Elisabeth Dyvik is the chairperson of the conference. 
     She is the program director of the international organization ICORN
     (International Cities of Refuge Network). ICORN's international
     head office is at Sølvberget Culture House in Stavanger.

 

Moris Farhi is the Vice President of PEN International and was for many years the leader of The Writers in Prison Committee in England.  Han was born in Turkey, but lives in London.  He has written novels, eg. the award winning Children of the Rainbow in 1999, short stories, tv scripts, screenplays and essays. The essay  "The courage to forget" will be presented at the conference, even though Farhi unfortunately is prevented from attending.

 

Carl Morten Iversen is Master in Business Administration, but has had a long career as a bassist in jazz and folk music and has been touring with Norwegian and foreign musicians in Norway and abroad. He also has a background as a jazz writer. He is a former leader of jazz organizations, editor of the journal Jazznytt and leader of Norges kunstnerråd (Norw. Council of Artists). Since 1998 he has worked for freedom of expression, mainly through Norsk forum for ytringsfrihet (Norw. Forum for Freedom of Expression) and from 2001 for Norwegian PEN, for which he has been one of the promoters of establishing cities of refuge.  At the conference he will read Moris Farhi's essay "The Courage to Forget".

Peter Molnar  is a senior research fellow at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at the Central European University in Budapest.  He is a Rafto Laureate from 1989 as a representative of FIDESZ (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, Alliance of Young Democrats).  Molnar is an author and activist and editor of the book The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses, 2012. 

Foto: Hans Jørgen Brun

 

Bashana Abeywardane is a journalist from Sri Lanka in exile in Europe.  He is the leader of the organization Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (www.jdslanka.org) and one of the three Sri Lankan journalists who are portrayed in Beate Arnestads documentary Silenced voices.

 

Lokeesan Apputhturai is a journalist from Sri Lanka.  He is the ICORN guest writer in Bergen. He has earlier published a book on the tsunami in Sri Lanka, been a journalist in a Sri Lankan newspaper and been a correspondent for international Tamilnet.com. He is one of the three Sri Lankan journalists who are portrayed in Beate Arnestads documentary Silenced voices.

Beate Arnestad is a documentary filmmaker living i South Africa. She worked for many years in The Norwegian Broadcast Corporation as a producer and director, but is now a freelance filmmaker.  She has made the documentaries Where the Waves Sing (2002), from Tranquebar in India, the awarded My Daughter the Terrorist from Sri Lanka (2007) and Telling Truths in Arusha (2010) about the genocide in Rwanda.This year Silenced Voices  was released, about the war in Sri Lanka. The documentary will be shown at the conference. Beate Arnestad lived in Sri Lanka for several years.      



Peter Normann Waage is an author, journalist and former editor.
He has published books on Russian philosophy, literature and
cultural history, about Islam meeting the western world and
about Rudolf Steiner's ideas. In 2002 the book Russland er sitt eget sted - streker til et lands biografi (Russia is it's own place)
and a book about Firenze was published. Peter Normann Waage
is a board member of Norwegian PEN.

 

Loveleen Rihel Brenna is the leader of Kvinnepanelet (The Women's Council) and a board member of several organizations, eg. Norsk faglitterær forfatter- og oversetter-forening (Norw. ¨Writers and Translators Org.).  She was head of Foreldreutvalget for grunnopplæringen (Parents' National Primary School Board),2004-2011, and the Brenna-committee for the Ministry of Education.  She has received awards for her social involvement, eg. the Dixie-award in 2011 and Integreringsprisen (Integation Award) in 2002.  She has published several books, the last being Min annerledeshet, min styrke (My Otherness, my Strength) i 2012. Loveleen Brenna leads Seema, a company specializing in training, lectures and counseling.


Michelle Tisdel has a Ph.D. in social anthropology and is a research librarian at The National Library. Tisdel was born in Texas, but lives in Oslo and is the coordinator for Beacon for Freedom of Expression which is a international database on sensorship and freedom of expression.

 

  Ingeborg Rygh Hjorthen is head of The Norwegian
  Library Association and in leave from her position as
  librarian in The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
  (NRK).

 

 

Frode Bjerkestrand is a journalist at the newspaper Bergens Tidende where his department focuses on culture, media, climate and ressource crisis, Latin-America and the US.  Bjerkestrand will be leading the debate at the conference.