Slobodan Boban Minic

Journalist from Sarajevo. He holds a degree in Law from the University of Sarajevo. In 1971, when he was still a student, he began to contribute to Radio Sarajevo, where he began to work two years later as a journalist, continuing until the end of 1994. Before the war he was editor-in-chief of the Department of Culture and Leisure, and a member of the School of Radio and Television in Sarajevo. He has lived in Catalonia for more than seven years and has made occasional contributions to some newspapers and magazines. He has given almost a hundred lectures and classes in various cities, towns, institutions and faculties in Catalonia. He will probably never live in Bosnia again.

Edina Kurtagic

Born in Bosnia in 1965, she is married and the mother of two children. In 1988 she graduated in journalism at the Faculty of Political Science in the University of Sarajevo. Before the war in Bosnia she had worked for various newspapers and magazines in Sarajevo: Vecernje Novine, Ven and others. Since 1994, she has been living in L’Escala. During the years 1994 and 1995 she contributed to El Punt newspaper.

Gloria Novel

Degree in Political Science and Sociology. Specialist in Public Policies. Lecturer at the University of Barcelona University Nursing School. Distance University (UNED) Teacher-Tutor.

She has published six books on mental health and various articles in magazines about health and nursing.

She has worked, done research, lectured and attended conferences at many universities in various countries, including Morelos, Zacatecas, Cuernavaca and Guanajuato (Mexico), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Coleraine (Ulster), Oxford and Walsall (GB), Trondheim (Norway), Valparaíso (Chile), Cochabamba and Trinidad (Bolivia), Santa Clara (Cuba), Inverness (Scotland), Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland).

Member of the European Violence in Psychiatry Research Group. Honorary member and Spanish representative of Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research. Advisory member of AEED and GRISAM. Member of the Catalan Institute of Health expert group. Various ongoing education workshops in hospitals and primary health centres on “Effective communication techniques”, “Support in processes of loss and mourning” and “Self-knowledge and self-care in groups of women living in poverty” (Càritas).

José Ángel Mañoso

Degree in Law. He has been practising Law since 1981. Head of the Legal Advice Department of Mutualitat de Previsió Social. Adviser to the Committees for Health Ethics and Clinical Trials at Hospital del Sagrat Cor, Barcelona. Lawyer for the Technical Committee for Health Responsibility, reporting to the Generalitat de Catalunya Ministry of Health. Lawyer for associations of laryngectomy patients. Various presentations and lectures throughout the country about the problems of smoking. Various publications and articles in national and international journals dealing with health and legal matters. Founding member of the Advocats en Internet association.

Jordi Pujol i Cofan

On 10 July 1933 in Palafrugell a child of the Republic was born, the son of a councillor in the Republican Town Council (ERC), who worked for Armstrong, and a woman who also worked.

A few days after Barcelona fell to the fascists (26/01/39), at the age of six, he went into exile with his mother and grandparents. In Figueres, he saw his first and only bombardment, a cruel, unnecessary attack. He walked from Figueres to Perpignan, staying in refugee camps at Argelès and Bram and in a refuge in Le Mans. He was not to see his father again until eleven years later.

When he was eight years old, he returned. His mother was banished to Barcelona and he began to work in Els Encants. He returned to Palafrugell. Until the age of sixteen he did whatever work he could (collecting acorns to sell them to farmers, as a travelling salesman), until he got a job in a savings bank.

He could not go to school but taught himself to read and write and studied languages.

In the winter of 1953, he met Josep Pla, who needed a corrector and someone who could type the script of the book Peix fregit. He became part of Pla’s social group and a close relationship developed between the two, despite the difference in age. In 1967 he persuaded Pla to publish Pla. Llibre de lectura, which he compiled.

He wrote various articles on Pla and contributed to two collective works: Centenari Josep Pla (1897-1997) and El Josep Pla que he conegut.

