International Cities of Refuge Network

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International Cities of Refuge Network
(ICORN)
logo
founding 2006
Seat Stavanger ( ⊙ coordinates: 58 ° 58 ′ 16.4 ″  N , 5 ° 44 ′ 0.2 ″  E )
main emphasis Protection of persecuted authors and artists from persecution; Promote freedom of expression
method Mediation of stays in member cities for applicant persecuted authors and artists
Action space worldwide
owner independently
Members approx. 60 cities and regions
Website www.icorn.org

The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN, German  International Network Cities of Refuge ) is an independent organization that brings together over 60 cities and regions from all over the world. It has set itself the goal of providing refuge to persecuted writers and artists, thereby defending freedom of expression and democratic values, and promoting international solidarity.

activity

ICORN accepts requests for help from cultural workers who are at risk as a direct result of this activity. It checks the applications and, in the event of recognition, then establishes contact with member cities, which then offer the person seeking help longer-term, albeit temporary, opportunities to stay. Since 2006, according to information from ICORN, more than 170 authors and artists have found refuge in an ICORN member city.

history

1993 founded International Writers Parliament (IPW) under the presidency of Salman Rushdie , the program cities of refuge ( Cities of Asylum Network , INCA), based in Brussels in response to the murder of writers in the Algerian civil war . The network was chaired by Rushdie himself, Wole Soyinka and Václav Havel ; Board members included JM Coetzee , Jacques Derrida , Margaret Drabble and Harold Pinter . The first member was the city of Barcelona ; by 1998 there were about 30 cities of refuge.

After the IPW disbanded in 2005, the ICORN Secretariat was established in 2006 on the remains of INCA in Stavanger . ICORN has been an independent member organization since 2010. In 2014 the ICORN General Assembly decided to extend the auxiliary activity, which had been limited to authors, to include artists.

Organizational structure and bodies

ICORN has been an independent member organization under Norwegian law since 2010. Membership can be requested by cities, regions or other “relevant bodies” with legal capacity; on the application for the Board of Directors decides (Board) . Members conclude a membership agreement with ICORN in which they undertake to perform certain services, including paying a membership fee and the financial expenses for the hosted authors or artists.

The ICORN General Assembly meets every two years, to which each member sends a representative. Each member corporation that has paid its annual membership has one vote in the assembly. The General Assembly decides on the acceptance of the biennial report submitted to it by the Board of Directors, on the budget, membership fees, any amendments to the Articles of Association, the strategic plan and any other points to be determined by it. It also elects the members of the Board of Directors, its chairman and his deputy.

The five- to seven-member Board of Directors (Board) is the governing body of ICORN. It meets at least twice a year and consists of representatives from the member cities. They are not paid for their work on the board . Their mandate lasts four years and can be extended by re-election.

The Administration Center (also Secretariat ) in Stavanger manages day-to-day business. In particular, it receives and processes requests for help from authors and artists, checks them for actual endangerment of the applicant, establishes contact between the applicant and possible places of refuge and advises both sides throughout the process. It works closely with PEN International's Writers-in-Prison Committee to review applications . It also supports cooperation between member cities and endeavors to acquire new members.

financing

ICORN is a non-profit organization and is financed by foundations and government funds, through membership fees and private donations. The member cities finance their activities on a decentralized basis, in particular the accommodation of guest authors. In 2013, the most important income came from the Swedish government agency Sida (26%) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (16%). The membership fees contributed 11% to the budget.

Members

At the end of 2010 about 30 cities and other corporations were members of ICORN, in 2018 there were 68. The vast majority of member cities are in Europe, with a focus on Scandinavia ; In 2018, around two thirds of the member cities were in Norway , Sweden , Denmark and Iceland . In Norway, authors recognized by ICORN as threatened and invited as guest authors by a Norwegian city are granted political asylum.

In Germany, Frankfurt am Main and Hanover belong to the ICORN. At the suggestion of its then head of culture, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the city ​​of Frankfurt had already participated in the previous INCA program since 1997. Hanover had also been an INCA participant (since 2000) and set up the Hannah Arendt grant to provide financial support for the authors accepted in this context , which has also been granted to those persecuted by ICORN since 2006. It is financed from the city's funds as well as from private donations.

In Switzerland, the City of Lucerne and the German-Swiss PEN Center have been members of ICORN since 2015 . The city of Bern joined in early 2019. Other member cities in Europe include Amsterdam , Barcelona , Brussels , Krakow , Ljubljana , Norwich , Rotterdam . The Tuscan city of Chiusi is a member as well as the Tuscany region . Paris has been a member since early 2011 ; In 2016, the Paris City Government organized a series of events to celebrate ICORN's 10th anniversary, including a portrait exhibition, concerts, readings and debates.

Outside of Europe there are members mainly in North America, namely Ithaca (New York) , Mexico City , Oaxaca de Juarez , Pittsburgh and Surrey (British Columbia) . The Brazilian Belo Horizonte has also been an ICORN member city since 2017 .

Authors supported by ICORN

According to ICORN, 170 authors and artists have received support and refuge from the organization since it was founded.

Svetlana Alexijewitsch , who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature, was an ICORN guest author in Gothenburg from 2006 to 2008 . As part of the ICORN tenth anniversary celebrations, she gave an interview to the French magazine Courrier international in 2016.

