ITI Action Committee for Artists Rights

The ITI Action Committee for Artist Rights has been formed at the 33rd World congress of the International Theatre Institute in Xiamen, China, September 2011.

The group will watch and make the international theatre community react to treats and violence against theatre people and severe restrictions to work with theatre activities, wherever it occurs in the world. If you have to report about such cases, please, refer to the contact menu of this site.

The work includes:

to follow the reports from Human rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freemuse and other international non-governmental organisations
to encourage the national ITI centres to follow-up and give information on this issue and their own and other countries
to give an annual report from the ITI, preferably on World theatre Day, March 27
to have a report from the group as a point on the agenda on the Executive Council meetings. The work refers to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artists and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Motion to the 33 ITI world congress by the working group for Actions against Violation of Human Rights of Theatre People

Considering that

up to now 117 nations have signed the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressio
the Convention defines as the first guiding principle that cultural diversity can be protected and promoted only if human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, information and communication as well as the ability of individuals to choose cultural expressions, are guaranteed. No one may invoke the provisions of this Convention in order to infringe human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or guaranteed by international law, or to limit the scope thereof.
the Convention also asks for active implementation through the participation of civil society (Article 11)

The Working Group for Actions against Violation of the Human Rights of Theatre People appeals to the 33rd ITI World congress of the ITI to increase the emphasis on this issue.

Cases of violation of the rights of theatre artists and the right to free artistic expression can be collected, proved, analyzed and made public.

Additionally, the human rights issue and the right to free artistic expression need to be addressed on a formal political level.

ITI, like other NGOs, should raise its voice by making official statements to political authorities. These statements should be prepared on the basis of the experience and the research of the working group, with broad participation of national centers, and in connection with other international networks and activities.

Actions should be taken on different levels:

in making cases public by informing the national centres and via other media;
with official statements by the committee, and,
with official statements by the President, the Vice Presidents, the General Secretary or the ITI Ambassadors.

Therefore the working group asks the 33rd ITI World Congress to give the existing working group for Actions against Violation of the Human Rights of Theatre People the formal status of an ITI Committee, namend therefter the ITI Action Committee for Artists Rights, and to encourage the national centres and the Executive Council to support the work of this committee.

Motion submitted by ITI Germany, supported by ITI centres of: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Finland, Israel, Ivory Coast, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, USA, Slovenia and Sweden.