He has worked for many years with the TEI (Teatre Experimental Independent) de Sant Marçal group and has translated a number of plays from English, French, Italian and Galician into Catalan. They include Electra o la caiguda de les màscares (Electra: la chute des masques), by Marguerite Yourcenar, El mal corre (Le Mal court), by Jacques Audiverti, Fastos infernals (Fast d’enfer), by Michel de Ghelderode, and a version of Macbeth.

Eudald Carbonell i Roura

He was born in Ribes de Freser, Girona, on 17 February 1953. He studied in Girona, Barcelona and Paris. He holds doctorates in Quaternary Geology from the Pierre et Marie Curie University (1986) and in History from the University of Barcelona (1988).

He has been awarded scholarships by CSIC at the Complutense University, by the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid and the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris.

He has taken part in research trips and field work in France, the USA, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Tajikistan, among other countries.

He is currently Professor of Prehistory at the Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona and lead researcher of the Quaternary Human Autoecology Group in the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University.

His most significant scientific achievements are the creation of the Logical-Analytical System for analysing prehistoric technology and his survey of the ancient settlement of the Iberian Peninsula. This led him to develop a multidisciplinary research programme in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos).

He has published more than 250 articles for scientists and the general public. He is the author and editor of some twenty books on prehistory.

Eugeni Gay Montalvo

Magistrate in the Constitutional Court.

Manel Mir

Criminal lawyer born in Tossa de Mar. He holds a degree in Law from the University of Barcelona and has appeared as defence lawyer before Provincial Courts, the National Court and the Supreme Court. He has also practised law in France. He has worked with various organisations and associations defending Human Rights.

Hernán Hormazábal

Born in Chile. He has been Professor of Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Girona since 1990. Substitute Magistrate at the Provincial Court of Girona. He has given numerous lectures and taken part in conferences on Criminal Law and Human Rights and is the author of many works on criminal law.

Jordi Roig

Degree in History from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Girona. He specialises in the contemporary history of Catalonia and is studying the second cycle of Documentation at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Since 1997 he has been an active member of and spokesman for the Alt Empordà Amnesty International group. He is a member of the Coordinadora Solidària de l’Alt Empordà and an activity leader for its immigration assembly. He works as a documentalist for CEDRE, the peace and solidarity resource centre.

Juan Gonzalo Escobar Marulanda

was born in Colombia. He is a lawyer and holds a doctorate in Law from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has been a lecturer in Criminal Law and Criminology since 1993. He worked previously at various universities and has published a large number of books and papers, having given lectures and taken part in various congresses and seminars.

Marc Palmés i Giró

Barcelonès county. Lawyer and journalist. He has been a criminal lawyer for more than 30 years and has devoted himself professionally to the defence of human rights. He was involved in various political cases under the dictatorship and during the transition to democracy: Front d’Alliberament de Catalunya, Comissions Obreres, Els Joglars, La Scala and case Txiqui, the last person executed, in 1975. He was a member of the International Commission of Jurists in Palestine in 1989 and 1990, and in the Polisario Front refugee camps in Tindouf (1989). He has participated in numerous debates, conferences and seminars.

Ramón Vergés i Casadesús

He was born in Arbúcies in 1916. During the Civil War, at the age of 20, he joined the Republican army as a volunteer. He was a lorry driver and mechanic in the Ascaso Column and on the Teruel front. He was taken prisoner in 1940, being held in prison for 3 years with no trial. In 1943, he was tried and sentenced to death. He spent 85 days awaiting execution but the sentence was then commuted to 30 years’ imprisonment.