At the initiative of ICORN, the Somali-born Dutch journalist Ayaan Hirsi Ali was offered to move to Denmark by the Danish Minister of Culture Brian Mikkelsen after her forced temporary return in 2007 from the USA to the Netherlands . The city of Aarhus then offered itself as a place to stay. Hirsi Ali declined the offer because she saw her future in the USA.

The Iranian comic book artist and illustrator Mana Neyestani came to Paris as an ICORN guest author in 2011, where he has lived since then.

The Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove , who died in 2015, spent the last years of his life as an ICORN guest author in Stavanger.

The Egyptian musician Ramy Essam , who became known for his performances on Tahrir Square in Cairo during the revolution in Egypt in 2011 , has lived in Sweden and Finland since 2014 through the mediation of ICORN and Artists At Risk .

The Turkish poet Aslı Erdoğan spent 2015 as an ICORN guest author in Krakow .

The Russian poet Anselina Polonskaja , the Cuban writer Carlos A. Aguilera and the Iranian writer Pegah Ahmadi and her compatriot Mohammad Baharlo found refuge in Frankfurt via ICORN .

In November 2015, the Syrian writer Abdul Moula, as the eighth Hannah Arendt scholarship holder, started a two-year stay as an ICORN guest author in Hanover . Previous scholarship holders were Ales Rasanau (Belarus), Carlos Valerino (Cuba), Marwan Othman (Syria), Muhammad Sultan (Iraq), Carlos A. Aguilera (Cuba) and Christopher Mlalazi (Zimbabwe).

The Eritrean human rights lawyer Daniel Mekonnen was the first guest to move into the former studio of the writer Otto Marchi , who died in 2004, which was made available by the City of Lucerne for ICORN guest authors .

According to the then Chairman of the Board of Directors Peter Ripken, ICORN received numerous requests for help from bloggers in Bangladesh , journalists from Eritrea and Ethiopia and publicists from Syria , Iraq , Iran and Afghanistan in 2015 . The Bengali blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was murdered in his home country in 2015 before he could start a stay abroad already arranged by ICORN.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f About ICORN. ICORN, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  2. ^ A b Ariane Gigon: A Swiss haven for persecuted writers. In: swissinfo.ch . May 30, 2014, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b c d ICORN Statutes. (PDF) ICORN, accessed on March 30, 2018 (English).
  4. ↑ a b Interview: Peter Ripken, Chair of ICORN Board. European Center for Press and Media Freedom , 2015, archived from the original ; accessed on April 22, 2019 .
  5. ↑ ICORN Report 2012–2013. (PDF) ICORN, accessed on March 30, 2018 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c Paris joins network of cities welcoming persecuted writers. In: rsf.org. Reporters Without Borders , January 13, 2011, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  7. ↑ a b c d ICORN Cities of Refuge. ICORN, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Ulrik Pram Gad: Conditions for Hospitality or Defense of Identity? Writers in Need of Refuge - a Case of Denmark's 'Muslims relations' . In: T. Claviez (Ed.): The Conditions of Hospitality: Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics on the Threshold of the Possible . Fordham University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-82-7002-201-4 , pp. 111–123 (English, ku.dk [PDF]).
  9. ↑ a b City of Refuge - Hannah Arendt Scholarship Hanover. In: literaturhaus-hannover.de. Literature Office Hannover e. V., accessed January 5, 2017 .
  10. ^ Hannah Arendt grant. City of Hanover , August 25, 2017, accessed on March 30, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Lucerne. ICORN, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  12. ^ Projects: A Writers-in-Exile Program for Switzerland. German-Swiss Pen Center, accessed on August 7, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Protection for persecuted authors. In: bern.ch. Bern City Council , February 1, 2019, accessed on February 2, 2019 .
  14. ^ Paris, ville refuge pour la liberté de création fête les 10 ans de l'ICORN. In: paris.fr. City of Paris , April 6, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016 (French).
  15. ^ Surrey becomes Canada's first International City of Refuge. In: surreyleader.com. October 18, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Belo Horizonte. ICORN, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Svetlana Alexievich. ICORN, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Interview. Svetlana Alexievitch: de la condition des écrivains exilés. In: courrierinternational.com . March 31, 2016, accessed January 3, 2017 (French).
  19. ↑ Aid: Denmark offers Hirsi Ali shelter. In: Spiegel Online . October 16, 2007, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Chenjerai Hove - IWP Fellow 2008. Brown University , accessed December 30, 2016 .
  21. ↑ Trevor Grundy: Chenjerai Hove: Novelist forced into exile from his native Zimbabwe. In: The Independent . July 22, 2015, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  22. ^ Ramy Essam's Tahrir & Beyond Commemorates The Anniversary Of Egypt's January 25 Revolution. In: BroadwayWorld . January 3, 2020, accessed January 4, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Free Aslı Erdoğan! In: wroclaw2016.pl (website of the European Capital of Culture Wroclaw ). August 24, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  24. ↑ Frankfurt. ICORN, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Claudia Schülke: Mohammad Baharlo: Writing Hermit. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . July 25, 2012, accessed December 30, 2016 .
  26. ^ New Hannah Arendt scholarship holder presented. City of Hanover , January 14, 2016, accessed on January 5, 2017 .
  27. ↑ Natalie Ehrenzweig: «Writing has a healing effect». In: Lucerne newspaper . December 28, 2015, archived from the original on December 30, 2016 ; accessed on January 5, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Bangladesh: Murder of third blogger - Ananta Bijoy Das brutally killed. PEN Center Germany , May 18, 2015, accessed on December 30, 2016 .