǧeg. Tajmilt n Remḍan Acab. Tanemmirt, u nessaram afud d tudert taɣezzfant i teẓrigin-a timaynutin. Ma tram ad teɣrem d acu d-yuran deg uzagur n wedlis (asebter aneggaru) eddut ukessar-a akken a d-tsersem tifutuyin nnsen. English A new Editor "Editions Achab" has just been established in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria to publish books in Tamazight or more generally to serve the Amazigh community. Two books have just been released by these editions that were set up by Dr. Ramdane Achab. Dr. Achab is a mathematician, a linguist and a long time Amazigh activist. For more information on the subject of these books, please click on the files below to access the back cover of each of the books. We welcome these new Editions and wish them a lot of success.  
 For Immediate Release Civil Registrars Refuse to Record Newborns Whose Names Are ‘Not Moroccan’ (Washington, DC, September 3, 2009) – Morocco should stop interfering with the right of its citizens to give Amazigh names to their children, Human Rights Watch said today. Numerous Moroccans living in cities and villages around the kingdom and abroad who chose Amazigh first names for their newborns have been refused when they applied at local civil registrars to record those names. Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to the interior minister, Chekib Benmoussa on June 16, 2009 detailing five such cases and soliciting an explanation. There was no response. “Morocco has taken steps to recognize Amazigh cultural rights,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It now needs to extend that recognition to the right of parents to choose the name of their child.” Morocco’s Law on the Civil Registry stipulates that a first name must have “a Moroccan character.” Local administrators apparently interpret that requirement to mean names that are Arabic-Islamic, even though the Amazigh people are native to Morocco. The law gives parents the right to appeal a refusal in court and to the High Commission of the Civil Registry. Over the years, the commission has ruled on dozens of Amazigh, European, and other non-Arabic-Islamic names, accepting some and rejecting others. The five cases documented in the Human Rights Watch letter, involving both residents of Morocco and émigrés living abroad, resulted ultimately in victories for the parents. But they succeeded only after bureaucratic delays and lengthy appeals, sometimes enduring hostile or humiliating questions from Moroccan civil servants and the insecurity of having a newborn who, for months, had no legal identity. “We are happy that these parents prevailed, but no couple should have to fight their government, at this special time in their life, to be able to name their baby,” Whitson said. On August 26, a first instance court in Tahla (province of Taza) court approved an Amazigh name in a sixth case, allowing Abdallah Bouchnaoui and Jamila Aarrach, to name their five-month-old daughter “Tiziri,” which means “moon” in Tamazight, the Amazigh language. The victory came only after the couple, who live in the commune of Zerarda in the Middle Atlas, had endured months of uncertainty. For a seventh couple, the uncertainty continues. On March 11, Rachid Mabrouky went to the civil registry in the Saâda district of Marrakesh to register his two-day-old daughter as “Gaïa.” Mabrouky told Human Rights Watch that the official on duty refused to accept the name, contending that it was “not Moroccan.” Mabrouky went to the civil registry at the city’s prefecture, only to be told the same thing. When he explained that the name “Gaïa” was Amazigh and therefore Moroccan, the agent on duty persisted in his refusal, exclaiming, “You Amazigh are all fanatics,” Mabrouky said. Mabrouky and his wife, Lucile Zerroust, who is French, filed a case in administrative court, where the case is still pending. “Gaïa” is the name of an ancient Berber prince. Parents of an infant who is not recorded by the civil registrar may face obstacles when applying for a passport for the child, reimbursement by state medical insurance, or other services. Parents who persist in demanding that the government record Amazigh names tend to be Amazighs who are politically active. They say that for every couple like themselves, there are others who avoid giving their children Amazigh names, fearing a humiliating refusal from local officials followed by administrative problems. The Amazigh are the indigenous people of North Africa and are overwhelmingly Muslim. Today, the two largest Amazigh populations are in Morocco and Algeria, where some are actively engaged in seeking cultural, linguistic, and political rights. In 2001, King Mohammed VI of Morocco created a Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture and began a program to teach the Tamazight language in schools. Several Moroccans who are Amazigh told Human Rights Watch that when civil registry agents are presented with uncommon first names, they consult lists prepared periodically by the High Commission of the Civil Registry. These lists include dozens of non-Arab-Islamic names, each one marked “accepted” or “refused.” Human Rights Watch has copies of some of these lists. According to the law, the commission is composed of representatives of the interior and justice ministries and the kingdom’s official historian. International jurisprudence supports the freedom to choose one’s name. The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee ruled in the 1994 case of Coeriel et al v. Netherlands, “Article 17 [of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] provides, inter alia, that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence. The Committee considers that the notion of privacy refers to the sphere of a person’s life in which he or she can freely express his or her identity.... [This] includes the protection against arbitrary or unlawful interference with the right to choose and change one’s own name.” “Unless a first name is patently offensive or objectionable or harmful to the interests of the child, authorities have no business curbing the right of parents to make this very personal choice – especially not when the curb amounts to a form of ethnic discrimination,” said Whitson. Human Rights Watch’s letter to Minister of Interior