Enric Vila-Matas

He was born in Barcelona, where he lives and produces subtly ironic writing, although he would really like to live in New York. A mysterious and enigmatic man, he is one of the most original and important Spanish writers. He lived for a while in Paris, where he had an insecure rental agreement with Marguerite Duras. There he began writing one of his first books La asesina ilustrada (1977), a poisonous and criminal book. His works include: Impostura (1984), Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil (1985), Una casa para siempre (1988), Suicidios ejemplares (1991), El viajero más lento (1992), Hijos sin hijos (1993), Recuerdos inventados (1994), Lejos de Veracruz (1995), Extraña forma de vida (1997), El viaje vertical (1999, Rómulo Gallegos Award), Bartleby y compañía (2001, Ciutat de Barcelona Award and Prix Meilleur Livre Étranger), El mal de Montano (2002, Herralde Award 2003, Premi Nacional de la Crítica 2003 and Médicis Award 2003), and París no se acaba nunca (2003) which was presented in Girona during Fórum LiberPress 2003.

For many years he has been a “cousin” to Joan de Sagarra.

Joan de Sagarra

He was born and lives in Barcelona. A precocious writer and journalist, he began writing as a teenager for the Parisian weekly Arts. He is one of Europe’s most prestigious drama critics. He has written hundreds of splendid articles (most of them in El País), where he displays erudition, taste and irony. His articles have been collected in books such as La horma de mi sombrero. He has a passionate love for all the good things in life: reading, travelling, eating, drinking, smoking, etc. He likes Naples and Paris, crime stories by Georges Simenon and Jean-Claude Izzo, the songs of Brel, Barbara, Brassens and Ovidi Montllor, Irish whiskey, a good bouillabaisse from Marseille, mille-feuille from Brasserie Lipp, buying books (in La Hune, for example) and devouring them, talking to friends and, above all, María Jesús (from Alcoy, like Ovidi).

The creator of his own exclusive literary family, he has made Enric Vila-Matas his “cousin”.

Carles Cruz Moratones

Born in Girona, he graduated in Law from the University of Barcelona. He worked as a lawyer from 1976 to 1989, when he entered the judiciary. He was a magistrate in Courts of First Instance and Preliminary Investigation in Berga, Lleida and Girona. Senior Judge in Berga and Girona. Magistrate of the Provincial Court of Girona since 1999. Lecturer at the Centre for Legal Studies, ICAG Escola de Práctica Jurídica, and in the postgraduate degree in Domestic Violence at Ramon Llull University. Promoter and spokesperson of the Monitoring Committee for Protocols on VD, minors and female genital mutilation in the counties of Girona, since 1997. Coordinator and co-spokesperson of Judges for Democracy in Catalonia. Speaker on Human Rights at various Congresses and Conferences.

Rosa Masip

Born in Barcelona, she graduated in Information Sciences at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1978) and in Political Science and Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona, where she obtained her Doctorate (2000). She worked in the USA as a journalist and teacher of Spanish from 1979 to 1982. From 1983 to 1985 she worked in Nicaragua for TV and as a contributor to La Vanguardia. On her return, she worked for TVE as editor of the Information Services and in the International Policy section, covering elections and conflicts in Central America and Africa. She has worked for El Observador newspaper and is a specialist in immigration issues. In 1996 she returned to TVE as an editor in Gran angular.

Nadet Viñamata

Primary Care Physician at ICS She works in Banyoles as a paediatrician. For many years she worked in cooperation projects in Central America and Uganda. From 1992 to 1994 she coordinated the multi-disciplinary project for immigrants from West Africa at the ABS in Salt. She participated actively in the West African Immigrant Assistance Protocol (1994-95) and in the drafting of the protocol to combat female genital mutilation.

Rosa Negre Costa

Degree in Education Sciences. Corporal in the Mossos d’Esquadra. For 3 years, she has been regional liaison officer with the community in Girona Police Region. She has participated, as Mossa d’Esquadra, in different projects linked to multiculturalism with the Catalonia UNESCO Centre. She has participated in the international Transfer project that works to develop training material for police chiefs. She has worked as a trainer in multiculturalism at the Police School of Catalonia and has also trained police officers as part of the itinerant training scheme in this area, coordinated by the Catalonia UNESCO Centre.

