The International Cities of Refuge Network is an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to the value of Freedom of Expression.
Protection
ICORN Cities offer persecuted writers a safe haven where they can live and work without fear of being censored or silenced.
Promotion
ICORN supports the artistic endeavours of its guest writers and promotes new spaces for intercultural dialogues worldwide.
ICORN cartoonist Abdul Arts speaks with high schoolers in Skien
January 2012 Saved to Network News
Abduallahi Muhiaddin, Skien City of Refuge's latest guest writer, spoke with local high school students recently about his life, work, and the current political situation in his native Somalia. Muhiaddin lived as a refugee in Cairo before ICORN selected him for its two-year programme. Muhiaddin is a well-respected political cartoonist who publishes his drawings under the name 'Abdul Arts.' Now that Muhiaddin has arrived in Norway, his work will be able to find new and wider avenues for publication.
'Risk Society and Cosmopolitanism': ICORN at the Centre for Humanities, University of Utrecht
January 2012 Saved to Events, Festivals and Opportunities
ICORN is occupying an entire day of the three week-long intensive programme 'Risk Society and Cosmopolitanism,' organised by the School of Critical Theory at the Centre for Humanities, University of Utrecht from 16 January-3 February 2012. ICORN Director Helge Lunde and Fanø Guest Writer Noufel Bouzeboudja will work with advanced students from all over Europe on Tuesday, 24 January in this unique trans-national and interdisciplinary series of seminars in Utrecht.
Second ICORN guest writer arrives in Ljubljana
January 2012 Saved to Network News
Just shortly after Ljubljana received Zineb
al Rhazoei as its first ICORN guest writer, renowned Moroccan writer
and journalist Ali Amar arrived in the Slovenian Capital.
Ali Amar is a Moroccan writer and journalist. In 1997 he co-founded the Casablanca weekly ‘Le Journal hebdomadaire’ which he edited until its closure in January 2010. It was the first independent journal banned by the Moroccan regime. He currently writes for the information site Slate Afrique.
Visit Shahrazad!
Welcome to the Shahrazad website, a free space in Europe for writers from all over the world to tell their stories and to be heard.
Six ICORN cities are taking part in the Shahrazad project: Barcelona, Brussels, Frankfurt, Norwich, Stockholm and Stavanger. But writers from every corner of the world are invited to contribute words.
The Shahrazad project will set in motion a transnational dynamic of sharing and exchanging new stories. It will reach out specifically to individuals and groups unfamiliar with traditional literary and cultural activities. It will focus especially on children and young people who, through educational programmes, creative workshops and digital story production, will experience both the receiving and production ends of the Stories for Life chain of communication.
Ultimately, the Shahrazad project aims to provide Europe with new, more open and sustainable narratives about itself. By opening up to human and artistic impulses from ‘outside', Europe can regain and revitalise some of its capital values: freedom, democracy and solidarity.
Shahrazad is a European Union Culture 2007: multi-annual co-operation project
ICORN cities
Click Map to get an Overview
