Birgitta Jnsdttir

Vocation

Icelandic politician, anarchist, poet, and activist. She is currently a Member of the Icelandic Althing (MP) representing the Icelandic Pirate Party, having been elected at the 2013 election. She was previously an MP for Reykjavík Constituency South from 2009 to 2013. She published her first book of poetry at the age of 22 and later became a web developer. She was a noted Icelandic activist and took on a number of roles during the protests following the 2007-2008 financial crisis. In 2009, a court injunction prevented broadcasters talking about the recent leak of the details of Kaupthing Bank's loan book. Live on television, Bogi Ágústsson directed viewers to the WikiLeaks website to see for themselves. This created considerable popularity for WikiLeaks in Iceland, and, shortly after the incident, Julian Assange visited Iceland. During his visit, Birgitta met with him and offered her help. It was agreed that Birgitta should be part of a team to help create a stronger set of free speech laws internationally and, particularly, in Iceland. Birgitta was also a producer of WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder video, released in 2010. She was first elected as an MP representing the Citizens' Movement in the 2009 election. Later in 2009, she left the Citizens' Movement and joined The Movement. She became involved with WikiLeaks during Julian Assange's visit to Iceland in 2010 and also helped to produce the Collateral Murder video. Following her time with WikiLeaks, she created the International Modern Media Institute, of which she became executive director in 2011. She was also involved in two court cases in the United States during her parliamentary term, one of which was the high-profile case Hedges vs Obama. In 2012, close to the end of her term, she co-founded the Icelandic Pirate Party, becoming their first MP. In the 2013 election, Birgitta was elected as a Pirate Party MP, alongside two others. She was portrayed in the 2013 film about WikiLeaks, The Fifth Estate, of which she was critical. She also served as Chairman of the Pirate Party from 2014 to 2015, when they became the most popular party in Iceland. She is the daughter of Icelandic folk singer Bergþóra Árnadóttir (1948–2007). Her father left the family when she was just a baby, and so she was adopted by her mother's new husband, shipowner and fisherman Jón Ólafsson (1940–1987). She completed her primary school education in 1983. Her first love, as a teenager, was Jón Gnarr, who went on to become Mayor of Reykjavík. They "took drugs together, read anarchist literature and planned to start an Icelandic branch of Greenpeace." Her adoptive father, Jón Ólafsson, committed suicide when she was 20 years old by walking into an icy river during a storm. Birgitta was married to Charles Egill Hirt (1964-1993), who went missing in June 1993, aged 29. His body was found five years after his disappearance. With Hirt, Birgitta had one son, Neptunus, born in 1991. Birgitta married Australian Daniel Johnson in 2009. They were married for five years and she had a son with him, Delphin, who was born in Melbourne in 2000 Link to Wikipedia biography