She is a member of the multi-disciplinary committee of experts that developed the protocol of measures to prevent female genital mutilation.

Reza Deghati

Born in Tabriz (Iran) in 1952. Architect. He discovered photography when he was 14 and since 1979 he has devoted himself exclusively to photography. At school and the university he campaigned for freedom of expression and social progress in his country. He was arrested by the Shah’s regime, for political activism. He spent 5 months in solitary confinement and was tortured every day. When the Shah fell and there was a change of regime in Iran, his luck did not change: he had to go into exile in Paris.

He went to Afghanistan as a reporter and UN consultant and there he met the combatant and politician Massoud, who became a close friend until he was killed. In 1989 he met his wife, Rachel. In 1992, he created his own agency, Webistan, and in 2001 the humanitarian association Aina, which aims to develop culture and communication in Afghanistan: it helps street children, trains young journalists and gives them material, etc. Income from his book Destins croisés (more than 20,000 copies sold) helps to support the project.

He has travelled all over the world (from Rwanda to Sarajevo, from China to Lebanon and from the Philippines to Central Asia). He has worked for AFP, Sipa Press, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Life, Paris Match, Géo, National Geographic and other publications. He has received the Cicae and Prix Cannes Junior awards, and a special mention in the Caméra d’Or. He has exhibited in numerous museums in a number of countries. He has exhibited his work on the railings of the Jardins de Luxembourg, in Paris, a display promoted by the French Senate, in our Arab Baths, and in Cassà de la Selva.

Sandra Balsells

Born in Barcelona in 1966. In 1989, after graduating in Journalism at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and studying photography at the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya, she spent three years living in London, where she began to work professionally in the field of photojournalism. She is following a postgraduate course in photojournalism at the London College of Printing, which she combines with work experience in The Guardian and The Times.

In the summer of 1991, she travelled to the Balkans for the first time to cover the Serbo-Croatian conflict for The Times newspaper.

From then until the end of 2000, her career focused on the Balkans, where she has produced numerous reports, working with various national and foreign media organisations.

She produced some outstanding work in this period, including her contribution to the Channel 4 documentary Dying for the truth (1994) on British TV. Part of her work was exhibited at the Ninth Visa pour l’Image International Festival of Photojournalism held in Perpignan in 1997, and she has contributed to numerous national and international courses and discussion forums.

She has participated in more than fifty individual and collective exhibitions and her material has been published in numerous media, including The New York Times, The Toronto Star, The Observer, Today, The Evening Standard, La Vanguardia, El Mundo, Woman, Avui, El Temps, etc.

She has also produced photographic reports in Israel, Palestine, Mexico, Romania, Canada, Cuba and Sicily, working with various publications and humanitarian associations.

Since 1955, she has combined her work as a photojournalist with teaching at the Blanquerna Faculty of Communication Sciences in the Ramon Llull University.

Miquel Ruiz Avilés

Empordanese. In 1979, when El Punt Diari was launched, he was part of its photographic team and in 1982 he took a worldwide exclusive photo of Salvador Dalí, the day after Gala died. From 1983 to 1987 he worked as a graphic correspondent for El Periódico de Catalunya, Avui, Lecturas, Interviú, Cambio 16, Bunte, Actual and Covert and contributed photographs to the books Els pobles de l’Empordà (1984), Un tríptic gens crític, Barques i fogons and Empúries/Olímpia (1992) He also worked for El País, the EFE Agency, 7 Dies, El Observador and La Vanguardia and was Head of Photography and a member of the editorial board of Empordà Federal. He travelled to Nicaragua and devised an audiovisual display with more than 1,200 slides. Head of Photography for the Olympic Games rowing events at Banyoles. Co-founder of Fotògrafs per la Pau, of which he is President. At the height of the Balkan war he entered Sarajevo and travelled through Bosnia.

He is an associate member of UPIFC and a member of its Board of Directors. He has worked for El Punt and has held numerous photography exhibitions.