Benmoussa, seeking information about the cases involving the naming of five Amazigh children – Ayyur Adam, Massine, Sifaw, Tara, and Tin-Ass – is online at: http://www.hrw.org/node/85427 (English); http://www.hrw.org/node/85429 (Arabic). For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Morocco and Western Sahara, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/morocco/western-sahara For more information, please contact: In Washington, DC, Eric Goldstein (English, French): +1-917-519-4736 (mobile) In Washington, DC, Abderrahim Sabir (Arabic, French, English): +1-202-612-4342; or +1-202-701-7654 (mobile)  ACAA has recently purchased and is going to distribute 1000 books to children in Algeria and Morocco. The books intended for Algeria have been already distributed, those intended for Morocco have not. The 1000 are 500 copies of each of: - Amcic amcum (pictured above) - Ttejra n baba inuva Authored by Nadia Kacher-Menad of Algiers (Algeria), the stories contained in these books are based on old Amazigh tales. The books are written using the modern latin script and have color illustrations. The quality of the production is quite good and ACAA is very pleased to help Amazigh children learn Tamazight and encourage Amazigh authors like Nadia produce more for Tamazight. The following is a list of the beneficiaries: 1- Institut de formation d'enseignants (Département d'enseignants de tamazight) de Ben aknoun Alger (50 copies). 2- Etablissement arts et culture (50 copies). This has many libraries for children. 3- HCA (50 copies) which has a library. 4- Maison de la culture de Boumerdes (50 copies) has a library. 5- Maison de la culture de Tizi-Ouzou (50 copies) 6- Ecole primaire Bounnar (30 copies) 7- Ecole Zemerli Akli (30 copies) 8- Ecole Saadane (30 copies) 9- Primaire Moukli (30 copies) 10-CEM Redjouana (30 copies) 11- Association Culturelle Tarwa n Gaya (30 copies) 12- Association Culturelle Ithran Bouira (30 copies) 13- Association Sociale (30 copies) has a library. 14- Association Culturelle Numidya, Oran (50 copies) 15- Association Culturelle Imedyazen, Alger (30 copies) 16- Tamazight teachers in Kabylia (80 copies) 17- Maison de la Culture de Béjaia (80 copies) 200 copies will be distributed in Morocco via a couple of associations. More information to be posted later. We are very grateful to Nadia Kacher-Menad for the great distribution work she did on behalf ACAA.  The following (see attachment below in pdf) is the final French language version of the Amazigh Caucus Declaration as drafted by almost 13 Amazigh associations from around the world that took part at the 8th Session of the Permanent Forum of the Indigenous Issues at the United Nations. Tomorrow will be the last day of the session. The English version will be drafted soon. ACAA was among the Amazigh Associations that took part at this session and we will make it a tradition to attend every year. I personally was amazed and impressed by the level of info displayed at the forum and all the great people I met from all over the world. We will sure put that to good use in the future to serve our culture and our people. I encourage all Amazigh associations in America and elsewhere to get involved in the future. It is a great venue to expose to the world your culture and help in promoting it, interact and network with other indigenous cultures at various levels and build a better world by being a citizen of the world. The permanent forum was created by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) mainly to discuss Indigenous issues within the Council, including Economic and Social Development, Culture, Environment, Educations, Health and Human Rights. The Climate Change and its impact on the Indigenous populations were one of the main topics discussed at the Forum. The Amazigh Caucus was well represented and we will get more organized next year. We were glad to meet many leaders from the Morrocan and Touareg associations. Kamira Nat-Sid and Ferhat Mehenni were the ambassadors from Kabylia and made a great impact with their interventions by speaking up on the main issues currently happening in Algeria. This hopefully will help in expediting the resolution of the main issues and push the process of democracy forward. For more details, please refer to http://www.un. org/esa/socdev/ unpfii/en/ session_eighth. html. All pertinent info are published. Cheers to all and God Bless Aomar Bensilmane ACAA President New York, May 28, 2009 
 The following is a summary in English of a book published in French These exiles that I care for: The Migration of a Kabyl Youth It all began in the early 1970s in a village of the mountains of Kabylia, Algeria. A young boy barely 10 years of age helps the men and women of the village write correspondences with their loved ones gone to work in France. Taïeb Ferradji was one of the few who could read and write... Forty years later, at the Avicenne hospital of Bobigny, Kabyl villager now psychiatrist, he listens to what migrants from the four corners of the world have to say. These migrants have in common the golden dream of new land, their past suffering and the hardship of separation with their native land. In a tender and at times tragic account, a doctor tells his own story of a migrant. A journey hustled by the jolts of Algeria's history. A simple and touching story that puts words on the wounds of any exile, to alleviate the past and to dare to exist. Author: Taïeb Ferradji Publisher: Atelier (Editions de l') Publisher's price: 17€ Collection: Témoin d'Humanité In stores and on the Internet on: March 2009 ISBN: 978-2-7082-4022-3. Pages: 173.  Isefra imaynuten n Sεid At Mεemmer ffγen-d ass n 05.05.2009 di sin isidiyen s wezwel I MUḤEND U YEḤYA. Tadsimant, lγerba, tayri…tirga n war isem ! English version follows The Amazigh Cultural Association in America is deeply saddened by the loss of Mohamed Bensmail of Philadelphia. We hope he can now rest in peace. Mohamed left a wife and 5 children, the oldest of whom is 16 years old.  English version follows Date and time: May 2nd, 2009 from 6 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. |  MenuAll Download the keyboard and fonts necessary to write or visualize Tamazight on your Windows computer 
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