The Icelandic Pirates are at it again. Their party was only founded officially on 24 November 2012. Less than half a year later they became the first Pirate Party to get people elected in a national parliament. Now the Pirates in Iceland are taking a new step in growing their organisation. On Sunday the 18th of August 2013 they officially founded their youth organisation. The founding of a youth pirate party comes only about a week after the creation of a European umbrella organisation for Pirate youth wings.

This new youth organisation is called “Ungir Piratar”. Membership is open for pirates from age 15 to 30. According to Stéfan Vignir Skarphedinsson, one of the founding members, the age limit was not chosen because it’s a legal requirement. Rather, the Icelandic Pirates wanted to have less than half of the members of the party to be eligible for the youth wing. Using the usual limit of 35 years no less than 69% of the party would be a youth member. So the age limit was set to 30 which came down to 42% of the members.

There where more than 20 Pirates present on the first inaugural meeting, 14 of whom became the founding members. The first board of the new organisation was elected. The new board members are: Stefán Vignir Skarphéðinsson,Elísabet Guðrúnar Jónsdóttir, Arnaldur Sigurðarson, Árni Þór Þorgeirsson, Andri Harðarson. There was no president or other functionaries elected. The board will decide the roles between themselves.

Featured image: CC-BY-NC, Andreas H. Lunde

About Koen De Voegt

I’m a 34 year old electronics engineer from Antwerp, Belgium. I joined the Belgian Pirate Party in October of 2011. Around that time I was one of the first members of the Ghent branch. In January 2012 I founded the local branch of the PP in the city and province of Antwerp. I’m also travelling to international PP meetings, sometimes as delegate. I find the international nature of the pirate movement one of its great strengths to focus more on this I’ve successfully ran for co-chairperson of PPI.

 

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The Icelandic Pirates are at it again. Their party was only founded officially on 24 November 2012. Less than half a year later they became the first Pirate Party to…