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Theme: #6 2012

Poetry

Modern Persian lyric

Day by day, the censorship in Iran becomes stricter. The young Iranian poet Leili Galehdaran has therefore chosen to send her third collection, Sinior to the Swedish-located publisher Baran. If she...

Text: Leili Galehdaran September 27 2012
Article

“We should be free rather than behind bars"

The Russian state is tightening its grip over the church, the media and the courts. Russia claims to be a democracy, but the sentence against the three members of the punk band Pussy Riot could not...

Text: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova September 27 2012
Poetry

The ICORN-relay: Sedigheh Vasmaghi

In April the Swedish city of Uppsala received a new ICORN writer: the Iranian lawyer and poet Sedigheh Vasmaghi. After the election in 2009, she took part of the protest movement. She published poems...

Text: Sedigheh Vasmaghi September 27 2012
Fiction

Numbers, people

Aslı Erdoğan is one of the foremost writers in Turkey, who never shies away from sensitive topics. She has suffered harassment for her work and has been forced to live in exile. Despite this, she has...

Text: Aslı Erdoğan September 27 2012
Article

Journalists in prison: A survival manual

In the last few months, the repression in Belarus has tightened even more. Iryna Chalip, correspondent in Belarus for the Russian newspaper Novaja Gazeta, tells us about the recent attacks on freedom...

Text: Iryna Chalip September 27 2012
Article

It is not far between Stockholm and Minsk

The diplomatic crisis between Belarus and Sweden goes much deeper than to the recent “teddy bear incident”. The poet and former president candidate Uladzimir Njakljajeu, who was imprisoned after the...

Text: Uladzimir Njakljajeu, Nils Håkanson September 27 2012
Poetry

The bridge

It is way too early to talk about the “results” of the revolution in Egypt. Some commentators worry about that everything will remain the way it was, but the Egyptian writer Somaya Ramadan sees a slow...

Text: Somaya Ramadan September 27 2012
Article

The library in the torture centre

Books and the written word have always invoked fear in dictatorial regimes. Martin Ezpeleta visits the Library of Forbidden Books in the Argentinian city Córdoba, and reminds us of one of the military...

Text: Martin Ezpeleta September 27 2012

Theme: #5 2012

Editorial

The evil paradox of the media society

No one can remain untouched by the current assaults against civilians in Syria. Most people, too, I believe, when...

Text: Ola Larsmo July 02 2012
Poetry

The ICORN-relay—Mazen Maarouf

The guest writer-relay has reached Iceland. The poet Mazen Maarouf—who has lived all his life as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon—was during 2011 granted sanctuary in Reykjavík through the...

Text: Mazen Maarouf July 02 2012
Article

Hear the voices from Belarus

All over the world, the “social networks” continue to play an important role in the struggle for democracy. This is happening right now in Belarus, known as the last dictatorship of Europe, where KGB...

Text: Natallia Radzina July 02 2012
Fiction

Each cry from Syria is for you

The whole world can follow the atrocities in Syria. We have been able to do that for more than a year. The only thing that seems impossible is to find political means to put an end the killings. The...

Text: Manhal al-Sarraj July 02 2012
Article

Welcome to Zone 9: Ethiopia

It has been exactly a year ago since Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden Province arrested the two Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson. They have been sentenced for “terrorism” and remain...

Text: Mesfin Negash July 02 2012
Fiction

The princess and the slave—how love kills in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, where four-fifths of the population is illiterate, poetry has always had a strong position—especially among women. The Afghan writer and journalist Nushin Arbabzadah writes here a...

Text: Nushin Arbabzadah July 02 2012

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