Strasbourg welcomes feminist journalist and content creator Marwa Olleik as its first ICORN resident

In March 2024, feminist journalist and content creator Marwa Olleik from Lebanon arrived in Strasbourg, taking up the city’s first ICORN residency. Strasbourg became an ICORN City of Refuge in October 2022.

Marwa Olleik is a feminist journalist and written and visual content creator from Lebanon who began her career in 2011 while living in Beirut and studying Journalist at the Lebanese University. She is originally from Yohmor Al-Shaqif, a small village in Southern Lebanon, currently controlled by Hezbollah.

Olleik has extensive experience in writing, editing, and compiling news for local and pan-Arab platforms, mainly focusing her work on the human rights situation in the MENA region. Olleik’s professional interests include women’s rights, gender-based violence, and gender equality. She is a well-known and widely recognised journalist and changemaker in Lebanon and the region.

Between 2013 and 2015, Olleik worked as a freelance journalist for several local and regional independent news platforms. She worked as a full-time contributor for outlets, such as Future TV, Al Araby TV, TRT TV, Syria TV, and Sharika Wa Laken/FEMALE Organization. During that time, she also received press training at National News Agency (NNA).

Due to her journalistic work and her views as an opponent of Hezbollah, other regional militias, and the Syrian regime, Olleik has faced threats, smear campaigns, and sanctions by local militias and Hezbollah-controlled authorities. She was also barred from completing her studies at the Lebanese University.  As a result of intensifying persecution, she fled to Turkey but continued her journalistic work from there.

After relocating to Istanbul, Olleik continued to work as a freelance journalist for several media outlet. There, she remained unsafe due to the repressive climate for free expression and the Turkish government’s crackdown on journalists.

During her ICORN residency, Marwa Olleik plans to continue her journalist and content creation work as well as further her education and language skills.

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Strasbourg ICORN City of Refuge

The City of Strasbourg joined ICORN in October 2022, symbolically and practically committing to protecting and promoting freedom of expression, human rights, and international solidarity. Upon signing the ICORN Membership Agreement, the Mayor of Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian said:

‘Defending human rights is our fundamental value. It is a source of pride for Strasbourg, Europe’s capital of democracy and human rights, to be an ICORN City of Refuge for those who, through work, creations, their pens, resist persecution and fight for freedom and peace. Their lives are in danger, so Strasbourg will be their refuge.’

Strasbourg is the official seat of the European Parliament and many other international institutions, including the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. Being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Strasbourg is a city with a rich history and culture.

Strasbourg welcomed its first ICORN resident- the feminist journalist and content creator Marwa Olleik in March 2024 while preparing for its role as  UNESCO World Book Capital.

The ICORN residency in Strasbourg is managed and hosted by the City of Strasbourg. La Virgule offers a professional working space for Olleik, the journalist and content creator in residence.