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Ljubljana welcomes a new ICORN writer!

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. 

Ali Amar  holds a degree in economics and a Master in International Journalism of the City University London, UK. He has been frequently persecuted in his home country because of his "engaged pen" and his thorough inquiries about the Moroccan monarchic system.
   
He is author of a best-seller "Mohammed VI, le grand malentendu" (Mohammed VI, the big misunderstanding), published in France in 2009 by Calmann-Lévy. The book was censored in Morocco. His book reveals the reality of the first ten years of the reign of the Moroccan king. His second book "Paris-Marrakech : argent, pouvoir et réseaux" will be published end of January 2012 again at Calmann-Lévy editors. It decrypts the incestuous ties between Moroccan and French elites against the arab revolutions.

Ali Amar currently lives in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia that recently joined the ICORN network of cities of refuge for persecuted writers. He writes for the information site Slate. Ali, welcome!

First ICORN writer in Ljubljana

We are extreemly glad to greet a first guest writer of the ICORN network in Ljubljana, Zineb El Rhazoui.

Zineb is a journalist, writer and a Human Right's fighter from Morocco. She is a co-founder of the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI movement) that became known for the oique-nique organized during the Ramadan in 2009 in order to protest against the article of law that forbids eating in public. Zineb is also member of the Freedom and Democracy Movement better known as the 20th February Movement that strives for a real democracy in Morocco. As a graduate in Sociology of Religion she published several researches on religious minorities and the marabout cult in Journal hebdomadaire, a pionir of the independent press in Morocco, banned by the regime in January 2010. Deprived of her freedom of speech and victim of death menaces and police intimidation, especially because of her actions against the sexual harassment in public places, she applied for and joined the ICORN network in 2011. Today she lives in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, which became member of the ICORN network in June 2011. Zineb El Rhazoui was recently published in two book chapters Les 1000 unes de Charlie Hebdo (Ed. Les échappés) and Nouvelles du Maroc to which she sontributed a political short story "Ahmed le businessman" (Coll. Miniatures, Ed. Magellan)

International day of Peace

Declaration of the Writers for Peace Committee at the 77th Congress of PEN International in Belgrade, September 2011

We live in an age where a broad and systemic meaning is attributed to the idea of peace.  It is conceived as the ability to confront conflicts and a willingness to shepherd open and potential violence into forms of dialogue, in spite of the difficulties involved in such an approach.

This is why our mission as writers is complex, as we must promote a culture of peace not only through our writings, but also as simple citizens of the world.  Wherever there is oppression, colonization, or illegal occupation, injustice and violence, whatever the form it takes, peace is a challenge, which we must take up by helping to promote the power of citizens who are confronting the brutality of arbitrary systems.

Therefore, we stress the urgent need to have a viable negotiated solution between all the parties involved in Israel and Palestine, so that their peoples can live in self-determination, liberty, peace and security. A solution must be negotiated for those regions where respect for civil rights and self-determination cannot prevail until an agreement has been reached by the parties.

At the same time we are convinced that the solution to the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, social, and political conflicts in Tibet, in the land of the Uyghurs, Kurds, and Basques, in the Balkans, Mexico, and in so many other countries cannot be found without dialogue.
The Lugano Declaration of 1987, approved at the 50th Congress of International PEN, says that “There can be no freedom without peace, nor peace without freedom.”  It also states that “terrorism must be condemned, whether it comes from states or individuals or whether it claims to be justified within the framework of a struggle for liberation.”

Our century should also pay urgent attention to the violent ways through which financial speculation has brought about the impoverishment of a large part of the world population, as well as the increased exploitation of natural resources, endamaging the global climate, and the violent attacks on nature and the environment.  It is in this sense that the commitment to making peace always has a political aspect insofar as it is public; it should always be a part of human rights that have as their aim a self-determination that is responsible and cooperative.  Nonetheless, it is our deep conviction that all the national PEN centres and above all the members of the Writers for Peace Committee (WfPC) should condemn terrorism and violence in all its forms.  Indeed, the WfPC has kept the symbol of “the pen which conquers the sword.”