Haus für Poesie

Canan Bayram (born 1966, Malatya, Turkey) is a member of the Berlin City Parliament (Bündnis ‘90/The Greens) and has been the party spokesperson for migration, integration and refugee policy since 2009.

Her major issues are migration, antidiscrimination and diversity-mainstreaming. She has been active for years in Friedrichshain in the “Initiative against the Right-Wing” and the local “Alliance for the Family”. In addition, she campaigns for a refugee policy that gives people a framework to help them build a future for themselves in Germany.

After growing up in Nettetal in the Lower Rhine Region, Canan Bayram moved to Berlin Friedrichshain in 2003. She runs a law firm in the Samariterkiez with a focus on work, family and immigration law.

Carsten Gerick (born 1971, Hamburg) is a lawyer, working since 2004 in criminal defence in the areas of immigration rights, violations of the right of residence, police law and right of assembly.

In 2007 he was a co-organiser of the Legal Team for the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, and took on the legal representation of the protest coalition along with Ulrike Donat in the Federal Constitutional Court. He provided legal representation in numerous legal proceedings against activists from social movements, and since 2013 has been an adviser to the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin.

Publications (selected)

Von Brockdorff nach Heiligendamm. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht und die Versammlungsverbote und –beschränkungen beim G8-Gipfel 2007 (From Brockdorff to Heiligendamm. The Federal Constitutional Court and the Prohibition and Limitation of Assembly at the G8 Summit 2007), in: RAV/Legal Team (Ed.): Feindbild Demonstrant. Polizeigewalt, Militäreinsatz, Medienmanipulation (Bogeyman Demonstrator. Police Violence, Military Deployment, Media Manipulation) 2007

Im Niemandsland zwischen Repression und Prävention. Polizeiliche Videoüberwachung in Hamburg (In the No man’s Land between repression and prevention” video surveillance in Hamburg), in: Müller-Heidelberg et al.(Eds.), Grundrechte-Report (Report on Basic Liberties) 2010

Professor Bernd Lindner (born 1952, Wittenberg) is a cultural sociologist and historian, and works as an academic and exhibition curator in the “Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig”. His areas of research interest are principally in youth culture and the political culture of the street, with a focus on the “Autumn of 1989”. For his work as a scriptwriter and expert advisor for the internet project “Das Wunder von Leipzig – 9. Oktober 1989” – a co-production of MDR and ARTE – he received the 2010 Grimme Online Award. He has numerous publications on the history of the GDR and the democratic revolution of 1989/90.

Publications (selected)

Die demokratische Revolution in der DDR 1989/90 (The democratic revolution in the GDR 1989/90), Bpb 1998/2010
„Wir sind ein Volk!“ – Der Weg zur Einheit (“We are One People!” – The Path to Unity), Deutschland Archiv 2007

Selma Wels (born 1979, Pforzheim) founded the “binooki” press together with her sister Inci Bürhaniye in 2011, with the aim of giving a German voice to young Turkish authors and of creating a space in Germany for selected modern Turkish classics.

During the Gezi Park protests in the Summer of 2013, the “binooki” team voluntarily translated the flood of information and made them publicly available. In addition to this, Selma Wels took part in demonstrations in Berlin and organized informative events with Turkish authors, who despite reprisals and the threat of charges, were active in the Gezi Park movement.

In May 2014 a literary anthology in word, image and caricature on the Summer of 2013 will be published. It documents how the movement advanced against political abuses, through civil courage and creativity.

For her activities as a publisher she received the 2013 Buchmarkt Award for “Newcomer of the Year” at the Leipzig Book Fair, as well as the Kurt Wolff Award.